The Weekly Weigh-In

Easy Come, Easy Go (Sort Of)
Greetings and happy monday evening to you, beautiful blog-followers! I apologize for being a day tardy with my weekly weigh-in from last week. Please trust that it was for a good cause that will be revealed later ;) At any rate, I usually try to bury this part of the post somewhere in the middle so that it will hopefully be skimmed over and no one will really pay attention to how much weight I'm losing. Or gaining. Or losing. Or gaining...you get the picture. So, without further ado, here it is front and center:

137.2

If you recall, that's almost exactly where I was before Estrogenfest 2010 kicked off. So, I put on 2.5 lbs in 10 days and took it off in just about the same amount of time. Not too bad, eh? I'm back at it, Grami is still closer to the coveted 135 mark than I am, but I'm closing the gap, and I still have no regrets about the calories consumed and the pounds gained during that glorious time. Check out some of the physical activity that did get accomplished while the ladies were here:

Estrogenfest 2010

Holly & I danced around the house. Drunk dancing counts as exercise, right?


We hiked up to Maunawili Falls in the mud....


We jumped off the falls (thats Katie on the left and me on the right)


And of course, we surfed! (Now THAT is a workout!)


And here's a little tip for all of you out there: if you're ever going to have an Estrogenfest of your own, or go on vacation, or are just hanging out, I HIGHLY recommend making sure you have a professional photographer in the group. Tiffany was ours. She is absolutely fabulous and very good at what she does. Go check out her website here to see more of her gorgeous work (all the above photos were taken by the lovely Tif). The memories she captured are priceless! We were all so glad she was here to document the adventures for us.

13.1
On a completely different note, let's talk about 13.1 miles. That's a half marathon, and it's also how far I ran yesterday. It was a real learning experience for sure. I honestly felt worse after I was done running. How strange, right? But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start with this:


That's the loot I bought in preparation for this endeavor. Basically, what you're looking at is my hip new runner's fanny pack, various gels and energy jelly beans, new socks, and an anti-chub rub stick.

I may highlight each of these products later, but for now I just don't feel like it and this post is already getting lengthy ;) The reason for all of this fanfare is because I knew that, eventually, I'd have to start taking in water and calories durning my longer runs. My first 1/2 seemed like a good time to start. So I had my little belt filled with water and a packet of Jelly Bellies (with caffeine!) and my new (microfiber!) socks and my feet and thighs had a thick layer of "BodyGlide" glopped on 'em. (Funny inside joke: whenever I look at my stick of "BodyGlide", all I can think of is AstroGlide and a certain HILARIOUS Christmas gift in Billy's stocking for his first Christmas at the Eppens house. Thanks, Dad!) And I made it through 13.1 miles with about the amount of pain that I anticipated.

More Than An Afterthought
The BIG trouble came later. I felt absolutely nauseated, pukey, and gross. Evidently, this is not uncommon amongst us runners. There's a lot of physiology involved: something about peptide and supressed acylated ghrelin. Basically, I was most likely under-nourished for my trek. I guess my pre-run banana and packet of beans was not enough while running that far. Good to know.

But, several positive notes: NO BLISTERS!!!!! Hazzah! Evidently, the key is to avoid cotton socks. Too many fibers cause fricktion. Get synthetic socks. Go figure. The "BodyGlide" (snicker snicker) helped too, I'm sure. I finished 1/2 a marathon with no chafing on my feet or anywhere else. Brilliant. But mostly, I know that I was mentally and physically prepared for this run, and that made it a good one. I'm proud of that run.

But...
When I was finished the only thing I could think was "Holy CRAP!!! I'm going to have go TWICE that far?!" Lord help me, I'm going to need it...

Want one last EstroFest pic just for funsies before I sign off for the evening? Me too! Enjoy! See if you can tell which one is me ;)