Run 560: A wintry first run of winter

Run 560
Average pace: 5:51/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:42 am
Distance: 10.04 km
Time: 58:53
Weather: Cloudy, compact snow
Temp: -1ºC
Humidity: 79%
Wind: light
BPM: 158
Weight: 163 pounds
Total distance to date: 4360 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

As the year winds down, so does the temperature. Or at least this week it does.

Heading out to the lake this morning, the temperature was below freezing, making this my first sub-freezing run at the lake in either a very long time or possibly ever, with it staying firmly at -1ºC throughout on a cloudy day that mercifully had little wind.

I dressed accordingly and was reasonably comfortable:

  • two layers on top
  • running pants with sexy running undies
  • a form-fitting toque instead of my usual cap–this worked well in keeping my ears partly covered and warm
  • my olde Nike running gloves–I could have doffed these partway though but probably only briefly and I only experienced light sweating wearing them. They otherwise proved very handy (ho ho) in keeping my hands toasty instead of frosty

I was curious what the trail would be like as the Brunette River trail is a mix of bare patches and compact snow a little under a week after our latest blast of wintry weather. It turned out that while there were some clear patches, particularly in areas where the trees were close to the trail or the opposite where the trail was completely exposed (like along the sports fields), the majority was covered in compact snow. I had to adjust my gait and pace a little to insure optimal traction but the only genuinely slippery section was the small straight stretch leading to the bridge at Still Creek. My feet lost traction a few times there, but there was never a great risk of going splat.

All of the bridges were covered with crunchy, uneven snow, including the boardwalks, which made them strangely uncomfortable for running across. Not slippery, just odd and unpleasant.

The Spruce Loop and Conifer Loops had the most snow, with almost no melt at all. Because of this, they were actually pretty good to run on, as the snow was thick enough to provide grip, rather than having turned into a more icy surface seen elsewhere.

The trail was fairly quiet, with only a small number of walkers and other joggers out. No one was wearing shorts.

The more measured pace meant my time was back up to 5:51/km, but it also meant my BPM was significantly lower, at 158 (vs. 173 last week). I felt almost relaxed at times, and never really pushed, because pushing on snow usually means falling on snow when you’re running.

The tendons around my left knee started to make their presence known about halfway through and they’re still a bit stiff now. This seems to be a long term thing at this point. I wonder if one of those knee things would help. You can tell how often I’ve used them because I can’t even recall the proper name without searching the internet (compression knee sleeves/braces, it turns out). On the one hand, it could prove to just be a placebo. On the other hand, if it still worked, that’s good enough for me. I have to admit I’d feel a bit like a dork wearing one. Or maybe I’d look manly. “Look at that dedicated runner, going out even when injured!”

Something to think about.

Overall, though, this chilly went surprisingly decently, given the condition of the trail. We may get snow tonight, so that could complicate runs in the near future. Damn snow.

Book review: Odd Hours

Odd Hours (Odd Thomas, #4)Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As always the character of Odd remains endearing and funny, with the customary pathos mixed in, but Odd Hours feels incomplete, more like the first act of a larger story, with plot holes left unexplained, characters lightly sketched across a few scenes, a couple of awfully convenient coincidences, and an incredibly high stakes story that feels utterly the opposite in the way it is executed (no pun intended–that’s a minor spoiler).

Still, it’s a quick read and by this fourth book Koontz has built up enough good will with the character of Odd Thomas that I’m willing to overlook the flaws and press on to #5, albeit with diminished enthusiasm.

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It only hurts when I sleep

I exercised for over three hours yesterday, which is a lot for me. First there was the usual weekend stuff:

  • 10K run at Burnaby Lake
  • 8K walk to and from above-mentioned lake

About an hour and a half later Jeff and I went for a bike ride at Colony Farm that inadvertently included a decent amount of uphill cycling (Colony Farm itself is entirely flat). This worked out thusly:

  • 13K cycling, average speed 12 km/h

All told, I burnt oodles of calories and was confident that I would sleep soundly that night. Indeed, by about 9 p.m. I could barely stay awake sitting in ye olde computer chair and so I went to bed early.

And spent the first half of the night having a weird un-sleep where I kept waking up, felt weird and bad, would get up to pee and would feel even more weird and bad, with almost flu-like symptoms. By early morning it all seemed to settle down and a Tums plucked from the bathroom cabinet went unconsumed by the bedside.

Still, it was a strange experience. I fully expected to conk out almost immediately after all the exercise but the opposite happened.

