In pain and out of control

After Wednesday's super positive post I sort of lost it. Yesterday was a rough day for me. I woke up with a sore back. I didn't think to much of it, I figured I just slept weird. We got ready for the day and it still hurt so I took a pain pill and little lady and I met a friend downtown to look at ArtPrize again. We walked around for a bit, had lunch and came home. That was when it all went down hill. I sat down at the computer with a heating pad and realized how bad my back was hurting. I did some of my chores for the day and couldn't even finish some of them. I had planned on running two miles yesterday, but  I realized that I should probably take it easy. Even sitting was starting to hurt my back. I decided to lay down on the couch with my heating pad. I don't know what part of brain couldn't handle laying down on the couch without snacking, but it won. I overindulged for a bit until thankfully little lady woke up earlier than usual from her nap. I don't like to mindlessly eat in front of her so I had to put away all the food. It took all of my strength to carry her downstairs though. I ended up laying on the couch with the heating pad all night. The hubby took care of little lady (and the dishes!) while I laid there. It was nice, but I am sure didn't help my weight.

I am not sure what happened to my back. It is still sore today, but a little better than yesterday. I am guessing my workouts maybe did something to my back. When I was running my 4 miles on Saturday I remember really trying to pay attention to my body. I pretty much always want to stop running while I am running so I have to ask myself why I want to stop. As I was nearing the end of my 4 miles I remember thinking that my legs felt fine running and so did my breathing, but towards the very end my back was getting sore. It didn't hurt very much while running, but it was the only place hurting at all while running. I also took a pain pill before heading out on Saturday night because I just felt sore after my running. Then, on Wednesday I took a walk with a new friend. We sort of got distracted talking and probably walked for over an hour before we realized we should turn and start heading back. I am guessing we walked over 6 miles. I am thinking the increase in mileage is affecting my back. I went out this morning with little lady, but am skipping the 2 mile run this week. I am supposed to do 4 miles tomorrow. If my back doesn't feel good, I am not doing it. I will hold off and hopefully by Monday feel better and get 4 miles in then. 

I was supposed to weigh in today. I was having a really weird dream this morning, the kind where you are hearing something in real life but you just make it part of the dream. Little lady had woken up but I just decided to incorporate baby talking into my dream. When I realized that she was up I sort of jumped up frantically and ran to her. I didn't think to weigh myself when we came back down and once I drank some water I refused to step on the scale. :) Yesterday morning I saw 171.9 but I am sure yesterday's eating put some weight back on so I probably wouldn't have posted today's weight anyways.


I am heading to my mom's tomorrow morning. I will weigh myself before I leave, but I may not post again until Monday. Here are the few pictures I took from ArtPrize.

Little lady liked the penguins in the fountain in front of the Ford museum.

I liked these sculptures on the walking bridge.

For those of you not near Grand Rapids, Art Prize is pretty sweet. The city hosts this crazy art competition and there is tons of art throughout the city. In buildings, parking lots, even the river. It is fun to check it out, but this year it seems extra crowded. I am only planning on heading back there once more this year. My mom really wants to see it so she will be here next weekend to check it out.

New name, new attitude

Today I changed the name of this here blog. I haven't really shared it so it doesn't really matter to much, but I wasn't excited about the name I was using. The blog was titled, "starting over in 3, 2, 1..." I thought it would be good because I know that when I get off track I have to remember that each day is a new day to start over. As long as when you make mistakes you let them go and start over you can achieve good things. However, I realize that I really want to stay on track and not restart over and over. Although if I do fall off track I hope I "start over" immediately.

Anyways, I was thinking about it today because I am finally feeling ready to possibly let people read my journey and was having doubts about the name. In case I really get into blogging I wanted something that could work for awhile. I am hoping that I will continue to stay active. I have really gotten into running and bike rides this summer. I love the feeling of going further and further and picturing the miles that I have covered. I know that even if I don't run or bike I can get those miles in with walking so my goal is to cover as many miles as it takes to get me to a healthy weight and STAY there!

I also enjoy a good word play so I liked "Miles for Seconds." It is nice to know that when I am active I can eat a bit more so if I really want seconds of something usually there is some wiggle room to make that happen. I also feel like since becoming more active, I have gotten a second chance at life, which is huge. I am getting a chance to be around even longer for little lady and be a positive role model.

So there you have it. You may not have needed it, but now you have it.

Fears

So having been down this weight loss road before I keep having the same thought run through my head over and over, "When am I going to give up on myself again?" I think about it all the time. I am so afraid that I will just stop eating well and running and inevitably gain all the weight back again. I am constantly reminding myself that this time around is like nothing I have ever done before. Here is why: (Who doesn't love lists about me?)

• I took up running before even trying to change much about my eating habits.
• I have managed to make myself run about 3 times per week for almost 6 months now. They say creating a new habit takes 21 days, so it is a solid habit by now. I hope.
• I have made truly livable changes to my eating habits. 
• I honestly don't believe that I am dieting. I know everyone always says all the crazy stuff about it's not a diet, it's a life change. I have always known that, but never really understood and I honestly didn't put it into practice. The only other time I have lost substantial weight I ate really light meals and snacked on diet snacks. I think I thought I could honestly eat light meals and crappy snacks forever. This time I some how found myself eating real meals and in turn not really wanting snacks. When I do snack I am fine with yogurt or tea. I do have an occasional unhealthy snack, but I am fine with one serving, otherwise that snack is taken out of our house. 
• I am loving the challenge of running and the thought of increasing miles and potentially running a marathon one day. I have never thought I would run, but I enjoy it some times and love that I can challenge myself each time.
• When I have a relapse into old me, I can jump right back into healthy living. There have been so many times previous to this that we would go away for the weekend and I would just let myself eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to. Then I would not be able to get back into "dieting" again when we got home or even worse I would realize we were going away the following weekend too 'so why even try now.' This summer we traveled/had family visit us every. single. weekend. from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I usually at least tried to keep 2 meals lighter and sometimes usually went overboard on one meal. I ran on most of the weekends as well. When we came home I would easily jump right back into my healthy lifestyle. I remember one portion of the summer we went camping for a long weekend and had maybe 2 days before we left again. Even though I had not eaten very wisely while camping I still ate well for the 2 days at home. I know that before this I would have used those 2 days to eat everything and just try to get back into "dieting" after the next trip. In those 2 days I felt changed.

The one thing though that has been worrying me is that it's getting colder here. I live in Michigan and winters can be rough here. I keep telling myself that I will run until it snows and then figure out what I can do. Well, something good may have just fallen into our laps. Yesterday the hubby's brother asked him if he wanted his old treadmill. Hubby's brother always has really nice things and takes really good care of his things so it's probably a decent one and definitely well treated. The hubby said he would take it so this weekend we are most likely getting a treadmill! I am so excited.

Even just with the weather cooling down to the 60s this week, running has gotten harder. I am fine running in 60* weather, but the mornings are way to cold to make little lady run with me. By the time it heats up outside, it is little lady's nap time and when she wakes up it's almost time to make dinner. Today I was going to get my 3 miles in right before her nap, but our errands took longer than expected so by the time we got home there wasn't enough time to run. Thankfully the hubs said he would watch her this evening while I run.

I am fine with running later in the day when hubby is home with little lady, but once it's winter it starts to get dark around 5pm and just don't feel safe running in the dark. I was starting to stress about what I would do for running in the winter and am hopeful this treadmill will work out for us.

