Monday, August 04, 2008

Sundry



Party Hardy

It was a busy weekend with Julia’s surprise party and diversion facial activity. Saturday morning, after an appointment first thing to get my hair trimmed up, I drove down to Brookline to meet Julia & Cher for a “girls’” spa day. JoeB had generously given Julia a gift certificate for a local day spa so that the three of us could all go together and be spoiled a bit. It was especially nice as, since we all live in different states, it’s very rare that we get to spend time alone together. It seems that usually when we see each other, it’s around some party or other type of crowded activity. So it was really nice to be able to just hang a little bit.

Of course, the real purpose of the facial afternoon was to divert Julia from what was going on back at her house. Driving down her street on our way back from the facials, it was noted that there were an awful lot of cars parked near her house. “Hmmmm, someone must be having a party or something.” We went to walk in the front door, with Julia in the front, and at first it was total silence, I thought to myself, “where IS everyone???” I knew that they couldn’t be out in the backyard since we had just driven through a severe thunderstorm and it was still raining. But then there was a thunderous, “SURPRISE!!!!!” and a bunch of flashbulbs going off. Well, you could have knocked her over with a feather, she was so shocked, so I’d say it was a job well done by Joe to orchestrate this whole thing and keep it a secret. No easy task when you consider that there were probably about 50 people there and a bunch of other people who knew about the secret.

So it came off wonderfully. There were lots of great people to talk to, people I know both from work and from running and a few interesting people here & there whom I had not previously met. And of course there was wonderful Southern BBQ! Pulled pork, brisket, ribs, BBQed chicken, corn bread (even though I passed on that) and the freshest corn on the cob that I’ve ever tasted. I tried to have a very small portion of each of the meat options and just one rib and one cob of corn to stick to my diet, and I think I did okay. I also had one beer, but it was easy enough to stick to one, since I knew that I had to drive later. So, I think I did pretty well in the food department. Anyway, after a while, all the chit-chat and socializing had pretty much sucked me dry, and it had just overall been a long day for me, so I had to call it quits and go home. I lead such a quiet life that this just exhausted me! I was pretty wiped out by the time I got home and then all day on Sunday. It sure was nice to have people to see and a party to go to, but I’m also very glad that every weekend is not busy like that for me.

Yet another trail run

Since the weekend was pretty much a bust for getting any workouts in, and since I have to go to Rhode Island tomorrow for work (and thus will be driving for over four hours during the day, in addition to working) and I know that it’s unlikely that I’ll get a workout in, I knew that I HAD to run today. It was also a lovely day, the humidity was low, and with all the high humidity we’ve had lately, I’ve got to jump on a low humidity day because I KNOW that it’s not going to last. I took the opportunity today to run down some trails that I had never run on before. I had discovered both when I was walking the trails back in April, before I started bringing my running shoes & clothes to work. Both were wonderful, narrow, pine needle covered tracks that wind softly through the woods. There were plenty of opportunities to run for extended periods of time without running into too many obstacles. One of the trails also took me through the swamp that gave me some interesting opportunities to pick over some wooden bridges, leap over muck & marsh and otherwise find solutions to get through some of the wet areas in some of the sections. I finished the last part of the run by first taking my short trail that I’m able to do now without walking and then running a series of three sprints down the fire road back to the company campus. The overall mileage was around 3 miles.

Plateau City

The scale has been stuck on the same damn number for two weeks now and I’m really beginning to get very frustrated. Frankly, it’s beginning to really PISS ME OFF. I can easily see how people can get frustrated on a weight loss journey and just give up. I think here is where the importance of having some good goals beyond a number on a scale comes into play. I can get mad and frustrated when I don’t see those numbers changing, but beyond that, I still have some running and fitness goals to keep in mind, so I can concentrate on that when the scale isn’t cooperating. Plus, being active just feels so damn good! I can only get so depressed when I’m consistently working out, but it rarely gets too bad. If I was sitting on the couch and obsessing over what the scale is telling me, it’s just too easy to give up and give the pizza delivery man a call. If I’ve had a good run that day, I’ve got the whole endorphin thing going on for hours, I don't want to mess with the good that I've done for myself that day and I’m less likely to fall into the junk food trap. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Still, I wish that scale would start moving downward again, I’m truly getting pissed off about it!

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