Thursday (25th): 1.75 mile walk/run replacing a scheduled 1.5 mile run.

Friday (26th): Around 2 hours of ice skating. Hey, it counts! You should have seen how fast I was going.

Tuesday (today): 2.18 mile run around the park at Great Plains Nature Center. Nice park, and I think I'll have to work out there again! Ran with a friend. Always makes time go faster.

Not a good thing, putting a pound back on, but let's be honest. An entire holiday of amazing home-cooked food, and I gained only one pound back? (I never ate seconds at the same meal, at any of my three Christmas feasts. First time ever.) AND I worked out twice around the holiday. I think I'm gonna cut myself some slack!

Hello to all of my loyal blog followers!

To enjoy a little early Christmas present starring YOU, click here!

I'll be increasing the distance this week, to see how I react.  So far, so good!

Last run before the holiday.  Merry Christmas, and I'll see you all again after the 25th!

Seriously, though...don't you just want to pull those things off of there, sprinkle some powdered sugar on them, and eat them at the state fair or something?

Sunday gave me the challenge of having the treadmill, elliptical, and electronic stairclimber ALL out of commission on the same day at the workout center at my apartment complex. Great. Good old communal living. So, with the temperature something like 2 degrees outside, it was time for improvisation. I got onto the retro-exercise bike, retro-NON-electronic stair climber, and the super-retro-rowing machine, trying to keep my heart rate at 100 or so for about 20 minutes.

I still look the same, but at least I'm headed in the right direction. Anybody want to do the math on what I'll weigh at the River Run if I keep up this pace every week?

Hint: I won't look the same anymore!

May I say that I am amazed at how our bodies can surprise us sometimes? My last words out the door tonight: "I don't want to do this." Then, I hit the treadmill. I wasn't feeling any pain (read: ANY pain!) after a mile, and so...I pushed it. Hard. Pushed the pace and added a quarter of a mile to the trot to boot. I was up to about 10:00-mile-pace by the time I was done. Most importantly, I worked out for over 20 minutes today. All positives! What a run.

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Let's play a game.

Who am I?

- I am a young female.

- I wear my hair short.

- I love to wear hoodies of my alma mater and KSU (NOT my alma mater).

- I dislike your feet touching me.

Who am I?

Answer: Click here.

I find Eugene Peterson a very interesting author. He is the author of The Message paraphrase of the Bible. (The above quote is Peterson's rendering of 1 Corinthians 9:26-27.) He has endured endless criticism from Bible readers for being too loose in his interpretations, and far too casual and contemporary with his language, often completely departing from the scriptures we all memorized in Sunday School growing up.

But sometimes, I like to hear the Word put to me in plain terms. Peterson has a no-nonsense, in-your-face way of interpreting the original Greek of the New Testament that I respect--even if I don't always agree with it. I found this to be true while revisiting the scriptural passage that has become the inspiration for the blog you're reading right now.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, from the New International Version reads like this:

"24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

This is at the very heart of my recent life. How easy is it to become a slave to the fleshy desires of our own bodies, rather than "beating" the desires of our bodies, and thus making our bodies obey our heart's desires to glorify the Lord? In the context of the way the author (Paul) is speaking of a race, it's not too hard to imagine the word "beat" in verses 26 and 27 having a meaning not so much physical, but competitive, not unlike beating someone in pool or checkers. Our objective isn't aimless ("beating the air"), but rather, it's aimed at our adversary, our bodies...the flesh we battle with every day.

The name of this blog, The 9:24 Project, is taken directly from the first verse of this passage. I have not recently been running in such a way as to "receive the prize." This includes, among other things, not working out (literally running!). So, I'm putting my body into stricter training (verse 25), knowing that my crown will last forever. I find my working out to be a good metaphor for the other areas of my life:

- When you're hurt (but not injured), you can quit because it hurts, or you can keep on going.

- When you ARE injured, you can keep on going it alone (and make it worse), or you can find someone to give you some help.

- If you stop doing it, it ceases to be your lifestyle. It's true of anything we spend our time on: friends, family, hobbies, quiet times in the Bible, etc.

Very low energy today.  But I'm encouraged that we're here a week later, and I'm still working out, and still blogging to tell all of you MASSES of people reading this ALL about it!

(Hi, DeMo.  Hi, Lins.  Brandon, you out there?  Jared?  Dad?)

Who's gonna be my first "follower"?  Don't fall all over yourselves.  One at a time.

My body rests tomorrow, but the blog does not.  I'm posting about 9:24 tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

That's a whole lot of weight for a 5'7" frame.  I recently crossed from being clinically overweight to clinically obese.  That's a pretty rough realization for a former marathoner.  It does a little bit of work on one's pride.