Weekend Happenings

I love fall! Although, I also hate being cold so I love fall activities and the first week that it's cooler and then I am miserable. It has been so nice having a few relaxing weekends and we took advantage of this weekend. After my amazing 4 mile run on Saturday I met up with my MOMS club for ArtPrize, dinner and drinks in Grand Rapids. It was so much fun to get away and feel like more than just a mom for a night. (I love being a mom, but an evening off was much appreciated.) I didn't get home until almost 1am! That is way past my usual bedtime.

Sunday morning the hubby and I were both feeling a bit tired, but managed to finally get ourselves ready for the day and headed to a local farm by 10am. I had purchased a Groupon for two tickets to a corn maze, two bags of popcorn and two pints of raspberries (all for $10!). We got to the farm and it had started to drizzle. We decided to stick around to see how the weather turned out. It drizzled off and on but was actually a really nice day out. We first got our popcorn and then boarded a tractor that toured the farm and dropped you off at the maze and berry picking area.

Little lady's first tractor ride. She also stole my popcorn and did not want to share with mommy.

We decided to walk through the corn maze first. The hubby and I can bicker a lot (we both tend to think we are right and can't hear the others ideas, oops) but we did really good in the corn maze and actually had a blast. I thought we might butt heads through the corn maze but we laughed and wondered together. Little lady mostly just enjoyed the ride and ate popcorn.

Hubby and little lady getting ready for the adventure.

This bridge was just before the half way point.

After the maze we headed over to pick some raspberries. I love raspberries! We were trying to think up things we could make with all of our raspberries and then just decided they are so delicious, we will just eat them by the handful.

Little lady picking some berries.

What? I swear I am not eating the berries!

 After we picked our berries we boarded the tractor to take us back to the front of the farm. They have a few animals that the kids can pet, a big slide, bikes, and a corn crib. It was close to nap time, but little lady's cute little eyes bought her a few minutes with the animals.

Daddy showing little lady the petting farm.

We got home just in time for lunch and naps. We woke up and our friends came over for dinner. The husband and I wanted to have them over to try our homemade pierogies. They were more than willing to help us judge. :) The hubby made another beer can chicken to serve with the pierogies. We had a delicious dinner and good company to end the weekend.

On the fitness side of things, Sunday is supposed to be stretch and strengthening day. I sort of forgot about it though in all the fun of the day, but decided to just count the corn maze/farm walking as 35 minutes of cross training and swap some days around. I will be doing strengthening today. I also had some mud on my new favorite pair of old jeans that I have been wearing so today when I had to get dressed I pulled out my stack of jeans that don't fit and ALL but 1 pair of them button! They do not all look good yet though :) I am actually wearing a size 12 pair from Old Navy (I know, I know. I just talked about jeans.), but these aren't any Old Navy jeans. When I was at my lowest weight I rotated between two pairs of jeans. The jeans I wore to my bachelorette party that I can't wait to fit into and my size 12 Old Navy jeans. I can't believe I could wear the 12's in public today! I am so close to being able to wear my old favorite pair of jeans again!

I did it

I just came back from my 4 mile run! I ran the whole 4 miles without stopping and finished in 46:42. I am so happy and proud right now. I started my walk down to the trail and my hip and knee were feeling odd. I almost told myself to just turn around and try again another day. I knew that I would have felt unaccomplished for the day if I turned around before even running so I couldn't let that happen. I started running after a few more warm up minutes and didn't notice any pain while running. I had told myself I had to do the first 2 miles without stopping and then if I needed to stop after I turned to head back I could walk then. I hit 2 miles in and just as I was turning I could see another runner that would be following behind me now. I felt dumb for turning there, but had to keep going. I kept thinking they were gaining on me and would pass soon. Well, that never happened. I kept running and as I turned off the trail onto the road to my house I looked back and they were still there not to far behind me. So thankful random runner for helping me to accomplish my goal!

It's the small things

Last night was a huge small step for me (if that makes any sense). The hubby had decided early on in the day that he wanted pizza for dinner. I have been planning out meals and cooking dinner for us consistently for about 6 months now. Occasionally he asks to go out to eat but I have usually already started dinner. He must have caught on because by 10am he had already told me he really wanted pizza for dinner and that he would handle dinner. I don't think he was trying to sabotage my diet, I genuinely think he was trying to be nice and give me a day off of dinner planning and clean up. I decided to embrace it, but in a healthy way.

Old me would have decided right then and there that the day didn't "count" diet wise so bring on the food! I would have spent all day eating anything and everything I could get my hands on. Instead, since I hadn't even eaten breakfast by the time he decided on dinner, I did something completely out of the ordinary for old me. I decided to eat light meals all day. New me immediately went to Sparkpeople and looked up info for Jet's pizza. It seemed to be around 300 calories per slice. I counted two slices for the day and worked with the remaining calories. I had a light breakfast and lunch and decided to eat a salad just before the hubby came home with the delicious pizza. I was feeling pretty hungry and have learned that if I let myself get that hungry I can not control my eating. The pizza looked amazing and I decided to see if I could just eat one slice.

BBQ chicken pizza from Jet's site

Look at that deliciousness! I think it was more than 300 calories. I ate one slice and couldn't stop thinking about that pizza. I took the second and made myself walk away. Thankfully hubby has been encouraging me to get back into my crafting. Last night he was being incredibly thoughtful and offered me some time to work on crafts while he was with little lady. I jumped on that offer since it got me out of the room that the pizza was in and crafting is fun. I made myself a cup of tea and worked on crocheting the blanket for little lady that I have been working on for almost a year. I crocheted for almost 2 hours until hubby got me to put little lady to bed. It was so relaxing!

Hubby wanted to watch a movie together once little lady was in bed so I crocheted and watched a movie. I needed my hands and mind to stay busy and off of that pizza. It worked! I went to bed having eaten two slices of pizza and feeling proud! The scale is back where it should be after the jump from anniversary night. Woohoo! There is even leftover pizza in the fridge that I am resisting. Hubby is planning on eating it for lunch so I have to keep reminding myself not to take food from him or the baby.

I have a 4 mile run on the schedule today. I am excited but sort of dreading it. It is getting cold out and the cold makes me just want to curl up on the couch with a blanket. I will get that run in today though don't you worry.

Friday Figures

So here it is, one week later on my weight loss challenge. I am surprised by the scale yet again, but this time in a more positive way. I will admit that it is not my weight from this morning, but my weight from yesterday morning. I knew that I would be drinking and possibly overeating on our anniversary which would cause I much higher number than would be accurate. My weight just fluctuates really easily and I know today's weight would not be accurate. So here is Thursday morning:

173.1 which is a 3.3 pound loss! I did not eat that great this week, but it made me realize something. I think that when I focus and think I am doing great maybe I am not eating enough. I use Sparkpeople and I think I can eat roughly 1200-1550 calories a day. I usually aim for the low end but maybe I should be aiming for the higher end. This week I am going to really try to count everything I eat but aim for the high end of the calories. This 173 number is the number I have been stuck at forever. My goal was to weigh 170 for my second 5k on August 18. I believe I weighed around 173 then. I was close, but didn't make it. Then I have been stuck with the lowest weight I have seen on this weight loss journey at 172.9. I can't wait to see the 160s. I have been feeling that way all summer, but I think October will me my month. I have extra motivation now.

To continue to motivate myself on the weight loss front I found a weight loss competition and am going to enter. There are prizes and I love the idea of a prize so maybe that will kick me into gear. Here's to being a loser again next week.

4 years!

