Monday, January 7, 2008

The Starting Block

So, after spending the morning on Saturday reflecting on what the last year meant to me, I spent a bit of the day on Sunday determining where that puts me now. Being the scientist that I am, I know that you can't measure change unless you have baseline data. Since I'm interested in making changes to my body size/shape as well as to my running abilities, I figured I should take some measurements to see where I am right now.

Body: I hopped on the scale Friday morning, so that's the weight I'll use as my baseline weight. Then I dug out a measuring tape and took some measurements from the three places that I'm most interested in seeing change in-- I measured the distance at the largest part of my waist, hips, and thighs. It's not fun; it's not flattering. But hopefully it'll help me measure changes a bit more wholistically than just looking at weight changes. The numbers were:

Weight= 141.4, Waist= 31.5", Hips= 39.0" Thighs=24.0"

Running: I have heard Robyn mention doing time trials several times, but have never really understood what those were, or why I should try them. But after talking with her on Saturday, she had me slightly convinced that they're a good way to measure your improvement. Basically, for a 3-mile time trial, you warm up with a nice jog for 15 minutes or so, and then run 3 miles as fast as you can, and see how long it takes. So, after disappointingly finding that it was too icy to do my long run outside yesterday, I hit the track at the gym and did a time trial. Again, it's not fun. It's not easy. In fact, it's hard. Especially the last mile. But I kept telling myself "This is what makes you better" ("This" being pushing through the discomfort in order to accomplish a goal; "better" meaning faster at running, plus more adapted to dealing with difficult situations in running and in life). The results were:

3 miles= 28:50 (28 minutes, 5o seconds; which is, by the way, over a minute faster than my 5k time 9 months ago!)

Okay, so there's a big slab of honesty to start off a Monday morning. Now anyone who reads this blog will know where I stand, and can tell when I report back in a few months whether I've made any progress. How's that for holding myself accountable?!

1 comment:

Robyn said...

There's no doubt in my mind that if you do work, you will see progress! Horray for knowing where we're staring 2008!