And here we are again: pride.  Here's another running-related pride area that I've struggled with.  I've always said that I run for fitness, and not to lose weight.  I've always felt that losing weight is a perfectly lousy reason for running, because of the many other benefits of a workout lifestyle.  Except...here I am, 208 pounds.  Guess what I need to do?  Lose weight.

So, now I'm one of those people who will readily admit that yes, I need to take off some pounds, and that's a major reason I'm running.  I will hold onto the rest of the benefits for myself, so that my workouts are not one-faceted, but I'll gladly lose the weight.

So, it's less of me, figuratively (my pride) and literally (my gut).

The workout: 30-minute walk

I have this thing with walking.  You see, I'm a runner.  I run.  I do not walk.  Walking is for those who can't run.  ...  Right?

The fact is, when I finished the Chicago Marathon in 2005, I walked at least 3/4 of a mile of that course, if not more, while I was in the last 6 miles of the race.  When I finished in St. Louis in 2006, I stopped to go to the bathroom.  Twice.  I still made less than 4 hours in finishing both.  (3:53 and 3:57, respectively.)

So...is walking so bad?

You know what my problem is?  Pride.  For some reason, I think I'm too good to walk.  What I need is a good dose of reality.  And the reality is this: even the finest-trained athletes in the world do some walking from time to time.  It is perfectly legitimate, and a good way to keep your heart rate up.

Pride keeps ME in the forefront...my ability...my achievements...my talent.  Today, I say: LESS of me, please.  Let all my pride fall away.

Today, I'm a walker.

Next week: Monday Weigh-in, Less of me... (2 of 2), What is the 9:24 Project?

One Buddhist, one Unitarian Universalist, one Catholic, and...me!  This is the interesting situation I found myself in last night as I enjoyed dinner with some good friends I made through work.  What interesting conversation ensued as we discussed the origins of Christmas, the difference between "Christian" and "Evangelical Christian", and vegetarianism.  Needless to say, we had to agree to disagree at certain points!

One word: COLD!!!  I figure I need to take an opportunity at least every once in a while to get off the treadmill and run outside.  Seeing as how today wouldn't be frigidly cold (51 degrees, but with a blustery 35-mph wind), I took today as an opportunity.  I rushed a bit (going as fast as a 10:15 per mile pace instead of my goal of 12 minute miles) without the treadmill to guide my steps.  Painful, but done.  Time for a warm shower.

(Why can't you see my legs in the picture, you ask?  Tights.  That's right.  I told you, I'm averse to cold.)

Today's a rest day on the calendar.  However, I just couldn't shake my body's desire to get out and run again today!  So I did.  Lo and behold: my pain level dropped from a 7 to about a 6.5.  So, the lifestyle is starting to take hold again already.  This is good.  When the week's over, I'll have about 6 miles running in the books and about another 2 miles walking.

Today's lesson: I learned that if your body says run on a rest day: RUN!  Same holds true for resting on a run day: if your body needs to rest an extra day, rest.  Don't let the calendar get in the way too much.

To be sure: 95% of the time, we don't do this.  As runners, we understand the importance of rest days, and will normally gladly take one when scheduled.  But every once in a while, you just have to do what you feel like doing!

Since then, I've moved, changed careers, gone back to school...in short: my life turned upside down.  And I fell off the wagon, and fell hard.  Working out is a lifestyle.  It gets to where you don't even really think about doing it.  It just appears on your list of things to do: "buy milk, do laundry, take out trash, 3 mi. run."  It's natural.  You don't seriously consider not doing it, any more than you consider not taking out the trash.

But if you take working out from your routine for an extended period of time, it has ceased to be a lifestyle.  It doesn't come back easily.  I'm learning that right now.

The run: 1.5 mi.

If mile 22 of the marathon is a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale, then this is ringing up a good solid 7.  It hurts, bad.  But, the good news is that I'm expecting the pain, I know what it is, and I know how to run through it.  It's the mental game of the marathon that I've still retained after all this time away.

I have decorated my calendar with all my runs for December, including rest days.  I check off rest days just like running days.  This is a psychological move that I developed while marathon training, to make rest days count every bit as much as the running days count.

First weigh-in on Monday morning!  I'm tracking my "ham shrinkage" on a weekly basis.

Each day is a different experience...both in my runs, and in life.  Both will appear here from time to time.

Without further ado:

The run: 1.5 mi.

It snowed today.  So, with my being averse to cold, the treadmill was my only option.  (And will remain that way until about April.)  I had nearly croaked two weeks before, after doing 1 mi. on the treadmill at a slow pace.  I thought that maybe today I could push the distance out to 1.5 mi.  I nearly croaked again, but I finished it.

The pain was intense, but it didn't last long, and soon gave way to "runner's high."  (The endorphins that often follow a good workout, causing you to be awake and alert.)  Feels like old times!

A link to my River Run training schedule:

It's not until May, so I intend to simply repeat the weeks of this schedule up to 3 times each to make up the time.  I figure I'll need it to be ready.