Also, my butt is slightly sore today and I wore my special biking undies, too. Also also I kept getting the high and low gears mixed up because it’s been that long since the last bike ride. I managed to get them right for our one big unplanned ascent, though. I still hget nervous bombing downhill. I do not have a need for speed.

Today, after all that exercise yesterday, I suggested we go to the Canada Games Pool. So we did–and I spent half an hour on the elliptical. And then I forgot to turn off the activity on my watch, so it thinks I was on the elliptical for an hour. Haha, no. I haven’t gone quite that mad yet.

The bonus activity-recording did capture half an hour of intense ping pong after the elliptical, though. Jeff won 2-1 and all the games were close. At one point the ping pong ball ended up in my shorts. I had no idea this was even possible and mused over the seeming impossibility of it while I fished the ball out of my shorts. I had to do this because it actually got lodged in the mesh fabric of the shorts.

We finished up at the whirlpool, which actually felt kind of nice after all the pseudo-running and not pseudo ping-ponging. I still get nervous about dunking the watch but it always comes out fine. Just before leaving the whirlpool, an old guy showed up wearing massive earphones. He also had a tablet (possibly a Surface) that was playing videos or something. He set it by the edge of the whirlpool so he could rock out while he soaked. I’m not sure I’d risk that much technology so close to a swimming pool, a whirlpool and a lot of wandering and very wet people. But who am I to judge?

I hope I sleep better tonight. I’m not going to bed early.

Also, here’s an official stock image of the Canada Games Pool showing the upper fitness area where I do elliptical training and then forget to stop tracking the activity on my watch:

Run 559: Improbably swift

Run 559
Average pace: 5:27/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 11:18 am
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 54:49
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 4-6ºC
Humidity: 88%
Wind: light
BPM: 173
Weight: 161.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 4350 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

My goal for today’s run was to simply maintain a steady pace and perhaps beat last Saturday’s 10K pace of 5:50/km, which is rather sluggish.

Before getting to the run I’d like to say I’m convinced that my brisk walking pace that I adopt when heading to the lake is absolutely being interpreted by my body as the rhythmic signal to evacuate my bowels and/or bladder because I yet again had to go when I got there. Which I did, grateful for the sanitizer in the Jiffy John™.

Having concluded my bathroom business, I turned to the running business. I’d left my Cascadia shoes at work so I ran using my old Hoka Speedgoats. I’d forgotten how much they squeak. The shoes nearly double as an early warning system to other people on the trail. They were otherwise fine.

I also wore my AirPods because I apparently forgot my regular earbuds at work. It was cloudy but not looking particularly like rain, so I deemed it a reasonable risk. They performed fine and remained snug, though there was some confusion between it, Siri, the watch and the phone. Maybe too many Apple products together is actually a bad thing. Perhaps AI-based rivalries form.

It started out fine, with me selecting music: “Hey Siri, play The Go-Go’s.” My phone began playing The Go-Go’s.

Next, I started the run: “Hey Siri, start a 5K outdoor run.” (I always default to 5K because I’d rather go over than finish under.)

This seemed to cause the first bit of confusion. Instead of continuing to play the paused song, it moved to the next one. But it was still The Go-Go’s, as was the song after that. I also delighted in the watch audio signals for each km completed piping through the AirPods. But the fourth song that played was “Wasted Time” by The Eagles. The Eagles, as you may know, are not The Go-Go’s. I also realized that The Go-Go’s songs had been playing in alphabetical order, which was not my preference.

“Hey Siri, shuffle The Go-Go’s.” This fixed the music for the rest of the run. It also broke the audio piping in from the watch. Oh well.

The Eagles song is stored on both the phone and the watch and it looks like the watch or AirPods decided it would be a good time to play music from the watch instead of the phone because why not? So it just grabbed some random song. I’ve fixed this problem before by nuking all the music from the watch, but that’s sub-optimal. There is a watch update, so maybe that fixes it.

Anyway, onto the run.

My first km was 5:36/km, so in line with my stated goal of being faster but not, you know, fast.

In terms of issues, I felt a brief soreness in my right calf (that weak feeling again, like the muscle is flabby and out of shape, which it kind of is). It didn’t last long. I also briefly felt some stiffness near the inside of my lower left butt cheek. I don’t have a good explanation for this, except that the stiffness did not arise from doing anything fun (nor I think, from running). It also didn’t last long.

