Back to the Grind

I have returned from my Canadian adventure, and have to say I had a great time. Food was excellent, wedding was picture perfect, and I even learned a bit about myself.

First of all I may be doing better than I give myself credit for.  Today (Sunday) I weighed myself.  This is something I decided to do every 2 weeks, so I have an idea where I am, but not too often I get discouraged.  I weighed in at 185lbs - the lightest I have seen on a scale in over 5 years.  This was a bit of a shock, knowing what ALL I had to eat and drink while in Quebec, from the social event the night before, cocktail hour & open bar the day of the wedding, including cake, 4 course meal and candy station at the wedding topped off with a beer festival on Sunday. I felt I took in way more calories than I used walking around town.  

One thing about Quebec, if you are in the old part of town it is all one big hill, waking up to this after a day on planes actually made me wish I had brought shoes I could work out in. It could be that even though I hate the idea of working out, after nearly 2 months of hitting the treadmill daily it is finally part of my routine enough I look forward to it in some deranged way?  

Although the shoes were not present, I did do a fair amount of walking around the area, at least 7.5 miles from what I have been able to decipher.  Oh and when say hill I mean HILL.

Each image was taken on a walk, from the right most near the water, going up the hill (the left most not even at the top)

Where I live I am pretty sure the general altitude change can be measured in inches over the miles (8 feet over 4 miles to be a bit more precise) , but it seems within a quarter mile the difference there was about 250 feet.

So in the end, I got more exercise than planned, and am still ahead. So today I decided to abuse myself. Now that I have class and have no time on Mondays to work out, today was to be a long day on the treadmill.  The treadmill had other ideas. I had set it for 13.1 miles. The goal to be able to propel myself that distance either walking or jogging, just to see how long it took, and to have a baseline for upcoming events, especially the Toro Loco in a couple weeks.  The treadmill apparently has a cap of 99 minutes, after that you are done - workout completed. Sure I could have reset it & gone the rest of the distance. And, sometime in the future will do that. But today I heeded the treadmill & stopped there.  I had jogged 7.7 miles in that time, a new distance record for me & although tired, was not as exhausted as I thought I would have been.  

Maybe, I am succeeding in the working out & getting in shape. MAYBE I will be able to complete the events I have on my plate.  We will see.