"A Champion Until the End"
"The first flowers arrived on the morning after the Preakness, a breezy and sunlit springtime Sunday that turned the rolling hills a brilliant shade of green in Pennsylvania horse country south of Philadelphia. Signs were hung from the wooden fence rails outside the New Bolton Center, where Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was being treated for what surgeons would soon call "catastrophic'' injuries to his right hind leg. A family arrived with a bunch of carrots and asked that they be given to the horse.

The love never ceased. When May turned to June and then June to July and it appeared that Barbaro might steadily be winning a battle for survival that surgeon Dr. Dean Richardson called, from the very beginning, "a coin toss,'' the tokens came less frequently. It was as if the public felt the big horse no longer needed its care because he was doing so well on his own.

But in the second week of July, when Barbaro developed a terrible case of laminitis in his left hind foot -- the good one -- the flowers again began piling up at the hospital. After Christmas he appeared to be doing better, but he suffered a severe setback last week when he developed an abscess in his right hind foot and had to undergo another surgery. The pain was too much for the horse to bear. When he was euthanized on Monday, a profound sadness fell across the sport, and far beyond, touching humans in ways they could not explain.

His passing can be measured in many ways. The sport lost a giant talent who might have won the Triple Crown (he might, in fact, have dominated the Triple Crown; more on that later). It lost a sire whose impact might have been felt for many generations to follow. It lost a champion whose class and bravery -- before and after his injury -- were inspiring and lent a visceral touch to a sport that is rapidly becoming disconnected from human emotions.

His passing, upon further review, is immeasurable.

I first watched him run in a small video box on the desktop of the Apple laptop on which I'm writing these words, winning the Florida Derby. The book on Barbaro was that he was a front-runner who would wilt when pressed on the lead. On that day, he was pressed nearly to the wire by Sharp Humor and won the race. Granted, Sharp Humor was just a tough sprinter stretching out, but still....

Three weeks later I met with Michael Matz, Barbaro's trainer, in a spotless tack room at Delaware Park race track. We talked about Matz's epic history. As the survivor and hero in a 1989 plane crash. As an Olympic medalist in 1996. And we talked about Barbaro. I could not have imagined that less than nine months later, Barbaro would be humanely destroyed less than half an hour away. Of course, that is a reality of horse racing. Sometimes horses are injured and sometimes they cannot be saved.

Three weeks before the Kentucky Derby, as I sat and wrote about Matz, my cell phone chirped. On the other end was Sports Illustrated photographer Bill Frakes, who was shooting the pictures that would accompany my story. "Have you seen this horse?'' Frakes asked. I had not.

"`Wait until you do,'' said Frakes. Five days before the Derby I was walking the Churchill Downs backstretch and passed Matz, who was riding alongside Barbaro and exercise rider/assistant trainer Peter Brette. Frakes was right. What a majestic animal. There are beautiful horses who cannot run fast; we already knew that Barbaro was fast and now to see him in the flesh was breathtaking.

Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby in the manner of an athlete who is evolved beyond his peers. He cut a massive, striking pose in the Derby paddock before the race, taller and more muscled than the others in the race. The breeding industry buzz had been that Barbaro would one day do his best running on the grass. As Barbaro circled the Churchill paddock, Jill Baffert, the wife of three-time Derby-winning trainer Bob Baffert, turned to her husband and said, "You better hope he's a grass horse.''

He might have been, but he was brilliant on dirt. He won the Kentucky Derby by six lengths without feeling jockey Edgar Prado's whip. Eight days later I talked with Prado in the jocks' cafeteria at Belmont Park, and he could scarcely find the words to describe the feel of sitting on Barbaro's back.

Matz lightened up on Barbaro leading to the Preakness, until putting one stiff, short breeze into him two days before the race. Barbaro was so full of himself that Matz had to gallop him on the morning of the Preakness, just to take the edge off.

There are very wise handicappers who suggest that Bernardini would have beaten Barbaro in the Preakness. The absolute and obvious truth is that we will never know, but that is a towering presumption. Barbaro never lost a race. He was dominant in the Kentucky Derby and razor sharp before the Preakness. It is hard for me to envision him losing. Perhaps I would have felt differently if Bernardini had proven himself a great racehorse, which he did not.

