What's in a number?

4.5


Would you like to take a guess at what that number is?

Pounds lost?

Nope.

Days left until the weekend?

Well, maybe, but nope.

Number of points I have left for the day?

Nope.

Would you believe the number of miles I ran this morning????!!!!

Ding, ding, ding, ding. That's right! You guessed it! Okay, with a little help from me, but what are friends for, right? :D

Can you believe that??!! Me, the one who a year ago was afraid she was going to die from jogging down the road just 30 feet. Me, who had panic attacks every time I took one step into a jog. Me, who has never beat any of the fears in her life. Me! That's right. Me! I ran FOUR AND A HALF MILES this morning!

Now, mind you, it wasn't the fastest 4.5 miles. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to do it. I think I might have walked faster. :)

I burned almost 800 calories, too!

It was time to get up this morning and hubby didn't want to go to the gym. I said, goodie (to myself, mind you)! I'll go running outside. So I decided to take a route that I haven't done, walking that is, in maybe a year. I actually had to really work myself up to this route when I first started walking. Probably took me 6 months of steady walking before I was up to this route. It's actually only 3.75 miles, but I walked around my neighborhood once for a warm up (3/8ths of a mile) and once for a cool down (3/8ths of a mile).

It's a beautiful route—lakes and trees, residential and business. Too bad it's dark while I was running. Especially this morning because it was overcast. It's a very busy route, though. Major roads the whole way. So I'm safe and out in the open. Plus, there are two different cop stations along the way, too.

My iPod pooped out on me 16 minutes into the run. Ugh! I'd just gotten to a good part in the story of This American Life and it just died. I'd charged it the night before. Who knows why the battery went dead. I actually had to unplug it from the computer this morning before I left to go run, so I know it was fully charged. But the silence was nice. I focused on me, the trees, the wind, and prayers for my family and friends. Was very nice.

I don't think I want to do that every morning. I mean, it didn't wear me out. I felt the same at the end of the 4.5 miles as I did at the beginning. Very comfortable pace. I just don't want to overtax my body. I want to take this slow. I want to build up my body to be able to go for the long run. So I think I'll stick to 3 miles, or less, for now and maybe do a 4.5 mile run once a week until I'm more conditioned.

Hubby and I have worked out a great system for the mornings we go to the gym. He only likes to stay for a half hour and I want to stay for an hour, so what we've decided to do (actually my idea) was to go to the gym for a half hour and then as we get home, I'll just take out into the neighborhood for another half hour so I can get an hour of running in each morning. Where there's a will there's a way!

I went walking tonight after dinner—my usual 30 minutes after dinner. It was trash night so the neighbors had their trash out on the curbs. I saw some very interesting things tonight. There was a CD rack at one house, a computer monitor at another house, a perfectly good grill (looked like a gas one) at another one, and at another house was a kitchen sink. :D Yes, I saw everything including the kitchen sink while walking tonight. LOL

I earned 12 activity points today. Wow!

I've added a blog ticker up and to the right. I set a goal of running 100 miles—no time limit. I started it week before last. I'm up to 20.75 miles so far. Almost a quart of the way to goal. So exciting!

My eating was pretty good today. I've taken on a whole new outlook on food lately, with the help of Karyn. She's really been a good inspiration for me to get my thoughts about food straight. I'm learning to think of food as something wonderful from God but not something that I crave because it has some warped hold over me. I'm learning to enjoy food without having it rule my life. It'll be a long journey, but I'm taking baby steps to make my way through the first part. I really have to be conscious about my feelings and emotions when I'm eating. And then realign it to the right place. I can enjoy food without craving it and with it controlling my every thought. I know I can. It's still hard, because it's all still so instinctive to crave and depend on food to make things better for me. But I'm working at it. I'll get it. I know I will.

P.S. Hey, did you notice? I moved my Healthy You Challenge badge back up to 90 pounds!!! I'm truly only 8/10ths of a pound away from 95 pounds gone. I'm getting close!!

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