New BPM Rules

Dying to know what's up with my BPM plan? I'd been considering dropping it for awhile, as it has served its purpose of getting me running again. Also, I knew I'd have trouble keeping up that last week of October which had two concerts and the BRC. Surprisingly, I made it all the way until the Ben Folds concert (10/25) before I finally went in the hole drinking more beer than miles ran. I disappointed myself a little bit, but I had kept it up for over two months which included the ACL Festival and a four day out of town gig, so I think I did pretty well, considering. My first thought after going negative was to scrap it. Then I thought, well, maybe I should still keep track since I'll have to run even more to erase my deficit. So, I tried that for awhile but still thought maybe I should stop since I seemed to be in a good running routine. I stopped logging every day for a bit, through my trip to SF, but not long enough that I couldn't remember. During the SF weekend I decided I might as well drop it (11/9). SF didn't do all that much damage since I ran alot, but after a few days back home I realized that quitting wasn't a good idea because I didn't run for four days. I reconstructed what had happened and started climbing out of the hole.

One beer per mile has encouraged me to run regularly, but slowly. This is not the routine I really want. I was pretty happy with BFL last year, and I want something more like that. That means I need to incorporate some weight lifting into my equation. I've decided on 3 beers per workout. A workout is somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour at the gym, but it's not constant exursion like running is, so I figure a workout is equivalent to a 5K.

Also, since I am running slowly--much of the time 6 mph (10 min/mile) when I'm on the treadmill (way too slow), I'm putting BPM on a sliding scale with 3/4 beer for 6 mph up to 2 beers for 10 mph (a 6 minute mile, which I can't do). That puts 1 bpm at about 7 mph which is somewhere near my average running pace when running outside in the cold. Also, I need to do more sit-ups so I'm giving myself 1/2 beer for each 100 sit-ups.

I didn't think it was fair to change the rules until I was back at even, so after my 4 miles tonight I finally reached equilibrium. I am now at LJ's, and am comfortably back in the hole, for the time being.