See Diva Run

Dear friends, including the ones I haven’t met yet. Since it is Thanksgiving, I want to thank you for your friendship and moral support. Whether we’ve met through Nike+, message boards, blogs or in “real life” I appreciate the inspiration and conversation.

Speaking of friends, I can’t let Thanksgiving pass without expressing my thanks for another year with my “best friend”. She is a real diamond.

In 2003 she snagged a corn cob from Thanksgiving dinner from our garbage can and swallowed it. It got stuck in her intestine and very nearly killed her. We spent a very scary holiday weekend waiting for the vet to figure out what was wrong and then waiting to see if she survived the surgery. It cost me thousands of dollars to save her and it was worth every penny. A friend asked why I didn’t just buy another dog. At that point I’d already lost my grandparents, my parents and a sister. If I could have saved any of them with money, I would have mortgaged everything I own. Since then, every day with her has been a precious gift, and since this was our 11th Thanksgiving, it is a gift I know won’t last forever. I am also thankful for garbage cans that you step on to open, because she has not been able to figure that out.

On the weight loss front, I’m thankful that I slept in until 10:00 this morning, and by the time my bladder was empty, the scale said 139.0. That is a memory I’m going to treasure, because after the orgy of eating this afternoon and evening, I won’t be seeing that number again for at least a week!

I’m thankful for the color blue, especially the bright blue of a cloudless sky when the sun is bright and the air is cold, and the darker blue of the Cascade Mountains that dominate the local landscape capped with fresh, white snow. I’m also thankful for the color green including the dark green of evergreen trees and the bright emerald green of fields of grass. I’m thankful for 8 fabulous miles on the Centennial Trail this afternoon where I was surrounded by numerous shades of blue and green. The air was cold and clear and the sun was bright. It only takes a few days of “Northwest gray” to sharpen your senses to the magic of a sunny day. Most of all I’m thankful that I’m at a point in life where I can go out for an 8 mile run as if I were going out for a walk around the block.

I’d also like to express my gratitude to Costco for providing all of the delicious food we consumed today, including a raspberry chipotle pork tenderloin, Reser’s mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, and frozen asparagus. Diva’s don’t cook, but we do heat things up. Not only do we put things in the microwave and the oven, we also throw in extra chipotle, and add cayenne to the sweet potatoes (awesome!). Costco also provided the pumpkin pie, which I did not eat for breakfast this year because pumpkin can be “fast acting” and I knew I would be running 8 miles. I did eat the pie as soon as I got home.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 11:27 pm and is filed under Life in General, Training, Weight Loss Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.