How to Celebrate Breaking in to the 100's and Losing 90 Pounds, a Guide For Beginners

My current weight is 194 pounds. Jiminy Crickets, that's strange, yet exhilarating to say! In fact, when I just typed the number, I put a two instead of the one, which shows how foreign it is to me! I surpassed two major hurdles this week. I broke the 200 pound barrier and I lost 90 pounds. Great news after my disappointing week last week. I came back from Utah with renewed energy and focus. I am glad to be back in the swing of things! Also, here's a picture of just how ugly my legs are right now. Good gravy!

How does one celebrate such a momentous occasion as losing 90 pounds? Well, I did it Saturday morning. For my gym's Saturday class, we all met at Thunderbird Conservation Park to do a hike. The trail was roughly 3.5 miles long. Jose, the gym's owner, decided to divide everyone up in to three groups; a group of walkers, a group of joggers/walkers, and a group of runners. Most of the people decided to walk, so he had them all start off first. I debated about joining that group. After all, the last time I went hiking was back in college when we went down one of the lava tubes for FHE. I decided that I'd try the jogging/walking group. Turns out, I was the only person interested in that group! I did it anyway. So off I went on my merry way. I ended up jogging about two miles of the trail, most of it on the uphill part. The downhill was the most difficult for me, for a couple of reasons. Reason one, the sunblock I wore ran in to my eyes, and it drove me crazy! I couldn't stop blinking or wiping my eyes. That made it difficult to see where my feet were going. Second, once the sunblock was all wiped off my face, sweat kept running in to my eyes to take it's place. Frustrating! Blah. I turned my ankle and in that process got a palm full of tiny little cactus needles. Jeepers! My ankle was ok to walk/jog on still, so phew!

The end of the story is that I made it up and down in one piece, and was the first person to make it in after Jose and two of the trainers. :c) I was so happy! One of the trainers was Issac. He trains me once a week and is pretty much one of my favorite people right now. He ran ahead of me for the downhill part and kept calling back to me, encouraging me on. At one point, I came up to a group of women and they each said, "Good job Sarah! Keep it up!" I was like, uh, I don't know these women! I said, "Thanks so much!" I realized that Issac had stopped and told them to cheer me on. He really is a great trainer. He pushes me pretty hard, which is exactly what I like!

This week for our training session, we did these awesome crab walks with the big red ball. What you do is lay on the ball, walk out so that your toes are on top of the ball, then lift your tooshie up into a jackknife position, then go back down and reverse it. I had a hard time getting it down, but it was so cool when I got it! I felt like a real athlete this week.

Anyway, after my 90 pound celebration, I left the park and drove to the first grocery store I came across and bought 20lbs of ice, which upon arriving home I dumped into the bathtub, filled it with cold water, and took a well-deserved ice bath. Not fun for the first few seconds, but so worth it!

Whitney (my roommate) thinks I'm completely nuts, but that's ok! I think I am going to do that trail (or others, who knows?) one day a week. I never (EVER) thought I would enjoy running, much less up and down hills. I just can't believe what I am doing. If you had told me 5 months ago that I would be doing what I did this week, I would definitely not believe you. Heck, if you told me last week that I would run most of the hike, I would call you crazy. It really is amazing what someone can do when they put their mind to it.

I read a great quote this week. It's now on my mirror. It says, "The extent to which we accept responsibility for something, is the extent to which we control it." I think this could be a great title for the first chapter of my book, if there ever is one. :c)