Feeling Good!

So after taking a rest day yesterday (and being a little disappointed in myself that I did), I decided to hit it hard today... despite the fact that I stayed up until at least midnight watching the finale of the Biggest Loser (OMG - HELEN????!!!!) I am a little bit in mourning over the fact that my girl, Tara, didn't win. She is truly my hero.

This morning I started with a 7.1 mile bike ride. I did pretty well, although by the end I thought I might do Jillian proud by puking. But I managed to make it home, stomach contents in place. Once home, I drank one of my Innergize drinks from Reliv - a replacement for Gatorade - and I have to say, it really made a big difference. Loved it! And it was enough to get my energy back up, so I decided to go for a speed walk/run. Sierra has been an extremely aggressive and energetic lately - yes, even going so far as to hump her brothers. Yuck. What's up with that?? So Miss Sierra got to go with me.

At first I planned on just walking the route, but instead decided to run on all of the dirt paths and then also set incremental goals along the way - for example, run to the next set of mailboxes, etc. I found myself exceeding my goals and it was amazing! And the beauty of Vistancia in early morning, the abundance of wildlife, hot air balloons taking off, made it amazing. We saw bunnies (which Sierra wanted to track and capture), quail, a roadrunner, and a big, fat rattlesnake sunning himself off the trail. He was much less impressed with us than we were with him.

On the way back to the house, we went through one of the adjoining upscale neighborhoods and it was kinda creepy - a product of the rapid housing market demise here in AZ. Only about 15% of the houses had been built prior to the crash, and just about all of those sit empty with for sale signs. The vacant lots are overgrown with weeds and it eerily resembles a ghost town. To make the image more poignant, a lone, skinny coyote trotted down the road and like the rattle snake, was rather nonplussed to see us. He glanced over his shoulder at us, looking at us as though we were the trespassers - and I guess we were.

Once home, did a little work, had my morning shake, and then did a great upper body weight training. I feel good!! And to really top off the day, shortly after lunch, I'm going to swim my laps again.

I'm very pleased to say that I've "crossed over". You know, the first few days or week that you're working out you can't imagine what could have possibly possessed you to torture your body... but then all of a sudden you cross over. You like the pain, the fatigue, the sweat. You get your high! And that's where I'm at... I can't wait until August!!