Even steven...

I been weighing myself once a week on Thursday mornings. Today my weight was exactly the same as last week, 184.6 lbs. Before Christmas it was 184.2 lbs.

At first I was a little discouraged, but the more I thought about it, the less discouraged I felt. After all, this past week included New Years Eve, which was over 5700 calories of food and drink, and up until Wednesday morning I was still on anti-inflammatory pills, which cause water retention.

If I didn't weigh myself this morning I would have thought I lost weight. My pants are feeling looser and I can see a difference in the mirror. Since Tuesday I eliminated breakfast and my energy level has gone up and I feel more in control of my diet.

With that said, I still have to be careful about what I eat. I haven't really been cutting back and I'm eating about 2700 calories a day, which is supposed to give me a 1.3 lb weight loss a week. The big test is going to be next Thursday morning. If I don't drop at least 1.3 lbs by then, I'm going to have to cut back on the calories. My goal is to drop at least 10 lbs before Ironman China, which is only 65 days away.

Today I did my regularly scheduled tempo run to test out my hamstring. All went well. I felt a little soreness, which I think was because I hadn't done a lot of running in the past week, but no strain or pain. The next big test is going to be on Sunday's long run. I postponed my lunch hour weight training session to tomorrow so I didn't put added stress on my hamstring before I ran today.

I also tested out my new Garmin 310xt GPS and Heart Rate monitor. It arrived today. The first positive thing I noticed was the size. It's a smaller face than the 305. I liked that it came with power adapters for all types of voltage and I won't have to buy a power converter for China. The software mirrors the 305, but it does have some new interesting looking stuff I need to read up on.

Once I started my run, the heart rate monitor wasn't working properly. It started shooting up to 200 bpm. I thought "is it the watch? or is it me? Did I take the 305 back because it didn't work, when in fact it's me or my surroundings?". I was a little discouraged to say the least.

As I ran, I realized I forgot to wet the transmitter before I got started. I then stopped, grabbed some snow in my hand, lifted my shirt and rubbed the snow under the transmitter until it got wet. Viola! It started working perfectly! For the rest of the run I had no problems, other than I hit the lap button instead of the start/stop button and it started counting laps every 5 minutes.

Another unexpected benefit was that the watch vibrates, lights up and beeps when you exceed your maximum heart rate. It is impossible to miss the alert and the alert is much more aggressive than the 305. It forces you to bring it down quickly or you'll get irritated real quick.

Overall, I was happy with the watch and I was happy with the run. I was surprised I ran as fast as I did, all things considered. Although, about 2 hours after the run, my legs felt a little sore. Which I guess should be expected. I'm just glad I'm back running again.

Tempo Run - 56:03 / 11.80 km / 4:45 pace / 140 avg hr

184.6 lbs / 22.2 BMI