I seem to be getting the hang of maintaining my goal weight. I've been weighing every other day - this morning, I weighed in at .1 pounds above my goal. On April 1st, I was .1 pounds below goal. Pretty remarkably consistent. Still no running for me, though.
Here's a graph of my weight change, beginning when I started C25k, four months and 30 pounds ago:
Today I hit my goal weight, finally! Actually, I overshot it by about a pound: I weighed in at 165.9. Now I just need to learn how to maintain. It may prove a little tricky, since I haven't been counting calories or anything like that. I plan to just eat a little more each day, and I'll see what that does. The balancing act begins. In some ways, I think it may prove more difficult than the weight loss, but it's a challenge I gladly accept.
A lot has happened in last couple of days. Still no running for me, but I can feel the hiatus is drawing to a close.
FRIDAY: I had my X-Rays taken on Friday morning. They took four films of my leg. On one of them, Stacy thinks she can maybe see a small fracture-line near my ankle, right about where it has been hurting. It's very faint, but it's there. We'll see what the Sports Doc says when I have my follow-up appointment with him on the 28th. As for my ankle itself, it really doesn't hurt at all any more. Maybe just a twinge now and then. I haven't tried running on it yet, but I did a lot of walking yesterday - shopping with the family - and I'm feeling absolutely fine today.
SATURDAY: Saturday was very relaxing. We visited our former next-door neighbors. They recently moved about 10 minutes away. We spent the day out at their pool. They put us on their permanent visitor list and gave me a key to their community center, so now I have 24-hour access to their full gym, including a three lane, outdoor lap pool! I have been wanting to use swimming as cross-training, and now it looks like I'll have a way to do it. I haven't done much swimming since high school, but in high school I was in water more often than I was out of it: I was a lifeguard, co-captain of my community swim team, and a Special Olympics swim team coach.
SUNDAY: On Sunday, we went shopping. Stacy and the kids went to Babies R Us, while I went to Runner's Edge, the runner's store in Boca Raton, Florida. Let me just say that I will never, ever again, shop for running shoes anywhere other than a running store. I was so impressed with the level of service. I knew from the moment that I walked in that I was in the right place. There was a line of about four salespeople all assisting customers in finding the right shoe for them. I was first in line when I arrived, and I was promptly seen. The woman that helped me was about 60, I think she said, and she just PR-ed in her latest marathon. She took a look at the script the orthopedist gave me, but before seeing it she had already analyzed me at a glance and told me exactly what she thought it would say on the script. She was dead-on. We tried on a bunch of shoes for sizing, and she showed me how to best lace them (using a lock-lace technique to keep my heel in better). 
Between the doctor and her, I have learned now so much about my foot and gait. I have narrow feet, low arches (nearly flat but not quite), and I pronate. I am a size 12.5, but one foot is slightly bigger than the other and slightly more pronated than the other (which, by the way, probably explains why it always seems to be my left leg that gets injured). I need motion control shoes. I had been running in entirely the wrong shoes for my feet - Nikes are not generally liked as running shoes, and they have high arches. She had me wear a few different shoes and told me to go running outside with them. I did (no pain, by the way!) and we determined that a particular pair of New Balance seemed to work best for me. I don't remember the model number off hand, and they didn't have my exact size in stock - they are ordering a half-size for me and it should be in on Friday. I can't wait!
While I was there, I bought a Marware pouch for my Nike+, since it won't be able to fit in my shoe anymore. Instead, it will attach to the laces. I also bought a pair of running socks, and a pair of swimming goggles.
I'm still very near my goal weight - I seem to be going up and down, circling one pound away from my goal. This morning I was 168.8, so I went a pound in the wrong direction and have two more to go. But overall, I am so pleased with how it has been going. Here's a picture from Saturday, compared to one taken in September, before I started running. Now that the excess weight is off, I just want to keep it off and also get more toned.
Still no running for me, but at least my diet is going well. This morning I hit a new low. I am now 170.2 pounds, down from my starting weight of 197! This places me just a hair over three pounds away from my goal weight. There was a weird spike of +2.5 pounds the last time I weighed, but this morning suggests that it was just an anomaly. Maybe I was retaining water or something.
Ankle is feeling okay this morning. It hurt when I put my full weight on it while getting out of the car, but it's not hurting at the moment. Dare I say it? "Maybe, tomorrow morning I will walk."
Week 9, Day 3 - graduation!
This morning's run was fantastic. I kept a reasonably steady pace throughout, the weather was perfect, and I feel like I got a good workout. It was my typical early morning run route, which took me up Pinehurst, this time all the way passed the entrance to Freedom Park and to the school driveway.
My workout: 5 minute warmup brisk walk, 30 minute run, 5 minute cooldown walk.
I wasn't able to run yesterday, so instead I did a little weight training last night. Not too much, though - and probably not enough to make any difference: I'm not sore at all from it. Still, it's a start.
Since this was my final c25k run, I wanted to take a look back at my blog and see how I've progressed. I am amazed. Since I started:
(1) I have lost about 22 pounds (I started at 197. Now I'm 175.4);
(2) I have had to move my belt in two notches (I'm now on the tightest one and will soon need a new belt). I haven't gone shopping for pants or measured my waist, but I expect I've gone from a size 38 to probably a 34;
(3) I have gone back to wearing my dress shirts with size 16 collars (I had been wearing size 17);
(4) I no longer keep adjusting the house thermostat to make it colder, and I no longer sweat profusely in the morning while getting ready for work, two things that suggest to me that my blood pressure probably is lower now then it was when I started;
(5) My calves (actually my upper legs now, too) have some nice definition;
(6) And finally: When I started I could only run for 60 seconds with difficulty, and now I can run for 30 minutes straight.
All in all, I'd say my new workout and eat healthy routine has been a resounding success. I've designed and ordered a "c25k graduate" shirt from cafepress.com - I plan on wearing it with pride. One hour runner, here I come!
Week 7, Day 3: Today I started out just a few minutes later than normal (I started my warm-up at about 5:10, instead of 5:05). As it turns out, that 5 minutes is critical: all of the neighborhood sprinklers were going off and I got soaked while on the sidewalk! Wouldn't be so bad, except the sprinkler water around here smells very sulfurous. I used to LOVE running through sprinklers as a kid, but I could have done without the dousing this morning.
The actual run itself went well. I covered a little more ground than I usually do. I also had my first run-in with an unleashed dog just as I was arriving back home. Luckily, it was my neighbor's new dog, Hula, and her owner was nearby. She was a little growly, but I never really felt threatened at all. She's a sweet (big) puppy and I think she was mostly just confused by all my glowing/flashing safety stuff. I'd growl at me, too.
Tomorrow is my rest day, and then Sunday begins (holy cow!) Week 8. I can so clearly recall starting out and thinking "wow! Week 8!" when seeing people posting their updates on the Cool Running check-in thread. (Then again, that was only two months ago, so I'd be a little concerned if I couldn't remember....). My weight jumped up by a half a pound, but I'm not discouraged: after all, it is just a half a pound, and it could very well be added muscle.
I'm really happy with the way that the Roadtrip group has turned out. Everyone is very friendly and supportive, and it is exactly the sort of long-range motivational tool I was hoping it would turn out to be. According to my cumulative mileage stats on Roadtrip, I've gone 23.8 miles since my start in Chicago. I'm now just 13.2 miles away from Joliet.
The Workout: 5 minute warmup brisk walk, 25 minute run, and about a 9 minute cooldown walk.
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