Rest Day

After doing at least one workout of some type for 54 consecutive days, I decided to take a rest day today. Saturday night, I ran after skiing all day and I was just beat. Yesterday, I was so tired after skiing that I fell asleep for the entire car ride home (no, I wasn't driving).

So, this morning, I turned off my alarm clock and slept in. No workout at all this morning. None after work either. I slept almost 11 hours last night.

Last week, I ran 51 miles, lifted 2x and skied 2x - pretty much right on target.

This week will either be an easy week or a hard week, depending on how busy the ski mountain is next weekend at the end of a holiday week. There is a marathon in Albany, NY, on the University of Albany campus that I've run 5 of the last 9 years. That race is next Sunday. I know that we have a few ski instructors heading to CO today for a trip, so the program where I teach might be short-staffed next weekend. But, many of the kids that I teach are also going out west to ski, so I won't have many kids there next weekend.

So, I'm going to do a mini-taper this week. My boss and I will decide on Saturday if we have enough coaches for me to sneak out of work for one day to run the marathon next Sunday. The race is very low key and inexpensive, with race morning registration available.

If he needs me to work next Sunday, I'll get in some running miles on Saturday night after skiing and I'll run about 35 miles this week. If I can sneak out for the marathon, I'll get in about 50 miles this week. A lower mileage week probably wouldn't hurt me much right now after 7 weeks of gradually increasing mileage. And, if I get to run the marathon, that will give me a feel for where my conditioning is right now, and I can take an easier week next week instead.

Today, it's warm and raining in VT. It was 52F and windy and raining at the ski mountain an hour ago. I'm glad I'm not teaching skiing today. Everything outside is a huge mess today. My driveway was about 6" of densely packed rain-soaked snow this morning and we struggled to get out of the driveway with AWD and 4 studded snow tires.

On the nutrition front, my calories have been very restricted since the first of the month. I've been under 2000 calories every day of the month but one. My weight seems to have stabilized a bit right now, but I can see the difference in the mirror.

On Friday night, I pulled out a measuring tape and my cheap body fat calipers. With the calipers, using a 7-site test, 4 of the 7 measures have decreased. One went up though, indicating to me that my last measurement might have been bad.

The tape measure showed real progress though. Of 8 different measures, 6 dropped significantly and two (my bicep girth and calf girth) stayed the same. I dropped at least an inch in the other six measurements, and more than 2" each from my waist and hip measurements. I'm not surprised at the two measures that stayed the same, because my calf and upper arms are fairly lean already.

Maybe I'll have the guts to post some photos from last spring before Massanutten, last summer before VT100, and now to show the changes in my body composition. There's still more work to be done, but I've made great progress in the past 9 months.