Yet this is the point, is it not?

We can debate forever why we feel pain at losing Barbaro. There is a significant lobby out there that despises the fact that horses are bred to race. (Trust me, I have heard from this lobby). It is a fair point.

For me, pain came from the other side of that same coin and it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks at the Preakness. In the minutes before the race, I stood with owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson on the infield grass at Pimlico, so close that I could have reached out and patted Barbaro on his forehead (which I did not). He was stunningly ready to race, a mass of barely contained muscle and veins. (Maybe of all that energy signified something more ominous; we'll never know that either).

Moments later I stood on the Pimlico dirt as track attendants and veterinarians tried to steady Barbaro on three legs. The magnificent horse tossed his head about and tried to break free. All I could think was: He wants to race. I could feel a huge lump in my throat. Barbaro was bred to run and couldn't understand now why he was being restrained from doing so.

Now that he is gone, there is another sort of sadness altogether, a sadness at never learning what Barbaro might have done. He has a place in history. No horse has ever won the Derby and broken down in the Preakness so publicly and so sadly.

In a much larger sense, Barbaro leaves that deepest of empty wells, of greatness never fulfilled. Many wise people thought he would win the Triple Crown, ending a drought that is approaching three decades. He might have run a memorable Preakness and few doubted that he would have been nearly unbeatable in the Belmont, with his long, swift stride that it seemed he could carry forever.

On June 9, 1973, Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths in the untouchable time of two minutes, 24 seconds. People of many ages can tell you that as Big Red opened 15 lengths on the turn, track announcer Chic Anderson intoned, "He is moving like a tremendous machine.'' Barbaro might have given us another moment like that.

We will never know and that will always pain us most."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/tim_layden/01/29/barbaro.obit/index.html

I've been pretty lazy this week; I'll admit it. I've only managed to make two morning workouts this week, Monday and Wednesday. This morning a headache drove back to bed for an hour and a half. Oh well. I'll try harder next week.

My eating hasn't been great either, but I'm keeping it mostly in check by only bringing enough to school for the day. If I binge and eat it all at once, well, it means I don't have anything to eat for the rest of the day. It seems to help. I just need to keep it up, and to watch out for those days that could cause me problems. We had cake served on Monday as a special treat, and I managed to avoid it completely. We have another cake day (I know, MY high school never gave us cake!) this Thursday, so I need to be ever vigilant and avoid the location they serve it from. It's a shame, too, because wherever they get these cakes, they are really good, with a cream cheese frosting between the layers. Yum!

Anyway, the damage from the week hasn't been that bad: last night I weighed in at 176 and this morning I was 175. I know the weigh-ins vary a lot from morning to night and from day to day, but I don't think my average for the week is that bad. I just need to really do a better job about getting to the gym.

I've been stymied in the afternoons about where and how to work out. I haven't figured out when our weight room at school is available--I've tried several times and found it either occupied or locked. I'm reluctant to go outside after lacrosse practice and run, either around the track or aroudn the neighborhood, because they lock the building for security reasons, and after about 4:30 in the afternoon it is really hard to find someone to let me back in. I'd hate to be locked out without my car keys and purse. I don't have any weights or anything in my classroom that I could use. That would have been a possibility, but now I don't really have the money to buy anything, and I don't have many weeks of swimming left anyway. Next week is the last week of our regular season, and the week after that is our league championship. After that, the only swimmers I'll have will be those who are attending the state championship meet at the end of February, and most of those swimmers do not practice with our high school team (long story). So there will be some days I may not have anyone coming to practice and I can go home after lacrosse.

I'm seriously considering making this my final season of coaching high school swimming. I've coached this particular team for three seasons, and another high school for the four years prior to this. During that time I've shown up to countless practices and not had any swimmers show up. It's incredibly frustrating, and compounded by the fact that I live 45 minutes away from where we practice. Swimming means late nights for me, and I only see my family for about 45 minutes before I'm ready for bed (that getting up at 4 thing doesn't help, either). I'm currently searching for other locations in town where we might practice earlier in the day, but it's not looking good. If I can't move practice earlier, I'm going to give it up. I just need to start thinking more about me and my family. It's not like I get paid well for this, anyway. But I will miss it if this is truly the end. I've coached swimming in some form or another for almost ten years, and I've been involved in swimming for over fifteen years. That's a big chunk of time, and it will be strange to not have it in my life. But I do think it might be time for a change.

