18 miles, Birthdays, A CRAZY week, & a New Plan!

Whew! That title just makes me tired thinking of all the topics that I need to catch up on in this post.

Lone car in the parking lot on a rainy Friday morning!

First things first...last Friday (like WAY back on August 10th Friday), I conquered my longest distance run yet. My absolutely awesome mother came out at some unGodly hour on her Friday to not only push me through 18 miles on her bike, but to do it in the rain. Oh, I'm sorry....did I say rain?? I meant TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR! It was about 6:30AM when I started at one end of the trail and she parked at a different end (about 7.5 miles away). The plan was for her to start biking towards me and we would eventually meet up and then continue through the 18 miles. It was not yet raining when I started and it probably didn't start raining until around mile 4ish. I was starting to get worried as I thought for SURE my mom would have met me by now. Of course horrible thoughts started to go through my head and I was afraid I would find her somewhere on the trail having fallen off her bike or something. But, thankfully that is not what happened. Apparently she had to go back home after already leaving to get her helmet (or so she thought, it was actually already in the car). Anyway, we met up around mile 5ish in a perfect spot...under a bridge! Good thing because now it was raining pretty convincingly.

The end of a soggy 18 miles.

I don't quite remember, but at some point it did stop raining. I believe we were still going away from my car, so some time between mile 5 and 9 it had stopped raining. During this period of time it was the most perfect weather to run in! Then, we were probably around mile 15-16 and the skies decided to open again....and this time for REAL! It just kept getting harder and harder until I was done with 18.11!! We then went to breakfast (lunch) in our soaking wet clothes! Definitely an adventure, but I did 18 miles! :)

Then, Saturday was Robbie's 6th birthday so we had a little party for him. He was disappointed at first that it was too cold to swim, but I think he got over that!

Monday was my husband's birthday,  but we knew we wouldn't be able to really do anything to celebrate it because of Robbie's football practice. So, we went out to dinner Sunday night instead.

Monday started an absolute crazy week for me. It was just one of those weeks where there weren't enough hours in the day. Work was crazy. After work I had to get the kids something quick to eat and then take to practices (football and cheerleading). We would then get home after 8, get the kids in to bed and then around 9 I would finally be thinking about eating (not good). In addition to that, I had things for work that had to get done so I would start working again around 9 each night. So, between working 10-12 hour days + trying to get the kids to their things, I was feeling a little overwhelmed.

Last week was probably THE most horrible eating week I've had in a LONG time....perhaps even this entire calendar year. I was totally thrown off schedule because of his football practice being Mon-Thurs from 6-8pm. I didn't handle it well at all (obviously).

I started thinking about what needs to be done to really make another change. I say another change, but really I should just say change. Clearly I did what needed to be done during 2011 to drop some of the weight I needed to drop. However, had I actually made a CHANGE, then I wouldn't be typing this now. I'd be talking about how I'm working to maintain my weight loss....instead I'm talking about how I need to figure out how to get back on track or actually change so I can RE-lose the weight I've gained...and then actually keep going.

So I made a decision this weekend. I decided to re-join Weight Watchers. I haven't done WW since around 2008. It has always worked for me in the past, but (obviously) never made the permanent change in eating it was supposed to. I stopped and re-started several times. The program has changed several times throughout the times I have participated. Well, it has changed once again. The program now is supposed to focus on helping to shift your mind to want to eat healthier. I actually think this will work for me. When I'm just counting calories everything "counts". I find myself not having as many fruits or veggies because why have a banana when I can have some other thing for 100 calories? Yes, it's stupid, but it's how my messed up mind works. However, with the new WW, ALL fruits are "free". I am pretty certain this will help to change my thinking. Why would I want to use 2 points on something when I can eat a banana for 0?? So, we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to keep an open mind about this. Right now I truly just need something to help me get back on track. I have a relatively short-term weight loss goal that I want to hit in the next 14 weeks and then we will see what happens. I figure that the amount of money that I'm spending on WW in a month is 1 dinner out for my family of 4! We should be going out less anyway!

Be warned...posts are probably going to get more frequent and perhaps more boring (or not). I will start blogging about how I'm doing with my re-joining WW as well as continuing to train for the Columbus Full Marathon. I've always worried that with WW it's not enough food for someone training so hard, but I'm realizing that it IS if you are smart about it. You earn activity points to swap for food points and if you're training a lot you should just make sure you're eating at least some of them. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I'm committed to at LEAST one month since I signed up for the monthly pass!