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Monday, February 22, 2010

Every Day of My Running Streak You See a Little Less of Me

Well if I keep this up, tomorrow evening I'll be celebrating 50 days of a running streak.  And upon weighing myself this morning, I saw a number I hadn't seen in 5 or 6 years.  161.5.  Which means that in the last 4 weeks or so, after the streak started, I've lost about 5-6 pounds!

And I have not changed my food for the better or worse.  Which really means, yes, I still love my junk food.  Yes, about half of the 5 half marathons I've already run this year, my hubby surprised me with Sprinkles cupcakes afterwards.  Yes, I enjoy occasional fried foods, and chocolate, and wine, and margaritas, and my daily Starbucks tall cafe mocha. :-)

And no, I don't cross-train, and yes, I know how beneficial it is.  I've just been running a little every day.  And I think the added muscle I've gained from all my running and the added calories burned on all the miles is adding up!  I went from doing 10-12 miles a week to doing 25-30 miles a week.  So considering people burn on average between 100 and 150 calories per mile dependent on their metabolism (weight, gender, etc etc etc), that's an extra roughly 1800 calories burned each week.

It's nice to have broken through the weight plateau I've been at for so many years.  I was 166 pounds in 2006 when I got injured with plantar fasciitis.  And after a year of low activity during recovery, I was still 166 pounds.  I went into 2007 recovered and was about 166 when I got pregnant with my daughter.  And within 6 weeks after she was born, I was back down to 166.  I ran my first half marathon post-baby 5 months after she was born, and did 3 halfs in 2008.  Still 166.  I then did 8 halfs and upped my mileage quite a bit in 2009.  Still 166.  So this for me is big!

Now as I recently discussed, I don't typically focus on my weight.  I've been feeling like I'm in the best shape of my life.  And while I have had people in the last couple months ask if I've lost weight, my clothes don't fit that much different.  I'm still a size 12. :-)

But this is nice icing on the cake of feeling healthy and strong.  It's not been the goal but a happy inadvertent side effect!  I'll be curious to see if the trend continues and any more of me disappears!

Happy Running!

4 comments:

  1. That's awesome, maybe I need to try a running streak, I've been stuck at a plateau for months now (not quite like your years). Good job!

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  2. Thanks, Allie, a lot of people say cross-training can help jumpstart your metabolism, so that's why I pointed out that no, I don't cross-train, because maybe that would have helped sooner. I just don't have time to be this bad at multiple activities... lol j/k :-) Now the fear is what happens if my miles go back down.... hmmmm....

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  3. I am totally bookmarking your blog ... I can relate to so much of what you write!

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  4. Glad to know an even more experienced runner doesn't cross train either. I try to meet a weekly mileage goal, and as a slower runner, that takes a lot of time, and I just can't seem to find the motivation to add cross-training in. Congrats on the weight loss. Sadly, it took my getting the flu to break my barrier (which strangely is exactly the same as yours 166-167).

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