On to a random note: in the mornings as I drive to work, I pass a number of fields that in warmer seasons are filled with a variety of crops. In the winter mornings and evenings, these fields are either frosted over or covered with a strange layer of fog (southern fog is interesting because there will be a big, thick patch of it in one place, and suddenly you'll drive past it and into the clear. It sort of settles in the hollows). But the other thing you'll see in these fields is birds. They cover the ground and the bare trees. Thousands, probably millions of birds. My ornithology is a bit sketchy, and I have no real idea what kinds of birds these might be, but they are plentiful to say the least. And watching them is amazing (and a bit hazardous, as I'm driving at speeds above 65 miles per hour, most of the time). They will swirl up out of the trees and into the sky, sometimes settling back down, other times making this amazing feathery trail across the sky. These swarms of birds make a dark ribbon in the sky that could be a mile long and contain millions of birds. And no matter which direction the flock twists and turns, they never seem to run into each other. It's amazing to see. Just don't crash your car while you watch them.

Thank goodness! My team curse did not carry through to the Indianapolis Colts! They made a terrific comeback, taking down the Patriots after falling behind early. So we will see a nice matchup between a high-powered Colts passing offense and a mean Bears defense (has there ever been any other kind?). This should be great. I hope Manning and the Colts win, so the poor guy can tell everyone who has criticized him for not getting the job done when it counted that they can just shut the heck up. So, Super Bowl XLI (that would be 41 for those people who are Roman numerically challenged) in two weeks.

My next concern? Why don't they play the Super Bowl in a real football location? What's up with it always being a warm-weather climate or a dome? Every Super Bowl should be played in Denver, or Green Bay, or Chicago. Wussy fans.

On to Miami!

The football woes continue. My Chargers are out as of last week, and my husband's Eagles are out as well. So I focused my attention on the New Orleans Saints. They have two former Chargers on the team that I'm still fond of, and most of their players seem to be pretty good guys. The city of New Orleans, and really much of Louisiana, who have had such a terrible time in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, have really had their spirits lifted by the wonderful season of the Saints. They've had something to cheer about, as the successes of the Saints have rolled on. But I've just watched them be systematically taken apart by a dominating Chicago Bears defense in the NFC championship game. And so their magical season will come to an end.

It isn't that I dislike Chicago. I actually sort of like their team. I selected their defense as my first pick of our fantasy football league's draft, and they are a large reason I came in second overall. I remember the vaunted Bears' defense of my youth, and the Super Bowl shuffle and all that. So I'm OK with the Bears. But I had such high hopes for the Saints, since my own team got knocked out.

And it also worries me a little that the teams I like to root for are somehow jinxed in some way. Like my rooting for them is the sole reason they come up short. And I desperately want the Patriots to lose this next game against the Colts. Maybe I should root for the Pats...

I'm trying something interesting...let's see if it works. I'm not great at HTML or anything like that; it's been years since I had to use it to have my own website. But I'm bored with the templates for the Blogger sites, and I'm going to try to redo my template a little at a time. Don't know how it will go. Let me know what you think...

I'm so tired. I made my 5:00 a.m. workout two mornings in a row. But I'm thankful that I don't teach any classes on Wednesday afternoons, because I'm worn out. Had a great workout this morning: did 600 calories in under 42 minutes on the elliptical machine, lifted arms for about 15 minutes, but I'm just tired tired tired. And I want to eat. I'm doing OK as far as food goes so far this week, because I've only brought enough food for the day (I'm not leaving it in my desk anymore, since I was binging on it). But I'm super hungry! I'm tempted to start prowling around, asking coworkers for food. I know it is good that I'm hungry, because it means my metabolism is cranked up and running, but I'm afraid that if I don't eat, the metabolism will give up and shut down, and if I DO find something to eat, I'll get started and not stop.

I need suggestions about foods that really fill you up and are really satisfying without being laden with calories. Any suggestions?

Depressed. My Chargers lost to the Patriots in the playoffs. My husband's team, the Philadelphia Eagles, dropped out last night. Guess there is no one left to root for, except the New Orleans Saints. If our teams can't be the ones to win, it must be the Saints. Go Saints.

