Still Here!

I've been such a bad blogger the past couple of weeks. But between a family trip out-of-town and the kids being home from school for spring break all last week, I've had precious little time to do anything non-work-related on the computer.
Thankfully, my eating and running are still going well. I'm loving this Galloway program, where during the week I just do two 30-minute runs (which I get done early morning before the kids are even up), and then a long run on the weekend that increases by a mile each week. I'm up to 7 miles on that, and it's feeling great. Long runs have always been my favorite part of a running schedule, so it's nice to have the ability to be doing decent distances on those without weekly mileage that would be hard to keep up with everything else I have going on.
The walking breaks (which I've been taking for one minute per 3 minutes of running) are making a huge difference in terms of how I feel after those long runs. I just don't feel nearly as zapped afterwards. Sometimes I feel like I'm "cheating" by doing them, but then I think about the fact that the main purpose of my running is fitness, and it seems silly to worry about taking walking breaks. And somehow my average pace seems to even out to about what it would be with continuous running.
I'm still generally eating very well - lots of fruits and veggies to fill me up - and have watched the scale drop a bit. It seems like a painfully slow process sometimes, but I guess by doing it slowly I might be more likely to keep the weight off.
I hope to get back to checking around on other blogs this week!

Wonderful Weekend

We had a wonderful, busy, outdoor weekend! The weather was stunning - sunny and in the 60's - as I guess it has been in a lot of places the last few days. I normally do my long run on Sunday mornings, but my husband was going to be away all day on Sunday, so instead I went on Saturday morning. What a run it was! There was still frost on the ground, but the sun was shining, the birds were singing, I saw many deer, etc. And with the 1-minute walking breaks per every 3 minutes of running, my legs did not feel trashed even after 6 miles of quite a few hills.
Saturday afternoon was my son's birthday party (he turns 7 this week), which was definitely more tiring than a 6-mile run! But the kids seemed to have fun, and were able to spend a lot of time running around outside. Then yesterday afternoon I had several friends over with their kids, and we hung out on the back deck and chatted while the kids played.
Being able to exercise in this kind of weather, especially to do a long run, definitely makes it worth all those treadmill and bad-weather runs over the winter.
Hope other runners/bloggers are feeling similarly inspired!

Making Progress!

After weeks of staying in the same place on the scale, this week the numbers are dropping a bit - very encouraging! The things that seem to be working best for me are: 1) consistent exercise (morning workouts especially); 2) eating fruits or vegetables at every meal and for snacks, since they fill me up; and 3) getting used to feeling a little bit hungry much of the time. Not starving - I couldn't maintain that - but just on the edge of hunger. It's not that bad of a feeling, given what you can get in return.
I do need to get more consistent about lifting, though.
My latest marathon thoughts (yes, they change every week!) are to do a half this fall, and then a full next spring, when we will be in Australia for the study group my husband is leading. How cool would it be to have a t-shirt from an Australia marathon? And it will be fall there, so the weather should be about perfect, both for the last part of my training and the marathon itself. I need to look at some Australia web sites for possibilities...
Happy running!

Still Finding My Way

It's been ages since I last posted, in part because I've been busy, and in part because I'm still trying to adjust my goals and figure out the best way to approach this exercise/eating/weight loss thing - not to mention the blogging thing!
I'm still trying to decide whether to try a marathon this fall, or just keep building up my running miles with a longer-term marathon goal and some shorter races for motivation in the meantime. I'm still following Galloway's beginning marathon plan, and am VERY happy with the effects of the walk breaks. It sounds strange, but I am averaging at least as fast a pace on my runs with walking breaks as I normally would without them, and feel far less fatigued later that day and the next day. So I will definitely continue that approach regardless of my long-term goals.
I'm also happy with this Volumetrics approach to eating - just including as many fruits and vegetables as possible with meals (especially at the beginning) and snacks. I feel like I am eating so healthily, yet still not depriving myself.
Despite all of the above, my scale has barely budged since an early loss of a couple of pounds in January. This is discouraging, but I do think I'm slimming down, since several people have commented on that to me, and I find my clothes looser. When I tried on some new clothes last week, I even fit into the next-smaller size for several different pairs of pants! So I'm trying not to tie too much into the scale, but it would be nice to see the numbers move down a bit.
As for blogging - I'm still working through what kind of blog I want this to be (running/weight loss/personal journal etc.). I also find myself with very little time for commenting on others' blogs, which I know is part of what it means to be in the blogging community. I hope to have more time for all of this when the semester ends and I don't need to teach anymore.
For anyone reading, thanks! And I DO read your blogs!