OK, let’s just cut right to the chase: I have fallen off the wagon. But, it was not without good reason. I was stressed because of all the commitments that I had during the last three weeks. And then I went to a funeral for a 15-year-old boy who had committed suicide. At that point, nothing in my life seemed important enough for me to stress over, including my eating habits. Especially my eating habits.
So for the last two weeks, I haven’t logged, or tracked, or cared. Other than our Hawaiian vacation, this is the longest I’ve gone without tracking in almost 7 years. But I’ve come to realize that it’s okay. There are more important things in life.
With that said, I have slowly gotten back to having a desire to regain some control. I went back on the scale Monday, with expected results.
Without even getting on the scale, I knew things weren’t going well. My clothes were tight and I was feeling very lethargic and sluggish. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still running five days a week, but my mileage has been cut way down. And I’m slow. I’m also more than 10 pounds over my goal weight of 120.
It was a tough few weeks, but I’ve come to realize that it’s time to get back to good habits. It isn’t hard to see that my sadness and depression is only magnified when I don’t feel good about my health. So as of Tuesday, I’m back on the wagon, and I plan to stay that way.
Just a few days of being “in control“ does make me feel better. I couldn’t drag myself out of bed to run on Monday morning, because I’d had a very exhausting weekend, but on Tuesday, I forced myself out and ended up running 5 miles before work. That gave me a tremendous feeling of accomplishment and fueled me to make good choices for the rest of the day.
My life hasn’t been all depression and sadness these last few weeks. I had some really happy events, too. The first came a few weeks ago, when I was asked by our local paper to help them cover the district baseball and softball games for our region. The paper is small, and only has one photographer on staff, and the baseball and softball district games all fall on the same day. That meant they had about a dozen games they needed to cover, and just one photographer wasn’t going to cut it. So, they sent out a request a few weeks to local photographers they know who shoot for specific schools, and I was thrilled to be one of them. Even after I sent a quick reply and said that I would make myself available for whatever they needed, I didn’t really think they would use me. But to my surprise and delight, they assigned me to a full day’s worth of baseball and softball with the head sports editor! That meant I had to meet my girlfriends at 5:30 a.m. that Saturday morning to get our run in and still make the hour-long drive to the game location by 9:30 a.m., but that was OK by me. I spent the day walking back-and-forth between two fields, shooting six different baseball and softball games. It was challenging, exhausting, and I not only got a sunburn, I got hit with a softball! 😛 (It hurt like hell, but not nearly as bad as when I got hit with hockey puck in January. On the other hand, unlike the hockey puck, which never caused a bruise, the bruise on my shin from the softball is pretty spectacular, and still going strong, ha ha!)
It was worth all the pain and effort, however, when I woke up the next morning and discovered that I had not one, not two, but three pictures in two different papers!
Best of all, one of my photos made the top story on the front page of the sports section of our local paper. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but it made my day!
The second positive event that happened recently was just this past weekend. In addition to planning and hosting the lacrosse team party for JJ‘s youth lacrosse team that I managed all season, I also have been working extremely hard on our historical society’s first big community event. This past weekend, we put up a “booth“ at the local festival, and I spent three days there—five hours on Friday, and eight hours each Saturday and Sunday. We had dozens of objects and documents to display, and we also had a contest for kids. I have been planning this with my co-founder for weeks, and I’m happy to say that, despite the terrible rainy weather we had all weekend that resulted in low attendance at the festival, our booth was a success!
I had a great time interacting with community members about history, and I know I made a lot of people happy. By Sunday night, I was truly exhausted, but I was thrilled with the fact that we received eight memberships in our new historical society, with many more expected. Our kids’ contest was a success, too. The winner was a kid who brought us a picture of himself with a pump organ that has been in his family since the 1890s!
So now it’s time for me to get back on track after my two weeks off. I start marathon training on Monday (!), so now is a good time for me to refocus and make healthy choices to help fuel the many, many miles I will be running in the next 18 weeks. October will be here before I know it, I’m sure!
On a more serious note, for those who read my last post and said a few prayers, thank you. The family has a long road ahead of them to healing, and I know they will appreciate all the prayers they can get.
Thank you very much for reading my blog.
