A little running and politics chat... no big deal.

Hi everyone, we made it through Wednesday!!  And guess what?  I finally weighed in at Weight Watchers.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted to see because I hadn't made it down to where I wanted to be on the scale (aka BELOW the last time that I weighed in.)   But it was a good feeling to get over that hump and finally weigh in again.  I was .8 lbs over from when I weighed in.  And although I should probably be upset with that, I've actually lost about 6 lbs in the past 3 weeks so I am feeling okay with that as long as I can keep my current momentum going.

I definitely have some challenges coming up as I have a number of different trips coming up that will take me out of my routine and pushing me to indulge.  Between Easter (cue: candy overload), a work conference (cue: desperate eating to keep me awake through day long meetings), and a business trip to Texas (cue: barbecue, steak, potatoes, Mexican, and barbecue) it is going to be a tough couple of weeks ahead!

I've been feeling a lot better on my mid-week runs... I got in a nice 5 miles outside today that felt really good, and am gearing up for another long run on Saturday.  I will be doing Saturday's 10-mile run in Rhode Island and am hoping to pull in some recruits to run portions of it with me :)

Here is the Garmin recap from today's run:

I'm really loving the information that comes in off my of runs.  I see today on the run I really didn't keep a steady pace at all, which may have had to do with small bumps and hills, but also when I would remind myself, "Try to run faster!"  Because I did try to remind myself that.

One thing that I think is interesting is those three little drops in my heart rate that sort of correlate to three drops in my pace on the chart above.  I wonder if that is a sign I should have tried harder and kept my heart rate up?  I dunno.  I think it's interesting though!

I don't have much else to say tonight except that I want to share my views on a subject that has been ALL OVER my Facebook news feed this past week: the gay marriage votes taking place this week.  I wrote the following response to a comment that came through my newsfeed that left me itching to chime in.  I know it's not as eloquent or a comprehensive as I could have been, but I wanted to share my thoughts a little on the issue, to someone who had a different view than my own.

I know the person I was responding to is an incredibly sweet and kind and loving person, she is newly married and pregnant and I wish her all the best in the world.  I only even took the time to respond because I knew she was not an ignorant or uncaring person and would take the time to read, truly listen to, and if nothing else, respect someone else's opinion.

This is what I wrote, that sums up my views.  I'm hoping for the best this week, but will also not let a passing fad of equal signs on Facebook be the end of the fight for me.  I will continue to fight because these are my beliefs [expressed through a response to someone's post expressing her opinion of what family and marriage means.]

"I just had to share my point of view on this subject.  I don't think that anybody is trying to say that your view of family is wrong or that you need to change your personal beliefs. That's not the case at all. The fact that our country allows us to have different views and beliefs is what makes us great, one of the principles we were founded on. 

I think what many people are upset about and want changed is the governments ability to say that YOUR lifestyle is better than that of my uncles', or my cousin's, or the many other tax-paying, law abiding men and women in our country. 

We are supposed to have equality in our country. We are supposed to have separation of church and state. We are supposed to have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

If laws are changed over the next few days, it will do absolutely nothing to your definition of happiness. It will not mean that your view of marriage or a family is wrong. It will not change anything at all that remotely affects your personal rights or lifestyle. It will only extend those same rights to cover all Americans and allow our country to bring our country just a tiny bit towards equality in what will always be a very unequal world. 

I hope you can see that these votes are not a vote for or against your choices. But a vote for equality for all Americans in the eyes of our government. You can personally stand for anything you would like, and I stand for that being the case for for ALL Americans."

I do believe that marriage equality will happen in my lifetime, and SOON (hopefully.)  I believe that by the time I am old and wrinkled I will be sitting around telling my grandchildren about this ridiculous time period in society where gay marriage was illegal.  And they will just stare at me thinking I'm silly because the thought of people opposing something like marriage between two people who love each other is just bizarre.  And they'll say, "But, Gram, hasn't there always been separation of church and state?" And I'll explain that for some period of time the line got blurry and nobody knew why.  I do believe this day will come.  And I'm already proud to be able to say that I was a part of the group of people who truly stood up, in a bigger way than just changing my Facebook photo, to say, "This is not right."