4 years ago we said, "I do" and I think we still do! The hubby and I have accomplished so much during our 4 married years together and I am so happy to have him in my life every day.

Over the past 4 years we have managed to:

• Take a honeymoon to Europe starting in Edinburgh, Scotland then taking the train down to Liverpool, England and then to London for a few days before taking a 2 week cruise through the Mediterranean.
• buy a beautiful house that will hold our family.
• plant a huge garden every year in our yard of our house.
• learn how to open, close and care for our pool.
• bring a beautiful baby girl into the world.
• go on a cruise with family and spend time with family in Paris.
• run a 5k together.
• bike over 115 miles on a 4 day camping adventure.
• stay together for 4 whole years and still love each other!

Jeans!

Jeans are the staple piece to most outfits. I have never really spent a lot of time picking out my jeans. I have pretty much always had to be the girl that just hoped the jeans would fit and if they did I would buy them as quickly as possible and just hope that whoever cashed me out didn't notice the size. I recently read something about Old Navy and Gap making gateway mom jeans. It made me laugh but also made me think hard. If you Google "Old Navy and Gap make gateway mom jeans" you will find it too. It's really interesting. The woman writing took pictures of her wearing Gap, Old Navy and other name brand jeans and compared them. It was amazing what the right pair of jeans can do for you. Now granted I don't have the money to go out and buy expensive jeans but I can watch out for deals. Which is exactly what I did this weekend.

While my mom and grandma were in town we went shopping in our little downtown area. We hit up a boutique together and I did find some really cute pants. They were $110. That's not an option for me. Plus, maybe I will continue to lose weight and I don't want to spend a ton on a pair of pants that I won't get to wear long. They continued to another boutique and I went into Glik's. I am not sure if they are a chain store or not. They have a lot of skater brand clothing, but they also have an area with North Face and Columbia. Most of the clothing seems to be directed towards younger girls but there are a few things that seem appropriate for older women. I immediately headed to the clearance section. There was a pair of jeans that I thought would fit me. I tried them on and they did! They were a little bit tight, but they fit well enough that I would wear them out in public. I can only assume they will fit better soon. They were originally $70, but on clearance for $30. I don't even usually pay that much but I was super excited about even fitting in to jeans at this store. I carried them around and kept wishing the hubby had come into the store with me. I kept finding more and more cute things that fit me. Eventually the hubby found me and approved my clothing selection. We decided it could be an anniversary gift. I bought the jeans, cute heels on clearance for $7 and a shirt of $15. I was so happy and have been wearing my new jeans and heels every evening.

back of the jeans. I liked the design, cute but not to much bling. I hate jean bling.

I don't know why this picture turned upside down and I don't know how to fix it. This is the front of the jeans, heels and shirt. I love them!

I don't even wear heels that much but these were to cute and different. I loved the heel and didn't feel to bad buying them since they were affordable.

On Another jean note, I fit my butt and stomach into some of my old jeans. They are a size 12, but a vanity size 12. I think I wore them before when I weighed 165lbs. I was excited they fit and didn't muffin top me to much. I am going to have to get ride of the pairs of jeans that I had been wearing. I try to only keep two pairs of jeans that fit me in rotation. I worry that if I keep my bigger pants it will be to easy to overeat and retreat to the comfort of my fat jeans. I am getting closer and closer to my magic jeans that I wore to my bachelorette party! It is fun to see the pile of jeans in my closet get smaller and smaller.

Old jeans that finally fit! (Ignore the baby mess all around me, no baby was harmed in the taking of this picture.)

Bodacious Biking Babes

I am almost thinking that my weight loss weigh-ins are not going to happen. I have not been focusing as much as I want to. I felt much more confident when I was focusing on my running goals and just trying to control my eating. It took me 5 months to lose 20 pounds, but it felt easy and right. With my weekly weigh-ins I almost feel to rushed to try to see results. I feel so much extra stress. I am going to stick it out for one month and then reevaluate. I may just switch to a monthly weigh-in. I think this week has been extra rough on my weight because I have been drinking more than I would like to (I know, whoa is me).

While my mom and grandma were here they let us go out one night for an early celebration for our upcoming anniversary. We went out to a bar and had a few drinks. Monday is our date night and we had a sitter for the first time in forever. We went out for a wine tasting. Tonight is my first MOMS night out. Which is at a bar. I am excited for it and I know I could go there and not drink but I don't want everyone's first impression of me to be the quiet awkward girl that wouldn't have a drink. Also, our actual anniversary is on Thursday and we bought a growler of sangria from our wine tasting night and we wanted to have some on Thursday.

Lately I have been able to drink and not overeat with it. That used to be the huge struggle for me. I was proud of myself that I could drink and still make wise food choices. Yesterday though, I had a light dinner to try to account for the alcohol calories and then overindulged after we got home from the wine tasting. I knew better than to under eat before drinking. Tonight I am making chili which is usually filling so hopefully I don't blow today in the last few hours.

I did my cross training today. The schedule called for 35 minutes, but I did an hour and 45 minutes. I am not trying to overdo it, but I know that it's going to get cold out soon so on my cross training days I am trying to get out there with my bike and enjoy it. Plus, we didn't have anything official on our schedule (no playgroups, library group, or "school"). If it rained we were going to grocery shop, but the weather looked like it would hold out for the morning. It was a little chilly, but beautiful out. I was excited because I decided we would ride to the beginning of the White Pine Trail. We always run around mile markers 6-8 so I figured that would be the perfect distance for a morning ride. We made it to the start and I think we went a total of about 16 miles with our ride to and from the trail. My legs feel pretty sore from it. I was really working it on the ride back. Right around the start of the trail this group of 45-60 year old ladies were heading for the trail. I thought, oh I better speed up it's such a hassle to pass people with this baby trailer. I regretted that almost immediately. They were going just as fast as I was and I had to much pride to be passed by older ladies that looked like they were just out on a casual bike ride. I kept thinking I would just ride for 10 more minutes and then pull off for some water and to check on little lady. At each 'ten minutes' where was always something. Once it was a giant hill that I was pretty sure they would walk up and I could lose them. They didn't. Two of the ladies passed me on the way to the hill picking up speed, but took a two second break at the top of the hill and I was in the lead again. The next stop I thought about taking two of the ladies pulled off to use the restroom so the group slowed down. After that point there were no real stops and I thought I would look weak taking an 'emergency break.' I had to keep pushing it the whole time. The only thing that is redeeming about this story is on the back of one of the ladies' jacket it said something about bodacious biking babes. I am guessing that they go out biking much more than me :) I also couldn't help but think that I hope that I am that awesome when I am their age.

Weekend weight warrior

I survived the weekend with my mom and grandma. It was a nice visit with nothing to special planned. My grandma likes to visit on those types of trips. She doesn't like the weekends that she comes here and we run around all day, so I think she was happy. Little lady was in a super cranky mood through most of the weekend though so that was definitely a bummer. Especially because, let's face it, they are really just here to see her.

They made it to our house really late on Saturday. We were ready for bed by the time they got here. It was 9:30pm. Lame. Sunday morning they did watch little lady for a bit so hubby and I could go running. We have never gotten to run our trail together without the jogging stroller. Unfortunately about a half mile into the run hubby's leg was really hurting him. He is usually a macho man so it must have been bad. He decided he would just walk a bit and catch up with me after I turned around (at the further point this time). I was thankful that he knew how important the run was for me. I was worried he would be upset that I didn't help take care of him, but he was really encouraging. I made it to the turn around and headed back. When I ran into hubby he ran with me for a bit again. He ended up running and walking about 2.5 miles on his bum leg. I was proud that I managed to run the whole 3.5 miles, not counting when I stopped with hubby for a minute a half mile in. I felt pretty good the whole time too. I actually feel like I will be able to run this 10k!

