Day 55 = Running + "The Office"

Soooo happy I got to be outside today. The more I get into this workout regime, the more I miss the days I can't be outside. Albeit, I only ran around the block for 30 minutes after I watched "The Office" and ate a cheeseburger from Mighty Fine Burgers (my justification is it's "Friday" to me and I've been wanting to try them), but I very much enjoy the running/walking days more than being forced to stay inside and do some reps with resistance bands. But I am determined, and I keep on truckin'.

Today is my Friday because tomorrow I'm flying to Arkansas to surprise my British stepfather, Richard. Tonight, his brother and sister-in-law flew in from England and he got the surprise of his life! Tomorrow, Richard's nephew and his girlfriend are flying in from Enlgand as another surprise. It's not his birthday, but he is a very much loved, respected and well-liked person in my inner circle of trust and he's like a father to me. He's been in my life for most of my life. We are all excited about surprising him. Even though he loves and married my American mother and moved to the US in 1993 to be with her (after we all lived in England with him), it must be hard to live in a foreign country away from family for so long. My parents are talking about retiring and moving to England. If they go, I go. Until tomorrow, cheers, mates!

Day 54 = Resistance Bands + Barack Obama

I wish I had started my workouts on January 20 so that I could say I've worked out every day that Obama's been in office. I'd have 100 days behind me by now.

I worked late tonight and got home around 7:30. Had to compile notes and reports about all those breakout sessions I've been attending the last two days at the Bazaarvoice Social Community Summit.

Walking really is more high impact that I have given it credit for. I'm more sore than I anticipated. I need a personal stretch person to go with my personal trainer. While I'm at it, I need a personal shopper - especially someone who'll buy my jeans. I'm a disaster at selecting jeans. Stacy London, please come help me. So to give my legs, hips, butt and lower back a break, I just used my resistance bands and core ball tonight.

Day 53 = Walking + Trudy's

OMG. I wondered if this would ever happen. I logged over 11,200 steps today! Maybe you've heard of the 10,000 steps a day challenge? Well, I'm not really going for that, but the BodyBugg thinks I should. Every day so far, it's been showing me with graphs and charts just how much I fail to meet that goal. Finally, today I can say, "Suck it, BodyBugg. I did it!" I feel like a superstar.

I've been thinking of what I can do to get in more steps everyday, like volunteer as a tour guide or become a personal chef. According to my charts, I get in most of my steps in the morning when I'm getting dressed, when I walk from my car to the building, when I get up in the middle of the day to grab lunch, when I walk from the building to my car and then at home when I go for a walk. It's a little sad to see how sedentary that looks in bar chart format. But today, I was at an offsite meeting going from breakout session to breakout session. Lots of steps. Then I came home (after a Ciro's Special and a margarita at Trudy's with Alan and Theresa) and walked for about an hour. I do a lot of walking. That's a workout, you know.

Oh, and before I gloat too much about my superstar status, I got this blog from my running coach. Now this guy is a real rock star. http://secker.blogspot.com/ He's been running for 64 days in a row.

Day 52 = Gym + 24 Hour Fitness

I'm still wearing the BodyBugg. It's telling me when I have REM sleep (about twice a night) and how much I kick in my sleep. The other night, I took a Benadryl at bedtime and the charts were all over the place. One of these days, I am going to have to get serious about the other part that the BodyBugg tracks: calories.

The weather has been crazy this month. Well, not so much crazy as annoying. Texas gets about 300 days of sunshine a year, and I guess April is not part of the plan this year. It's been windy and rainy. And my sprinklers have no idea about that last part. Since it's been so rainy, I went to the gym tonight to work out, to discuss my BodyBugg and to interview a personal trainer. Hope referred me to her trainer who will come to my house, which sounds perfect and almost justifiable since it's so hard to find a good trainer who is consistent. I met a gym trainer tonight, but something tells me I don't think I can trust her to whip me into shape. I don't care if she has a degree in nutrition or has been a personal trainer for two years. If I can see between your legs when you're standing with your feet together, you do not know what it's like to be me.

Day 51 = Running + Town Lake

Last night, I had the pleasure of crashing at Hope's house. This was due to a planned girls' night out at a Texas honkytonk. Just for tickles and grins. And beers. And shots. And two-steppin. And people watching, which was not scarce.

Hope's kids slept until 8:30 and didn't even try to wake their "Feather." Hope made breakfast and when her husband headed out for an errand, I went on my way, too. Straight to Town Lake. I ran the 3-mile loop. It was another beautiful day.

Day 50 = Running + Special Olympics

Saturday started way too early. I managed to make it out to the site of the area games of the Special Olympics of Central Texas by about 7:30 am and was chosen to work with the tennis players. There was some miscommunication about the use of the tennis courts so we had to ask some other people to leave. Maybe it was early in the morning and maybe they were genuinely frustrated, but they directed their nasty remarks to the woman who was coordinating the tennis matches, and it was uncalled for and not her fault. I stepped in and commented about how their attitude was unnecessary and they just needed to calm down; she didn't deserve that treatment. For a minute, I thought the confrontation was going to escalate even more. I was absolutely stunned at how inconsiderate these two outsider men were and how much they lacked compassion. A phone call confirmed that the Special Olympics did, in fact, have the courts for that day and the men left, but they didn't even apologize. Heartless. I noticed the one with the bleach-blonde tips driving away in his early 90s model Corvette.

My duties consisted of greeting the athletes and helping them warm up. I also took score for each athlete. There were a couple of athletes who actually played in match play. One of them, Rick, showed off his Michael Jackson moonwalk across the court and his picture with Andy Roddick. (Rick claimed Andy is almost as good as he is.) Around 1 pm, I took the last group of athletes to the award tent and watched a little bit of the awards ceremony. As I walked to my car, I watched some relay races.

When I got home, I walked and ran around my neighborhood. Then I took a nap. It was a good day.

Day 49 = Walking + PMS

Today is the first day that I've come home and not been super excited about my workout. It's a gloomy day. I just feel irritable. I'm attributing my mood to PMS, which I have not been bothered by for a good 22-1/2 years until the last few months. Each month, my PMS mood varies. One month, I want to claw your eyes out. The next month, I cry if I have to wait too long at Starbucks. I almost cried during a meeting this morning because I couldn't get the dial-in number to work. There must be some clock in my body saying "time to change the hormones." Hormones are pretty much responsible for the world, by the way. The good decisions and the bad ones. Maybe I should get some of those bio-identicals.

I'm going to get my evening walk out of the way so I can come home and spend a quiet Friday night on the couch watching a movie, eating some cheese and drinking red wine. Not too much, though, because I have to get up early to volunteer for the spring games of the Special Olympics of Texas. It's one of my favorite charities, and it's such a privilege to be part of it. I'm sure my mood will change when I see all the athletes giving their 110%.