On November 15th my husband and I set out for a 12-day-long trip to visit friends in a suburb of San Francisco.  Needless to say, it was pretty awesome but it also came with a few added perks that turned out to be pretty major milestones.

100lbs Weightloss Milestones

1)  Flying in an Airplane

Up until that date, I hadn’t been on a plane in almost two years.  This wasn’t necessarily by choice, just hadn’t been anywhere that required a plane.  Prior to that I was flying 4-5 times per year, between work and vacations and for the last 10 years or so, those multiple flights per year were very uncomfortable.  But this time it was different!  I sat quite comfortably in the seat, without a seatbelt extender and BOTH armrests down!  On the way out the SF, I even sat in the middle seat!  AND…I was able to completely lower the seat-back-tray AND work on my laptop, just like a normal person!

2) Actually Working Out on While on Vacation

If you read my blog “Major Setback” then you know the mistakes I made on the last vacation I went on just a few short weeks prior to this one.  I was NOT about to do that again so this time I contacted a Crossfit box in the area where we were staying and made arrangements to work out there while I was in town.  I ended up at Diablo Crossfit in Pleasant Hill, CA.  They were totally awesome and made me feel extremely welcome. It was really hard to walk into a strange place, assuming I’d feel totally lame in front of people I didn’t know but it turned out to be very empowering and for the first time I wasn’t the newest or slowest Crossfitter in the gym.

3)  I Wore an Above the Knee Dress to Go Out Dancing

4)  I Fit Into the Dangly-Feet Kind of Roller Coaster Seat

This was pretty major!  My last set of milestone included going to an amusement park but there were still rides that I wasn’t able to ride due to the size of my ass.  This time however, I tried the tester seat that was placed near the major attraction and it fit…with room!  I didn’t actually ride it, nor did I ride any roller coasters that evening but that didn’t matter so much as knowing that I COULD have and WILL next time I’m there!  I wish I had taken a picture of that…boooo…

Instead here is a blurry picture of me and my bestie in front of the giant Christmas tree at Six Flags.

5)  I Made an Excellent Choice for Lunch at a Swanky Bistro in Sonoma

We went to this AMAZING restaurant called a The Girl and the Fig; everything we had was outstanding.  There were so many options available, most included bread.  While I’m not avoiding bread all together, I do try to avoid it for the most part and though I was tempted to try one of the alluring sandwiches, I opted for the meat and cheese plate and a salad…and wine.  I had NO regrets!  I did eat one BITE of bread with a smear of butter to taste my friend’s wine but other than that, I did not give-in to the basket that was sitting on the table. Go Me!

I did eat half of a kid’s sized Gelato shortly thereafter.  Hey!  This isn’t called “I’mperfect Life” for nothing!

And to top it all off…

6)  I Runnished My First 5k!

First of all I have to say that I did absolutely nothing to train for this even though I knew well in advance that I would be doing it.  I wished I had and will be remedying that in January when I start training with a running group!  But, I must admit….I did better than I thought.  What’s important to know here is that I walk INCREDIBLY slow.  I always have, probably always will.  So even though most people can walk a 5k in less than one hour, I cannot!

I started out strong.  Music was pumping in my headphones, the weather was a brisk 53 degrees.  I was psyched!  Originally I had planned to do it with my husband- well that’s not exactly true, I kept going back an forth between wanting to do it together and setting a personal record, no matter how unimpressive it might be.  I kept thinking that I wanted to set starting PR so that the next time I did a 5k I’d be able to gauge my progress. As we started running I was feeling like a rock star!  I wasn’t just shuffling, I was actually bopping up and down (something I’ve just recently started doing) about a minute into it I couldn’t resist, I felt the urge to run as long as I could rather than the one minute intervals I’d planned to do with the hubs.  He knew I was ramped up and just looked at me and said, “GO!”…so I did.  I ran for another couple of minutes and then I had to walk.  I knew I wasn’t going to run the whole thing so I certainly wasn’t disappointed, I was amazed that I had ran as far as I had and knew I’d be running again shortly…as soon as I caught my breath.

I ended up finishing in somewhere around 50 minutes.  My goal was to finish in under one hour and I accomplished that so I can’t complain.  I learned a few lessons during that run.  One:  the GPS on my phone does not work accurately- according to my Nike+ app, the 5k was actually 4.7 miles long (5ks are actually 3.1 miles).  So when it announced to me in my headphones that I had run 3 miles I was expecting to see the finish line right around the corner…WRONG!  That mostly sucked.  Two:  I love weaving!  It was so fun to weave in and out of people while running.  It made me feel like I was going super fast!  THREE:  I walk even slower than I thought.  Many of the people that I passed while running, passed ME while I was walking.  It seemed like every time I started walking my mind would wander.  I got distracted by the other people around me- what they were wearing, whether they were bigger or small than me, checking out their shoes, looking at the surroundings, wondering what that smell was…the list goes on.  Then I’d realize that people I’d passed while running were in front of me and I’d snap back out of my ADD trance and start running again. I’ll definitely need to be aware of that better, next time!

Last but certainly not least… FOUR:  I need to train if I want to improve.  Duh

All-in-all it was a great experience and felt like a huge accomplishment, especially since it took place on Thanksgiving morning- a time that’s usually reserved for making mass quantities of food.

This looks like it’s at the starting line but it’s actually almost at the finish line; had to circle back through the start to get to the finish.  I was still smiling!  And wanting to die…a little.