The rest of Sunday was spent eating. Thankfully, I ate really lightly for breakfast and lunch because my family goes way overboard with food. My grandma likes to cook and I don't think she gets to cook much at home since it's just her so she wanted to make pork chops for dinner. I figured that would go with the pierogies and I could grill up some zucchini. That's not to bad for a meal. A heavy meal, but still. My mom also made a salad and applesauce to go with everything. The food choices weren't to bad, but there was definitely a lot of food to go around. My grandma made 8 huge pork chops. There were only 4 adults and little lady. My grandma also wanted to make mashed potatoes and rolls. I talked her out of both, especially the rolls. We were at Sam's club so it would have been a huge bag of rolls. She did have to buy cookies. I managed to have a quarter of a cookie with my coffee on Sunday and a half of cookie with my lunch today. That is huge for me. I am so tempted by sweets, but I have gotten a lot better lately.

While they were here I couldn't help wonder if some of my relationship with food goes back to my family. I don't believe that I can blame my heaviness on my family, I am the one that makes my food choices but I think some of it may be feelings towards food are influenced by my childhood. It makes me wonder if maybe that's why my portions are so out of whack. I mean my grandma made 8 pork chops! She also kept trying to add on to the menu. There is always huge portions of food at our family parties and everyone pushes it onto each other. (I also understand why my hubby always told me I was making way to much food. Now when I cook I make 4 servings. We each eat one, little lady eat one, or half and has the other half for lunch the next day. Hubby then has lunch with the leftovers or I can eat it for lunch the next day. Plus, then if we do actually clear out the food, we will have eaten 1.5-2servings.) I am constantly trying to figure out what makes me eat the way I do. I know that I have to figure it out if I want to lose the weight and actually keep it off. I am happy that on this journey in weight loss land I am figuring some of that out.

Numbers can be so confusing

I started off the day strong! My brother in law and his wife came over around 8 this morning to run with me. I wasn't sure about running with people when I first began my running adventure, but I am starting to really like it now. I had 3.5 miles on the schedule today. I had previously borrowed a friend's Garmin but don't have one now so I sort of go by memory. We talked and ran and I felt positive about the turn around point (I always run out and backs). We headed back and I was feeling great. We got to our ending point and started our cool down walk. I checked my watch and it had been 28:54. I thought that was pretty fast for 3.5 miles but didn't do the math. I know bro in law runs fast so I figured I ran fast pacing with him. I was feeling great! We got back to the house and talked with the hubby and all of a sudden I realized there was no way in hell we ran 3.5 miles. I was so upset with myself. I kept focusing on it. I still don't understand what I was thinking at my turn around spot. I do get confused because most of my runs are with little lady and I start at a different spot if I have the jogging stroller.

The flip side though is that my mom and grandma will be here until Monday so tomorrow the hubby and I can run 3.5 miles together. Today's run will cover Monday's 2.5 so it's not a complete loss. I will still be on track for my 10k training program.

Must remain positive

I know, awesome tan lines!

That's right. Some how I gained almost 3 lbs since Monday. My weight fluctuates a lot, but it still seems pretty clear that I did not lose weight. I actually had typed out that this week was a failure but I need to remember that a gain is not always a failure. I completed my running goals so far this week and that is a success!

Now I need to focus on what went wrong this week that I CAN work on. My main goal for the week is to stay binge free. I also realized this morning that I drank more than I have been. I had a glass of wine while making wine, had a few drinks with friends after fitness fun day and had a drink with the hubby while enjoying pierogies. I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner! I have a hard time losing when alcohol consumption is around. This week may be rough then since I have a MOMS night out on Tuesday and our anniversary on Thursday. I will just be extra diligent with my eating. I WILL lose weight by next Friday.

mumblings

Weight loss is always an adventure. It definitely has its ups and downs. I love the thrill of standing on the scale and seeing a lower number. I also hate expecting a lower number and it not coming or almost worse losing so slowly it barely seems mentionable. Tomorrow is my first official blog weigh-in. I was totally expecting to see a loss for me tomorrow, but I think yesterdays mindless eating totally put an end to that. I have to remember that first of all the scale isn't everything. Repeat it, the scale isn't everything. I got in all of my workouts so far this week and even went on an extra long bike ride. That is worth celebrating. I also had a full week of counting calories. That has not happened possibly all summer long. We were gone so many weekends and I just don't track when we aren't at home. I still try to make the best choices, but I just don't actually track it. Secondly, I need to remember that since this is the first blog weigh-in, I can't even gain from the previous week. It will just be my new starting ground.

The positive with this is that it reminds me of the feeling before a weight watchers weigh-in. When I was actually attending weight watchers meeting I was so motivated by my weigh-in day that I swear it was the main factor in my losing weight. I would think about it the day before and eat extra carefully, sort of like brushing extra carefully before a dentist appointment. That's normal, right? Today I really upped my water in hopes of flushing out a few pounds.

So why did I start this post? This blog was created to help motivate me to continue losing weight. I had never really been interested in blogging or reading anyone's blogs before, but during this attempt at weight loss and running I have stumbled on some great weight loss/running blogs and have been so motivated by them. I blogged privately for awhile and realized how helpful it is personally to write down and reflect on my weight loss but decided to take it publicly (although no one I know actually knows about this blog. Well, my husband discovered it because I kept sneaking away to the computer each night...) to feel like the chance of someone finding this and being inspired could motivate me. I will admit that I do think of this blog out on my runs and while making food choices. I want to be able to blog about making the right choices and not failing. Maybe this blog will help get the job done. Either way, expect the gloves to come off tomorrow.

Cooking and running, one day they will balance out

So with all the fun in the kitchen, there has been a downside. I struggled with my eating yesterday. I am proud to say that I ate well on Monday and Tuesday, but something snapped on Wednesday and I derailed. It happens and I started over today. I did manage to stop myself mid binge with a cracker heading to my mouth and stopped the craziness. Before the crackers though there was that frozen yogurt (only about 1.5 servings left though so I managed to spread out the joy for a few days), frozen taquitos, biscotti, and A LOT of crackers. It wouldn't have been so bad if I could have had one servings of each, but I didn't. I did however not let that binge take over the rest of the day. Usually, if I have an afternoon binge I let myself binge for the rest of the day. I got back on track and had a light dinner and unfortunately a serving of homemade pierogies. A serving is 8, right? sure.But more importantly, I said "homemade pierogies!"

We rarely (as in once before with my grandma) make pierogies and have been wanting to for awhile. It is near impossible to pass up fresh pierogies so I cut myself some slack and have been good all day today. Back to the pierogies though. My grandma makes the absolute best pierogies ever! She is obviously Polish and if the family could get her to make them more often we would all be in heaven. She has no recipe for them and everyone always asks her for it. I actually convinced her to let me make them with her twice now. The first time though she had already made the dough and filling so I can't really count it. I did get to work with her once from beginning to end and took notes (this has been about 2 years ago now). Although looking at them last night they were very quick notes and not quite complete. Between me and the husband though we got it mostly figured out.

no one ever said making pierogies wouldn't be a mess.

We rolled out the dough and cut out circles. These are my perfect circles.

Here I am filling my pierogies. So glamorous.

Our beautiful products.

