Weighty matters

I was reading somewhere the other day that to run your best, you have to be height-weight proportionate. They've got some formula that says you should double your height in inches and thats what your weight should be. And they say every pound over your idea weight slows you by 2.5 seconds per mile.
Hmmmm. I'm 5-8, 170 pounds. That's 34 pounds more than they say I should be to run my best race. That's 1 minute, 25 seconds per mile slower than I should be, according to the experts. Well, I'll never be that small or that fast. But this whole weight thing is odd. I've been running at least four times a week every week since April 2004, and I've only seen a change in my weight because of the running once: When I trained for the Dec. 2005 White Rock Marathon, the increase in miles _ from 20 miles a week to an average of 30 miles a week with one peak week of 40 miles _ knocked the pounds off. I went from 165 at the beginning of August to 148 by late November.
And I could tell the difference in the running, too. I was light on my feet.
You'd think I'd lose even more weight last year, training for White Rock. I had a 12 week stretch where I averaged 35 to 40 miles a week, with peak weeks of 45 and 50 miles, two runs of 20 miles and two others of 18. But when I lined up for the start of the race, I was about 167 pounds, just 6 pounds less than when the training started.
Today, I'm 170. No matter how much I run and how fast, this weight is not going anywhere.