Change of Scenery

This morning my husband's alarm didn't go off. By the time we woke up he didn't have enough time to get his run in before work. I still had time to get my walk in because I leave much later than he does. Even though he didn't have time to get his run in he did have a few extra minutes to sleep in. So you know I am not going to get out of a cozy bed with a husband in it - so, I didn't walk this morning. I debated getting up...I really did. But I ended up making a deal with myself that since it is unseasonably cool this week that I could sleep in a bit if I walked on my lunch hour at work.

I packed my walking shoes and clothes and headed off to work. About a 11 a.m. I decided to get walking before it got much warmer.  My office is just a block or so off a historic street. I drive down that street everyday to and from work. I was excited to walk down it so I could get a better look at some of the beautiful houses.

This one is for sale!!  Probably a little out of my price range :(

The local school district's offices are in this old house.

Apparently I have no concept of distance.  I thought for sure I would be close to three miles if I walked to the end and back.  But, the street wasn't as long as I thought.  There was a cemetery at the end, so I walked around it for awhile to get in another half mile.

I thought this was a pretty grand entrance to the family plot.

Not to be morbid, but I think cemeteries are fascinating. I love to look at the names. I can't help but imagine their life stories. There were graves from the 1800's. (There were also recent graves as the cemetery is still open for burials.) I saw a headstone for a boy I imagined died in WWI - right year, right age. I saw another headstone with 4 sides - each one had a name and birth/death years - two of the four had died under the age of 3. One had the name and 1900-1900 :( 

I didn't realize how big the cemetery was or that it was so hilly. My legs definitely got some extra burn going up and down the hills.

On the way back to my office I took a detour down a side street to get in more mileage.  I really didn't want to do less than 2.5 miles.  By the time I got back to the office I was at 2.9 so I made a turn and went another block or so to get in a full 3 miles.

With all my exploring and picture taking my pace wasn't anything special, but I was pleased to average about 17 minute miles. I am not sure I will have too many cool summer days, but this fall I will definitely put that route on my walking schedule. I nice brisk walk breaks up the work day nicely too.

Since my husband didn't do his morning run he wanted to run this evening. We went to one of the bike trails to avoid the neighborhood traffic. I rode my bike along with him. I can't believe how far he has come. He ran 5 miles - each under 10 minutes - last one in 8:13 - CRAZY!

Of course, I took lots of pictures. The sky was incredible with the fluffy white clouds on the perfect blue sky background. Thankfully, I did not run over my husband taking my crazy shots. I was a little scared for him in this first one.

Home for dinner. Tonight was chipotle pork and pineapple lettuce wraps. It is an adaptation of a pineapple pork taco I've made in the past.

Today was a much better day than yesterday. I appreciate all your kind words of encouragement.  I know we all fight the same feelings at times and I know you understand :)

Hanging with the Niece

I don't even know where to start so I am jumping in basically chronologically.  Our niece spent the night Friday night.  Our weekend started with watching her softball game.  We took Millie...she was mostly good. She just gets so excited when people come over to talk to her. 

When we got home we grilled a few hotdogs and veggies. My in-laws came over.  We had a nice visit hanging out on the deck eating our dinner. I had an idea that I think I need to do more - especially for potluck type get-togethers.  If you don't record your food immediately it is easy to forget some of the little things you had. I was hungry and didn't want to record my food before I ate so I took a picture.  Made it very convenient to record later.  I do like my hotdogs hotdogs in something, but 2 buns at 90 calories each is significant. I found I can have them in a yummy corn tortilla for about half the calories. 

Dinner was good - sometimes a grilled hotdog just really hits the spot. My mother-in-law brought brownies and I couldn't resist having one. She also brought me a very small piece of the blueberry-apricot pie she had made..and I ate that too. So for the first time, according to MyFitnessPal, I went over my daily calories. 83 calories over - oops!

It wouldn't have been a big deal if I had not skipped my morning walk too. I stayed home and cleaned house like a madwoman because we were having company. So that didn't work out for me so well dietwise, but at least the house wasn't a pit :) There is quite a bit of give and take in this process. 

Saturday morning we all got up early and headed out to the levee.  My husband ran his usual 5 miles while my niece and I rode our bikes. We ended up going a little more than 6 miles - by no means a blistering pace but we had tons of fun while getting decent exercise. 

