OK, so in an earlier post, I talked about my running, and how I've been doing it religiously now for over a month. I started off slow and now have worked my way up to being on the treadmill, nonstop, for 15 minutes (started only being able to do ten minutes).

My goal is to increase my mileage...speeding myself up little by little. I'd like to be able to run two miles under 15 minutes, although I know that is a long ways off. However, I'm well on my way.

Tonight, I got on the treadmill and ran at 5.7 mph continuously for 16 minutes. I ran a mile and a half. And it was almost easy for me. I didn't feel like I was going to die...in fact, partway through I felt almost invigorated and got my second wind. I didn't stop to walk or rest, and I didn't even want to. It was awesome. Now, I get how cross-country runners can do it.

Also, today was my Weight Watchers weigh-in day. I lost 3.2 pounds from last Friday. YAY!

A round for everybody!

OK, you all know that I started back on WW after an one-month hiatus in which I gained about nine pounds.

Naturally, the last few days I have been obsessed about food. What I was going to eat next, when, etc. This mania has been tempered somewhat by my exercise plan (running 1+ mile a day). Now, I've also joined the Weight Loss Challenge at school to add to the motivation.

Basically, we all put in $10 and sign up to participate. We're then put into teams of five or six. We weigh in at the nurse's office every Tuesday, and she keeps track of percentage of loss for each team. The challenge ends in May, and the team with the highest percentage of loss gets a share of the $$$ that we all ponied up earlier.

Now...my WW weigh in day is Fridays. Here's my stats:

Friday's Weigh-in: 147.2 (First day back on WW)
Today's Weigh-in: 146.4 (First day of competition)

My final goal is to get to 130. Right now, an immediate goal is to get back under 145.

Aweigh we go!

So, after a short, yet tiresome two-day school week, it is now the weekend. I love Friday nights...the whole next two days laid out before me in a glorious unknown of secret potential.

Anyway. Enough of that. I wanted to share a personal victory and a "I'm Back on Track" moment.

First of all, in an effort to get in better shape, get more exercise, etc., Brent and I began a "competition" of sorts back at the beginning of December. We have a little-used treadmill, and we decided we'd run/walk on it every day. The competition part is that if he gets on it, so must I. If I get on it, so must he. We thought this would keep us motivated.

We started this on Monday, December 3rd. I jogged for 10 minutes and completed 3/4 of a mile. In the 33 days since we started that, I've only missed three days when I didn't run (two of them being Christmas, when we were out of town). Tonight, I jogged for 13 minutes, and completed one and one-quarter of a mile. My legs have gotten stronger, and my endurance has increased as well.

And yet, I went off of Weight Watchers right after Thanksgiving, and have put on almost ten pounds in the five weeks since that holiday. I believe that number would have been much more if I'd not been jogging.

So, I went back on WW today, and I could tell I'd been off for awhile. I thought about food all day today. But, since I've established an exercise routine, all I have to do is reestablish my diet and I should be in excellent shape.

I can hardly believe it, but I really haven't done much in the last few days that are worth writing about.

About the most exciting thing is that Brent and I have gone minivan shopping...but, we're waiting until March to do some serious purchasing.

We got the Nintendo Wii for Christmas so we've been playing that. I'm kinda hooked on Guitar Hero III, so I've also been melting people's faces (well, figuratively, it's just a video game).

We've seen a bit of family and friends. But mostly, we've remained in our little house, eating leftover chocolate and wearing sweats.

Oh wait...Brent and I have had more sex in the last few days than we have in the entire last six months. So, that's something.

In fact, I may have never had one like it.

Since we've been married (over ten years now), we've always done some kind of "going somewhere" on Christmas. When we lived in Minnesota, we'd drive the four hours either the night before Christmas or the day of. Since we moved to Iowa, we've done our Christmas (our family) in the morning, and then we would drive 45 minutes to Brent's parents house for the big family gathering.

Anyway you look at it, there's never been much time for pajamas and that general post-Christmas Day apathy.

Until this year.

Mainly, the big Christmas Day bash at the in-laws was moved to Christmas Eve Day due to funky scheduling. Today we had the whole day here, to ourselves. WOW.

My parents came over early, we had breakfast, then we opened presents. Awesome. This day has been great. I've played a lot with our newest toy (a Nintendo Wii), but I've also done the following important things:

- Mopped kitchen floor (v. scruddy - really needed it)
- Mopped all bathroom tile floors
- Scrubbed out all three hour toilets
- Cleaned all bathtubs and shower stalls in house
- Vacuumed
- Caught up on laundry
- Finished grading another class of essays
- Downloaded some photos to the Web for my yearbook students
- Engaged in a little you-know-what with my husband

It's been a fun, productive, and quiet day. Who would have thought you could use all those words in the same sentence?