And I hope someone sacks Tom Brady really, really hard...

I was a suck out again yesterday and today. Didn't work out yesterday morning since I was shooting for M/W/F. So that was OK, but then I did a stupid thing: I ate half a large pizza at dinner. Why? Because it was there. This is where that binge personality causes me problems, and I have been having those problems this week. That pizza would explain why there was almost a four-pound difference between yesterday's morning weigh-in and the evening one, and why there was a two-pound difference between yesterday's morning weigh-in and today's. Pizza has got to be one of the most evil substances out there. Add to the fact that I wussed out this morning and didn't make it to the gym, and we have a fat perfect storm. Bleah. I think my sleeping difficulties stemmed partly from the fact that I had a lot of soda to drink, hence a lot of caffeine. When the four o'clock alarm went off, I shut it off and went back to sleep. Not good. I need to have better willpower than that.

Portion control is probably my number one biggest problem when it comes to weight loss. I grew up cleaning a full plate of food, and usually going back for seconds. When I stopped participating in competitive sports, I didn't stop the eating that accompanied the activity. I've never quite figured out how to restrict myself to a reasonable amount of food. Most often this is a problem at home. We'll make a meal, maybe Hamburger Helper or something, but instead of eating whatever the actual serving size is, it gets split in two, so we're really eating probably three servings each. We generally don't have time to cook a meal and divide it up ahead of time into portions, and we always end up eating more than we should. I've tried eating on a smaller plate; I end up going back for seconds. Restaurants are the same way. I know you should order the food and immediately ask for a box and package up the food so you only eat part of it, but how do you handle being too lazy to ask for the box? I'm too lazy to take it home, but too much of a glutton to leave food uneaten.

At work I try to control my portions by only eating prepackaged food. I bring boxes of raisins, granola bars, microwave popcorn, those 100-calorie bags of chips and fruit snacks, and Healthy Choice frozen meals and microwaveable soup bowls. But again, I'll get going on something, and I won't stop. I'll eat one granola bar, and it tastes really good, so I'll eat another one. Those fruit snacks are tasty, so I'll have three bags of them. It's like every food is Pringles: once I pop, I can't stop. I keep all this food here because it's more convenient than having to bring more food every day. But that just means I've got food available for binging.

I know what I have to do, and how much I should eat, but I don't make myself do it. How do you make yourself have willpower? This is what I struggle with. It isn't the actual physical stuff; working out isn't hard for me, once I'm there. But how do I make myself get there? How do I change this negative aspect of my personality? Can anyone tell me? It's very frustrating, and I don't know how to fix it.

Well, I've hit a snag on the workout trail.

I was fine this morning; got up at 4:00 like a good little maniac so I could walk the dog, eat breakfast, and hit the gym. This was my second morning workout this week. I'm trying to ease into the full 5-day schedule.

But I was feeling oddly motivated, and, with my papers graded (see, I'm being good and getting my work graded promptly), I decided I'd squeeze in a second workout today. So I headed upstairs in our school gym to the weight room to scope the place out, see what machines and things we've got available, and maybe lift some weights or something.

BUT HORRORS! The weight room was full of 8th grade boys (the worst kind!); I assume it's the boys' basketball team or something (the high school is girls only, but the rest of the school is coed--at times). One of the last things in the world I really want to do is share a weight room with a bunch of 8th grade boys. I felt my enthusiasm towards my second workout of the day slip away. So now I'm back in my classroom, weighing (interesting how often that word can come up) my options.

First of all, what to do about today? I could work at the reorganization of my classroom, certainly, and that probably is what I'll end up doing. Or I could go for a run outside, either on the track here at the school or around the neighborhood. Not my favorite option. First of all, we've established that I don't like to run, anywhere. But I really don't want to run here, where there are students around to be judgmental (at least in my mind they will be). I don't know why I care, but I do. I'm embarrassed. I didn't bring my swim suit, so a quick swim before practice is out. Guess a forced reorganization it is.

