I'm sure y'all are surprised to hear from me again! I never thought I would emerge from the pile of work I've been under. When I would dream of working for myself, there was lots of working out, sitting in the sun, shopping, vacations etc. Let me just tell you it's absolutely nothing like that. Don't get me wrong, it's great and I don't have to drive 50 miles a day but somehow I managed to fall into a vicious cycle of working from 7am to 8pm and literally doing nothing else. Somehow I managed to lose 2 pounds but that's probably from my muscles withering away to nothing.

After my little wake up call with the surgeon you would think I would have been right back in the gym. Instead I crawled into my office cave and hid behind my mac for 2 weeks. Until today.

2 things hit me like a kettle bell to the head recently.

First, I was at my moms over the weekend and she was really concerned about how stressed I've been. We were talking about how all my working life, the single and/or childless people were always the ones who got stuck doing all the long hours. In fact, my best friend says that at her next job she's going to put some frames up with kids pictures in them and claim them as her own. Once again, everyone on my team has kids so there's all kinds of doctors appts and school things and sicknesses. So mom says, "You can be your own kid. Treat your body as your child. If your child had to exercise you would make sure it got done. If your kid had to go to the doctor you wouldn't hesitate." My mother is so wise and that simple statement has completely changed my mindset.

The second revelation was a strange one to me and I would almost feel bad about it if it hadn't been so helpful to me. Last week the ING Marathon took place here in Atlanta. It's something I've always wanted to do because it takes place on my side of town and goes through all the great neighborhoods. I noticed on Facebook that the girlfriend of a friend of mine was running the half but what hit me was her boyfriend (my friend) was driving around town to watch her go by, drinking coffee and posting about it on Facebook. They both struggle with their weight (even more so since they moved in together) but she was DOING and he was sitting on his ass watching. I thought to myself, that's me. Right now. I'm that fat guy (girl in this case!) sitting at the coffee shop watching people run by. Why am I not running in the half marathon if that's what I want to do??? It's haunted me like a bad dream ever since.

Today I started 9 weeks of couch to 5k and I'm not going to stop until I can do this half marathon next year. I have an entire year to work up to it. If I can walk 4 and a half marathons (120 miles!!) on the 3-Day then certainly I can work my way up to running 13.1.

I think I needed something to work toward. A longer term goal other than just losing weight. I feel inspired. I even figured out how to make my couch to 5k playlist with the run/walk commands over top of it so I don't have to do the math! Hooray for no math!

Hope you all are doing well and feeling great!!