Health Kick

My ankle has been getting better, and I've been getting better and more runs. Last week, I ran nearly every day, even if slowly and with stops to massage and stretch.
Sunday, I went 14 miles in 40f degree drizzle and 7-10mph north wind.
I've been eating well. My body has demanded certain things on certain days, and there was no refusing. One day, I strongly craved yoghurt and grapefruit - lots of it. Then I still craved lots of fruit the rest of the week. I've never been good about eating proper quantities of fruit. Fact is, too much of a good thing, like ultra-sweet fruit, can be a bad thing. I just figured if my body craved it that bad, there must be a reason, so I indulged. Pineapple, red, purple, and white grapes, apples, grapefruit, cantaloupe, strawberries. Yum.
Monday, I did a bad thing - Pizza Hut buffet. A salad and four plates of pizza. So after work, I did interval speed-work. Eight miles of intermittent anaerobic runs with aerobic recovery jogging between. Stretching, massage, and a 9th mile of walking.
And I didn't feel my injury. That's not a surprise, since I didn't feel it Sunday until I'd past 10 miles.
I ran the Steamboat marathon last year at 8min/mile. Where is my speed? Bodies have memory. It is easy to trigger your body to return to where it once was. It's much, much harder to go where you've never been before. So if I keep up the speed-work, I ought to be back to my 8min miles, and I can start whittling it down to 7:30's. If I could manage to run a marathon that fast, I'd be down to 3:17. I can dream. Gotta have a goal.

This will also increase my VO2Max. This will ease the stress on my lungs, and should reduce the lungs filling with foam during 100-mile races. It will also allow me to go uphill with less effort. Both are vital during long, high altitude, mountainous ultra-runs.

Not to break the string of misfortunes... Now my left heel hurts. Plantar fasciitis. So not all the pain during the Moab 100 was from bruising. So I've been more religious about icing, ibuprofen, massage, and stretching.

I'm still fat at 173lbs. I jiggle around the love-handles. Still 8 pounds over-weight.
They say you shouldn't weigh yourself very often. I disagree. No, what you should do is not trust the numbers. Weigh yourself often, at different times, to learn the natural fluctuations your weight does. This can sometimes let you know that you didn't drink enough fluids with a meal, because your weight should have shot up much more. Very important to hydrate well with meals so your food can digest properly.
Or it lets you know after a run just how severely dehydrated you are. You can figure out how many ounces of water to drink to get back on balance.
And in the long-run, it allows you to figure out whether you're a pig or if you're headed in the right direction overall.
Maybe if I can keep getting some mileage, I can burn the fat off, instead of staring at a stagnant number.

Tomorrow, I should get on the bike and give the pounding a rest.