Woohoo it's Friday!

Quick update before I fly out the door to a much needed weekend...

Thursday night was a 55 minute walk at a very brisk pace. It's weird, that one was hard too. I was so happy that it wasn't my running night. I hope I get over whatever this is and get back to a place where it's not quite so hard to keep going. We did do 5 laps around the little loop with the biggest hill last night. The first 3 were torture, but it did get better on the last 2. I just kept repeating, "I will not quit. I will not quit." whenever my legs were burning and tired. Near the end I came up with a new mantra that, when repeated fast, matches my pace when walking. I kept repeating it in my mind to try to disassociate my mind from my body, "Faster, farther. Stronger, lighter." I kind of like that one.

On other news, I haven't gone to get my bike yet. I think I will this weekend. It's just been to hectic to try to fit in an hour of exercise and dealing with that. Plus I've been so sweaty I didn't want to gross out the salesperson if they had to get anywhere near me to adjust the bike. :)

Oh, one other thing. The other day I went to buy myself some new workout clothes because I just didn't have enough things to not have to do laundry in the middle of the week. Anyway, I went to Academy and was looking at the Nike DriFit pants (I have to wear pants b/c my legs are still to chubby to run in shorts) which were $50 bucks (ouch!). I pulled out a pair of XL because that's what I always wear, unless it's XXL, and they looked huge. You know how workout pants always look like they're way too small? Well I was actually worried these wouldn't stay up when I ran. So I looked for a L to compare. They didn't have any, so I started digging through the sale racks to see if I could find something else. I did eventually stumble across 2 pairs of Nike DriFit pants in size L - on sale for 19.98! I then found 3 of the DriFit tanks in XL (they looked small) marked down to 9.98. I decided to buy them figuring that anything that was too small would fit me later. When I got to the checkout, she started pushing all these buttons after every scan and then looked at me and said "32.15 please". Huh? Miracle of miracles, they were an additional 50% off!!!! I ended up with about $180 worth of Nike DriFit for $32.15 including sales tax. Oh happy day!

So I had worn the pants already. How excited am I to be in Large pants? I had not worn the tanks because they were really form fitting to say the least. Last night I got brave and decided, screw it. If anybody doesn't like what they see they don't have to look. (yes, that was ME that said that - who am I lately?) I decided I would just take a T-shirt in case I needed to go in a store or something on the way back. After putting on my gear, I braced myself to look in the mirror and see how bad it looked...I was freaking shocked! I squealed out loud. DH called down the hall to see if I was ok. I ran out into the living room yelling, "Look! Look! Look at me!" He dropped his jaw. "Look at you! Where did you go?" he said as he headed over for a tactile inspection of my shrunken midsection. It was such a surreal experience. I could not stop feeling my middle. I looked SO much smaller. I didn't even look that fat any more. If I sucked in as much as possible, I almost looked svelte! How freaking cool is that? So, I went proudly out to the park in my skin tight Nike tank and busted my buns for the next 55 minutes. That did boost my resolve to keep going I tell you.

So, I gotta run now. DH is waiting for me to get home. Tonight is 10 2min/1min run/walk intervals. It's unusually cool and breezy today, so I'm hoping that helps make it a good experience. I don't want a repeat of Wednesday. Either way I WILL DO IT. How can I stop now?

One more thing - Thanks so much to all of you who have stopped by to say hello and to offer support. That means so much to me. I think of that when I want to quit. I think how I want to come back here and post the good news rather than some excuses. I think how I want to run races like my blogging heroes do. Thanks again.

Everyone have a great weekend! Wish me luck running tonight and Saturday.