My week of gluttony, soda, and grease

Wow.  A heckuva week last week, and not in a good way exercise or diet-wise...  But it's all good.  My wife's cousins came in from out-of-town (Carmel, Indiana) late the previous week and all of last week, and we had an awesome time!

Unfortunately for me, my nagging cold/flu/cough was still hanging on, so I figured it would be best to take the last week off of running, rest as much as possible, and try and kick this cold.  So, what'd I do instead?  A whole lot of walking! 

On Sunday, we dropped in at George and Martha's house at Mount Vernon,VA.  Hadn't been there since like middle school, and the place is HUGE.  Much walking, and much history there for you history buffs.  And I even managed to get us lost driving home and somehow ran into Embassy Row, which was really cool.

On Monday, we walked/drove around Monocacy Battlefield Park in Frederick, MD.  Most of you have probably never heard of Monocacy, but around here it's billed as "the battle that saved DC."  Another awesome place for anyone who's local to the central Maryland region or is an avid Civil War buff.  One cool thing that happened while I was visiting the museum and talking to the ranger behind the desk was that "Jeopardy" called asking how to pronounce "Monocacy." 

On Tuesday we were attacked by the bugs and bees at Harpers Ferry, WV.  Another really cool place to spend the day despite the bugs.  And for some reason I couldn't get that "Kansas" album cover or the song "Carry On My Wayward Son" out of my head.

On Thursday, we hit up Annapolis, the Naval Academy, and Chick and Ruth's Delly (featured on the show "Man vs. Food"), and this is what I indulged in:

This is called the 1-lb. Colossal Burger.  I got mine with American cheese, ketchup, lettuce, and bacon.  I wish I would've put something better next to it to give it some size perspective, but this thing was big.  Height-wise it was okay to eat, but the width...  You can see the patty overflowing outside of the bun.  The patty was probably the same size of my son Harry's face.  Chick and Ruth's also features 2-lb. and 3-lb. (double- and triple-stacker) Colossal burgers.  I could probably down a 2-lb. Colossal, but a 3-lb. would be a completely different story.  I'm just glad we ate lunch first than walked around downtown Annapolis and the Naval Academy afterward!

Also, my wife and and her cousin's wife are both awesome cooks, so we were all eating very well the whole entire week.  And with the sizeable meals come left-overs for lunch.  And of course with such delicious meals, I gotta have soda with them!

But anyway...  Do I regret my week of gluttony?  Not in the least.  After all, even though I wasn't running I was still getting in a ton of walking.  I also had track practices and a couple track meets that kept me hopping last week as well, so that helped out too.  And I think I did a fairly reasonable job of keeping my weight in check.  Right after my 8-mile run two Saturdays ago I was around 185 lbs. As of yesterday, I was at 187, a gain of two pounds.

March overall wasn't such a hot month for me.  I upped the soda intake a little and got away from my healthy lunches at work sometime as well.  The good news - I didn't put on any weight.  The bad news - I really didn't lose any weight.  Starting tomorrow, I'll have to re-dedicate myself to everything.  Just hope my foot and ankle cooperate with me.  Over the past 48 hours, they've just been reminding me exactly who the boss is.  Hopefully over the next day or two it will work itself out.

This is the only "before" picture of me that I can find.  Not the best pic in the world - it didn't enlarge very well.  But this is me coming down the finishing stretch of the 2011 Disney World half-marathon - all 202 pounds of me.  Again, this is/was the heaviest I've been since I graduated from college back in 1993.  Hopefully between the Frederick half and Williamsburg half I can post a current photo.

My Zip-Ah-Dee-Do-Dah tip for the day:  if you run with headphones, make sure they fit properly.  I tried out some ear buds from "Yur Buds" at the 2012 Disney Marathon expo and loved them.  I bought a pair when I got back and was pretty satisfied with them up until my last long run a couple weeks ago when the right one kept falling out because of my excess sweating.  Luckily it stayed in place until the last half mile of my run.  But I should've listened to the salesperson when he suggested a different brand.

Until next time...  Stay tuned.