The rules for eating while training are not difficult. They go a little something like this: if it's gonna make you feel bad when you run, don't eat it!

Okay, so they can be little more complicated than that. But really, how complicated do we need to get with our eating? For example, if burritos make me feel awful when I run, how about I find something else that I like to eat? Or, if we have, say...oh, I don't know...maybe a free hot wings night for work? How about I don't eat 30 of them just because I can?

(And for anyone ready to say "I told you so!" about the pizza last Tuesday, go ahead. All together now...)

My eating is still out of whack. I think I'm not going to really break through until I fix this.

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In other news, I had a terribly "out of whack" day yesterday. I just felt out of sorts...out of place...etc. I woke up this morning with the OOPH. (out-of-place hangover) I got my run in, just as planned, and I got to thinking: am I really supposed to feel at home all the time here in this world of sin? Is it not natural to have days of feeling like I don't fit in? Isn't this part of the plan? Is there not a better place I'm supposed to be striving for, partly by remembering that when I'm down here, I'm going to have days like yesterday? Reality check!

Better, but my weight is still fluctuating at this stage. The good news is that my cardiovascular system is getting stronger, and that is allowing me to work harder when I run. The pounds will start coming off more consistently as my mileage goes up.

I'm making Tuesday tempo day. For the non-running crowd, to do a "tempo run" means to start at a slow pace and push it up to race pace (about 1-2 minutes faster than comfortable jogging, typically) toward the middle of the run, slowing back down to finish. It worked well last week at 12-10-12 pace, so I pushed it to 12-10-8:30-10-12 today. 8:30 was my marathon race pace back in 2005-2006, and I touched it for about 4 1/2 minutes today. Feeling stronger, and feeling encouraged.

Time for some pizza!

10:00 pace, and worked into a very busy day. It feels truly good to pull that off when you don't seem to have time.

This is becoming one of my favorite "easy" workouts! I'm even thinking of buying my own skates.

This workout is technically flipped from Saturday. I used Saturday for my "easy" day. This was outdoors, and my pace was up as fast as it has been at any point in my training. This is astounding to me for several reasons:

- I was running on about 2 hours of sleep.

- My feet and legs were sore from skating the night before.

- I had inexplicably given my right arm a deep bruise during my day yesterday, which didn't seem like it was going to go away! (It was almost completely recovered today.)

- I had to be up early for church, and hadn't eaten but a simple donut and piece of candy for breakfast...

I could keep going, but here's the point. I had almost no earthly sustenance, and yet the sustenance was there. I believe that the Lord put me in position to minister to people today at church, and by making myself available to Him, He poured out His blessings to me in the form of energy, sustenance, words to speak, positive attitude, etc.

HE is my strength, HE is my sustenance, HE is my reason for getting up in the morning, HE is the one making amazing things happen in my life!

Does this running stuff cross paths with my faith? You bet it does!