Ok, So....

There has been lots of lifting, lots of Spinning, and especially lots of running to note, that have come and gone without a peep on here. Also, perhaps not coincidentally, I have plateaued on my weight loss. I've only lost 2-3lbs since being back from Greece, and held consistantly in the low 190s. One day I weighed in at 189, but I think that either the scale was out of balance, or that I had sweated out all of my water weight that day. Alas, I weighed in today at 192. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what I've accomplised over the last 9 months. 46 lbs is a long journey, but I'm not seeing much or any progress any more. And that gets discouraging. My lifting has pathetic, suffered from either lack of motivation, sleep, proper nutrition, or a combination of all of these things. I don't think it's muscle gain balancing out fat burn. Also, work has been pretty crappy lately. People have left the company, but the work load is the same or greater. Now all of the load is being carried on 6 shoulders instead of 8. On top of this, almost all of the work load increase I have seen I have little to not interest in. So.....

I'm back, and will be updating this blog as often as I can to stay accountable for my work.
I'm hardly focused, but I want to try to regain what I had before Greece.
I'm going to try to lock down my eating/snacking again. It's relaxed.
I want to push my weight down in the 180s - my high school weight.
I need to get my lifting going strong again. Be it through diet correction, or finding a partner.

This past weekend I ran a 5k, along with Stephanie, at the Corwin Nixon park in Mason. It was a charity thing for ASHA, an organization that donates the proceeds to the education of children in India. I can feel pretty ok about that if nothing else. I feel pretty comfortable compairing this run the first race. The weather conditions were about the same (sunny, very humid to start, and very hot in the sun). It was hilly, not as rolling as idlewild, nor as aggressive, but still hilly. When I started off, I felt like I was holding back a bit this time. I wanted this as I really felt like I burned myself out off the line at idlewild. It was an 8:45 first mile. The second mile came to a close after the biggest of the hills. I'm really glad I held off pushing really hard the first 1.5, becuase when I got to the top of this hill, I was really starting to feel the strain. I had saved up what I needed to get up this hill efficiently. When I rounded the corner it was 18:20. I guess my last 1.1miles were completed in 10:10 - a 9:24 pace. I finished as hard as I could... gaining that I-want-to-vomit feeling I get when i've just pushed as hard as I could. It was my second 5k and I can be pretty proud about finishing 33 second faster pace than my first race: 9:45-9:12, or 30:06 to 28:31. The next race I would really like to finish sub 9 pace.