Then, there is the question of what to do on subsequent nights. I could go through the effort of e-mailing all the coaches to find out what group or groups use the weight room in the evenings. I could commit to the dreaded run in the afternoons instead of weight training. I could drive down to my gym, squeeze in a quick workout, and drive back up for practice (unlikely, especially with my lacrosse and swimming seasons starting their annual overlap--I won't get done with lacrosse usually until about 5, which wouldn't leave me enough time to get to the gym, work out, and get back in time for my 7 o'clock swim practice). I could go purchase hand weights, a yoga mat, and a toner ball and work out in my classroom (I've been tempted to do this before, but I suppose the nightly cleaning crew would find me a little odd--like they don't already). Or I could start packing my swim suit and a second towel and start heading to the pool right after I finish with whatever my afternoon obligations are. That is my most preferred option: I like to swim, nobody will look at me weird because everyone there is doing it and I'm not that bad at it anyway, and I'll be able to just drag myself out of the pool and start practice with no down time or anything in between.

I've only got six more weeks to worry about it anyway, because once swimming is done I can just head down to the gym after lacrosse practice, work out, and go home.

But because swimming isn't a great weight loss work out (your body actually will keep a layer of fat as a defense against cold water and drowning--your body likes to be warm and buoyant), I'll need to work extra hard in my morning workouts, every morning, to make up for it. I improved this morning over Monday; Monday I burned 600 calories in about 47 minutes. Today I hit 600 in just over 45, and I went to 48. I'm working myself up to an hour. Perhaps I can also alternate in the mornings, doing an hour of cardio two mornings each week and doing twenty minutes of cardio, twenty minutes of leg weights, and twenty minutes of arm weights (or something like that) the other three days. We'll see. I'll examine the machines at the gym later this week (we got a whole bunch of new ones at the end of the year, and I haven't tried any of them yet) and see what might make a good workout.

*sigh* Well, now that the whole working out thing is worked out (like how nicely I got that in there? You knew it was coming, right?), on to the reorganization project. I've got a pile of crap on my desk here that needs to be pawed through and thrown or squirreled away somewhere. Yippee.

You know, now that I've had a day to digest the exciting fact that my favorite baseball player is going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, I've been thinking about the circumstances surrounding this particular year's ballot class.

A number of players included on the ballot this year have the taint of performance-enhancing substances on them. A number of the players are admitted steroid users (Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco), and others are suspected or accused (Mark McGwire being the specific player everyone is focusing on). At least two sportswriters who received ballots to cast (and there are some 500 ballots cast) chose to leave the entire ballot blank in what they felt was a protest against the nearly unchecked use of steroids in major league baseball during the late 80's and early 90's. Fine, if you really feel the need to make the statement. But a number of people, some athletes, others fellow sports writers, and a whole lot of fans, are ticked off at the perceived snub to Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr., the two athletes selected to the Hall this year. Both received enough votes to have two of the top ten voting percentages of all time, with Ripken 3rd and Gwynn 7th. But especially Ripken was close to being the first person voted into the Hall unanimously. Many people are angry at these two sports writers who turned in blank ballots because they feel it's an insult to those two players, neither of whom is likely to have used performance-enhancing drugs during their careers (I mean, if you look at Cal Ripken, yeah, he played in several thousand consecutive games, but he's a little skinny dude first of all, and secondly steroid users often end up with horrific injuries because they push their bodies beyond what the human body is capable of handling; Ripken wouldn't have survived that many games as a user. And Gwynn? I love the guy, but the only performance enhancers he's used have been Twinkies and tacos. I mean, look at the guy, even when he was in his prime. No 'roids there.)

I on the other hand am not necessarily angry at these two sports writers. I think there are better ways to make a statement, but OK. What I want to know is, who are the other two or three numbnuts who didn't vote for Ripken and Gwynn? WTF? What were they thinking?

Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune made some good points over the weekend (before the results were in):

I never will vote for McGwire. Others will. They'll leave him off the first ballot “to teach him a lesson.” What lesson? Unless he owns up – and my Ouija Board says he won't – there never will be proof that he did or didn't, because baseball had no testing policy during the infamous Steroid Era.

There is at least one writer who won't vote for Gwynn or Ripken because they performed during the Steroid Era. I haven't spent much time around Ripken, but if Gwynn took steroids, then I'm Charles Dickens.