The trail was lightly populated, perhaps a combination of the cold and the threatening sky. I liked it. The “Beware of bears eating you” sign has been replaced with “Caution: icy conditions” sign. It wasn’t really icy, though.

I only felt like I really pushed at one point, along the Cottonwood Trail, where a fellow jogger suddenly sprang from the woods onto the path ahead of me (I suspect the urgent need to pee was involved). She began a pace that was almost but not quite as fast as mine. This was nearly 7 km into the run and I was not feeling super-energetic but it became clear I’d either have to deliberately hold back or expend some extra energy to pass her.

I chose to pass, then maintained that elevated pace until I reached the Piper Mill Trail where I gratefully dropped down a notch or two. My pace at this point was a zippy 5:19/km. I felt it.

In the end I finished at 5:27/km, slightly faster than Thursday’s 5K and substantially faster than the last 10K–a full 23 seconds faster per km. I really wasn’t expecting the result, which is pleasantly surprising.

Less pleasantly, my heart rate was elevated to right near the maximum of what I’m comfortable with at 173 BPM. The combination of the cold and the effort and being kind of flabby and out of shape is not a good one.

But I will try to ease up next week, with two runs planned for work before the holiday starts, then a week and a half of runs at the lake, barring sudden and annoying blizzards.

Overall, a nice effort, BPM notwithstanding.

Run 558: A modest proposal

Run 558
Average pace: 5:28/km
Location: Langara Trail
Start: 12:22 pm
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 27:31
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 6ºC
Humidity: 87%
Wind: light
BPM: 165
Weight: 163.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 4340 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

Running conditions were near-identical today to Tuesday and my modest proposal (to myself) was to simply improve on the previous run’s performance. And I did, so hooray for me!

My pace improved from 5:35/km to 5:28/km and my BPM dropped from 170 to 165. I also didn’t feel like I was exerting myself as hard, especially in the opening km.

No real issues to report, other than post-run my leg muscles are all a wee bit stiff as they got through the initial phase of getting used regularly again. It’s amazing how quickly you lose your fitness level.

I am toying with the idea of running again at lunch tomorrow since all of my gear is still at work. It’s probably a better idea than donuts.

We’ll see.

Book review: The Boy Who Drew Monsters

The Boy Who Drew MonstersThe Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The ending of The Boy Who Drew Monsters caught me by (pleasant) surprise, which was a fun way to end the novel, but it also made me reflect back on the story’s events that lead up to that ending, and I’m left with the feeling that while this is a good, creepy story, it falls short of its potential.

The potential goes unfilled for a couple of reasons. On the plus side, all the ingredients are here for a spooky tale–a remote(ish) seaside location during a snowy winter, a strange child with some rather unique talents, old shipwrecks and their possible ghosts, unearthed bones, sightings of weird people and animals. Into this author Keith Donohue inserts an unhappy family–a young couple straining to hold everything together as they raise their son, a ten year old with Asperger’s and agoraphobia who spends most of his time withdrawn into himself.

Things get progressively weirder as the house and area are beset by unusual sounds and fleeting glimpses of monstrous things. Holly, the wife, finding little comfort from her husband, the once unfaithful Tim, returns to church, seeking guidance from a surprisingly skeptical priest and his odd Japanese housekeeper, who speaks openly of ghosts over the objections of the priest.

All of this is good material but there are problems. The pacing feels off. When the first big storm of the winter arrives you know it’s going to lead into the story’s conclusion. The problem is that while a lot of plot points are introduced, there is no sense of escalation, things just keep happening until the storm hits and the story leaps forward to an abrupt conclusion.

The priest is an entirely odd character, seeming to fit more of a “skeptical scientist” role who adds little to the story. The housekeeper offers more, bringing comfort to Holly and speaking to the boy, Jack Peter, holding out the promise of a breakthrough with him, but this gets abandoned without further exploration, again making her character seem superfluous.

Jack Peter, the boy, is unsympathetic. While the reader will naturally feel bad about his afflictions, his behavior is compulsively strange and remote, and never really changes.

In the end the story just needs more flesh on its bones. What is here is decent enough, there’s just not enough of it, leaving the story feeling thin and underdeveloped. Donohue’s writing has a lyrical rhythm to it, which makes the relatively thin material all the more frustrating. This could have been a great read instead of just a good one.

