From indulgences to victory...

Boy has this week been a tough one—treat wise. I've indulged way too many times!

No huge indulgences, but indulgences nonetheless.

Like the Krispy Kreme on Monday—which I only had ONE of. I had two huge brown sugar cookies on Sunday. And then there was the homemade chocolates that my boss brought in Wednesday—chocolate covered peanut butter balls, chocolate covered coconut balls, white chocolate covered oreo/cream cheese balls and peppermint bark. I mean, come one, she made these delectables from scratch as her Christmas gift to each one of us. I'm just supposed to NOT eat any??!! :)

(I completely lost track of how many I ate.)

Then today I had 3 tiny little sugar cookies. Seriously, they were maybe an inch around. No icing. Oh, and one Ferrero Rocher (cool website, by the way). Okay, two, but that's it, I promise.

I feel like it's confessional time. "Bless me Father for I have eaten my weight in chocolate this week..." :D

Seriously, that's all I've had—she says as if that was a small amount of sweets, right?

On the flip side, I've been eating extremely healthy and completely on plan all week (aside from these minor indulgences). And I've been putting in extra exercise.

I even went running twice yesterday!

That's right. I ran!

(Hey, isn't that a country in the middle east?)

Two totally special things happened. The first was that hubby ran with me yesterday morning. This is the first time he's exercised in MONTHS. And probably the first time we've exercised together in years. We have different styles of exercise, different paces, etc., so it's hard for us to exercise together. But I went slow and he kept up. It was awesome! What a blast!

We actually did interval—1 minute running 2 minutes walking—for a half hour. Wow! That was great.

But then last night I decided I that I felt so good running in the morning, that I wanted to try it at my pace in the evening. So instead of walking the dogs (sorry buddy), I ran.

I loaded the soundtrack from Memoirs of a Geisha in my iPod and headed out the door. I turned the volume way up and off I went. I don't know if you've ever watched the movie, but the soundtrack is AMAZING! It's so powerful. Compelling. Perfect music for running! (you can listen to the tracks at the link above)

So, I did the same interval run/walk as the morning, but this time was more running than walking. Running for 1 minute and walking for 30 seconds. Then, at one point, I ran completely around my block (inside my community the loop around is a between a half and three-quarters of a mile). This was amazing.

I started out on that lap thinking I'd run half way around then when I got to the halfway mark I thought, "I feel fine. I think I'll keep going". So I did. I had my heart-rate monitor on and checked to make sure I wasn't up too high then kept going. I made it about three-quarters of the way around and I could really feel it in my bones and my muscles and for some reason, I could really feel it in my hips (don't have any hip problems that I know of).

Then the most wonderful thing happened. I had the end of the block in sight. As soon as I make it to that specific spot, I'll stop running and walk for a bit. But I started to doubt whether I could make it because my legs and hips were throbbing by now. I was so out of breath. I looked at my heart rate monitor and it said 189! I don't think I've ever gone that high before. But I could see the end of the block! I wanted to finish the lap—completely.

I took a deep breathe, shook my head from side to side to loosen up my neck and shoulders and the most wonderful sound came over the iPod. I don't remember the track, but as soon as I breathed in, the most powerful and bone rattling drum started pounding. Boom Boom! Then some more percussion of wood blocks being beaten—tap, tap, tap! Then bongo-type drums—bam, bam, bam, bam!

It's like the music was leading me on. It's like it knew I needed to reach down deep to somehow pull off this victory. It was encouraging me to finish with vigor and verve. This music lifted my feet right off the ground and carried me right to the end of the block!

Was truly spiritual!

I made it to the end of the block, settled my pace into a fast walk and took a deep breath just as the drums subsided and went back to strings and horns.

What a run!

I so want to go again!

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