RUN, RUN, RUN, RUNAWAY

80 degree weather helps you warm up quick.


DeBary, FL
83 degrees



Today we travelled about 200 miles north east from home to spend Christmas with Kathy's brother, Jim and his family. The drive was good until we got into Orlando, where traffic came to a halt and stayed under 30 for 14 miles. We arrived at about 4PM.



My day began with a 5k run. It was pretty tough going but I attribute that to some residual soreness from many hours of yard work yesterday. I have started renovating the turf. There was so much crabgrass infesting the yard, the only choice was to kill everything off and start over. I did two applications of roundup, 7 days apart, and then began tilling up the soil. I will re-seed or sod in the spring.



Speaking of renovating, my body renovation took a giant step today. While my exercising has done wonders for dropping inches over the past 16 week, my actual weight loss has been slower than I had hoped for. I started at 280 pounds and steadily dropped a little bit every week for the first 10 weeks but I seemed to hit a wall in trying to get under 250. I have bounced between 252 and 258 for the last few weeks but today I finally broke the mark by weighing in at 248.


A 32 pound loss in 16 weeks is exactly where the "experts" say I should be. That's 2 pounds a week. Slow and steady is the way they say to lose it if you want to keep it off. My weight goal is to get to 200 pounds before my 44th birthday in September. In addition to the weight loss I have also lost 5 inches off my waist. This is a nice Christmas gift to myself.



On Monday I achieved a new personal best by running 3.4 miles total. I can now run 3.1 (5k) as a regular routine. I'm going to slowly increase my max distance once a week in order to get to a 10k. My first organized 5k is January 17 in St. Pete. I think I can be ready for a 10k in March.

I went for a physical on Monday and was pleased with the results. My blood pressure was 124/76. The nurse said 120/70 was perfect. I had an EKG to test my ticker. There was a slight electrical anomoly on the right side but the doc said it may be something I've had my whole life. He scheduled me to take a treadmill stress test in a couple of weeks as a follow up but he said I don't have to alter my workout routine as long as I'm not feeling an aches or pains. I'm having a complete blood workup done as well. The last time I did that was about 3 years ago. I remember my triglicerides being too high, so I'm looking forward to see how I've improved there as well.