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Run 557: Slow, but not as slow

Run 557
Average pace: 5:35/km
Location: Langara Trail
Start: 12:27 pm
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 28:03
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 7ºC
Humidity: 80%
Wind: light
BPM: 170
Weight: 163.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 4335 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

For the first time in awhile I actually ran  mid-week, taking advantage of the current dry weather to run the loop around the Langara Golf Course.

The first 500m or so I felt like I was pushing way too hard but this has happened before on this trail and I’m not entirely sure why. It starts on a slight downward slope but I’m not sure that’s it. I felt more or less normal later, though my body is still a bit weirded out by the different dynamics of this trail, with its long downward and upward slopes. I’m tempted to try the Nike Run Club (NRC, nee Nike+) app again to see if I can get a bit more granularity in the post-run stats and see exactly how and where the terrain affects my pace and BPM.

Speaking of BPM, it’s still up there but no better or worse, so in line with my current fitness level, I suppose.

Overall I had no issues apart from a brief sensation of weakness in one leg a little over a km in. It just felt very briefly wobbly, possibly because of the combination of doing two runs close together for the first time in more than a month and the unfamiliar route. It went away quickly and didn’t last.

And I was slow. My last 5K here was 5:20/km, today it was 5:35/km. Ouch.

I expect to be a little sore tomorrow.

Here’s hoping that I regain my stamina reasonably soon if I keep up the regular runs. If nothing else I’m at least moving in the right direction now.

Run 556: Slow

Run 556
Average pace: 5:50/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:08 am
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 58:35
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 6ºC
Humidity: 83%
Wind: light
BPM: 171
Weight: 161.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 4330 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

This was not a good run. It wasn’t a bad run, either, just thoroughly blah.

One complication–my left hip felt a bit sore for no apparent reason, but it largely worked itself out by the end of the run and was fine on the walk home.

I was expecting a temperature of 1-3ºC but it was actually 6ºC when I started out. Again, the difference in temperature here is quite noticeable so while I was not over-dressed with two layers on top and running pants instead of shorts, a jacket and gloves would have been too much. I passed a number of joggers early on and everyone wearing a jacket either had the jacket fully unzipped the next time I saw them or the jacket was tied around their waists.

I wore my fancy new Under Armor jogging pants that include zippered front pockets and everything and they kept my legs nice and warm on the walk to and from the lake. For the actual run I would have been fine with shorts, especially since it was dry with little wind. I also had fancy new Under Armor underwear to go with the pants and they are thin and silk-like, so they stayed dry and pretty much felt like they weren’t there. Gear-wise, the run was a success.

The walk to the lake was one of the slowest ever at 9:41/km. My usual pace is below 9:00/km. The walk back was a bit better but still slow, while the run itself was a full ten seconds slower than last Saturday’s at 5:50/km. Lowlights included a couple of km where the pace was over 6:00/km. By the third km I was already feeling tired, though I got my second wind and felt decent for the last few km, even if my pace never improved. The cold seemed to keep my BPM up, too. It also doesn’t help that each run I’m getting a little heavier.

Basically I need to eat better and exercise more, just like that doctor told me way back in april of 2008. And I will. I’m taking my running gear to work and will dash around the golf course at lunch instead of dashing food into my face at the cafeteria. It also helps that after next week the cafeteria will be essentially closed for inter-session (no classes, no exams).

Since the weather was nice a lot of people were out, though I didn’t encounter any large roving gangs of walkers. Instead of dodging puddles I dodged people. I think I prefer puddles if I’m honest about it. Puddles don’t make sudden movements.

Overall, a slog but I finished it and to quote Elton John, I’m still standing (though I’m sitting as I write this). I plan on doing more and shorter runs this week, rain or shine (but no snow, please). We’ll see if I start to regain some form before year’s end.

If I had a million dollars

First, a million dollars wouldn’t go nearly as far as it once did. Heck, you couldn’t even buy a lot of fairly ordinary homes in Vancouver for a million dollars.

So let’s start with if I had ten million dollars. What would I do with my riches, assuming I hadn’t acquired the money by extorting a bunch of strangely wealthy orphans?

