Excuse me, have you seen my bandwagon?

We are back... Safe and sound in the good old U.S. of A. Escaped the snow and the cold temperatures... Actually, what was even better... We finally got to see the sun again. Seriously Germany, that weather was kind of a joke and if you ever (EVER!) expect me to move back (and on top of it, convince my husband to move to Germany) this has to get better. I can deal with the temps and the snow... It's hard, but I can deal... But not seeing the sun for over a week.... Not funny... At all.

As I mentioned in my vacation posts, the training suffered big time. I got two runs in (one 5-miler and one 11-miler) and then the walks with the dog. Some of them were quite the exercise too. Try breaking a trail through six inches of snow and you'll know that you worked. Or try not to plant your face on the ground on icy sidewalks and you thank yoga and the balancing poses forever. One exercise I did frequently: eating cookies. I also enjoyed mother's cooking in general and the wine was flowing on a regular basis.

Did I gain weight? You betcha! How much? I don't know!

I haven't stepped on the scale since getting to Germany and I won't step on the scale for another two weeks. For two weeks a year, I give myself "carte blance" to eat whatever I want. Last year, I did the same thing and when I got back home, I stepped on the scale the next day and almost fainted. The feeling of guilt was there right away. This year, I will give myself two weeks to get back into my workout routine and regular eating habits before performing the reality check on the scale. I just don't want to feel guilty for those two weeks of dietary freedom. Given, if the weather conditions had been better, I probably would have balanced out the gluttony a little more... But I don't even go there. No guilt.

After not doing much for the last two weeks, I thought I should feel all giddy to get back working out, but honestly, this time I felt like being a lazy for a little while longer.

Fortunately, I have a coach and there are workouts on my plan and so I did, what I had to do. First up was an hour of easy running and even if I didn't feel like it throughout the day, once I was out there, I felt good. Really good... Like all happy to be running again.... After that, I went to the conditioning class at the Y and that was a reality check even without a scale involved. A couple of times, I thought I am going to barf. I have high hopes that it's going to go better next week. Needless to say, I pretty sore today.

This morning then, I had my first swim class for the season and I really enjoyed it. Seems like they found the button for the heat in the pool and the locker rooms at the Middle Tyger Y... I hope it stays that way. We did a 4x50 yards kick board race and I found that I haven't lost my kick. A quick 200 yards time trial also went well, so I am all happy....

Oh and this weekend, I am going to run a half in Travelers Rest. I put this race on the calendar in order to keep me on my toes over the holidays... Funny... In retrospect... Really funny... We'll see how that goes! ;-)