Hubby dropping the pierogies into the boiling water.

We actually made pierogies that tasted pretty good. We were proud! They are definitely not as good as my grandmas, but I will get there. Ours were a bit to doughy, but all around not bad. We ate our generous servings last night and quickly froze the rest. My mom and grandma are actually coming to visit us this weekend and we want to surprise them with our homemade pierogies. I don't know if anyone has ever made my grandma's pierogies for her. I am guessing not since she doesn't share the recipe so I am excited to surprise her. I will have to get a picture of the batch all cooked up then. Our kitchen was such a disaster by the time we were enjoying ours that I didn't even attempt it.
 

Our little helper who kept checking on us in the kitchen.

Today I did manage to get my 2.5 mile run done too! It felt good. It was one of the longest runs I had to push little lady on. I have to get used to it though since my weekly runs are 2-3 miles. It went surprisingly well. I always start out rough and promise myself to at least run 15 minutes before taking a break. Usually once I hit 15 I trick myself with a few more minutes here and there. Today I did 26 minutes and then stopped to walk for about 30 seconds and then ran the rest. I finished my 2.5 miles in 29:46. I am definitely not a speed racer, but I am fine with that.

Kitchen adventures

I have been staying busy being all domesticated. Yikes. I had made a goal for myself that this year I would use all/most of our garden goodies before they went bad. Last years garden had a lot of waste. I had a 3-6 month old while it was overproducing and I couldn't seem to find any free time to use the goods. Now that I have settled in to motherhood and have the perfect child :), I feel like I have much more free time. Her 2-3 hour nap doesn't hurt either. We have had constant zucchinis that I have turned into the previously mentioned zucchini bread and our side dish every night is grilled zucchini. This past week though our garden finally put out red tomatoes. We have had a lot of green tomatoes for awhile but for whatever reason they wouldn't turn red. Well, now they did and pretty much all at once. So what to do with an abundance of tomatoes?

Look at all those tomatoes! I even had some left over. I tried to weigh them and get them ready.

I minced fresh garlic for the first time ever for this project.

I had to peel and remove the seeds of the tomatoes. This took forever!

I case you didn't guess it, I made pasta sauce. I had never made pasta sauce before. It turned out okay. Definitely took much longer than I thought it would. Much longer. I started around 5pm and wasn't done until 10:30pm. That must be why I didn't get a finished product picture. I made about 3 quarts of sauce though and we had some tonight for dinner. The hubby approved, so I guess it turned out okay.


Tuesday I had a fitness fun day. I was worried about my shins, but after resting on Monday it felt a bit better on Tuesday and I couldn't let a friend down. One of my best friends and I try to get together occasionally and have a day full of working out. It is way more fun to work out with someone. We started at about 10 am. We went out for a 1.5 mile run, came home, had breakfast and headed out on bikes. We biked the trail I went on for my bike adventure. We didn't go nearly as far though :) We went for a round trip of 16 miles. We may have a full day bike adventure with the whole group in a few weeks (me, hubby, little lady, friend and her boyfriend).

After our bike ride we came home and she watched little lady while I went to the dentist. I actually had no cavities! That never happens so I was proud. By the time I got back home hubby was home from work and making dinner for us. What a nice treat! He made beer can chicken. I wish I had gotten a picture of it because it was delicious!

Today has been full of kitchen fun too. I was going to run this morning, but after the shin issues of Monday I decided to rest today and run tomorrow. I guess that meant that I spent the day playing chef. I made pickles, salsa (and attempted to can it. I don't think it went all that well), and finally got the pasta sauce out of the pot and into jars. I don't know if I will be able to actually can the sauce though. I didn't realize how big the jars were that I bought and they don't fit well in my pot. I may have to give some away. I still count that as using it though.

I spent the evening working in the kitchen with my husband as well. Here is just a sneak peak at our success.

Funday Monday

Last night I went to bed with every intention of waking up today and getting an early run in. I have 2.5 miles on the schedule for today and this would be the first week I can follow the schedule as is. It's only week 2 so I only did one week out of order. I woke up today with horrible shin pain. I am self diagnosing myself with shin splints. The first time I actually tried to run way back when, I had this pain and gave up on running. I refuse to give up on running so I almost made myself run today anyways. I decided against it since everything I heard from Dr. Google was pretty much hinting at 'to much, to soon' affecting shin splints. It would make sense since I did just do the crazy bike trip and then jumped into 10k training after one full day of rest. Plus my running had been sort of off and on and I usually only ran 1.5 or 2 miles. I really hate to admit this but I think my husband was right. He told me I should just rest for one full week and then start the program at week 2. Oh well, live and learn. I am currently icing my shin.

I almost let my shin get the best of me. The plan for today was to wake up and enjoy the coffee, hit the trail, shower, breakfast and then babytime at the library. Once I decided running shouldn't happen I propped my leg up with some ice and laziness took over almost immediately. I thought about the possibility of just eating my frozen yogurt and watching cartoons all morning and then taking a nap when little lady naps. Then I remembered that just because I wasn't running didn't meant that I should lay around. We got ready for the day which I have no idea how we took so long getting ready but by the time we were both dressed and fed it was almost time to get up to the library. I decided that instead of running my scheduled 2.5 miles I would walk us up to the library group and back which is about 3 miles round trip. As I was walking there my shin hurt pretty badly and I realized that I had definitely made the right choice about not running.

The positive: I am officially back to the weight I was before the camping adventures! Skipping the frozen yogurt was definitely worth it. I am going to start doing Friday weigh-ins to try to hold myself accountable. My goal is to reach 160 my the end of the year. I think it's totally doable. If I reach 165 then I completed my goal for the West Michigan weight loss challenge that I mentioned before. You just had to lose 12 lbs during 2012. I didn't start until mid-August and you weigh out in December. If you lose at least 12 lbs you are eligible to win some pretty sweet prizes. I never really win anything and I actually put "winning something" on my bucket list. Also, I laugh out loud every time I see the flyer.

How could anyone pass up the chance to enter a challenge that is promoted with this!

Today we actually managed to have a lazy, relaxing Sunday. I guess yesterdays relaxing really wore us out. The day started early because as everyone knows, if you keep your baby up late she will wake up early. She was ready for the day at 6am. yay. We lounged around most of the morning. I was tired since I am usually in bed by ten and actually stayed up until midnight last night. I have learned throughout my weight loss adventures that I can not control my eating when I am tired. I wish I had realized this sooner, but I am glad I put that piece of the puzzle in this past year. I woke up starving. I usually wait until 9am to eat breakfast because otherwise I want lunch by 10am and probably dinner at 3. I held off on my breakfast until 8:15 when my stomach was starting to scream at me. I ate a banana and a Greek yogurt. It was good but I was still starving. I had one zucchini cup left over from dinner a few nights ago so I ate that. I still felt hungry, but knew that I would survive and that I could nap when little lady took a nap and cure some of the hunger.

I then remembered that I had bought hair dye and wanted to dye my hair some time this week. I have dark hair and the greys are slowing taking over! I decided that I needed to distract myself by something other than lying on the couch watching little lady and staring at the kitchen. Hubby said he was fine with watching her while I did my thing. That took about an hour and I felt much better afterwards. I played with little lady until lunch time. I ate a sandwich and wanted to eat ten more, but knew that I was going to take a nap soon and I could eat after my nap. Little lady fell right asleep and so did I.

