Whoever said you can't run away from your problems...

.... never gave it a serious try.

Okay, so I don't really believe you can run away from your problems, but for the twenty or thirty minutes I'm on that treadmill, I kind of feel like I can. At the very least, I don't feel like my problems have to matter anymore.

Since I'm on my own this week, I'm giving myself a "treat" and scheduling in two nights to let myself run. Last night I decided to try some split jog/run intervals 3 minute jog, 2 minute run), though I was only increasing by 1/2 mph for my run interval. I'm new to this, okay? And I know it doesn't take much of an increase to seriously jump your heart rate. My revelation? I preferred my "run" speed of 5.5 mph to my "jog" speed of 5.0 mph. My jogging speed, though I enjoy it, is hard on me. My legs will get sore, my calves will tighten, my shins will ache, my hips will ache, by the time I'm done, my ass even aches. But for some reason, as soon as I increased to 5.5 mph, that all went away. So much so that on what should have been my last "interval" I just left it at the run speed for the remaining five minutes. I was really winded by the end, but my legs weren't nearly as sore. And, it meant that ultimately I did eleven minutes of my twenty minute run at 5.5 mph instead of 5.0 mph. Yeah! Go me! Friday I'm going to do a "distance" endurance run, trying for about 35 minutes, and I think I'll try increasing the pace slightly to see if it takes the strain off my legs. I wonder if I'm just trying to adapt my natural stride to a pace that's too slow?

Note to self, though: PICK UP SOME DAMN HAIR ELASTICS! I don't care if I have to put this stupid mop in pigtails, I'm tired of toweling it out after my runs.

I gave myself a couple of days off of calorie counting. Not off of healthy eating, because that would just be stupid. I just stopped writing everything down and recording it. Keep in mind, I've been doing this for a long time. My most recent decision to restart my food journals was only after a brief break when I though I could handle life without them. I couldn't because I was changing too many things. But I've kept a food journal for several weight loss endeavours (including since the beginning of this one), for tracking and attempting to trace headache triggers, to monitor potassium intake, since I have low blood potassium... yeah, I'm good at food journaling. And I picked up my journal Friday night to complete it and the thought that suddenly flew into my mind was "I am so &%$@ing sick of this." The next thought was, "Whoa, where did that come from?"

A lot of people who have never tried to lose a lot of weight over a long period of time don't understand the concept of "burnout" or "diet fatigue," but it's real, and it can happen. There is a point where you start thinking "I just want to be able to eat like normal people" or "I am tired of feeling like I plan my meals with a calculator." My own all-or-nothing mentality also meant I tended to be very difficult on myself when I screwed up, and yet at the same time, I found myself cheating, just to prove to my food journal that it wasn't the boss of me.

Oh, well, food journal, so you say I've eaten 1550 calories today? Well, I'm going to eat another 100 calories worth of marshmallows, and just not tell you about it. Ha! You lose!

Oh yeah, that was getting me far.

I don't need that journal to tell me how many calories I'm eating in the run of a day - I can do that on my own. And since I stopped writing them down, I've seriously cut back on my "cheating." I don't think my brain is really out to sabotage me, but sometimes I wonder. I think I'll let myself have a full week, and then start back on it. That seems reasonable.

Plyometrics workout tonight! Burpees and bench hopovers! Yay! At least after doing that for forty minutes, I have no need of doing any cardio.

Oh, and my chicken tetrazzini with spaghetti squash was fan-freaking-tabulous. Oh my goodness. And made a HUGE dish. Having it for lunch today and supper again tonight. Will post the recipe later.

So Happy Wednesday to you all! If I can offer one piece of advice to get you to the weekend it's this - just once this week, try running away from your problems.