feelings

You know feelings.. like pain. Pain is the feeling I have at present. Pain in my leg and periodically a pain in my ass, but the latter can't really be blamed on my running. I had a re x-ray of the broken leg that is no longer broken. Yay for small victories. Bones do heal. Even mine. So the doc sent me for the x-ray . I might add that the dep was the driving force behind the x-ray in the first place.  Anyway doc sent me for the repeat of the repeat of the repeat xray to see what there was to see inside my flesh. I hope that radiation doesn't harm your bones or cause some morphing at the cellular level because I might be becoming the Hulk or something. Hey wait.. that might improve my running. Hm.

 Well the result of the x-ray was a waste of two hours that I could have been running but never the less, good to have the knowledge I guess that my leg is healed and looks fine despite continued pain. I'm asking myself now... why am I worried about this little pain when I ran for three weeks on  a broken fibula? t=The simple answer is, well... simple. I ran for three weeks on a broken fibula. I don't want to re-break my leg. I ran for three weeks in complete denial and ended up with something a lot worse than just a little stress fracture. So lesson learned is.. denial is not a river in Egypt. It IS rather, a place where I like to frequent, especially as it pertains to my running. So I did the only sensible thing. I read my own x-ray, cause I'm moonlighting as a radiologist,  and then came home and ran an easy four miles.

My run today was sluggish. I don't know if this is because I'm feeling the five pounds that I need to lose (or maybe 10) or if my legs are just tired from not running for a few days. I'm feeling generally tight in my hips and calves and kind of irritable about not being able to just hit the ground running so to speak.  It could just as easily be attributed to my morale issues as I am becoming increasing frustrated with the Nike + whose accuracy I doubt. Oh it would be easy enough to just run to my 70% RPE )rate of perceived exertion) but then how would I know my pace for training and ultimately improving time. I mean my first order of business for the SF marathon is to cross the finish line alive, after that it would be to do it in some time frame that is at least predictable. Now I  might predict that it's going to take me 7 hours but at least I can know if I'm on target to finish in the predicted 7 hours. In any case, it's more of a case of me just being generally irritable that something isn't working like it should. I tried to calibrate to thing again at 400 meters and it told me that the distance I ran didn't match 400 meters. The only explanation I have for that is 1. I'm just so fast it thinks I'm flying or 2. (the more likely scenario) I'm so slow it thinks I'm crawling. Insulting. I mean is a 10 minute mile THAT slow? OK it is. I know but I'm trying to teach the thing to recognize MY marathon pace not my sisters sprinter pace. Ugh. Technology. Blessing and frustration. This would be one of those times I'd call on the software engineers I know and say, fix it. Please.

The good news is that I'll be buying myself a Garmin before you know it. I'm going to lose 10 pounds. Just cause I want to see what happens. Maybe my stomach will magically melt away in ten more pounds. Probably not but I think I'd better lose it just to be sure. And my 'trainer' who might also be known as my husband has devised a little reward program. For everyday on track with my weight loss and training routine, in to the jar goes $5. At some point soon I'll be implementing the Garmin and then we'll know just what the Nike+ is made of.

LSD

No, not the hallucinogen. The run. THE run. The long slow distance run. In running jargon this is the run that is done at what is known as a "conversational pace", which very simply means you should be able to have a conversation while running. Not a dissertation or a debate, just a conversation. This is a hard concept for new runners to wrap their mind around. In fact it's probably a hard concept for anyone to wrap their minds around. The idea is that you have to be deliberate in your running. There is no "as fast as you can" no push beyond the limit of your fastest. This is not how the LSD works. Instead the LSD should be a pace that you could sustain for, oh, about 26.2 miles or so. Maybe 26.2 miles sounds like a distance that might as well read: to the moon and back. Maybe, if you're an ultramarathoner, 26.2 miles might as well read: stroll in the park. For me, it's the former. So, the problem that presents itself is this, if you've never run a marathon, how do you know what pace to run at? Well you could operate at 60-70% of you MHR if you know what your MHR is, if you even know WHAT a MHR is. Or you could i-rate your exertion scale and run at a 6-7 on a scale of 1-10. Or you could just run with someone else and have a conversation. 