  • Buy a fairly ordinary home in Vancouver. That immediately takes care of about 10% of the windfall.
  • I suppose I’d get a car of some kind, something nice but not flashy. I’d have to get my driver’s license renewed, too.
  • Give a couple million to a few charities/good causes. I don’t have a list yet, I’d have to do some research.
  • Buy a 4K TV. honestly, I’d have to come into a lot of money unexpectedly before I could get past the  first world guilt of getting something I absolutely positively don’t need.
  • Give some money to my co-workers before quitting. Because I’d totally quit. The last two weeks would be glorious.
  • Give some money to family and friends–equal amounts, no favorites. No limits on what the money could be used for, as long as it was legal. If someone wants to spend thousands on Beanie Babies, who am I to deny them?
  • Stash away a bunch of money in some sort of interest-generating account or investment (one that is stable, not like “I’m investing in Bitcoin because it’s going to keep going up forever!”) so I always have something to fall back on.
  • Travel. I’m not sure where. Probably across Canada to start. The U.S. is out for the moment as it seems to be in a possibly never-ending downward spiral and I have no desire to deliberately feed any funds into its current government. Or “government” if you prefer. Also, Europe and other places overseas scare me because I hate flying and taking a cross-Atlantic cruise isn’t much better.
  • Buy Twitter and shut it down. I probably couldn’t do this with only $10 million, sadly, but a boy can dream.
  • Maybe buy some Beanie Babies. Just kidding. I’d probably buy giant novelty Rubik’s Cubes instead.
  • Get one of the high end Wacom Cintiq tablets just to see what the fuss is all about. I’d draw stick men and stick trees and somewhere a poor graphic artist would cry out in anguish at the travesty.
  • Buy some macadamia nuts. I love those things but I can’t buy them without thinking they’re some stupid luxury, like caviar or Rolls Royce cars. I wouldn’t buy a lot, though, because that guilt would reassert itself.
  • Probably write a lot more lists. This is not necessarily a positive thing, as you can see here.

Run 555: Dipsy doodles and achievement unlocked

Run 555
Average pace: 5:40/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:06 pm
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 56:53
Weather: Showers
Temp: 5ºC
Humidity: 93%
Wind: light
BPM: 169
Weight: 160 pounds
Total distance to date: 4320 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

It was another day of The Rains and my dedication to fitness was put to the test when I opened the front door of the condo and was greeted by a downpour.

Given that it was only 5ºC I wore two layers up top (a long-sleeve t-shirt and short sleeve) and that worked well. I wore shorts and my (sexy) legs were also fine. My upper body was a bit cool heading back after the run but that was due more to the sweat cooling and turning clammy, combined with a breeze that was picking up. And the fact that the rain never actually stopped.

So it was a soggy run and the trail at the lake was in full Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde form, the good doctor being the parts that have been resurfaced over the last few years (generally fine) vs. the other parts still untouched, which includes all three side trails and the Cottonwood trail. These combine to form close to half my route and they were filled with trail-spanning puddles that forced me to skirt along the edges.

On the plus side, the recent work at the sports field is mostly working, with no flooding there and only a thin layer of run-off pouring in from the edge of field at the point where the trail bends 90 degrees to the west. A little shoring up there would fix that. The sports fields themselves appeared to be a swampy mess, though the poopmonsters seemed fine with that.

Given the weather there were few people out–a few dedicated dog walkers, a couple of the “I love walking in the rain!” types and some fellow joggers, all of whom were dressed much more conservatively than me. One of those was wearing a jaunty blue jacket that served as a kind of beacon. I spied him ahead of me about two km in and by the 5K mark he had what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. That was fine, I was in steady-as-she-goes mode, seeking only to go through at a comfortable pace. Somewhere around the 7K mark he either stopped briefly or slowed because the gap began to close. I could see I was gaining ground and entertained the possibility and eventually the necessity of passing him.

As with a car passing another on the road, to pass a fellow runner you must accelerate and then remain at the accelerated pace until you have sufficient space between you and the other runner. When I look at the splits for the run this acceleration doesn’t seem to really be apparent, which may explain why I caught up to begin with–he was slowing and I wasn’t. The little bit of gas was probably responsible for my slightly-improved pace of 5:40/km vs. 5:42/km the previous week. One downside was my BPM was back up, but I believe this was due to the pace difference and mire importantly, the much lower temperature. It doesn’t feel like I’m working hard, but my body clearly is.

Also, the nipple guards (band-aids) got their first real test today and actually worked amazingly well. The nipples (why is nipples such a funny word?) experienced no chafing and even more, did not get cold at all, which never happens during a rainy run. It was a surprising delight when I got home. And who doesn’t like being delighted by their nipples?

The unofficial achievement was marking the first time in several years that I have run at least once every month. This year the first two months of runs were done on a treadmill due to The Snows, but I nonetheless got the runs in. Today’s run officially caps out a full 12 months of running. Yay.

