"Won't you come and save me? Save me."

("Man in a Box" by Alice in Chains).

*Warning* Please expect randomness. It's Monday morning, the weekend was ridiculous, and I don't quite have all of my faculties. The end.

248.4

That right there is a 1.2 pound loss for last week, and I'll take it! I only ended up doing t5k's twice, and managed to eat out for lunch every day last week. I half expected to gain that much, so losing it was a pleasant surprise. These 40's are kicking my butt, but I can't exactly complain since it's my fault I haven't been working out as much as I was in the 50's. The whole weight loss thing is pretty simple, really. Eat better, move more. When you don't do those things, you're either stagnant or, worse, growing.

Eat better, move more. Eat better, move more. Eat better, move more. Rinse and repeat.

I only have 5 more days until my second 5k! I'm not sure if The BFF has signed up for it yet, but I've been hounding her to...I hope she does! Before my last 5k (how cool is it that I can start a sentence like that?!?!?) I did t5ks every night except for Friday, and it seemed to work out okay. I think I'll stick with that plan, and we'll see how it goes.

I'm picking up my race packet on Friday and driving the course. Randomly, the residential section goes down the street of one of my friends at work, so she said she's going to make me a little poster to cheer me on. (She said there's NO WAY she's going to be up at 8:30 to do it in person, and with 6 kids, I don't really blame her).

My goals for this 5k are simple: (1) finish faster than my last time of 47:37, (2) get to the 2nd mile marker in under 29 minutes, and (3) keep up a running schedule.

Last time, my 2-mile time was 30:07. My average time for the course was 15:22/mile. My goal is to stay in the 14's for the whole thing. If I finished each mile in 14:59, my final time would be 46:27, shaving a little over a minute off my time. 14:30 would have me finishing in 44:57 - 2.5 minutes less! I know that while I'm here, comfortably sitting on my ass at work, shaving 30 seconds off my time per mile seems super easy...Saturday, it's going to be a completely different story.

As for keeping a running schedule, right now the plan is to run 2.5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes for as long as I can. When that gets hard, I will run 2 minutes, walk 3. When that gets hard, because I'm sure it will, I want to make sure I'm running at least 1.5 minutes of every 5. I know that I slacked with the running in the 3rd mile last time, so hopefully even if I'm running less in the beginning this time, it will average out to a faster time in the end.

I can't believe I'm less than a week away from running my second 5k. I won't lie...I'm pretty proud.

Goals for this week include:

1. Taking all meds. I did pretty awesome last week! Rock on.
2. T5k M, T, W, Th at at least a 0.5% incline.
3. Watch calories.
4. Get to 246 at next weigh-in.
5. Rock out at my second 5k.

Easy enough, right? Right.

On to other things: my weekend.

Friday:
Went with MFN and The BFF to Cheeseburger in Paradise. Horrible service, as we have found places with 'ambiance' to be consistant in that area - *ahem* Cadillac Ranch *ahem*. They're also horrible with nutrition information. They don't post any on their website, and don't make it available to you if you inquire. Yeah, there was pretty much no hope. On the plus side, afterwards we went to MFN's house and worked off a gazillion calories playing Rock Band. Well, at least I'm going to pretend I worked off a gazillion calories, as I had to sing the whole time. Hey, there was clapping involved.

Saturday:
The Hubs and I had Mongolian Grill (yes, again) for lunch. I snuck some carrots, broccoli, and sprouts in there, thankyouverymuch. Then we saw a Transformers 2 matinee. The Hubs and I both really enjoyed it, no matter what the critics may say. I'm sure we'll be buying it when it comes out on DVD. Mrs. B. Movie Grade: A-.

Sunday:
I'll spare you the long, dramatic details, but my 11 year old niece is in a Christian Children's Home about 3.5 hours north of where I live. Crammed in a backseat with my two "little" brothers, I rode up to see her with my Step-dad and Mom. The trip up was not fun, and then when we finally got there to visit, we were told that she had been taken with the rest of the kids to a baseball game about an hour away. If we wanted to, they would have brought all the kids back early from their trip, but of course we said no. My mom was really heartbroken because she hasn't spoken to her or seen her in about a month, and we were really looking forward to it. So now, we have to take another long trip up there sometime soon, in the hopes that we'll get to see her. Ugh.

And that brings us back to the present. Another day at work, another day on a diet, another day of life.

Which is totally better than the alternative.
In memoriam:
Ed McMahon
Farrah Fawcett
Michael Jackson
Billy Mays (yes, Billy Mays. He was annoying, but iconic).