Long Run

  It snowed about 4 inches here....a great day for a treadmill run!:) I have only run once outside since last October! My mission has been to lose weight. I figured if I could lose some pounds the stress on the achilles tendon would be lessened thus allowing me to train for a marathon. So knowing the treadmill is forgiving and I could eliminate hills I began the program. Now I've reached my initial goal-down 14lbs-and I have definitely gained fitness! For example, today I had a long run on the schedule-16 miles.(my longest run in over 2 years). My objective was to run strictly within base pace-10:18's-to 9:15's- I managed to complete the run in 2:37:00 or 157 minutes even.
  I noticed how hard it was to run slow! I mean my body was aching to hit its stride and when I finally got up to 6.4/6.5 mph I felt good! I am definitely at a high level of cardio fitness! I have been practicing with taking an accel-gel every hour on the run and I'm getting pretty good at it! I pulled out on old running book; "The Competitive Runners Handbook" the other day. This book was my "Bible" back in the 80's. It has a chart that shows what a runners weight should be-it says I should weigh between 158-170! So technically I am still overweight! Well, I burned about 2000 extra calories today so there!! Peace!