OK - I admit, the beard is getting out of control

It has been almost a month since my last post – I need to pick this back up again – knowing people read about what I'm doing helps keep me on task. 

Gracie went to a cardiologist appointment last Friday – she is the healthiest that she has been – despite having a cold at the time, the doctor was very pleased with where she's at.  She has also been making great strides in all of her therapies - we are very happy with the directions things are going.  She has even gained some weight.  She weighed in at a whopping 16 lbs 5 oz.  Its hard to believe that in just over a month, it will have been a year since we went to Boston for her Bivent repair.   

Lylli is also doing great as always – she is such a character and makes me laugh every day – there are times that this 3 ½ year old phase gets a little overwhelming, but that is to be expected – I am very proud of both of my girls. 

Carrie is now 33 weeks pregnant and is ready to be done – I think she has finally gotten to the point where she and her body know that she is done having babies after this one.  She was saying the other day that she has either been nursing or pregnant since February 2008.  Yikes!  Besides that, the pregnancy is going well and we are all very excited to meet baby Mickey.  If he is born on Memorial day (two days early), our kids will have birthdays on Memorial day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween this year.

I am now in my 5^th week of the 30 week marathon training program.  Its going Ok but I feel like I should be further along - this week has not been the best.  I did my scheduled 2 miler on Tuesday.  On Wednesday morning, I was walking through my yard on the way to my bus stop - I got to the curb and my slip-on-shoe came half way off.  This caused me to stumble and fall off the curb - I landed 8 inches lower than I was standing square on my knee caps in the street (my feet still somewhat up on the curb).  Luckily, I caught myself before I landed on my face.  I hit pretty hard.  My initial thought was that of embarrassment because I was certain that my neighbors across the street saw the whole thing through their wide open picture window, so I popped up quickly, wiped off my jeans, shook off the cobwebs and made my way to the bus stop.  After sitting at my desk for several hours, I got up to walk around - my knees had stiffened up and I was in some pain – I was still thinking I would try to run, but by the time I got home, I came to the conclusion that it was in my best interest to skip my scheduled three mile run and ice/rest my knees instead.  The last thing I need right now is a nagging injury and I didn't want to hurt something else because I was favoring my knees.  I recently decided to make a slight change to my running schedule to not have three days in a row with my training runs, so yesterday was an off day.  I was thinking I might get caught up last night, but decided against it.  The knees still hurt a bit, but I'm hoping to get out for a couple mile run/walk tonight. 

If you use your creativity, on a SOMEWHAT related note, for lunch today, I went to my favorite sandwich place in the skyway.  I had to tell them that they wouldn't be seeing me for awhile – you see, today's sandwich was a last hurrah of sorts  - I have been doing this running thing and I feel like I'm making a little progress, but not as much as I should be.  I have to accept the fact that it's just as much about my eating and weight as it is my miles on the road – In order for me to do this thing, I really need to lose some weight and admittedly made the decision to not worry about my eating too much because I assumed the calories I burn running, would undoubtedly take off the pounds.  Well apparently that is not enough – so I have decided to commit to a 10 week program at FXB (www.facebook.com/#!/FXBBlaineMN).  I have heard wonderful things from people that have tried this.  It will take a lot of hard work, organization, and dedication -  10 weeks of working out at 5 am 6 days a week while also getting in my mileage for my marathon training program at night and doing it all while minimizing the impact to my family.  I plan to be very disciplined on my diet - hopefully it will kick start this weight loss thing – This beard is getting out of control and I vowed to keep it until I lose some significant weight.  For those of you that don't know the story behind the beard, I started growing it when we were out in Boston in November for Gracie's 6 month follow up appointment -- I decided to keep it when we found out that Gracie needed to go back for surgery over Christmas.  Since we were in the city where all 4 major sports have successful dynasties, I started calling it my playoff beard.  Once everything went well, I sort of felt like it was giving me some luck and decided to keep it a bit -- I thought it would be cool to lose some weight and then shave it off to reveal that some of the chins that were there when I started growing it were gone -- it then turned into a game because of the comments that Carrie sends my way on a daily basis leaving no doubt how she feels about it.  It has now become something that I use to remind myself of what I am working to accomplish this year -- I have only trimmed it a handful of times and will admit, its sort of gotten out of control -- I'm hoping, eventually, the beard comparisons will change from Santa Claus to Forrest Gump.   I go to FXB tomorrow at 9 AM for baseline testing: situps, pushups, mile run, etc – as well as weigh-in, measurements, and the dreaded "Before" picture.  I understand there are around 80 people signed up for this 10 week program.  My hope is to be in the running for the biggest transformation at the end of these 10 weeks (winner gets $1000).  I will keep you updated on this effort

Just thought I would check in – Hope all is well with you!!