Start of Week 5

I'm starting to wonder if my body goes through alternating weight loss/muscle building phases.  There are times when I look in the mirror and think that I look like I've lost weight, or I notice certain spots on my body looking slimmer, but the scale hasn't moved much. This morning when I got on the scale, I wasn't sure if it was dehydration, or I really lost a decent amount of weight last week. 226.5 this morning. Maybe it's both. I don't know.

I notice most of the muscle building in my legs. I guess that makes sense since I'm not doing much upper body exercise. The running/cycle combination that I've been doing is pretty nice. I'm finding that I still enjoy cycling more than running at times. At least when there's a tailwind and no mechanical problems. Riding into a headwind is worse than most runs.

My Friday run was an exception. It was possibly the worst run I've ever had. It was supposed to be 10 miles, but some bubble guts and joint pain had me stop at just about 9. It's been a while since I've hit my mark on a long run, but I'm ok with it for now. My wife and I have about 21 weeks left until Marine Corps Marathon, our main race, and are ahead of the game at this point as far as training goes.

I'm a little fearful that we've been too aggressive in our training up to this point. I'm going to be working on a new training schedule this week so we have more rest. I feel like our bike riding is a good break from running because it's less pounding on the joints, but it's still stress on the legs so they don't recover as well. I'm thinking about 5 days a week instead of 6 and doing 3-4 days of running and 1-2 days of cycling depending on what races/rides we've got coming up.

I have to make a confession. I disregarded the goal of not drinking through the end of the month on Saturday. When I wrote the goal, I forgot to take Memorial Day into account. The goal wasn't meant to punish me, but to break the habit of drinking alcohol so frequently. It's done that. I had a few on Saturday and had no desire on Sunday. I feel like I'm in a good place right now. I will be abstaining until at least Friday, though, just to reinforce the goal.

Speaking of Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I had a great time on Saturday. We rode our bikes over to the beach for the morning/afternoon. At night, I grilled some sweet potato fries, carrots, and london broil. We ate outside for the first time in the new place and when dinner was over, we lit our fire pit out back and sat around talking. It was really nice. We spend a lot of time in the living room doing separate things.. I play video games or watch TV. She'll watch TV with me sometimes, or make jewelry. But regardless, we don't talk much in the living room. Being out by the fire was pretty great. Yahtzee liked being outside most of the evening as well.

And a special thank you to all of our past and present service members, especially those who have given their lives to protect ours.