Let Them Eat Cake!

I quite frequently come across a runners’ forum/magazine/website survey questioning whether the readers run to enable them to eat cake, not necessarily just cake but you get the idea.  My answer is – quite possibly, yes!

And as we’ve now finished the first quarter of 2015 (where did that go), I thought it timely to spend Easter weekend reviewing progress on my 2015 goals.  I wont bore you with a blow by blow account of current status on each one but suffice to say one has been completed (attend Leadership in Running Fitness course) and another is being achieved consistently (take off trainers properly, ie, undo the laces first).  Others are progressing slowly, others haven’t even been started and some are quite possibly going to be failed – I have in mind here the half marathon PB – see last post!

One goal was to get to a certain weight (no, I’m not divulging, top secret information) and at New Year this entailed losing 4lb.  That should have been a piece of cake (sorry, couldn’t resist that).  Unfortunately, it seems that I’m going in the opposite direction and now have 7lb to offload.

Just over a year ago my weight was coming down slowly and without any real changes to my diet.  I put it down to my return to more regular and consistent running.  And despite adherence to my Jantastic targets and my half marathon training plan, the weight has slowly but definitely started to creep back on.

This is a photo I tweeted yesterday post parkrun and this quite possibly sums it up.  I know I’m not the only one.  Nowadays you can’t move in the cafe at Shorne parkrun post event and if there’s an anniversary or landmark run, cake and chocolate can usually be found at the finish line.  I also know from conversations with other parkrunners that Shorne is not the only event with goodies on offer.  In fact I wonder if there is a parkrun anywhere in the world that isn’t centred around a cafe of some sort to allow post run deliberations to be held over a late breakfast involving bacon, cake, croissant, etc, etc but not necessarily all at once. Although then again 😉  I’m not totally convinced that we run off all the calories consumed post run but it is a good excuse.  “I run, therefore I will eat cake/chocolate/cheese/bacon” – delete as appropriate.

I totally agree that running seems to suppress the appetite but in my case this is only a temporary affect.  I seemed to spend the first half of last week making up for the 1500 calories I apparently used at Paddock Wood.  This was also exacerbated by a full five days of no exercise, apart from an excellent yoga class which found my upper body aching from downward dogitis.  Who needs press ups?!

Desperate times call for desperate measures and now that my birthday and Easter are out of the way, I have no excuse.  Part of my brain is also telling me that if I lose the weight, I’ll run faster!  So with my listomania called into play, we now have a schedule to shed those 7lbs over the next three months.  Obviously we don’t want to go overboard, cocktails still need to be consumed on a regular basis but cake is out!  My Lent starts on Tuesday.

This will mean that my next quarterly progress review will announce the success of at least one target.  Only problem is, I’ll then have to maintain that loss over the remaining six months!