Ah, the weekend is finally here. In just a few days, I have family coming in from out-of-town and we are going to spend next week goofing off until we leave for the Bahamas next Friday. That also means I get to spend most of tomorrow (Saturday) cleaning up and finishing off some chores. So luckily, my running partner helped prepare me for the weekend with a good brisk run yesterday afternoon. We were busy rehashing week 3 day 3 of the Couch 2 5k program that we have both been following and since I was feeling fresh and frisky, I set pace. While I am not a particularly fast runner, especially since my feet are still toughening up, I did not go too terribly fast but our average pace on the four running portions never crept over the 9:00 mark, which I was ecstatic about. Sure this does not mean much considering our whole jaunt was just under the 2.5 mile mark but we were busting out some serious speed on our short run portions. I expect to be returning to those days in the C25k app if/when I do sprint intervals, I definitely liked the speed.

And since it is now the weekend and that means today is Friday, I have to again conduct a little food experiment. After spending a significant part of my free time this week thinking about why my body seems to be holding onto so much weight over the Friday-Saturday time frame, I have come to a few conclusions, none of which I am very sure of:

1. My body knows it is the weekend and since I have spent the last few years abusing it calorie-wise, it naturally slows down my metabolism in preparation for a night (or two) of beers and greasy food.
2. Since I sleep more on the weekends, my body’s natural repair mechanisms work more slowly due to the extended periods of sleep. During the week, I clock in around five to six hours of sleep a night but on the weekends, I typically get a “good night’s sleep” of eight or more hours. This is in spite of the fact that I typically go to bed around 1:30am or 2am six nights a week, my body naturally sleeps longer on Saturday and Sunday morning.
3. The weekends mean one thing to me, drinks-wise: I consume three or four times more coffee per day than during the week and so, my water intake plummets to just a few cups a day. And I am speaking strictly water here, I do not count tea as a cup of water.

Of course, it is more than likely a combination of any of these or none of these, I have no idea. But I do know that something is going on and no matter how much food I eat on a Friday night — or what it is, for that matter — I always weigh in two or three pounds heavier on Saturday morning. Each of the last four Fridays, including tonight, I have eaten a meal that has a rice portion (my only one during the week) and that seems to spike my weight loss for a few days. I hope to end that trend next Friday but since I will be out of the country and beholden to cuisine I have little choice over, I may have to wait my experiment out another week.

But now, I am just glad it is the weekend and I do not have to wake up and go to work tomorrow. While I do have a number of things, sitting in front of a computer all day is not one of them and I will make sure to go outside and generate more natural vitamin D supply. And once Sunday comes, I will get back out there and log some more barefoot miles. I am happy to say that each successive run this week has resulted in two things:

1. Fewer blisters
2. Less foot pain/throbbing the day after a run

Is this a sign of padding generation on my foot? Well, it is either that or I am killing all the nerve endings in the soles of my feet. Either way, I am happy with the progress and I do not really miss running in shoes, even though I really like running in my Merrell Trail Gloves. Maybe I will run the Levis 5k in two weeks in my Merrells!