I only took about a half hour nap and felt sooo much better after waking up. I thought I was still hungry and was actually making a snack when I decided to drink some more water and then decide. I drank 2 glasses of water and some coffee and felt content for the first time all day. And yes, I had drank a lot of water in the morning too. I just starve when I am tired.

I finally got my bootay in gear after that. My training schedule called for stretching and strengthening today. As embarrassing as this is to admit I checked out one of those idiot's guide to...weight lifting book from the library. I haven't found anything super helpful for weight lifting, but I do like the stretches in there. They have about ten stretches and it takes me about ten minutes to work through them so I did that and then I did a strengthening routine. I am sort of lost on strengthening so I trying different routines online until I find one that I like.

I prepped dinner while little lady and hubby continued their napping. Surprisingly I still wasn't hungry. I am glad I had the time to take that nap and that I actually fell asleep. It saved me from the day long grazing that would have happened in my previous life.

After everyone was awake and dinner was in the oven the hubby started talking about maybe going out for some ice cream. I love me some ice cream but really wanted to stay on track for a full weekend. That has not happened much this summer with all of our crazy plans. Although I have done so much better with my 'eating while traveling' than ever before. Back to the ice cream though, at some point while waiting for dinner to get out of the oven the hubby decided he would rather just go to the grocery store and get things to make milkshakes. I tried to get him to go alone, but he lured me in with a trip to Goodwill since it's across the street from his store. I can't resist a deal so we all headed out with some missions.

We went to Goodwill first since it closed at 6pm and his store is open 24/7. I actually had a shirt that I wanted to return. (I know, who returns clothes to Goodwill?!? Seriously! Well, this girl does.) We actually have a super nice Goodwill and they have a section with brand new department store clothes. The last time I was there I bought a New York and Company skirt that will be perfect for the fall and two New York and Company shirts. They were all brand new and I am guessing out of season. I also bought a used pair of Calvin Klein jeans in a size 12. They do not fit me yet, but they will. Oh yeah, my returned purchase from Goodwill. As anyone with a child knows, you no longer have much of an option for trying on clothes with your baby in tow. I have gotten really good at buying things so I can try them on at home and then having to return them. One of the shirts I bought was a button down shirt with some cute ruffles. The ruffles made me look ridiculous. Normally I don't return clothes to the Goodwill, but since it was brand new I didn't feel as bad. It was also $8 and I am cheap. While there I looked around a bit. I have been trying to only purchase brands that are quality and I wouldn't spend the money to buy it brand new if I was at the actual store (hence the Calvin Klein jeans). I almost didn't find anything, but then I saw this gem.

Yes, those are workout pants. I used to think it was gross to even consider buying used workout clothes. I also used to think all workout clothes were created equal. I also didn't workout much. Now that I enjoy running, I have found out that there are a reason some workout clothes are a bit more money and that moisture wicking fabric is amazing. I keep hoping to score some Under Armour at the thrift store, but that has not happened yet. In case you can't see my new pants...

I know The North Face is overly trendy right now, but I do like their stuff. I have a sweatshirt and a winter coat from The North Face and they are so much warmer than anything else I have ever owned so I think it's worth it. The pants seem like new and were only $3.99 so I didn't think I could go wrong. They are also a size medium. I figured they would fit some day and since the only actual workout pants I have are my first pair, in sweaty cotton and size XL. In my mind, those pants would just fall right off and I think I will need a new pair once I retire my capris for the season. These pants, size M actually fit me (only because they are quite stretchy). They were a bit tight in the thighs, I have huge thighs, but they fit and didn't look super ridiculous. I might actually get to wear them out to run this fall! I have always worn L or XL workout gear. This could be huge!

I also managed to not have a milkshake tonight. Victory for me all around tonight! When we were at the store I had to check out the ice cream selection and was going to just buy one of those small containers with one serving of ice cream to make my milkshake with but could not find one. They did have the Greek frozen yogurt on sale though and I have been wanting to try it.  It was still expensive, but I thought it would be healthier and then I could stop drooling over it every time I passed it. Hubby made a milkshake for him and little lady to share and then I was to lazy to wash the blender, make a milkshake and then wash it again. I rinsed the blender, put it in the dishwasher and just had a small taste of my frozen Greek yogurt. I almost got the blueberry vanilla graham, but i love peanut butter and banana so I had to try it. It was really good and some how I managed to have three bites and just stop there. Usually if a container of ice cream is open I can't sleep until all the ice cream is safely in my stomach. Tonight I feel good knowing my frozen yogurt is safe in the freezer while I enjoy tea. I hope I can control my portions throughout the frozen yogurts stay at our house.

Relaxing weekend

So I know people always talk about busy they are and what not, but this summer has been the most jam packed summer I have ever had. The closest thing we had to a free weekend was one weekend we had a block party (1pm - little lady's bedtime) and my first 5k the next day. So we decided to just enjoy this weekend before things get crazy again.

Saturday morning I woke up and felt like getting my "long run" over with. My 10k training plan has one long run a week leading to the race day. I am going to try to do them on Saturdays because then if something comes up, weatherwise or what not, I can run it on Sunday (the hubby has agreed to watch little lady for my long runs). This week was just a 3 mile run (the longest run before race day will only be 5.5 miles so I feel like I can handle that). I don't know if the long bike ride really built some serious muscle or what, but this run felt awesome too. Although I have a feeling that part of the sweet run action is that I haven't run with little lady since the bike adventure. She definitely makes it a challenge, but I think she helps with my speed. I am not a fast runner at all, but have trained for my runs pushing a stroller and an extra 20 pounds of cuteness which seems to make me speedier on race day. (By speedy I mean that my fastest race was about a 10:30 minute mile.)

After my amazing 3 mile run I came home, showered and offered to take little lady to the Farmer's market so that the hubby could have some time alone. Little lady and I walked to the Farmer's market which is about 1.5 miles away when you take the trail. If I just walked down the main road it would be about a half mile. It was on this walk that I realized how much I have changed in the last 6 months. I was wearing "nice" clothes to the farmer's market and during the walk started to sweat a bit. I actually wanted to slow my pace so that I didn't make my clothes stinky (I did not slow down). I really used to hate sweating. I would not even attempt things because I didn't want to sweat or get dirty. I still like to keep some clothes nice, but I love changing into workout clothes or junky outfits and going for it.

Anyways, at the farmers market we only bought a 1/2 peck of salad cucumbers. I want to make pickles with them. Our garden has so many zucchinis and tomatoes, but we have not gotten a single cucumber from it. We were bummed because last year I made some amazing pickles with our cucumbers.

We got home from the farmer's market, had lunch and little lady took a nap. I had promised I would help hubby with our landscaping. About a year ago they widened the road that we live on and the construction ended right in front of our house - with a new street light at our driveway (we are so popular we have our own light!). The road crew had told us they would be using our front area up to this built in staircase. We have a little hill in front of our house that the previous owners filled with flowers and rocks. It's actually really pretty when it's blooming. It also takes a lot of work to weed and we don't seem to get around to weeding it as much as we should. Before construction we relocated the plants that we liked the most and piled the rocks together. There were a lot of rocks! Construction ended in the beginning of July and we have just left this giant pile of rocks on top of the hill. Hubby decided this was the weekend to move them. He just wanted to get rid of the plants on the wall and just leave it as a rock wall. We laid fabric down to hopefully prevent weeds from growing through it and then moved rocks, a lot of rocks. It looks okay. I am thinking it will grow on me. We still have plants and rocks on the other side of the rock staircase. We will have to fix that area up next year and hopefully keep some of the plants there.

The rocks look much more tame than the wild plants next to it.

