Obsessions

Well, I did not do that great this week with my diet.  I did not gain anything, but I only lost .2 lbs.  I was hoping for another (at least) pound or two (or five).  I suppose I need to be happy.  I am in the 140's (high 140's) for the first time since June 2016.  I've had 3 weigh ins now in the 140's, the first one I was 148.8, then 149.8, and today 149.6.  That is officially 7.4 lbs since January 1st, so that is pretty good.  Not as good as I was hoping, but still better than expected.  My "I'm okay with this weight, but am not as small as I'd like to be, but that's okay" weight is 145 and I was really hoping to get there.  Nope, not going to happen in 3 days.  I'm sure if I had stuck with being super good on the weekend I would have gotten there.  I'm also sure that if I had actually started (for real) trying back in September/October when I realized I was going to Hawaii I could have made it.  Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk.

The silly thing about all this weight loss obsession is that I'm going to Hawaii, and while I will likely continue to track (I always track) I won't be very disciplined and will likely gain most of the weight back.  But now that I know what will work for me this time around, I can go back to it when I get home.

What else is going on?  Not a lot.  Yesterday was a crappy day at work, 2 clients had really, really bad days.  My clients have mental health issues, so having to deal with the things they had to yesterday (and continue to have to deal with) makes it that much worse.  I am looking forward to the weekend, and my vacation, but now I'm also very worried about my clients since I will be gone for 10 days,  I hope to come back to better, not worse (which is possible).

Running . . . running hasn't been that exciting.  3 miles during the week, 4-5 miles on Saturdays (on the treadmill) and 5-8 (closer to 4-7) miles on Sunday.  Oh, I am officially signed up for Ragnar 2019 (well, a team I have agreed to be on is).

I am wondering if I want to continue my run streak.  Today will be day 114, but next Tuesday (day 118) I have to leave my house at 4:30am to get on a shuttle to go to the airport to catch an 8:40am flight.  We get to Kauai at 4pm, which would give me time to go run, but am I going to want to?  Or should I get up extra early (3am??) to run a mile on the treadmill (that sounds awful).  Or should I just give up the runstreak?  I never intended to go past January 1st, but it really is rather easy, and the higher the days go, the harder it is to stop.

from 2 days ago

I'm happy I didn't start losing weight until I was already 2 months into the streak, otherwise I would continue solely because I believe that is what is helping me to lose.  But it's not.  It really is calories in vs. calories burned.  I don't think I ever actually believed that before, I mean, yes, I sorta believed it, but when I got down to 140 in 2015 I was training for a marathon, and I just thought that I got to that weight because of all the running I was doing.  Which is true, but I also really, really didn't want to gain weight and I had heard that many people gain when marathon training.  Back then I wasn't meticulous about tracking my food.  I logged on every day, but I didn't track every bite and rarely tracked alcohol.  For the last 2 years or so, I've been much better at tracking everything, every bite and every drink, and for the last 2 months I've been meticulous.

URLs

I use blogger to write my blog, and I used to look at the stats page often just to see what was going on.  Well, I quit doing that as much but I did recently and this is what I found.  The number one referring URLs is a porn site, I don't know how or why.  And the number 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10 . . . yep, also porn sites.  I don't want to poke around on the sites to see if I have pictures, links, or what to my blog because I'm scared of viruses.

Don't get me wrong, I actually am not offended or squeamish about porn, and I may have watched some in my life . . . but I don't know these sites.  I guess, I should just bite the bullet one evening, grab a bottle of wine and look around . . . without kids next to me.  Just to make sure I am not a "featured artist" on there.  (I don't know why I would be, I think my "dirtiest" photo on my blog is of me laying in the grass.)

Anyway, today marks exactly 7 days until we leave for Hawaii.  In fact, right this minute, 8:40am, is when our plane is supposed to take off.

And I got sidetracked and now we're just under 6 days.  Last week I found some webcams and have been watching them a lot.  I guess there was a storm last week, so I was bummed to see rain and clouds, even though I know it's the rainy season there.  However, this week the cameras look fantastic, and my sister says next week it's supposed to be 80+ and sunny.  =)  She's leaving tomorrow, so I'll have a very accurate weather person there for the few days before we go. 

Here's the beach my sister says she likes most.

I hope to post on Friday, just to let you know how I did with my weight just before I go to Hawaii, after that, I won't post for at least 2 weeks. . .  =)  But I'll come back with a lot of pictures. 

Snowmageddon (Western WA version)

Well, I do not have a lot to talk about.  Did you hear about "snowmageddon" in Seattle?  Well, we had a lot of snow.  I heard that Seattle's average yearly snowfall is about 5 inches, we do not get that all at once, and I think the last 2 or 3 years we've gotten an inch or so.  This last week we got 19 inches, in the same news report that I heard the average yearly snowfall was 5 in., I also heard that Seattle got that much, and more, in one day.  Now we are dealing with close to 40 days and freezing temperatures overnight.  So all that snow that is melting during the day, is freezing at night, creating an icerink outside.  Thankfully most of the roads are cleared and I have hiking boots that I have worn 13 days in a row.  =/

 And yes, I have been running. 

And drinking in the snow.

I have not been running far, but I am still running 4 days a week.  Well, I should say I am running 7 days a week, but 3 of those days are one mile on the treadmill.

