Winter has arrived

Every Friday I go to a spinning class with my cousin Patti and her neighbor Stephanie at 5:30 am. Last night Patti sent this email and I thought it was funny:

Well ladies, bundle up in the morning. It will be a roasting 10 degrees at 5am. Makes you want to spin even faster to warm up. I love Michigan mornings. No wonder we are one of the most obese states in the country.

The ideal thing to do when it is 10 degrees out is stay inside and eat a stack of flapjacks drowning in syrup and a side of sausages with enough grease to soak your finest paper plates, some eggs with extra cheese and country gravy poured over it and as a bonus you can spray a full can of whipped cream over a few pieces of canned fruit packed in heavy syrup. Then, curl up by the fireplace or open your oven and turn on the broiler for some radiant heat while you watch some rerun's of the price is right or wheel of fortune. AHHH, the good ol' days.

Thanksgiving Report

I ate a lot. :)

But I did a 1 1/2 hour spinning class, bowled two games AND played football. Plus I ran the day before and I did a 1 hour spinning class today and will swim tomorrow.

Hopefully it'll all work out. ;)

Thankfulness

Since it is Thanksgiving this week, this seems appropriate:

I hit a major milestone this week... I am officially under my lowest weight as an adult, that I hit in 1995. 2 lbs to be exact. :)

I was with Weight Watchers at that time, I had lost 120 lbs. I got stuck at that weight.

Then I got complacent and started slowly gaining about 5 lbs a year for the next 10 years. I tried everything to get back to that place I was at in 1995. I yo-yoed up and down in those 10 years, but mostly up.

In the fall of 2005 I started on the path I am now. It's been hard, slow, but so rewarding and fun at the same time. Even more so than last time.

I do not plan on getting complacent again. That's why all of you are so important to me. My support system. I couldn't do it without you. I love you all.

So today I am thankful. I still want to lose about 17 more lbs. But the goal for now is to "diet" until end of January then start tri-training again. And where I am at the end of January is where I am. If it's 5 more, fine. If it's 0 more, fine. As long as there is maintaining or losing, I will be happy. After January, I will maintain through tri-season and give it another try (tri?) ;) if I need to.

This is my path now, and for this, I am so incredibly thankful.

Quote

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're probably right.

-Henry Ford.

Signed in Blood

I want all of you to know that my incredibly awesome husband, Timothy Brian Manigold (I just said it that way to sound official, really it's just Tim. ;) ), stated this morning that he is going to do the Hawk Island Triathlon in June (in East Lansing).

I don't ever remember him saying for sure he would do it, but he said he had. So I asked him if this was a done deal, and then he started to back pedal! Loser!

Anyway, I told him I was going to post it here so he can't back out.

So he HAS to do it now. ;)

The Fire in Her Eyes

F2FM has it now.

What is it you ask?

It's that fire. No, not her hair, her EYES.

Maybe it's because she has signed up, maybe it's because she's feeling peer pressure, but she has it.

I can tell now that she's ready to get serious about this biking event she has coming, because I saw it in her EYES.

But watch out, because she has it, and it might be contagious!

As an aside, F2FM, I did go out and run this morning. Maybe it's because you scared me with THAT FIRE.

You can do anything

I was watching "the Biggest Loser" the other day when the trainer named Jillian said something very profound.

There was this woman who was well over 300 lbs and she was running up this sand dune carrying sand bags and Jillian was yelling at her to get her up that hill.

When she got to the top, Jillian said to her "Look what you have done! Look at the strength and power you had coming up that hill! That strength will transcend into EVERY aspect of your life."

This is so true.

I can't tell you how my life has changed over the past two years. I am more confident in EVERYTHING I do. My successes I have had in weight loss and racing have built me up, made me a better wife, a better friend, a better worker and better at everything. Not because I am thinner, but because I am healthier, I feel better and I am happier.

On my vacation, I went rock climbing. Did you hear me? ROCK CLIMBING? I would have never tried something like that before, because I never thought I could.

Guess what? I can do anything I want. So can you. Go on your ride, go do your triathlon, go run your marathon. And then go do ANYTHING else you put your mind to, because you can, because you are awesome and can overcome ANY obstacle!!

Wow

Wow!

It's been almost a month since I posted anything...

It's not that I haven't been doing anything, it's just I've been busy and with no events, things are just slower than normal.

I'm still spinning once a week (I will spin twice next week as there is a special 1.5 hour spin class on Thanksgiving morning).

I'm swimming a couple days and running a couple days.

Nothing too intense. I am *kinda* taking it easy getting ready for like February to start hitting it harder for tri season. Just staying loose, doing swim drills, speed work with running and sweating my butt off on spinning.

Also, we were gone on vacation to Arizona. My friend took us rock climbing. I may be addicted, so we are going to go to an indoor gym this winter I think. It was WAY fun. We did 3 seriously hard hikes. Fun, beautiful and good workouts. We drove a lot, saw a lot of people and did some relaxing too. And the best part was i didn't gain a pound!

I have some more thoughts on that I'll post another day....