I'm seeing the light...

Things are getting better, eating wise. It's now been 5 successful days and each day gets easier than the next. The first two were tough, especially not eating past 8 pm. For those first two nights I had to leave the house and go for a 90 minute car ride just to keep me from snacking.

Last night I lost all my computer data. I don't know what I did, but when I restarted the computer, all my data was gone. Everything. The computer screen was wiped clean and it looked like the day I took it out of the box. I called Apple and they confirmed the data was lost forever. All 183 gigabytes, which included close to 15,000 pictures and all my work files. Gone.

I should have been freaked, but wasn't. I was actually happy. I was so happy that I made the right decision to buy a time capsule backup system from Apple. At the time, I debated if I really needed to spend the $500 to get one. I called Apple and they instructed me how to restore the files and viola! 6 hours later my computer and all my files were back where they belonged. If I didn't have that backup system I'd be pretty freaked right now. It was the best $500 insurance policy I ever spent.

In typical fashion, I went to bed hungry and woke up full. But I still forced myself to make some strawberry pancakes this morning and I'm glad I did, they tasted so good, especially with pure maple syrup. Today I was almost cocky enough to get on the scale. In only 5 days I'm starting to feel svelte again. I can see it and feel it. It's an amazing transformation in less than a week. But I'm not yet confident enough to step on the scale and know I'll be 183 lbs or less. Mentally I couldn't take the rejection. Maybe Monday will be the day.

I had a track work tonight. I wasn't looking forward to another week of running circles around a pitch black track that needs resurfacing. So instead, I went to another track, closer to home, which is usually locked at night. Tonight it was open for football practice and the best part was that all the lights were on. It is a brand new track, Olympic worthy. It was great to run with lights on and have the energy of kids practicing in the middle. On my second lap, Jenny, my neighbor from across the street, said "hi". She was part of the parent gallery and was watching her son Matt practice.

There was a lot of kids on the field and almost as many parents watching their kids. I remember when I was a kid, parents rarely watched practices, let alone games. It wasn't uncommon for kids to get rides with neighbors or coaches. Heck, when I was a kid, the word coach meant "the guy to call if your parents couldn't drive you", he was a quasi taxi driver. Somewhere along the way, this all changed. Now parents are involved in everything. Parents even watch practices, which I've done many times. How sick is that?

In my grandfathers era, if a woman was having a baby, the husband would drop her off at the front door of the hospital and come back seven days later to pick her up at the same front door where she'd be waiting. Then in my dad's era, they would go in with their wife and wait in the waiting room until it was over. Then in my era, they started having Lamaze classes and the husband would be in the room to watch and participate. Some people even videotaped it. I kinda liked my grand fathers era, where it was a drive-thru delivery.

With both our kids I was in the delivery room and in both cases I almost passed out. When Alyssa was born, the nurses were more concerned about me than Alice. They said I was green from just sitting beside Alice and holding her hand. There was no way I wanted to see what was going on down below. The doctor noticed I was going to pass out, so they made me put my head between my legs and had me drink some apple juice while they comforted me. Poor Alice, she was getting no attention.

During Reid's birth, it was similar, although I was a little stronger. At one point, the doctor "presented me" the umbilical cord with the scissors ready to cut it like a ribbon, and wanted to know if I wanted the honors. I looked at him like he had a third eye and said "ya right, not a chance, aren't you paid to do that?". I've thought about it afterwards and wondered if I should have cut the cord? Would it have been a great memory? Do I regret not doing it? The more I think about it, the more I realize "I absolutely did the right thing". There's no way I wanted to cut it then, or now.

I had a good session tonight. I'm not sure if it was the lighted track, the fact my neighbor was watching or that I'm just feeling stronger. The session included 3 x 1 mile intervals. The first was at a 5:53 pace, the second a 6:01 pace and the third a 5:51 pace. On the third and final, my maximum heart rate got up to 168 bpm.

Speed Run - 56:02 / 7.73 miles / 7:15 pace / avg hr 151