Today was my first LSD since my break. Well it was technically my first LSD at all considering that to this point, every long run I did was at a pace where I felt like I would essentially die at any minute. Who wants to feel like they are going to die for 26.2 miles? Not me. So I should run my LSD at my "marathon"pace, which based on some formulas should be like 12-13 minutes a mile. But I don't know my marathon pace so I just took the dep with me and talked with him. It translated into a 11:12 average pace (Or so says the nike+ but I don't know if that can be relied upon for 100% accuracy). It's hard to run with the dep for a couple of reasons. 1. He runs 3 miles. I mean that is his run. His running focus is ALWAYS qualifying in his mile and a half PT test. He doesn't run 5 miles and he doesn't think in terms of longevity. It's balls to the wall so to speak, and that is how he operates. That's funny because he is not a "balls to the wall" type of guy. Not in the slightest. The #2 reason he's hard to run with is that he is 6ish feet tall. This means that his legs are basically the same length os my entire body. His one step = my four. (ok not four but at least two). SO this causes frustration for me. I'm a self admitted easily frustrated person. I've never participated in team sports so my concept of coaching is "just do it".  In fact, my concept of most things in life is "just do it". It works in some circumstances, some not so much. The last time we ran together I was so frustrated with his "coaching" that I told his to just be quiet. I appreciate that he is trying to motivate and he could make me run faster but then he doesn't really get the concept that I'm not trying to be faster.

So.. that brings me to the point of this post. The LSD. Today was my LSD run. 5.44 miles. 1:01. Average pace 11:12/mile. And? Pain. No. Breathlessness. No. Exhaustion. No. Success. Yes. 

i've been thinking...

and I've been afraid to say it outloud. I was looking at my Nike+ run history and it's undeniable... my longest run was the day I broke my leg. Oh, I imagine that the leg was probably on the verge of breaking for a month before I actually broke it but the day I broke 4 miles was the day the it, in fact, broke. So that was many moons ago. Well not that many really, only like 3 but still, not yesterday. On November 19th I hit the road again. I had tried to run and failed. I tried a couple of times to run from the car to the front door of the gym or from the store to the car, to no avail. But that day, that blessed day, November 19th, I ran 3.59 miles at a 10:56 average pace (hovering really around the 10 ish mark if you deduct warm up and cool down pace). Now it's do or die. Shit or get off the proverbial pot time.

 Big Sur is coming soon. OK not that soon, like 18 weeks, but still. I have to make the decision if I'm going to run the 10.6 or shoot the moon and try the full. I'm leaning toward the 10.6 mostly because I don't want my first marathon to be a disaster and I think trying to train for a marathon on a mostly still not completely healed leg (how's that for vague) is not the best idea. So the 10.6 it will probably be and San Fran will be my marathon debut. This is a big decision in a runners life. If you're considering being a marathoner, you probably want your first marathon to be memorable and mostly finishable. I think SF might fit the bill. It's far enough away that I'll have a good solid year of real running under my belt and still close enough to look forward to. Plus it's San Francisco so how can you really go wrong with that. Now for the choice of training.

I have John Bingham's book Marathoning for Mortals  and I like it. Mostly because it's written for people like me, real people, who don't worry about VO2 and all that jazz but also because he's got programs for half and fulls with every level from walk the whole thing to run the whole thing. Now I'd never set out to WALK a marathon. Good God people who wants to walk 26.2 miles? Ick. But I like that he's realistic and that he recognizes that people come to running with all different fitness levels from "I can run to the end of my driveway" to "How much do you run? I run 50 miles a week." (50 miles a week is a lot). John's programs are time realistic as well. 14 weeks for the 1/2 and 18 for the full. My only real issue is that the half schedule calls for far less running then I'm already doing. The first week has runs of 2 and 3 miles and the  long  run in only 3. Not a crisis I guess but either way. Maybe what I should do is the marathon training but then only run the 10.6'er. A couple of the miles on that course are just straight uphill. Ouch. The marathon training might be a better prep anyway.  

Well either way, my point was to say, I'm ready. I'm ready to get back in the saddle. And p.s. I'm scared. I wouldn't freely admit that to anyone (so it's a good damn thing no on reads this blog) but I am. I am just absolutely TERRIFIED that I am going to break something or wound some other part of me. There is that little part of my brain that screams "SEE you were never meant to be an athlete, otherwise your stupid leg wouldn't have broken just from the act of running on pavement." And then there's that other part of my brain (I think it's a little bigger) that says "Listen here missy... you cannot let the years and years of being told you were smart and not athletic stop you from running a mother fricking 100 miles if you want to do it. You have a heart and lungs. You have feet and legs and aside from that, what more do you need? So shut up, put on your Sauchonys and go outside fool. Hit the road and run. Listen to your body, but run. Just run"

sleep is not....

to be underestimated. Truly. I was taking a long, hot soak tonight thinking about sleep. Mostly about how I don't get enough of it probably. It's pandemic I know. The average adult needs somewhere between 6-8 hours of sleep daily. Right? Why you ask? Here's why. It's not revolutionary. We don't need to beat a dead horse. But read this anyway. That shit will just depress the hell out of a night shift worker such as your truly. Me. Faithful and trusted Registered Nurse. 

