Um, Robyn? Queen of Calendar Manipulation? Could you possibly add in a couple extra weeks between now and January 12th? I'm going to need them, you see, because on January 10th I'm going to Disney World.

Yep, Ericka .. THAT Disney World. For the HALF-marathon. We should plan to meet up!

Yes, I'm crazy. (This has been confirmed by an independent group of researchers - namely by Astrophe my cyber-training buddy, my husband who doesn't mind if I take off for four days and leave him to play bachelor, and my dad who's giving me the plane ticket for my Christmas gift.) But when your Marathon Team director calls you up to say "You know, we're so sorry that we didn't get our act together to do Boston 2003, so we're going to throw in a free marathon for you, and oh by the way, there's still time to sign up for Disney if you want to do it" just the week after you'd told your cyber training buddy that you really wished you'd signed up for Disney 2003 and were seriously going to miss it.. would you turn it away?

Damn it, I'm babbling - sorry about that. The short story is I have nine weeks to get from a 3-mile long walk to a 13-mile long walk. With 9 weeks of moderate training and diet, it can be done. Especially considering (and I am wholeheartedly ashamed to admit this) I've completed a half before on much less training. My god, I am so excited.

I needed someone to shake up my complacency a bit. It's definitely shaken, all right. :-D

Seen over at my own fitness blog:

"This feels so surreal.

Right now, only the power of knowing how close I am to blowing a good eating day is keeping me from having a bender with a half-full quart of Edy's Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream.

My head hurts. I'm tired. And I know that what I want is not ice cream, but some comfort, and this pain in my head to go away. The period between the time you take the ibuprofen and the time the pain goes away .. a dangerous, dangerous time.

I may yet have that bender .. but I don't want to have the memory of it masked by the pain of this damn headache. Because tomorrow, the ice cream will be only a memory (and a few more fat cells on my waistline) .. and I might as well have full recognisance of it. No?"

Hey Erin, I use a couple pilates tapes, but I really don't know if they suck or not. Anyone else use the Denise Austin yoga/pilates series? Is it just me or is she a little too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed? And breathy?

It's my birthday this Friday...my 25th birthday. I feel like turning over a new leaf. So I'm making a birthday resolution. Starting Friday, I'm getting up in the morning and either running (M-W-F) or doing my aforementioned Breathy Denise tapes (T-Th-maybe another day). And, while I'm at it, I decided to start eating more healthily, too. Which means less beer. Damn. And less fish-and-chips baskets. Double damn. I need to hear more motivation like what Hannah just wrote...that I'm gonna feel all energetic. I want to feel stronger and more...awake.

So, Erik finally got the VCR hooked up in the workout/weight/whatever room.

As a resuly, I got up early this morning to do an Intro to Stott Pilates tape. I liked it -- I think pilates a couple of times a week would be a nice way to start the morning. While I know the best way to do Pilates is with an instructor -- and Pilates, like yoga, is huge at my gym -- I'm not willing to fit in anymore class times to my week. I'm certainly not about to substitute a spin class for it.

Anyone know of any good Pilates tapes? I've ordered some Crunch yoga tapes that aren't so Zen -- as the Zen thing isn't for me -- but I'm looking for a good Pilates tape. Thoughts?

***

In other news, I started taking some supplements. I am now taking liquid Vitamin B-12, two multi-vitamins, and using flax seed oil. I made a vingarette with the flax seed oil and had it over some spinach last night. There was no taste difference at all.

I know that it is stupid to start a Big Diet on a Monday--especially when I was consuming my weight in my 18-month-old daughter's Halloween candy just 12 hours ago--but I have to get back on track or I am going to spiral back into every single bad habit that I have ever had. And there are a lot of them!

I haven't been to Weight Watchers in weeks. We were having some money issues and it didn't seem like a priority. But it should have been. I am going to go on Wednesday night, though. I know that I haven't really gained anything, but I also haven't lost anything. Since June. And it's not because I am building all sorts of buff muscles or anything. It's because I have been eating like crap.

And we just had recommitment for my marathon. We had to sign a bunch of paperwork that says that we will definitely be participating in January and that we will pay the difference if we don't meet our fundraising goals. I want to commit to also to getting in all of the miles that I am supposed to--which is 5 workouts a week right now. Next month it's 6 workouts a week. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

I love this blog and I am happy that I can just write these goals down somewhere that other people can see. It makes them more real to me than just writing (another) list of things that I would like to do. I hope that makes sense.

And I hope that it's not freezing (literally) when my husband gets home from work because I can't take my daughter outside in this weather. She has been sick all weekend and she is still not acting like herself this morning. I can't imagine that sitting in a stroller for a 7 mile walk isn't anything that would help the situation!

I hope everyone else has a good week!