(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 22)

I’m not ice cream crazy.

It seems like a lot of New Englanders really like their ice cream. (Maybe it’s the cold winters - by the time warm weather rolls around people here just want to celebrate and ice cream is the celebrating medium?)

I like ice cream fine, but there was a long time - I mean, years - where I just didn’t think about having ice cream and I didn’t have ice cream.

But then I got caught up in this ice cream craze that seems to be New England-specific and I had a lot of ice cream for a long time.

This year, though, I’m making a pretty concerted effort to not have any ice cream.

Well…any more ice cream.

A couple of weeks ago Kathy had her graduation, so we got some ice cream to celebrate.

I was all set to make that my last ice cream for the season, but then last week the girls had their dance recitals. So we got some ice cream to celebrate.

(Also, if I’m being honest, I forgot to take a good picture eating the ice cream for graduation and figured it was worth the calories for the picture.)

All of this is to say, I’m being very careful about what I eat between now and the Boston Marathon in October.

I have spent the past couple of years aware of the fact that I need to eat better while I work at home, and have had fair to middling success in doing so.

Some days I eat a small, healthy lunch, other days I go overboard.

The problem is I never had a plan.

But now I’m developing one.

Someone in the Team Framingham group recommended a book - Racing Weight, by Matt Fitzgerald - and I’m reading that now and thinking about my meals and fueling my runs and all that. I think I do a pretty good job with breakfast, and Kathy helps make sure our dinners are mostly healthy. Lunch seems to be my big hiccup - but I think with the help of the book (and, again, Kathy) I’ll improve there too.

I don’t have a weight problem at all. I’m pretty steadily the same weight all the time, give or take a pound or two.

But the book has me thinking that with all the running I’ve been doing, and eating a little bit better…maybe I end up losing a few pounds? And then I’m running lighter….and then maybe I’m running faster?

I am not running this marathon to achieve any specific time.

I just want to finish.

But this training - I’m two weeks into the Peloton program - it’s making me stronger already.

I know I’m going to end up a better runner over these next five months.

If losing a few pounds can shave some minutes off my time…well, I might as well see what I’m capable of.

I think that’s worth sacrificing a summer of ice cream.

Notes

*I want to be clear - it’s not like I never had ice cream growing up in New York. We had Mister Softee driving through the block, that was always a treat. There were ice cream stands we would go to….Carvel and Baskin Robbins mostly, I guess. But it feels different here. Maybe it’s just more local creameries? I don’t know. I’ll give it some thought.

*Running Update! Week 2 of the marathon training and everything is on track. (Well, except the eating quite yet but I already addressed that.) The long run this week was 6 miles and I was supposed to do a Team Framingham run along the marathon route but it was Saturday morning and the weather was nasty and I thought it was too early in the process to suffer through a rainy, windy, cold run. So I did the 6 miles closer to home. And I’ll hit the part of the marathon course I missed in next week’s long run.

*I would think - 40s and rainy, on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend - this is the worst weather I’ll be dealing with through my marathon training. It’s funny because right up until Friday evening I was considering doing the Newton run thinking it wasn’t worse than the last time I did it with Team Framingham (as a waitlister, before I gave up hope that the marathon wasn’t happening for me) - that day was like 20 degrees in January. (Oh! Here’s what I wrote about it. Turns out it was December. And 25 degrees.)

*I’ll take the rain though. Hopefully it washes away the pollen and we’re done with the allergy weather. It’s been a rough few weeks for me in that department.

*I think we’re getting close to marathon registration and telling you all about who I’ll be raising money for and all that. You can keep tabs on all announcements by giving the Facebook page a Like and by following me on Twitter. I’ve been quiet on social media lately - there’s been a lot going on - but it’s about time to wake those somewhat dormant channels.

*Well, if you had 63 weeks in the “Stay At Home Dad” titles pool, you’re the winner. We’re back to regular ol’ Sunday Paper titles following the girls’ posts…which hopefully will start next week as we get into June, my annual month off. I’ll keep you posted if there’s anything exciting to report.