Wow...it's March already!

My updates have been lacking...my bad.  It's only been slightly stressful since I started this whole journey.  But I have some very exciting news: after two and a half months, my mom has FINALLY left the hospital!!!!!!  She has moved in with my brother and his wife until she is strong enough to go home by herself.  I spent the past weekend in Indianapolis with her and she had a great weekend.  She was able to take a shower and wash her hair, she put on clothes (ok, so they were pajamas but anything is better than a hospital gown), she was eating real food, and we walked a lap around her floor.  With that exciting news, I thought is was a great time to update with all of life's happenings lately.


The last time I updated was three weeks after I started my journey.  I'm now well over two months in.  First up, I have officially lost 7.5 pounds.  I am less than 1 pound away from my original 5% loss goal.  I have had quite a few ups and downs but I am thrilled to currently be at 156.5 lbs.  Once I hit that first goal, I will reevaluate to come up with a second more ambitious but still realistic goal.  After last week's loss, I have regained some motivation and position thinking so I'm confident in myself again.


Since the last update, I have also taken the first steps in my Twelve in 2012 goal.  I started out with the Freaking Freezing Frozen Lake Half Marathon on January 28.  It started at the Foster Avenue Beach, went north to about Bryn Mawr then turned around south down to LaSalle, under LSD and back up the Lake Front Path to Foster Beach.  It was pretty cold and there was a decent amount of snow and ice along the entire course.  I finished this race in 2:47:37 with a 12:48 min/mile pace.  While that is arguably my slowest half marathon (with the exception of my run splits in both of my half Ironman triathlons), I was pretty pleased with the performance.  I was sick the week before and still felt pretty crappy that morning.  But the finisher's medal had a built in beer bottle opener so it's a win!


I followed that race up with the Disney Princess Half Marathon on February 26 in Orlando, FL.  This race was bittersweet.  This was supposed to be a weekend celebration with my mom.  It was supposed to be a girls only weekend in Disney celebrating the progress Mom has made, walking in the half marathon, and culminating with Mom's 59th birthday to end our weekend.  Since Mom was still laid up in the hospital, it ended up being only my roommate and me.  We had a blast though and the race was tons of fun.  We started along the highway leading through Disney property.  We ran north to Magic Kingdom and entered the park.  We ran up and around Cinderella's Castle and got to run underneath the castle.  We then exited Magic Kingdom and ran south back down the highway, ran up and exit ramp and headed back toward Epcot Center.  We entered Epcot and ran around the park there ending in the parking lot of Epcot.  This race was even slower than January's half but I am 100% OK with that!  We stopped many times along the way to have our picture taken with a number of characters including Aladdin and the other "princes", Sleeping Beauty and the fairies, and Jessie from Toy Story just to name a few.  Our official time was 3:11:15 but that included multiple photo stops and a bathroom break.  The experience was one of a kind though and we have made the promise to go back and do it again...this time WITH Mom...in 2014.


I'm now less than two weeks away from #3.  Casey and I will be running the Get Lucky Half Marathon in Minneapolis/St. Paul on St. Patty's Day.  I also am starting really train for these half marathons in the hope that I can get a personal best in Indianapolis in May.  I'm feeling pretty positive lately so let's hope that lasts!  I'm also going to try my best to update more regularly (even though nearly every weekend between now and June is jam packed full of activities).  So until next time my friends...

First Progress Report

Alright, I'm three weeks in now.  The first week went great and I immediately started seeing results.  Then shit hit the fan and my life became absolutely insane.  Many of you know what has been going on but for those of you that don't...here's the quick rundown.  My mom had surgery to remove her gallbladder on Thursday, December 16.  We thought this would help her feel better after she had gotten out of the hospital right before Thanksgiving.  By Sunday the 19th, she was back in the hospital and was admitted to ICU that night.  We found out that during the gallbladder surgery, her small intestine was punctured and she had gone into septic shock.  The doctor did surgery to wash her out and inserted drains to get rid of the infection.  And this is where all normal routine for me went out the window.


After Mom's surgery that Sunday night, I went to court in the morning and then immediately went to Indy to see how she was doing.  The next morning I drove back to Chicago to work a few days then headed back to Indy on Thursday for my regularly scheduled Christmas plans but with an added day to be at home and check on Mom.  Mom stayed in the hospital and I stayed with my brother and his family until December 27 when I had to come back to Chicago.  My time back home was short lived though when I received a phone call on the 30th that I needed to come back as Mom was in ICU again.  So I left work mid-afternoon and drove back to Indy.  I stayed there until January 1 and am back home in Chicago again.  The good news is that Mom is out of ICU and in the med/surge wing.  We are hoping that she won't be in the hospital for too much longer.  This is going to be a long road to recovery but I want nothing more than for her to leave that hospital.


So with all of the driving back and forth and the stress of having my mom/best friend laid up in the hospital, my attempts at regular exercise and healthy eating were nonexistent.  I made a great effort to avoid fast food restaurants while driving back and forth so that was a positive.  And with being so busy, I pretty much cut out all snacks.  So despite the craziness, I still managed to lose weight.  I am down 5 pounds from where I started.  I'm proud of the loss but I'm hoping that I can be a little more consistent now and continue on the track of losing.


Now that I am back in Chicago and Mom is on the mend, I'm hoping I won't have to drive down there until after I get back from vacation.  That means that regular workouts start again tomorrow morning.  I'm going back to my masters swim team this week.  I also begin training for my first half marathon of the year this week.  I'm also making a great effort to NOT go out to eat and will be cooking myself healthy meals for breakfast and dinner and will be doing simple sandwiches and veggies for lunch.  I leave for Cancun in ten days so if I could shed another pound or two before then, I would be pretty happy.  (Cancun will not count so I anticipate gaining a little bit of weight...I'm going to take advantage of our all-inclusive!)  But I am thinking positive and seeing how things go.