Let me show you what Thanksgiving week looked like for me. I was scheduled to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday we were overstaffed so they called me off. I was grateful. I was tired and had homework to do. Tuesday I ran around like a chicken with my head forcibly removed all day. No nap. No rest. No feet up. Zero. Zip. Nada. At 1715 (or 5:15 pm) I went to work. We were busy. And by busy I mean busy. I think I took lunch at 0230. Maybe. My longest period of sitting was maybe 20 minutes. Home I came. Kids were at the in laws thankfully. The dep and I visited and I think ate breakfast. I went to bed at 0730. Tired. So tired. I opted out of a sleep aid (namely Ambien) and decided that since I had too much to do I would only sleep until my body woke up, whatever time that was and then get up to cook. Master plan: lay down in the afternoon before going back to work. 1000 and awake I am. 2.5 hours of sleep. I cooked all day and generally exhausted myself, never sitting. No time for nap and by 1600 I was dragging ass. Oh well, back to work. Wednesday night was a fun repeat of Tuesday and as an added bonus I had a benefit 5K to run at 0800 on Thursday. By 0700 Thanksgiving morn, my legs resembled some kind of shapeless, swollen blob. I ran and then came home and did the day. Aided mostly by champagne and white wine. By 0200 the NEXT morning I had had 2.5 hours of sleep in 68 hours and I had gained 3 pounds of water weight. At least.

Ok to be fair that's not a typical week. Typically I stay up all day my first day of work (like tomorrow). Maybe I'll sleep an hour or two in the afternoon if I can manage. The second day looks a lot like the first. I'll skip the gym usually, because I'm just too damn tired and swollen. I'll sleep part of that day. Maybe 3-4 hours or a very good day and then just lay around, too tired to do anything productive and not able to sleep, despite the aforementioned exhaustion. The third day looks remarkably like the second except I'll run or go tot he gym because I feel so incredibly shitty that I figure it can't get much worse. Maybe I'm SO tired I can sleep 4 hours. Maybe, but probably not. Work again that night and then come home the next morning, go to the gym and go through the day. Usually no sleep or a shortish nap of an hour or two because anything more than that and I feel guilty for sleeping the whole day away. Anyway on a typical week by the time my third day of work has elapsed  I have slept 6-8 hours in three days. Ew that even looks bad. 

People will say to me "how do you DO THAT?" The truth is this... I do not know. I just do not know. I feel like shit. That's fact. I look pretty bad. Also fact. My brain is certainly not 100%. Not a comforting fact. But I don't know. I know this though. Anyone who is sleeping on that kind of schedule can't be feeling too hot or healthy. Which brings me to my long awaited point. How can you expect to lose weight and be healthy when you consistently deprive yourself of the thing your body craves most, aside from water and food? The answer: You cannot. Diet on the night shift. Here and HA I might add. There is that eat to stay awake phenomenon. There's just no way to put in kindly. It stinks. It sucks. It sucks ass.

The dep says I should blog about sunflowers and happy thoughts. He doesn't have a blog. Clearly.

blog failure

I read somewhere recently that most bloggers want, in fact, to not be bloggers, but to be real true blue authors.... I think the person who made this astounding revelation must want to be an author, for I, in actuality, do not. I have a friend who told me I should be an author, but truth be told, this friend only said this because they are aware that I can write, in minutes, what it might take the average person hours to write. It's really not a compliment. In fact, I think it could be a hidden insult. Hm... there's something to ponder. I don't think quantity a good author makes. If it did, I'd have that shit in the bag.