We park by the base of the bridge. I am not sure what is going on with the steep hill sign. Maybe it is to warn people to slow down because the path crosses a road at this point.

As always I love the scenery along the river. This barge is moving over to head into the lock. The last time I saw one going through the lock it was being pushed through this time the barge was going the opposite direction and was being tugged.  

We saw 6 or 7 herons along the river today, including a couple Great Blue Herons. I love watching them.  The one on the right below was fishing - darting his head in and out of the water. 

The river is quite a bit higher than normal right now. Below you can see where it has come over the bike path - thankfully it had receded before our ride. 

However, it has not completely receded yet. Not sure what a water main is doing out here in the middle of nowhere, but it certainly isn't useful at the moment. 

We made it to the turn around spot and headed back to the start. 

My 12 year old niece would like to point out that her shoes are bigger than mine.  She is on the verge of being taller than me too. I am destined to be the family shorty!

After our workout we went to breakfast. That was our planned splurge for the weekend. We planned for it to be within our calories. The calories were higher than we expected - at least as we guesstimated since you can't know for sure at local eateries. I think it might have gotten us off on the wrong foot for eating today. We have been struggling ever since. 

After breakfast my niece and I did a little exploring we found this cool grill.  Yes it is a bull made of metal with a grill in it's back. How cool is that?

The smoke comes out his nose.  The fact we already have a grill kept me from buying it. Well mostly it was the $650 price tag that kept me from buying it. 

When we got back home this happened.

My poor pizza loving husband has been seriously craving pizza, so since we had someone to help us eat it we got one. It probably wasn't the best day to do it after eating out for breakfast. It has been a tough weekend in the food department. I am still in my calorie range...if I have water for dinner. Just kidding. I am actually not very hungry so I think I am going to have a little banana/blueberry smoothie and call it for the day. I can do that and still be in calories. 

So far the weekend has had some ups and downs. Tomorrow is a new day and I know we will be fine. I will be burning up the pavement in the morning and making healthy home cooked yumminess : 

Return of the Morning Workouts

I can not tell you how happy I was to be looking over these handlebars this morning. Although looking at the picture now makes me a little dizzy.

It felt so good to be getting a morning workout with the cool air blowing over me as I zipped through the neighborhood.  Okay, not exactly zipped...I rode just over three miles in about 25 minutes. A little pokey, but I will take it. I originally planned to ride four miles, but my tender hiney said no. I need to work on those buns of steel :)

My knee feels pretty good before and after the ride. There is a tiny twinge that I think might be from favoring it and using the brace. The brace is staying home today. I do hate wearing it because it just doesn't seem to fit my chubby little leg that comfortably.

Pretty purple bush...I missed you!  I might need one of these for my yard. Does anyone know what it is?

On the bike again this evening. Quick half mile ride to my sister's house to take a dip in the pool before dinner. I didn't wear the brace to work today.  My knee feels good...not feeling any sort of pain.  Tomorrow there will be walking :)

Walking Hard

Do you think we are wearing our poor Millie pup out? 

Three days until our 10K.  Today I decided to do a different loop - same neighborhood just different scenery. That part of the neighborhood has more in elevation changes. Not big hills but definitely enough to notice. Today I wanted to do 3 miles and go hard. My goal was to be as close to 15 min./mile as possible. Here are the results:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	47:22.4	3.08	15:24
1	15:18.7	1.00	15:19
2	15:08.6	1.00	15:09
3	15:14.1	1.00	15:14
4	1:41.0	0.08	22:20

I am pretty happy with that!!  I confess I was wiped out afterwards. A big ol' sweaty mess. I also felt a bit of nausea afterwards - maybe I got too warm. It didn't last long :)

I wish the race started earlier so it would be cooler. It starts at 8 a.m. so by the time I finish it will probably be getting pretty warm. I don't do as well with the heat, so I am sure I will always do my main exercise in the morning. That works out well too because there aren't too many demands on your time at 5 a.m.

This evening we decided to ride our bikes around the neighborhood. We took turns leading the way. I have no idea how far we rode, but I was begging to go home. My hiney was killing me!!  I hope someday I will be able to keep up with my husband better. He was literally riding circles around me.

Check out Statue of Liberty Midwest!

Success - taking pics without wrecking!

Making Progress

Look at him go! Had so much fun he came back up and did it again.