This week has been difficult with my eating.  I was not good at all on Monday and Tuesday, so we will see how my weigh-in goes tomorrow.  I didn't even weigh myself yesterday, I didn't really want to see the damage I had done.  So silly to go crazy two weeks before leaving for Hawaii. 

I went clothes shopping with my sister and it was depressing.  Not just because she's so small right now, but because of the snow the stores put all their winter clothes back out.  We were going shopping for our trip, so we wanted spring/summery clothes and all they had were sweaters. =(  It was very depressing.

By the way, Happy Valentine's Day.  I have never been a big fan of Valentine's Day but exactly one year ago today my Mom made a snowman, took a selfie, and fell, breaking her leg.  That was the beginning of the end, 19 days later she died.

Reminiscing and Snow!

You know what I should be doing right now?  I should be doing homework, I should be looking up something for my work group to discuss that I have to lead in about 3 hours, instead I'm on here, writing completely unnecessary crap that no one cares about.

I was reading isweatandsparkle.home.blog about her first half marathon experience.  I was thinking of my first half marathon, which was close to 6 years ago.   During that race I sorta accidentally found a running buddy for most of the race.  You can read about it in the link I already created above, but I do think about her often when I think of that race.  I know that she helped me so much during that race.  I had been sick the month before that race and really didn't run many long runs before the race.  I did one 11 mile run the week before, but before that long run my previous long run at 8 miles, was 4 weeks before.  To say I felt under prepared is an understatement.

So, running with someone else, and being distracted for 8 miles was a blessing for me.  I left that race feeling good and very, very grateful to the girl I ran with.  I wondered if she also thought how nice it was to run with me, and I hopefully pushed her to run a good race.

5+ years later I still think about her, but now I worry.  She stopped to use the restroom durning mile 9 which is when I went on without her.  Now, instead of thinking that I helped her like she helped me, I now wonder if I hindered her.  Not in that she wanted to go faster, but in that she wanted to go slower.  Now I wonder if she finished the race.  She had told me that she had a cramp and she stopped to use the restroom.  What if running with her made her go faster than she wanted and she ended up with a much slower time than she was aiming for?

I know it's silly to be thinking these thoughts 5+ years later.  She probably doesn't think of me at all (I often think I'm forgettable and no one remembers me).  (I also often overthink stupid things and get stuck on them.)  When I ran my first half marathon I had been running for just over 1 year.  I have now been running for 7 years.  So what would my "experienced" runner say to my inexperienced runner say?  Don't worry about it.  If she had wanted to slow down, she should have slowed down.  But also, when she told you she needed to slow down, you should have said okay and let her (wait, that is still obsessing over it stupidly).

Anyway, my weekend was pretty uneventful.  I went for a 5 mile run on the treadmill because it was cold and Maddox was home playing with a friend.  It actually went pretty fast, which is pretty unusual for a treadmill.  I read recently that varying pace and incline on the treadmill can make it more "outside-like" so I did that quite a bit.  I looked up my average pace on my last 5 miles, which was 9.28 min/mile and googled what the corresponding pace on a treadmill was.  9 and a half min/miles equals 6.3 on the treadmill, I looked at other runs and decided I would vary my pace on the treadmill from 6.1 (9.50 min/mile) to 6.7 (8.57 min/mile) and increase my incline when I'm going slower. I had no specific times when I would change my pace and incline, just whenever.

Well, I found that I couldn't handle 6.1, it was way too slow.  I think I had it on 6.1 twice, both times I had a incline of 4 or more (I can't remember exactly).  And once I was running I didn't like the 6.7 pace either, I think I had it on 7.0 (8.34 min/mile) at least 2 times and 7.2 (8.20 min/mile) at the end.  My average pace for this 5 mile run was 8.54 min/mile (which ironically is just a little faster than 6.7 on the treadmill).

Sunday is grocery shopping day, which I hate because it's also long run day and we are leaving to shop at the same time I would like to be going for a run.  (I really, really hate it.)  This week as we were leaving for shopping it was snowing.  I love the snow, and I love running in the snow.  I think it's just the mental image I have in my head of snow running, but it just makes me happy.  (I do not love running in the snow after the snow has been around for a few days and started to melt and then re-froze.)  And of course, when we got done with grocery shopping the snow was done, and melted.

I put on my clothes and went for my run anyway, and while I was running it started snowing again.  But it also got really, really cold.  By the time I was done, I was frozen, but it was a good run.

I'm not going to mention my weight today, but if you're curious how I did for the month of January . . . well, it's on my "Scale Obsession" page.  (And it's good.) 

Have I mentioned that I am still doing my run streak?  I am on day 97 (reminder to myself to post on Instagram on my 100th day). 

On Sunday it snowed the entire day (except for the first 30 min of my run), but after it melted while we were shopping, it didn't stick again until Sunday night.  I love the snow, and I love making snowmen, and I love playing in the snow, and I love running in the snow.  However, I didn't get that chance because it didn't stick.  I woke up Monday morning to 4 inches (or so) and had to go to work.  (P.S. the Seattle area closes down when it snows, even a little, and it was a little more than a little this week.)  So last night I came home and had a brilliant idea for a "snowman."

Frozen pants.  =)