I love this staircase! The road crew had said they were going to have to tear it out, but thankfully they stopped at that new street light pole.

This was the size of the pile on the top of the hill. We now have a nice patch of dead grass to remember our rocks.

Our relaxing day didn't end there though. One of our long lost friends contacted us on Friday night and invited us over to catch up on Saturday evening. We never do anything and are never in town if there is anything going on so we decided to be those people who take their kid to a hang out. Little lady is seriously the best baby ever! She acted cute and played with our friend's sister's kiddos. They had a blast and we had so much fun catching up with old friends. There were three friends there that had stood up in our wedding and we actually haven't seen them since little lady was born. They do now live two hours away so that adds in to having a hard time meeting up though. It was really nice to catch them in town. We were so thankful we went and that little lady managed to stay up two hours past her bedtime without being super cranky!

Onto the next adventure

So after returning home from our biking adventure on Monday it has been hard to get back into the swing of things. Monday evening we lounged around and went to bed by 10pm. I told hubby not to worry about the disaster zone we call home and that I would finally clean up on Tuesday. We still had things laying around from our Pennsylvania trip. Ugh.
Tuesday I woke up still feeling exhausted. I figured I would get through the morning with little lady and get down to business during her nap. That did not happen. I struggled all morning and lounged around during her nap. I was tired, but couldn't fall asleep. The house stayed a disaster for one more day, but I did manage to cook dinner. Tuesday night I went to bed at 8.30. No joke, lights out, Ipod off, eyes closed 8.30pm sleeping.
Wednesday I finally got my act back together. The house is back in order, groceries have been bought and a menu has been created.

In other news, I am officially training for my first 10k! I ran two 5ks this summer and loved it, but want to continue to challenge myself. I looked into a few over the summer and decided on running the Halloween hustle near my mom's house. I have invited a few friends to join me and I think I have one taker. We may even run in costume.
I looked into training programs and decided to follow Hal Higdon's novice 10k training plan. The Halloween Hustle is on October 27th and the training program is an eight week training program. My training started on Sunday. I had figured I would just do week 1 out of order. There are 2 days of cross training each week so I figured I rode my bike enough on Sunday and Monday to take care of my cross training. There is one day of rest so I figured I would rest on Tuesday and get to running Wednesday. My husband was a bit worried since my knees started to bother me and running isn't known to be gentle on the knees. He wanted me to hold off and just start on week 2. I took Wednesday off, but was dying to run yesterday. I ran about 2.7 miles and felt great! I will end up missing one run this week, but I am ok with that.

Today I have scheduled stretch and strengthening. I am not very good and stretching or strength training. I am excited to follow this program so that I hopefully work on those areas.

The adventure continues

So after our almost 10 hour bike ride 50 miles north, we went to bed feeling awesome! We woke up on Saturday, Day 2 of our vacation not feeling so great. We had planned on riding to the next city further north and getting breakfast in town there. For some crazy reason we actually went for. The hubby checked the map and thought it looked about 4 miles north. We didn't think we would have a problem biking 4 miles. We ended up stopping probably 3 times on the trip to town which ended up being 6 miles away. The path was paved. There was no excuse other than we were sore and should have trained a bit to ride 50 miles in a day.

We sat at breakfast and ate everything we could get our hands on (maybe that's where these 10 pounds came back from). We then began to face reality. We realized we may not be able to make the ride back home. We had thought two days of rest would be enough to recover, but we also forgot to factor in not having a car and actually having to use our bikes/walk to get everything we needed. We decided to walk around town a bit before heading back to camp and possibly calling to schedule a ride home for Monday. We walked to the grocery store and bought some pain pills, energy bars and energy drinks. We tried to go to the library so little lady could play and we could possibly just sit down, but of course it was closed. So we headed back to our bikes and began our ride home. I don't know if everything (pain pills, energy bar/drink) just kicked in at the right time but we were back to camp in no time and feeling great!

That ride changed our outlook. We had just ridden twelve miles the day after our 50 mile ride and survived. We started thinking of what our options were. We realized that we didn't have to ride 50 miles in a day, we could try to split the ride home up. We had decided to go low tech on this trip so we had no way of looking up information. We went to the camp office to try to get information, but unfortunately the area we wanted to stop in wasn't in their county. We headed over to the grocery store near camp (3/4 mile away) to get food for dinner and they actually had a phone book (remember those?). We looked up motel and campgrounds in the town that was right in the middle of the worst stretch of unpaved trail. There was a motel, but the grocery store clerk said they rent it out by the week and it's quite shady. The hubs called the campground and they said they were about 1/4 mile from the trail we were riding on and actually gave discounts to cyclist! We quickly reserved Sunday night there and felt excited again.

We went back to camp and made dinner and quickly tried our best to enjoy our last night at this campground. This campground does have a fish hatchery at it which is fun to check our and feed the fish. Little lady liked feeding the fish and this time she didn't try to eat the fish food her self. However, we really didn't enjoy our stay at this park. It was very crowded (I know Labor day weekend, what did we expect?) and the sites were crammed together. The absolute worst though were the people around us. They were so loud! They stayed up until 5am Sunday morning talking and laughing loudly. We were ready to get out of there by Sunday morning after a not so restful night.

Sunday we loaded up and hit the road by 9.30am. We would have liked to have left earlier, but we couldn't pre load the trailers since we were actually using everything we brought. We hit the trail and stopped at the first stop which was right before the unpaved portion. We fueled up on energy drinks and granola bars.
We only ran into one issue on the way to our new campground. The hubs loves a good short cut and had looked over our trail map to try to avoid the grassy trail area in the next town. He discovered a road that he swore would cut off a couple of miles.We hit the road he just had to take and of course it was a dirt road. Not just any dirt road though, a dirt road that consisted of about 7 giant hills. We had to walk our bikes up the last portion of each hill and then fly down hoping that we didn't hit any rocks and wipe out. It was terrifying! I was not happy to say the least. This was the portion of the trip that I was closest to tears. The bumps felt so rough to me and I felt awful for the little lady. She had been sleeping and the bouncing woke her up and she was crying on the downhills. He heard about that for awhile.
Once we were back to the trail we actually had an enjoyable ride to our campsite. There were no other good stops along the way so we had a back up drink and some snacks. We stopped along the trail a few times, but felt pretty good the whole way.

We absolutely loved the campsite we found. It was a bit more money than the previous campsite, but well worth it. They had a really nice playground for little lady, a pool (although we didn't bring suits), laundry (which we definitely needed to do), mini golf, arcade, camp store, and bigger sites with better neighbors. We were in heaven.

This is taken from the campgrounds site since we didn't have a memory card in the camera. This is actually our site. There is a mini golf course on the corner and we camped on the other side of it.

The next morning we woke up refreshed and ready for the final leg of our journey. We were 30 miles from home. We again had the breakfast of champs, energy bars and energy drinks and hit the trail. It was nice to get the worst over with first. It went pretty well, nothing to dramatic. I am sure we stopped on the trail and rested, but either way we concurred it. We stopped at 2 gas stations along the route and enjoyed snacks and water. Once we hit pavement, we were flying. There was 14 miles of pavement for the last stretch and no good stops. We flew through it even though we did have a ride an extra mile to head to our house from a different angle. We live on a slightly busy road on top of a big hill. We rode down the big hill early Friday morning, but were worried about traffic in the afternoon time of our return.

We survived! We managed to ride over 115 miles in four days both pulling at least 40 pounds behind us. I know for real bikers 115 miles in 4 days is no real challenge, but for us occasional riders, this is huge.