Okay, drum roll...3.2 pounds.  I have slightly recovered before starting to write. I confess I am initially disappointed.  I know, I know...I should be happy for every loss.  And I know in a few weeks I will be thrilled by a 3 pound loss.  I just thought here at the beginning I would have bigger losses...like my husband.  He lost 7.2 this week!!  We both have worked really hard. Why does it seem to fall off men faster?? 

I am so glad we have that 10K race scheduled.  I am extra motivated to do well before the race and hopefully by race day habits will be taking root. 

Last night I ended up walking 2-3 miles with a friend so I decided to take this morning off.  The last couple of days I have felt a bit worn out so I think a break could be good. I am sure we will end up doing something active tonight...maybe a bike ride.  And I will be back to my morning walking schedule tomorrow morning.  My husband has to work early so I will be on my own.  I think I will try a new route and get in at least 3 miles.

As you may have guessed from the pictures we made it back to the prairie trails again tonight. We waited until about 7:30 p.m. for it to be cooler, but it sure was buggy out there.  At one point I got bit on the shoulder blade and I couldn't reach it.  My husband had gotten a bit ahead of me and I could not pedal fast enough to get to him for a back scratch. Next time we have to remember the bug spray!!

A "before" picture if I ever saw one :)

Before we started riding on the trails I challenged my husband to a biking dual.  There is a loop around the soccer fields that I think it about a half mile. I rode it first and then his challenge was to beat my time. I pedaled my heart out....for 4:21.  Then my husband cruises in at 3:07 - okay he pedaled hard too but I didn't realize he was going to beat me by so much.  My original plan was to ride again and try to beat my first time. I changed my mind though because I wanted to save some energy for the trails...maybe next time.

Just made plans for a good friend to join us on our long Sunday walk.  She has lost an incredible 87 pounds.  I hope she will let me tell her story on this blog.  She has been so inspirational to me!

Biking on the Prairie

Okay, I am not kicking myself about this like I did last week.  But this morning I did not get up to go walking. I just wanted to stay in bed a little longer.  Last week I think it ruined my day because we had only been counting calories for a couple days and I was questioning my will to do this thing.  Today I just realized I needed a little rest.

I don't want to feel like I have to workout everyday.  While in the losing phase of this journey I think I will push myself harder.  Then when I get to a maintenance phase I would like to follow the 3-5 times a week activity recommendations.  Hopefully, by then, the activity will just be fun things we have discovered that we like to do.

Unloading the bikes.  I love our bike rack...so easy to use.

Speaking of fun!  We had a great time tonight.  Since I didn't go walking this morning I wanted to do something active this evening.  We settled on riding our bikes and then debated on where to ride them...neighborhood, levee, bike trail.

Then while I was on the phone with my mother-in-law she mentioned that she was going to one of our local parks to mulch a flower bed that had been recently planted.  We offered to meet her there to help her.  We planned to get there a half an hour before her so we could ride our bikes for awhile first.  When we arrived as planned, she was already there so we mulched.  My job was to fill the buckets with mulch for the two of them to spread around the plants. It felt good to work my upper body a little.  And it felt very good to be helpful.  Many hands make light work. She was very appreciative :)

Next to the park is a prairie restoration project.  Volunteers have planted native prairie plants over several acres.  It is a beautiful place to visit.  I like to go several times throughout the season to see all the changes in the prairie.  I have spent hours there photographing the flowers and foliage. At this time the prairie plants are about a foot tall, but by summer's end many of the plants will be 4-6 feet tall. There are mowed trails  through the prairie for people to walk through and enjoy the scenery.  They hold tours and even offer golf cart rides through it for disabled people.  Such a neat project!

Off I go! No, that is not my underwear...there is a white stripe at the top of the pants.

Okay, back to the bikes.  After mulching we decided to try riding our bikes through the prairie trails.  It was so much fun. There were small hills and lots of curves.  One tight curve almost took me down!  I squealed but managed to stay upright.  My husband was like a kid...huge grin!  He is loving his new bike. I can't wait to go back.  I couldn't take my camera out on the trail because I didn't have a pocket. I guarantee I will take pockets and my phone next time. We took these pictures near the entrance with the cell phone and then left it in the car.   

We both had a great time! It was definitely a physical challenge, but we had too much fun to notice. I know we will be back soon.