My Mile

We left the house early, thinking Friday night traffic would be moderate. Um, nope- not so much. Right before we hit the freeway we got word their was a terrible accident and it was backed up for miles. So we turned around to take the back road. Two hours later we made it!
Funny story too...once we got into town I saw my uncle but figured that I would see him at the birthday party tomorrow. He flipped it around and beat us to my mom's house! He was looking good too- he has lost 49 lbs. Way to go Scotty! He has been doing the same stuff as us- working his butt off and eating better.
Anyhow, the kids were soo excited to see their grandma and uncle (also Scotty, but not the same Scotty who lost the weight). My little brother, who I mentioned in the last post, is 16 and has been working on bulking up. After my six miles we are planning on lifting some weights.  But back to today's workout.
I hit the stair stepper for a solid 30 minutes at a pretty intense pace, keeping my heart rate from 150-165.  Then I got it in my head to run a mile- as fast as I possibly could. And so I did. My mile took me 7 minutes and 30 seconds to complete. By the end of it I was running at a 5 minute mile. It was crazy. I was completely amazed with myself. I put my mind to it and did it.  Is it really that easy?  What else haven't I been doing because I was afraid of failure.  I'm telling you, running has changed the course of my life- literally.
I realized five and a half years ago I bought a pair of jeans from Old Navy in size 34.  I was wearing a size 36 but dreamt of size 34. Then I fell in love and got bigger and bigger and bigger. Last year, after so many attempts and failure at weight loss I put them in a bag and handed them over to Goodwill. Yes, I stopped believing in myself and yet, I see now that I didn't give up. I struggled until January 2nd when I decided enough was enough.
Last week I went to try on jeans at the Goodwill. 34s. YES. 34s! I know as a man I'm not suppose to care about my jeans' size- but I do. I freaking care.