NO WIND!!!!

I just got back from a little jog on the OC&E Trail.

We stayed up late last night...at least late for old people. Three of our kids are here...Doug (home from Boise State for Spring Break), Donald (living with us to save money while going to school at OIT), and Jeff (living in Seattle...visiting for his birthday so Janet could make him coffee cake). Jeff came with his wife and two kids, and Janet and I watched two of our wonderful grandkids while the adults went to my mother-in-law's house to play Wi. Long story short, I fell asleep in my recliner while Janet entertained Ellouise. About 11 pm I staggered up to bed, but I have no idea when Janet came to bed. At any rate, we slept in this morning...I finally got up and fed the horses about 7:30.

I've found that the best way to go for a run is to not think about it....just put on my running stuff and go. So that's what I did. I thought for a couple of minutes about why I shouldn't go...it's Sunday and I should be watching our Church's Semi-Annual General Conference (lds.org in case you're interested), I shouldn't actually be running on Sunday, I went 4 miles yesterday and need a rest day, it's cold, Janet wasn't running today, I'm old, I'm still fat (even though I've lost over 30 pounds since Feb. 1st), my knees hurt, my feet hurt, it snowed last night and I could slip on the ice, Micah True (ultra runner in Born to Run) died while running and since I'm almost as old as he was the same thing could easily happen to me, I just got out of the shower and would have to take another one when I got home, my kids are here visiting and I should be spending time with them...but even though ALL were legitimate excuses, none of them were good enough to compensate for the reason I wanted to go...I pigged out yesterday and put on a few pounds.

As I mentioned in my excuses, I'm fat. In January I had gotten up to 210 pounds, so I decided it was WAY past time to lose weight. One of my co-workers had lost a bunch of weight doing a diet called Plan Z by Zola, and I was offered the chance to try the diet myself and do on-air testimonials. I started the program on February 1st by doing a two day eating binge...and February 3rd began the dieting portion of the plan. I got to 176.2 on March 26th...pretty amazing.

Yesterday I completely blew off the diet. Jeff came down so my wife would make him coffee cake, which is absolutely amazing. During this diet I've passed on milkshakes (Donald gets Janet to make them 2 to 3 times per week), home made bread, popovers, carameled popcorn, scones, pizza, and a host of other foods that I love to eat. Yesterday I said "screw this...I'm going to eat." So that's exactly what I did. I was living on 800 calories or less per day, and I'm now supposed to up to 2000 calories...yesterday I pounded down well over 3000 calories, and the vast majority of them were sugar based. I had 3/4 of a coffee cake, Tang, milk, and a bunch of other stuff that's definitely not on my approved list of foods. Today I'm paying for it. I put on weight that I shouldn't have put on, but while I was feasting on my 3rd piece of coffee cake I really didn't care...it was worth it.

The wind has been blowing hard for well over two weeks. We've had snow, rain, snow and rain, rain and snow, rain and wind, wind and rain, rain wind and snow, snow wind and rain, wind and wind, more wind, no sun and wind, wind, strong wind, hurricane force wind, and yesterday more wind. Get the picture? The weather definitely hasn't been running friendly for quite some time. So today when I woke up (late) and didn't hear the wind whistling through the spruce trees in our yard, without even looking outside I knew I needed to run. It was 29 degrees, we had a skiff of new snow (the 3 inches we got yesterday melted), but most importantly, the wind was under 10 mph.

Back to my run. The run was great. I drove out to the OC&E Trail, and there was only one other car in the parking lot. I decided I'd go for 5 miles, so I headed into the wind with the intent of doing a 2 1/2 mile out and back...and that's what I was able to do. I'm not running fast by any means, but I did the entire 5 miles without any walking. I felt good after the first 1/2 mile, and even fleetingly considered going 6. The run was a success. I haven't weighed myself since I got back, but I'm pretty sure that I lost a couple of the extra pounds that I put on with yesterday's eating binge. It was worth it.