Week 8 Wrapup

I ate a lot this week, because it's Christmas, and there was a big Christmas dinner, and a big Christmas Eve dinner, and Christmas parties, and Christmas candy and... We were able to run during the day a couple of times by taking advantage of the presence of family and running at other people's houses while they watched kids.

The day after Christmas I went to a big paintball match with a lot of people from my parents' ward, friends of friends, etc. Playing paintball evidently involves lots of short sprints, then lots of squatting for long periods of time while waiting to get shot. For a couple of days afterward, I had such soreness in my thighs that I found it hard to walk. It usually felt better while I was running, but Thursday I didn't go out because it hurt so bad. Other than that, the running went well.

I got a new scale this week, also. This one would be rather unremarkable except for the fact that it can give me the same reading 10 times in a row, which I could never dream of with our previous one. It also reads in .2 pound increments, so that's nice.

My original plan was to do this whole exercise thing for eight weeks, than reevaluate all the various health things I wanted to try to improve. Some things I can't check for improvement without blood tests or medical evaluation, but other things are easier for me to check myself, like blood pressure and weight. I can run farther, and I'm down almost 10 pounds on average from the highest weight when I started, and that's encouraging. But, my blood pressure hasn't dropped at all. The readings are all over the map, but on average aren't any lower. So, I'd like to keep this thing going for a little while and perhaps lose a little more weight to see if there's any chance the blood pressure will change.

I'm going to extend this until one of the following happens: I finish the running schedule and can run a half hour straight, or I lose another 10-15 pounds, or my blood pressure just suddenly drops on its own.