Day 7-- Confusion already?

So I got asked to referee in a indoor soccer tournament, The Chris Applegate Memorial Tournament, that's being held in Crystal Lake today, I am doing 6 30 minute men's games starting at 9am. So I decided not to do my 8 mile long slow distance run this morning. I have two options open to me, the first is do the run when I get home today in the afternoon, and the second is to do it tomorrow morning. The reason I would be willing to do a long run on Monday is I am off all week, so I have time to run on the Monday. Basically I am going to see how energetic I am while refereeing this morning, before deciding.

Weather delays start to referee season!

So frozen fields and snow storms have canceled the 5 games I am supposed to have done this week. Its been on the treadmill instead of some great cross training opportunities!

This weeks workout schedule involves a hard week of 22 total miles culminating in "the long run" 10 miles in the lead up to the half marathon in 22 days!

My intention weather permitting is to run a two mile loop from my house, so I can come back to the house as a simulated aid station, since the half marathon route has an aid station approximately every two miles. I will just leave my refreshments and gels on the doorstep.

It also looks like my friend, referee and Round Lake resident Randy will be joining me for part of the run as well.

• Tuesday 60 minutes
• Thursday 40 minutes
• Friday 50 minutes
• Saturday 30 minutes
• Sunday 10 miles

NOTE: I blew Friday's workout, overslept the 5am wake up, and by the time I got home was to tired to go. Overall this has been a blah week exercise-wise. I may run an extra 20 minutes tomorrow, but that will depend on how I feel, because I have that 10 miler on Sunday.

Yesterdays Run

Got off to a good start by sleeping until 8am. I was planing on getting to gym at 6 for my 6 mile run. By the time I got to the gym it was 1130, and I did the run. Then went to a Chicago Wolves game with my daughter which was quite a bit of fun.

Today is the first day of IHSA Soccer, and I am a referee, so I will be doing about 30-35 games in 8 weeks. I always enjoy the games and the exercise. However today's game (likely to be postponed) is one I am not looking forward to Grant at Zion on a grass field, which is likely to be a mud bath.

One thing I am looking forward to is seeing what my GPS watch calculates for how far I run during a game. My sense is that a varsity game is 2 to 2.5 miles over 80 minutes, but I literally have no idea. The maps should be interesting as well.

Weight Issues

The primary reason I decided to try running with a goal attached is to lose weight. After having lost about 80 pounds back in 2005-06 on the Atkins Diet, I had but about 35 of it back on since then. So candidly my clothes were not fitting as well as I might have liked, and I am not getting any younger!

Rather then diet this time I decided to focus on fitness, since I referee HS soccer and club soccer I need to get into a certain level of shape, but that was generally easy to meet the minimum standard for fitness. A hard varsity game is maybe 3-4 miles over a 2 hour period, with lots of pauses, so the effort was not supreme.

I have tried periodically to diet but with out much success since the Atkins success in 05, however I do like my pasta, bread and sauces!