A week or two ago Rob IM’d me with “Guess how fast I ran the Wildcat Trail today? 51 minutes.”

51.

Together we’d been doing it in 61. 51 was quite an improvement over that.

“You didn’t stop, did you?”

“Didn’t really feel like it, no.”

Wow.

Then last week, when we ran it together, I noticed that by staying with me the entire way up, he wasn’t working. He might have been strolling in the park for all the effort he was putting out. “Lose fifty pounds, and you can do this too,” he joked.

Well…damn.

So when I ran the trail with Nina (Rob was off vacating), I did run the entire way up. Of course, Nina took off ahead of me and had to wait for me at the top, but as long as she was willing to do that, we were cool.

The three of us were running together again today, and pretty much we had the same plan: You run to the top and wait for me there.

Rob took off. Nina took off. Diane plodded the whole way up. Rob and Nina had completely cooled down by the time I got up there. We managed to run in sync the whole back to the starting line. Okay, I sometimes fell a little behind but then either I pushed to catch up or they slowed down or perhaps both.

Time at the end? 57 minutes.

Not quite as earth-shattering as 51 (or, for the woman who blew past us on the trail, 41 or so), but still: an improvement. I’m getting stronger. Yay, team.

Apparently Rob’s brother in Massachusetts reads my blog to find out if Rob is exercising, so this entry is for you, Michael.

Yes, we’re running. We did six miles Friday night, and then turned around and did nine Sunday morning. Nine. Consecutively, even. Our new plan is to do one long, slow run every weekend.

We ran with our friend Nina down the creek trail. Originally the plan was to do eight, but when we got to the 3.5 mile marker (it’s a half mile from my house to the trail, so the 3.5 marker = 4 miles), I said, “Let’s go to the 4 mile marker!” As though I weren’t the member of the trio who wouldn’t be hurt the most by doing extra miles. (Rob = thin, Nina = 30 years old.) But we managed to do it, and I even managed to (mostly) keep up with the others. I continually ask Rob to check his heart-rate monitor to make sure he’s getting a workout, because a pace that had him working not too long ago has him reading the newspaper as he runs now.

I really like running. Considering I’m not a natural runner or any sort of athlete, it’s kind of funny that I enjoy it so much. I like the way my body feels after I’ve done several miles: sore, but as though I’ve accomplished something. I’m not sure I’ve ever had the runner’s high, but I definitely feel better after running (though I’m also tired afterward too).

§

I kept telling Rob, “Yeah, I’m going to start writing down what I eat,” but I never did. I’d just “remember.” Which of course I never did. It’s really easy to forget late in the evening what you had for breakfast.

When I did Weight Watchers and had my little book to write food down in, I did lose weight. But I couldn’t keep doing WW, because it was just too cultish for my tastes. I’m just not a joiner on these things. I don’t feel as though I’m part of a club. I feel as though I’m paying someone $10 a week to weigh myself.

So Rob recommended Diet Diary by Calorie King to me for my Palm, because I take my Palm with me everywhere and it has quite a collection of foods in it, including a whole bunch of fast-food and chain restaurants. (The calorie counts for Cold Stone Creamery ice cream and mix-ins: terrifying.) You also can enter in your exercise for the day, which adds greatly to the calories you are allowed for the day. (Which is as big an incentive as I’ve ever seen for keeping up with my exercise program, let me tell you.) So far I have rediscovered the best side effect of writing everything down: you eat way, way less when you know you’re going to write it down. You also remember that French toast you had for breakfast (weekends only).

Rob and I, in our continuing quest to do at least one race every month in order to make sure we keep our exercising going, did the Palo Alto Moonlight Run, which happens every October at the full moon. I did this last year, with my friend Lee, after having made a big dinner (and having totally forgotten about the run). This year, I prepared ahead of time, ate lightly, drank water profusely. We ran a pretty good race — not spectacularly fast (until I drop some weight, that’s not going to happen) but we kept running nearly the whole way, with only two walking breaks, one taken because I developed a weird pain in my right hip. Well, the way I described it was “a pain in the ball and socket of my hip.” I’m not sure what it was; it didn’t last long, and I finished the race just fine.

The Moonlight Run is a lot of fun because you’re running at night. (Natch.) Running at night, in the dark with very little ambient light at points, is a completely different sensation than running during the day. There’s no thinking about the scenery. You just run and hope you don’t bump into anything. Okay, it wasn’t that dark. But there are a few places where there’s a pole in the middle of the course and you could hear the shouts of “Pole!” moving down the line of runners.

There weren’t enough good snacks at the end, although perhaps we just showed up too late for the really good ones. We got water and some Hobee’s coffeecake. I only ate the cinnamon-sugar topping off mine. I love Hobee’s coffeecake, but at that moment all I wanted was the top. Weird.

Despite being a flat 6 miles, Rob and I agreed we’d run this one again.

§

When I got home, I found it hard to get out of the car — I was very stiff. I came inside, said goodnight to Darin, and went straight to bed, do not pass the shower. I didn’t have the night sweats I did after last year’s race, so possibly I’m in slightly better shape.

I woke up really, really sore though. Ouch.