Lately I've been pondering something else, I've been blogging on the "other" blog. The B blog. Well it really gets all the attention so it should be called the A blog. Anyway I've been trying to decide which blog ought to be the A blog and what the subject matter of said blog should be. I hate to always talk about weight loss. That's dull. I mean clearly it's a theme in the lives of about 50% of Americans but shit who wants to hear about it all the time? Not me. That's for damn sure. Recently I've been dealing with some religion issues but I don't want to blog about that because who wants to hear about religion? Not me. That's for damn sure. Hm. It wouldn't be totally unreasonable to talk about running. I spend at least 6 hours a week actually doing it and about 50% of the rest of the time thinking about it. How to be faster. How to run longer. What races I'm going to do this year. If my broken leg will ever be 100% again. Where I will run. When I will run. It's an exhaustive list really.  But then non-runners probably don't want to hear about my running. Well then I guess I don't really have any worries since no one reads my blog which is good because my dream to one day be a real author will never be realized. Darn. 

SO maybe I'll just blog what I've been blogging. Nothing. Random thoughts of zip. 

I went to the gym today. It's a torture chamber but I love it. I tanned. I don't like tanning per se. I don't want to age prematurely or have a bunch of wrinkles or look like Magda on Something About Mary but it's so f__ing dreary here. The fog and the overcast. Blech. If blech isn't a word, too bad. I just made it one. In any case I hit the bed because frankly I like I'm getting SAD. Not the traditional sad but the SAD kind. The kind of SAD you get when you live in a place like Washington state where is rains like 364 days of the year (I live in California in a place where it rains like 4 days a year but I have nothing against Washington. Thanks for the apples Washingtonians and btw I think I'd like to live there). Anyway a little tanning bed action for about 10 minutes, just enough to synthesize some vitamin D and then I hit the dreaded weight room. Dun dun dun. The men in there frighten me. There is a dude there whose  bicep is 18 inches. 18 inches. Seriously. Yikes. My thigh is 19 inches. And I think that's kind of big. Well anyway, the dep (aka hubbie) and I went in there together so he could tell me what to do and make sure I don't look like a man in the process. So far so good. Then some resistance work. Inner, outer thigh and the calves. My poor poor calves. The right one is a full 3/4 inch smaller than the the left so I did that machine. Ouch. I did some free weights and that will hurt tomorrow, then I drug him to the treadmill because we nurses believe in cardio. :) 15 minutes of running at 90-95% of MHR (which is too high btw just for those who wonder).

Let me tell you how I used to feel about the gym. I joined the gym a little of two years ago. I can't remember what possessed me to even walk in the door of the place but I joined and we went a bit, you know, typical gym behavior. Go a little while then stop. Then we used it periodically. I'll admit there were months where the $88 was completely wasted. Not one of us stepped one foot in the place. Then I started losing weight. I started running to boost the loss and the unthinkable happened. I discovered that I, perpetual shopper and hater of sweat, liked running. A lot. And then the second unthinkable happened. I broke my fibula. Running, no. Walking, barely. So that gym membership cam in right handy. It had been so long since I'd been in the gym that the guy at the front counter welcomed me as a new member. The elliptical and I became very good friends. Best buds you might say. I went and visited her 5 days a week sometimes 6 and started logging miles. Just hoping to keep the cardio up (you know we nurses believe in cardio). Then on November 19th it was sunny. I was feeling good. Things at home had been a little troublesome, I won't elaborate but I needed a release. I needed a workout and felt compelled to put on my shoes and try the road. I got out the nike+, my favorite running partner and just went. I ran 3.59 miles that day with an average pace of 10:56 , let me quantify that by saying this, in the day I broke my leg my average pace was 12:29. I had only broken the 12 minute mile barrier once before my injury. So there is something to be said for the elliptical. Oh it's not like the road. Not in the slightest. But, just the movement, the action of getting your heart beating and your body moving, was enough to help me shave almost two minutes off my mile time. My most recent run was a 10:26 pace and the day before that (when I wasn't hurting) 10:03 average. If I didn't warm up with the + running I'd break 9 minutes. Low 9. That's a good good thing.

