I "ran" 1.15 miles today.

I “ran” 1.15 miles today.  It took 15 minutes.  You may say, “What’s the big deal?”  Well, I’ll tell you the big deal!  It all goes back to December 24, 2010…  Scott and I had a beautiful night, celebrating Christmas Eve with my family at Auntie Regina’s house.  Scott went home at the end of the night, and I decided to go to Midnight Mass with my sister.  After mass, she drove me home, and as I was walking up the front steps of the condo, my foot slipped and I fell (I whole-heartedly blame the fall on the lack of traction on the hideous UGG boots I was wearing - as you can see from the attached picture, there's nothing on the bottom of the UGGs...).  And when I say I fell, I mean, DOWN.  My right knee hit the ground so perfectly, I saw stars.  I assured my sister “I’m fine!  I’m fine!” and hobbled up to the third floor, crying the whole way up.  As I let myself into the condo, I scared the bejeezus out of Scott.  Basically, I spent all of Christmas day heating/icing my knee.  The doctor/MRI confirmed that I had a partially torn PCL – Torn just enough so that I didn’t need surgery, but I did need physical therapy.

So, five months before my wedding, I was in absolutely NO shape to do any kind of hard core exercise.  It was horrible!  I had gotten into good shape, the best I had seen in myself since my freshman/sophomore years of college when I was rowing on the Crew team at UMass. I can say with confidence that after I stopped rowing, I had a lot of ups and downs, but I had gotten myself back to where I wanted to be.  I knew around the time that I fell that I had gained a little bit of weight that I wanted to lose, and I was banking on exercise before the wedding.

Well, All I can say is that my body really transformed…And it hasn’t been pretty.  The worst part of everything was that while my exercise regimen went out the window, so did my healthy eating habits.  While at my wedding, I was heavier than I wanted to be, I was still at a physical state that I felt comfortable with.  Since then, however, I have managed to progress into a physical state that I abhor.

So, as you know, I decided, not too long ago, that I was going to make major changes to myself.  I feel like I have a better (and healthier) understanding of what needs to be done in order for me to get to my goal.  I have joined Weight Watchers, as I mentioned before, and if it’s done anything, it has really helped me to understand how certain foods affect my body.  What it has also helped me understand is that exercise is a key element to weight loss.  There have been a couple of weeks where I haven’t exercised as much as I wanted to.  The result:  Not as much weight loss as I had been hoping for.  There have also been weeks where I haven’t tracked as well as I should have (or eaten more than I should have – like when I was on vacation), but still lost weight because I exercised so much.  I know that I could learn all of this by easily using my common sense, but WW works for me!  I got my new Saucony Sneakers and I'm going to use them!

So, back to running those 1.15 miles.  It’s been a long time since I have been on the treadmill.  After I tore my PCL, I did try to do a lot of exercise, especially because of the wedding.  But after that, I really fizzled.  So today was my first time on the treadmill in (honestly) about 15 months.  I have, over the past number of months been doing a lot of outdoor bike riding, but I figured that with the changing of the seasons, it’s probably a good idea to get going on some indoor activities.  SO, just the fact that I was able to keep a constant 5.5 speed for 11 minutes (the other four minutes I walked) is just amazing to me.  I know that it will be a process of improvement, but for today, I’m Proud!

For your viewing pleasure:  A diagram of the knee...