Besides, if you don't vote for a player on the first ballot, what makes him viable the next time? Have his numbers improved? Some Hall voters I just don't get, probably because they're sportswriters.

What the hell do we know? We seem convinced McGwire and Barry Bonds did steroids and yet we're basically positive Ken Griffey Jr., the most skilled player of his generation, is clean. I believe he is. But what the hell do I know?

Anyway, Gwynn and Ripken will be layups when this year's Hall class is announced tomorrow. But they will not be unanimous choices. No player has been. Not Mays, not Ruth, not Gehrig, not Aaron, not DiMaggio, not Clemente. Imagine, getting a Hall ballot with Willie Mays' name on it and telling yourself: “I'm going to pass on Willie this time around.”

Idiots.

The Gwynn and Ripken numbers, of course, are impeccable. Gwynn led the National League in batting eight times, had a .338 lifetime batting average, 3,141 hits, won five Gold Gloves and 15 times was an All-Star. Ripken had 3,184 hits, 431 home runs, won two Gold Gloves, made 19 consecutive All-Star appearances and smashed Gehrig's impossible record by playing in 2,632 consecutive games. And he played shortstop. Phenomenal.

That they chose to stay home for their entire careers is a tribute to their loyalty and love for their cities. Several times during his career, Gwynn could have gone elsewhere, for far more money, but chose to remain in San Diego, the city he adopted following a two-sport career at San Diego State.

That they did this may be more remarkable than their numbers.

Hear, hear.

OK, call me silly, call me sappy, call me emotional because it's that time of the month, but I'm sitting here in tears right before I have to teach a class, because Tony Gwynn, Mr. San Diego himself, just got selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is the man! I'm just so happy! I'd like to thank the Academy, and...wait, got carried away there. But I really am stoked! Very cool when my sports heroes are recognized for their brilliance!

Let's see: it's been just over a week since the new year started. Time to take a quick look at how I'm doing. That seems to be one of the keys to sticking with resolutions of any kind: check your progress often, before you've had time to fall way, way off your pace. As a teacher, I'm inclined to give grades for performance (but I will spare myself the red pen).

1) Weight: C

I'm hovering at the high end of the 170's right now, instead of at the low end where I'd rather be. I've eaten a few things that I shouldn't (I'm like Satchel that way), but mostly I've eaten OK. But I haven't shifted my metabolism back enough that it's making a difference yet. It's also amazing how my weight, fat percentage, and hydration vary between morning and evening. Last night when I weighed myself, I was 180 lbs with 36% body fat and 45% hydration (could just be water retention). This morning I was at 178 lbs with 39% body fat and 43% hydration. I really don't know how reliable the fat percentage and hydration levels are, but I record them faithfully anyway. And I am doing better about weighing myself more regularly. For a while there, I was only weighing myself once a week. That will work fine when I'm at my target weight, but I need to do it at least once daily until I reach my target.

2) Exercise: C

I'm definitely not back on my routine yet. Last week I only made it to the gym three times. I didn't get to the gym this weekend, but I did spend most of the day Saturday in my kayak, which meant I was exercising and not eating, a good combo. But Sunday was a football day spent on the couch. Made it to the gym yesterday morning but not yesterday afternoon. Took this morning off (I'm trying to get three mornings this week), so I absolutely must get a work out in between lacrosse and swimming practices this afternoon.

3) Grading: B

Yesterday was the first day any papers got handed in. They were handed in by only two of my five classes, and they were only worksheets that needed to be checked off for completion, but they were graded promptly. We'll see what happens when more worksheets get turned in today. Thankfully, this is a day where I have planning periods in the middle of the day, so I can check some worksheets after the first few classes and more at the end of the day (somewhere between lacrosse, working out, and swimming).

4) Blogging: B+

I'm already posting more than I have in a long time. They aren't interesting posts, but they are posts. Gotta be positive about something.

5) Organization: C

I'm making lists, which I always do, but I'm actually doing better about trying to accomplish things on the list, which I haven't really worried about before. However, I haven't started straightening my classroom or refiling all the papers that have stacked up on my desk, I haven't touched the scary mess in my house, and I haven't really even taken inventory of the things I NEED to straighten up. I guess that's the next list I need to make.