OK now for the  disclaimer: the Nike+ is not 100% accurate. I mean from run to run it's accurate for me and it's not far off overall. The day I did the 5K the nike+ thought I ran 3.3 miles instead of 3.1. I'm not sure if the course was really 3.1 miles but provided it was then the accuracy is off by that small of an error. 0.1 miles per mile maybe. Not bad for a $30 gadget. I don't work for nike but if that thing even breaks I will absolutely cry. I love my Nike + almost as much as my Sauchony shoes and my champion sports bra (and I don't work for them either)

OK I suppose that will conclude today's installment and I'll be back tomorrow to talk about nothing some more. 

double blogging

Maybe two blogs was a little over-ambitious. I honestly don't know how I even survive my day to day life much less find time to blog. By this I mean, I work full time as  RN. I am mother, which is of course more than full time. I am a wife, which is probably more than full time. I am currently obsessed with running and my physical fitness, which is emotionally a full time job.  That's four full times, if I can count correctly. Which of course, I might not be able to do, since I have no time left to learn how to properly count. Oh and I forgot the fifth full time: Student. What on God's green earth? I do not know. Some people might say I have more energy than the usual person. Which would, in fact, be an accurate description of me. I used to have so much energy that I would do things like stay up all night to sew a quilt or finish a book. That is a LOT of energy. Oh wait, they have a name for that. Mania. 

So when I got a little chubby (OK fat) my mania was replaced by an intense desire to sleep. My fine physician, who I adore and trust unequivocally, told me that my life's problems could be traced to one source. One. ONE. That is powerful stuff people. To know that everything that ails you might in fact be cured and/or eliminated by the removal of one tiny little thing. In my case the thing was sleep. More likely the thing was a bad genetic lot but we're blaming sleep because it's easier to fix than genetics. Anyway, melatonin blah blah blah. I guess humans are supposed to sleep more than like an hour a day. Sheesh. The nerve of scientific researchers to come up with these ideas. Sleep. I think we might have touched on this before, but then I'm probably confusing this with my other blog. 

This is typically how my week goes. Well let's do this upcoming week because it is an actual example of how my week will go. Today is Sunday. Which means church basically all flippin day. Don't misunderstand me, I like to get my worship on as much as the next dude, but dang three hours is a long time. An extension of the 3 hour church experience, we keep the rest of the Sabbath holy which essentially means I get nothing down around here except sitting here worrying about all the things I'm not getting done. Anyway Sunday. That's it. Monday I work. So Monday day I will futz around here trying to recover from Sunday. Go to the store to buy all things I realized that I needed on Sunday. Do all the laundry created on Sunday. Try to do the homework I avoided on Sunday. And a bunch of other stuff I could have done on Sunday, or made my children do on Sunday, if I weren't so busy keeping it holy and setting a good example and all that. Work out because I have to. And I will at some point, and probably unsuccessfully, try to nap before I pick the kids up at 2:27, 2:47 and 2:57. Then I will run around like a mad woman trying to help small people with long division and algebra before I quickly throw some food together that we can enjoy as a family because we do like to see each other for about 5 minutes a day. Then I will work all night. ALL night. I will get home at about 7 and throw some breakfast and lunch together and take the small people to school. After that I will go to the gym to physically torture myself for a minimum of an hour. This due to the health and fitness full time obsession. THen I will come home and drug up on some Ambien in the hopes of getting some sleep, which will of course be futile, because let's face it, people aren't supposed to sleep when the sun is up. I'll do the same routine and Monday afternoon, only I'll be a walking zombie. Wednesday morning will be a blur of exhaustion and more gym time. I don't work three in a row this week so I probably won't completely feel like dying on Wednesday. The rest of the week will be taking small people here and there and working again on Friday night. There will inevitably be three days this week where I get less than 2 hours of sleep. So you can see the issue. Sleep. 

For now I will stop because I am depressing even myself and, well frankly, I don't think blogging qualifies as keeping the Sabbath day holy at all.

and second blogger post...

I'm not sure why I am keeping two blogs. Could it be that I just have entirely to much free time on my hands? Hm.... let's ponder that. Let's see, I work full time as a Registered Nurse. This means 3 shifts of twelve hours per week, with commute that means I am gone for 14 hours a day on the days that I work. So no free time on those days. Plus I work the NOC shift (1800-0630) which means I am essentially comatose for several hours on my first day "off" and trying almost all day to nap on my first day ON. Added bonus. I am a mother of three children ages 8, 10 and 13. Oh but don't misunderstand, this leaves me tons o' free time. I mean they are totally self sufficient. They don't need me at ALL. In fact, while I type this one of them is cooking dinner, one is doing laundry and one is cleaning the house ;o) Oh and then they are all going to rub my feet. I almost forgot to mention that in addition to those two little things, and being a wife, or at least trying to be a pretty decent one, I am also in school full time. Because I don't have enough to do. Not nearly enough. 

Oh and I'm training for a 1/2 marathon. Not a full one because I just don't have time for that. I mean come on, where would I fit in 25-30 MORE miles of running a week? Right now though I'm only training for the couch olympics though on account of the fact that my leg is broken from the 30 miles a week of running. So NOW I have TONS of free time. Literally TONS. LOADS.