Overall, another decent effort. I look forward to perhaps staying dry, hopefully, next time.

Book review: Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted PlacesGhostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ghostland is at turns frightening and horrifying, not because of the alleged ghosts said to haunt homes, bars, hotels and other places across the U.S., but due to the sometimes unspeakably awful ways the people who lived, worked or occupied these places behaved.

In the hands of author Colin Dickey, Ghostland is an examination of how crime, class warfare, sexism, racism and more are often the root of so many ghostly appearances. Where people have suffered, Dickey argues, stories of ghosts thrive, borne variously from anxiety, guilt and loss. Sometimes the stories have an economic motivation–people making a few bucks off tours of allegedly haunted houses. Other times the stories are a way of translating some human horror–the mistreatment and abuse of slaves, for one–into something more easily-digested. As Dickey notes, “Ghost stories like [these] are a way for us to revel in the open wounds of the past while any question of responsibility for that past blurs, then fades away.”

As Dickey details the operation of massive insane asylums constructed in the mid to late 19th century, with their horrific overcrowding and cruel experimentation on patients in search of “curing” them, it seems inevitable that ghost stories would emerge from the real-life horrors that went on inside the walls of these hospitals.

Dickey also covers some well-known haunted locales, such as the Winchester Mystery House. Here he lays out evidence suggesting that Sarah Winchester didn’t keep adding rooms to the mansion to ward off the spirits of those killed by her husband’s rifles, but because she had the keen mind of an architect–and nearly limitless funds to indulge her experiments in building.

And so it goes throughout Ghostland, with Dickey deconstructing nearly every haunted place he has researched. A few that he visits give him pause, leaving him genuinely unsettled, but there is no “a-ha!” moment when he becomes convinced–or tries to convince the reader–that ghosts are real.

Rather, this is a fascinating journey through the darker parts of American history, Ghostland is well worth reading for how capably it provides rational explanations for the ghosts, poltergeists and other entities said to haunt so many corners of America’s vast landscape. Recommended.

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November 2017 weight loss report: Up 3.5 pounds

The good news is I’m still down overall for the year.

That concludes the good news.

The not-so-good-news is I did not reverse October’s trend of gaining rather than shedding weight. Instead my went went up again, a hefty 3.5 pounds. Yikes.

This was due to two things:

  • an increase in snacking
  • a decrease in exercise (specifically running but also walks)

The increase in snacking was bad. It’s obvious I can only manage it when I exercise enough to make up for it, so when I don’t the weight gain is immediate and significant. This depresses me a little. I must again resist snacks. December is probably the worst month of the year to give up snacking but I’m going to give it a try before ending in an orgy of short bread and Ferraro Rocher.

The decrease in exercise was not due to a sudden transformation into a lazy, sloth-like thing, but rather because of the change of season. I don’t mind running in the rain and the cold (though I can honestly say I would never miss running in the rain), but I haven’t really done it in the last few years and want to get better gear for it. To a certain extent this is just an excuse but I’ve made some movement here.

There are a few issues right now when it comes to exercise.

For lunch walks, it’s pretty difficult to do when it rains. Yes, I have a Goretex jacket, but my jeans will still get soaked. I could bring a second pair of jeans to work for these walks, but it’s a bit of a pain to shuttle pants back and forth between work and school. Still, it’s a possibility.

For running, it’s now dark right after work, so I can only run at lunch. If it’s raining lightly and not close to freezing, I’m good with the gear I have now, though I want a second pair of running shoes so I can just leave one pair at work. The problem starts when it gets colder–I need better running pants than what I have now, plus a better jacket, one that can better resist precipitation (my current running jacket is more of a windbreaker). One final issue is when it rains hard, the trail around the gold course turns into a lake/river combo that is supremely unpleasant for running. It’s also a bit dangerous because when most of the run is done in giant puddles of water, you can never really be sure what you’re stepping into.

I plan on addressing the gear situation soon and the no-snacking begins tomorrow.

My plan for December is modest–to get below 160 pounds again and stay there. If I can do more, that would be spiffy, but my goal right now is to just reverse the weight gain and get back on the no-donut track.

And now, the grim tidings regarding my waistline through the month of November.

Stats:

November 1: 157.6 pounds
November 30: 161.1 pounds

Year to date: From 165.9 to 161.1 pounds (down 4.8 pounds. In October I was down 7.9 pounds and in September I was down 11.4 pounds)

And the body fat:

January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat)
November 30: 17.3% (27.9 pounds of fat)