I didn't realize how badly I wanted this until we were in so deep. On the journey up when my knee started hurting I was so afraid we would have to call someone to pick me up. I am so glad it was just a slight pain and that I pushed through without damaging my knee.

When we thought we were going to have to throw in the towel before even attempting the ride home, I felt defeated. I was so thankful for the great 6 mile ride back to camp that gave us new light and a new plan.

I honestly believe this is the hardest physical feat I have ever accomplished. On the ride up my husband asked me what is harder, my running or the bike trip. I thought running at first just because I can't endure much with running yet, but once we kept pushing with bikes and I realized I was actually getting close to the point that I just couldn't physically bike anymore it became this bike trip. I have never actually hit the point of not being able to run another step physically. I definitely hit points of struggling to breath and walking a bit, but my legs never give out. The ride home I actually told myself that I would ride until we get home or my legs give out. Thankfully my legs held up and are feeling much stronger.

The start of the greatest adventure (known to us)

This is a story that allows me to cross something off my bucket list!

A bit of a back story that tells how long this idea has sort of been in the works: Between the time of our engagement (7.9.07) and the time of our wedding (9.20.08) my husband and I got a little into biking. We didn't do anything to special, but we loaded our bikes onto our car about once a week and went for a short ride on some trails. We also pimped our rides, but that's a different story. My husband told me during this time that he had always wanted to just take off on his bike and carry everything he would need to a campground and camp like that. I thought it sounded fun, but honestly never really saw it happening and didn't put much more thought into it.
My husband is of a different breed though and once he gets an idea in his head, it stays there. Sometimes it gets tossed to the back, but it is still there. During the talks of this bike camping trip, he actually built a trailer out of scrap steel, wire, and odd wheels (not positive what it's made out of). It sat under our deck at our old apartment waiting for the day this adventure would happen. It didn't happen while we finished our time in the apartment and some how it got loaded up and moved into our house back in May of 2010. Since then it has sat alone on a cement slab behind our garage. I think it stared hubby down every time he saw.
I can only assume that hubby saw my new found hobby of running and loving the outdoors as the time to finally attempt this bike adventure. He brought the idea up in the middle of this summer and I hesitated to answer. Things are a bit different now with a child and I wasn't sure how she would fit in with this whole biking adventure. He basically said, "Man up, if we are ever going to do this thing now is the time." Maybe not quite that, but it was implied. We discussed that I could pull little lady and he would pull the trailer with all of our gear. And so our biking adventure was born.


There is a trail about a half mile from our house and heads north for about 90 miles. Originally we thought this trail was paved the entire distance from Grand Rapids to Cadillac. As we researched, we discovered that there were portions that were unpaved. The trail is on an old railroad line so it's relatively flat, so we didn't think it would be to bad. We were wrong, but I will get to that.

This is the only picture of the adventure. We brought our camera, but forgot to put the memory card in it. Here we are posing at the start.

We left on a Friday morning at about 8AM. Hubby was pulling his trailer which held our tent, a pack and play, sleeping bags and a Styrofoam cooler with his clothes and odds and ends in it. I pulled the baby bike trailer with little lady and her blankets and our overnight bags in the back of the trailer. We made great time getting to our first stop. In fact, I don't think we even stopped in the first city we passed. (The gas station in that city was about a block from the trail and I wanted to add as few extra miles to this trip as possible).

We stopped at the next city, they had a gas station right off the trail. We ate a granola bar for breakfast and bought some cold water. We didn't bring water with us, other than a full bottle on each bike because we wanted to keep the weight we were pulling down. We rested for a few minutes and then took off. Here is where hell began. We thought we had at least five more miles of amazing paved trail. Not so much. It ended here and it got ugly. We had pictured a solid gravel trail for our riding enjoyment, but at this portion of unpaved trail the Amish (I assume) had been using as their horse and carriage trail. The center of the trail was all torn up from horse hooves and the sides had deep ruts from the carriage wheels. It was a challenge pulling through there. The challenge was made even greater when the hubby's homemade trailer needed some attention and his used bike kept slipping out of gear. We had to stop about every 5 minutes to fix something. At one point while working on the bike the actual couple with the horse and carriage passed us. We were very irritated. (Not anything against the Amish or people that would use a horse and carriage, but this trail actually has signs everywhere prohibiting the use of cars/motorized vehicles and horses on this trail and they were totally tearing it up and I am not even mentioning the presents the horses were leaving on the trail.)

When we got to the next stop we took another break. The pavement had started back up just before this town and we couldn't have been happier to see it. We thought we had another few miles of paved trail after this town. We rested, had a snack and just let little lady run around. This was about the half way point. If we continued past this point there was no point in turning around. We would have to make it to the campground (or look lame and call his dad to pick us up). When we felt ready we hit the trail again.

The paved portion quickly left us just as we passed town. This portion of the trip seemed the hardest on hubby. His bike was not doing well and I think failing was becoming an option in his head. I tried to be his personal cheerleader the whole 7? miles to the next town. We actually took breaks on the trail at the portion and at one point where the trail became quite loose we walked our bikes for a few minutes. We were actually pedaling as fast as we could and barely keeping the bikes upright so walking didn't seem like such a bad idea. This was the first stretch that we actually stopped to rest on the trail itself. We had stopped before to work on the bike, but now we were actually stopping to rest, stretch and drink water. At some point during this stretch hubby managed to fix his bike a bit better too. When we finally got to the next town we stopped for lunch. I think hubby was starting to doubt this whole thing here. We were at this stop forever! Eventually we decided it was time to keep moving. We had made great time on the first 15 miles of the trip, but the second 15 miles took us about 3 hours. Not good. Our dreams of possibly finishing this 50 mile trip in 6 hours were gone.

I hit a wall on the next stretch of trail. Thankfully the hubby was feeling good so he cheered me on (It seemed to work like that most of the trip. When one of us was up, the other was down. We could help cheer each other on.) I think I just couldn't handle the messed up trail anymore. Plus, I was starting to feel an aching in my knees. I had knee pain before, but have not had much knee pain since I started running so I sort of figured the pain was just from being overweight. I started to think maybe something was horribly wrong with my knee on this portion of trail. I pushed through though because really what else could I do. As we neared the next town the trail turned to just grass. Awesome! I guess the one good part about the trail at this point was that it seemed the horse buggy didn't go this far north. When we got to the actual town there really wasn't much to see. We sat on a corner and had some water. Hubs looked at the map and decided we would ride on their actual roads for about 2 miles and then get back on the trail. I thought it sounded great to ride on pavement and not grass. Although I was super afraid we would lose the trail and have to ride way out of our way.

We quickly got back on the trail since we were both excited that at the next town we would hit pavement again and have it for the last 5/6 mile stretch to camp! Nothing eventful happened on this portion of trail. I think we were just counting down the miles until pavement appeared. I think we both almost teared up when we saw it. It was the most beautiful piece of cement we had ever seen. Just after the trail became paved there was an Arby's so we stopped for dinner and to rejoice that we would actually finish this trip out. I swear the sandwich I had right then and there was the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth. I was so hungry and happy.

We rode the last part out and felt like champs pulling into the campground! Somehow little lady was covered in dirt. She got her first shower at a campground. She does not like showers. Neither of us enjoyed that attempt at a shower. It definitely felt good to get some of the dirt of though.

We spent that evening feeling like champs and talking about how great we felt and how we could totally ride home. The next morning was a different feel though.