So I guess overall I'm looking at a C+ for my resolutions so far. Definitely room for improvement, but it's only the first week. I'll keep updating as my progress (or lack of) continues.

Bleah. Made it to the gym for the first morning workout of the new year. Despite the amazing number of people who were at the gym last week in the afternoon, their New Year's resolutions apparently do not apply to early-morning workouts, because the turn-out at the gym was pretty sparse until I was finishing up, at about 6 a.m. I sure wish my schedule allowed me to work out a little later in the morning, but in order to make it to work early enough that I don't disrupt my daily order of business, 5 a.m. must be the workout time.

I'm trying to start out easy. My goal this week is to make three morning workouts, probably Monday/Wednesday/Friday to give me a day of recuperation in between. I also didn't push incredibly hard this morning, doing just over 45 minutes on the elliptical machine to the tune of 600 calories.

Hopefully that 600 calories will offset the chocolate that the PMS was calling for today...bad PMS, bad. Gotta admit, the chocolate made a somewhat crappy Monday a little brighter, so I can't say it was bad chocolate.

So, I finally made it back to the gym today, for the first time in several weeks. So did everyone else who has ever had a membership to my gym. Obviously, many people made a New Year's resolution to get back into shape. The people there could be divided into several categories: 1) gym regulars (who were probably more than a little annoyed at the upsurge in exercisers), 2) gym semi-regulars who had fallen off the wagon, so to speak, and were rededicating themselves to the cause (I consider myself to be in this category), 3) people who don't regularly work out but have finally decided that it's time, either because of age, weight, or lifestyle, and 4) people who should have started working out waaaaay before now (I was once in that category, by the way).

Our gym has put in some more machines, both resistance and cardio. That means they can pack even more people into the gym at one time. Fabulous. I wasn't thrilled with the machine I got stuck on (it's one I usually avoid because it grinds a bit), but it gave me a good vantage point to view the people around me. Most of the people around me weren't very interesting, but there were a few fun ones to keep me entertained. The girl next to me was one of those wonderful Southern sorority girls who are size two and feel they must lose five pounds so they won't look like cows. Ick. She was kind of funny, though, because she couldn't figure out how to work the stair climber. She wasn't sure how to get it started (um, you step on it and keep stepping, and it handles the rest, unless you want to get fancy). Then, she lasted about two minutes before announcing loudly enough for me to hear through Queensryche's "Revolution Calling" that she was "so out-of-shape" and "couldn't possibly go any farther". Whatever. The lady two rows in front of me was a hoot, too. She obviously had received a new mp3 player for Christmas, and between trying to work the mp3 player and trying to work the treadmill, she almost killed herself. First, she dropped the mp3 player, and it shot off the end of the treadmill and hit the floor. She awkwardly stepped off the treadmill and picked up the mp3 player, but then in her attempt to get back on the moving treadmill, she got hung up, fell sideways, and narrowly caught herself before she hit her head on the handlebar at the front. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my elliptical machine, which would have made the whole thing even funnier to the people around me. I was content to just laugh at her, and not make myself part of the entertainment.

But this is the first step back on the path to 150 lbs, from which I have strayed so often in the past few months. Hopefully I will find it easier to stay on. We'll see...

I went ahead and added a weight ticker for humiliation/motivation. That way everyone will have to look at it, including me, and perhaps I'll be able to give myself a much-needed boost. It required changing the template of my blog from black, which was really cool, to blue, which is kind of lame. But now you can see the hatch marks and numbers on the ticker. Had to be done. Maybe when I'm slim and trim and take the ticker off the blog, I can revert to black.

Today is my last day of vacation. Tomorrow the teachers must report for a day of inservice, and then Thursday classes start up again (why they even bother, for a two-day week, is beyond me). We'll be diving right in with the dreaded research paper. This will be the first test of my resolution to grade assignments more promptly. We'll see how it goes.

Right now I'm spending the afternoon doing one of the most depressing post-holiday chores there is: taking down the Christmas decorations. I know it has to be done, but it's just sad to see things go back in their boxes and bags and closets, knowing they won't be back to visit for another eleven months. My hope is that, perhaps, if things go really well this new year (like I win the lottery or something), maybe these decorations will go up in a nicer, newer home next Christmas. We'll see...