In addition to those miniscule things I am on Weight Watchers which means I am weight watching. This means trying to watch it decrease. This doesn't occupy THAT much of my free time though because I only obsess about my weight about 80% of the day. I used to be skinny. Isn't that what every fat person says?"Oh I wasn't always fat. That only happened after I got married, had kids, got stressed, _____________ ." (insert your life stressor here). But really though all that malarky is true in my case. I was literally the SMALLEST child in grade school. I mean 80 pounds in junior high. I finally hit 100 in high school. It wasn't because I didn't eat either. My great-grandmother, who was a product of the Depression era, and my surrogate mother (when my real actual mother was out clubbin', which in the 1970's meant being drunk at a bar, but that's another blog altogether) thought that because she had done without everything  

1. Everyone else had to Eat everything 

2. Everyone else had to  Eat approximately 5 pounds of everything 

3. Cookies were a food group 

4. Half and half was what you put on cereal. 

5. Twinkies were a food group. 

6. You had to to eat a box of Twinkies a week.

7. Grape soda was a food group and you could make an ice cream float out of it and anything else that you could find that was even potentially carbonated. 

God rest her merry little soul. I loved that woman. She literally worked her fingers to the bone picking cotton and altering clothes that were too big for other people because she was hoarding all the food for me, so that I could have all of the aforementioned food. I never gained an ounce. 

Oh but the happy times were short lived. I should have seen it coming. I went to Europe when I was 16. It was a wonderfully depressing time. I had never been so utterly alone. Legal drinking age in Europe was 16 so that's what I did. And I ate. Cheese. Bread. Other things that are not low fat. I cam home after 3 months and I weighed 130. Still relatively thin but that was a 15 pound gain in as many weeks. So... I got married? That's what you do when you gain weight, turn 18, graduate from high school, leave home at 17. That's doesn't make sense does it? 

Anyway I did the next logical thing. I quit my University education, because that's overrated, and had babies. Well that's what I wanted to do so it made sense at the time. I made it through one failed pregnancy and one successful one with a 5 lb weight gain. This is when I started to realize my destiny as an addict. Well lets just say that while clubbin' like my ma would have been a viable option, it wasn't my first choice. Food was. So I had yet another baby. That one left me a little larger. Maybe 155 pounds. Now I was on a roll. I couldn't get pregnant to save my life, then I couldn't STOP being pregnant so I had yet ANOTHER baby. Oh I love that little dude. What a great surprise he was. And the result... one adorable baby and 15 more pounds. 

So I did the only sensible thing. I threw the scale away. When he was 3 (in 2003) my MIL started WW. I thought for fun I would get on her scale. Uh oh. 178 pounds. How did I not know I weighed 178 pounds? Well I think the answer might have been spandex and sweat pants and some denial. But I started WW that day. October 2003. By February I weighed 138 pounds.

But that wasn't to be. I loathed exercise. Ew. Sweat. Exertion. Ew. And thus to maintain 138 I had to literally starve and let's not forget that I ate a box of Twinkies a week as a kid. SO I settled for 140-145. A size 10. I was feeling great. I became a RN. I started working nights. uh oh. I gained 5 pounds the first month. Oh geez I was too tired to care though. Unfortunately I was also too tired to care when 5 becamse 10 than 20 then 30 then 35. I gave away all the skiny clothes and bought new ones. Better to be fat and happy then skinny and miserable? Hm. Then one day, after working 6 days in a row (which is a little like suicide) I realized that my legs were in absolute agony. Not unusual. But after two days when they still hurt I said OK enough is enough. I pulled out the scale which had been hiding in the cupboard for about a year and got on.

178 pounds

Good grief. I was where I started. So I started WW that day.  Today I weigh 145 and I am training for a 1/2 marathon (or at least I was). I like sweat. I like to run. I am liking the new me. Not just the lower scale reading but the transformed thinking. I still have a way to go before I am "done". 5 years ago I never would have believed that I would weigh 178 I also never would have believed that I would run anywhere, except to Macy's.

first blogger post...

I have a blog here . It's about weight loss and my journey from chubby, lounging RN to cheetah-like running RN. OK maybe not cheetah-like but not lying on the couch either. But that blog is getting a little crowded and not everyone wants to hear about my crap that doesn't involve weight loss.