The Valiant Return of Yours Truly & The Weekly Weigh-In

A Disclaimer
Remember 7th grade English class when, on the first day, the teacher told you to pull out a piece of lined paper and pen and just start writing? It didn't matter what it was about; just write whatever popped into your head. This "stream of consciousness" exercise wasn't meant to churn out anything of great 7th grade literary significance, it was just to get your pen moving. I guess some great writers do this all the time. Whatever. I thought A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man was the most overrated piece of crap ever. I don't think I made it past page 10. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is, when I had to do this exercise, it usually went something like "um...I really think it's been a long day, I can't wait to go to soccer practice tonight, I like my new shoes..." And my point is that you can expect this blog entry to be very much like that. It's been so long that I've written on here, and there's SO much I want to write about, and I have no idea how I'm going to structer it all. Expect lots of rambling, run-on sentences and thoughts that might be good on their own, but are no way related to each other.

Whew. With that out of the way, let the rambling begin! I have my hookah, a very forgettable bottle of sauvignon blanc and a lot to get out there.

The Weekly Weigh-In
Welp, I skipped last week because I knew I wouldn't like what the little jerk-face scale would tell me. When I mustered up the courage this morning, I found it wasn't as bad as I thought. 140.0. I thought it would be much higher. That means that during the 10 day extravaganza that was Estrogenfest 2010, I only gained back 2.5 lbs. Now, I know that a month ago the scale told me 140 and I was freaking out because my initial weigh-in was 145 and that meant that I'd only lost 5 lbs in however many weeks and blah blah blah. I have a different perspective about 140 now. It's not that I'm happy with it - I'll be back on the proverbial horse tomorrow. I've got a running agenda to get back into, a freezer full of Lean Cuisines, and a competition to win (more on that in a bit).

But, here's why I'm ok with gaining 2.5 lbs in 10 days: Every single calorie consumed - and that means every mai tai, potato chip, bacon-wrapped, cream chesse filled jalepeno popper, glass of wine, cocktail, starch, carb, and sugar - was taken in with love and joy. It's one thing to have a 3rd glass of wine on a Tuesday night because I'm feeling sorry for myself or to eat french fries for dinner because cooking for one has gotten too depressing. It's another thing to be with a group of lovely ladies eating good food and drinking good wine and not running the next day because it's more important to get home, pick them up, and do it all again. In short, those 2.5 lbs were in every single way worth it.

Friendly Familial Competition
Right before The Ladies came swooping in, my lovely Grami Jane sent me a message on Facebook suggesting that, since 135 was our mutual ideal weight, we go ahead and see who can't get there first. At the time, I had whittled myself down to 137.5 and she confessed to be hanging out at 139. I haven't spoken with her since we discussed the terms of our little rivalry, but I think it's safe to say that I better get on the ball if I want to win.

Honestly, though, look at that lovely lady -

That's Grami in between her 2 favorite granddaughters at Little Brother's wedding in June. Isn't she perfect just the way she is?

*Side Note - this is about where the unmemorable wine just became too blagh for me to handle and I've switched to Malibu & Diet. Holly bought me a bottle that we were supposed to dip into while she was here in loving memory of our days in London. Unfortunately, we ran out of time while she was here. Fortunately, it's helping the "stream of consiousness" rambling that this entry is characterized by. Go Rum!

Running
Oh, right! THAT'S what this blog is all about. So, I guess I'll ramble about running a bit. Except that it's hard to do that when I haven't been running. Hardly at all. Here's how it's been on hiatus: I've run 10 miles every Sunday, hiked to Maunawili Falls once, and done the surfing thing every weekend. I'm really, REALLY hoping that this is one of those situations where I hit it this week and my body is like "YEAH!!! Go Ash! Thanks for the nice little break, I'm ready to do whatever you want me to!" Hey, it could happen right? Either I'm going to be amazing, or I'm going to hate the next week or two while my body gets back into it. I can say, however, that 10 miles anymore does NOT suck like it once did. In fact, I might almost be able to say that running 10 miles is no biggie (even hungover! ha!) And shoot, I still have 4 months and 12 days until this Marathon goes down, so I'm still waaaay ahead of the power curve. Now, there will come a day very soon when that whole "I have TONS of time" fallback will no longer work. But for now I can honestly say that I'm not worried about being unprepared come race day.

While we're on the topic, here's my tentative schedule for the week:

Monday - XTrain. Beautiful Tif brought me a copy of "Ab Ripper" one of those P90X things or something. My goal is to do that tomorrow morning before work to get back on the track to hard core, and then do some pansy cardio at the gym (pansy cardio includes stationary bikes, elipticals, stair steppers, and the like) in the afternoon.

Tuesday - Dun Dun DUUUUN! Dreaded Tuesday Track Day. 8x800, all faster than 3:30 with a 2 min. recovery, sandwiched by a mile warm up and cool down. Can she do it after 3 weeks off the track? Stay tuned...

Wednesday - Whatever comes my way. 6-8 easy miles most likely.

Thursday - Hill day. If there is a measure of fitness gained/lost it's this day. We'll see how it goes.

Friday - This used to be a complete rest day, but since Saturday a.m. surfing has usurped Saturday a.m. running, I need to fill Friday with some time of running so I don't have too many rest days. Maybe a nice little yog with the dogs after work and before my Friday night date with Don Draper and wine? ;) Any suggestions would be good.

Saturday - My new favorite reason to wake up at 5 a.m. on Saturday. Makes me wonder how I survived with my surfboard in storage in Utah for so long. Also makes me wonder if maybe Sally the Surfboard doesn't need a friend....hmmmm ;)

Sunday - 13.1 miles next week. I'm doing half. Go me. But I hear the first half of a marathon is the easy half...

Ok, well. I guess that's just enough rambling. The rum is telling me stop writing and go paint or something. I shall leave you with this, lovely blog followers. It's the official theme song of Estrogenfest 2010 and evidently has no music video but no matter. It's a darn catchy tune and conveniently comes on the radio out here once every 20 minutes.


(I also LOVE how this broad has thighs that make mine look skinny. You go girl. Own it)