Five

Yup, that is officially the furthest I've ever run.  After work today, I ran over 5 miles at a pretty decent pace (sub 9:00 miles).  The crazy thing is... I really felt like I could have kept going.  That's what's so frustrating about this nagging knee pain: I'm holding back because of this one little potential joint injury, but I'm not pushing the rest of my body to the kind of limit I want to.  I'm not slowing down or stopping short (not a Frank Costanza reference) because I'm tired or sore... it's just the knee.  And that is really frustrating.  What if I could be comfortably running much longer distances?  ... stupid knee.

Anyway, today felt good... a nice moderate/sustainable pace for 5 miles.  It's weird.  I'm actually kind of proud.  Although the primary purpose of this blog is to embarrass myself toward fitness, I've still found a way to brag.  Impressive.  Even for me.

I could remind myself that 9:00 minute miles are still pretty slow... my friend Jeff, for instance, runs them about three times faster than that, for like 40 miles at a time.  Or remind myself that I'd be a lot faster still if I'd drop some of that extra weight (of which there is still plenty).  That said, to go from someone who could seriously not run 2 miles a couple months ago, to be running 5 miles at a somewhat decent pace (relatively speaking)... it's not bad.  But I still have a lot of room for improvement.  Distance: 5.4 miles (the photo below is also a link, so you can check out all sorts of fun geeky stuff: splits, pace, heart rate vs elevation, etc)

Food today was good and healthy: small bowl of cereal for breakfast, small portion of cheese and crackers and small chicken salad for lunch, a recovery shake (after run) and larger chicken salad for dinner.  Not terribly innovative... but healthy and pretty tasty (thanks to our awesome new Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette salad dressing).  Food: B+

Weight: I gained just a tad, thanks to weekend festivities: 221.2 lbs.  I was thinking about this today... I've lost somewhere in the ballpark of 20-25 pounds (let's call it 22), but my legs are noticeably stronger looking.  It might just be a little more definition, but it's also not crazy to think I put on a little muscle, maybe even 3-5 pounds worth.  With that in mind, you could say that I've easily lost 25 pounds (of fat)... that's a lot.  (and hopefully just the start...)