Year 2, Week 20 Wrapup

I have just finished my third straight week of not running. This is the longest I have not run since the fall of 2007. It's taken great commitment and dedication to consistently not run for so long. I've got to say, though, it's been really tough to stay motivated to not run, especially when it just seems like you have to keep not running, day in and day out, without so much as one day's rest from not running. I think it really comes down to the strong support and encouragement of my family that has really made the difference in helping my to overcome the temptation to backslide into running again. Through their kind support and my single-minded focus on my goal of getting fat again, I'm able to every day again make that decision that I will again make the effort to not run.

In actual reality, my knee was still hurting this week, although it feels almost better. I will definitely start running again next week. I've got to say, though, after not running for so long, it's very hard to imagine running the way I used to again. I don't feel like I have any extra time in my week when I'm not running, so I have a really hard time imagining dedicating another 8-10 hours per week to marathon training. It's been only three weeks, but I'm honestly having a hard time imagining how I ever did it. I have a very small window left to start running again before I'll just probably never be able to. The lesson from this is that the physical conditioning gets lost over time, but the mental conditioning appears to go away much faster.

My weight has jumped way up, of course, but I'm sad to report that this isn't solely due to the not running for three weeks. My average is up about 7 1/2 pounds since the 1st of the year, but most of that gain was before I stopped running. Looking back over my log, I have apparently been eating like a pig this year, and this will probably need to change.

An example: Adding up the information from my logs shows that I ate 73.5 donuts in calendar year 2008 (not including donut holes, donut gems, or other donut like products). Thus far in 2009, I've eaten 51.5 donuts. That's way above the 2008 pace. Also, those are both large numbers of donuts. I like donuts.