Friday, August 12, 2016

begin again

This morning I had the girls at WW change my starting weight to my original start weight, 208.2. Man. I can't believe I was ever that heavy. I was actually heaviER before I went to my first meeting, I had lost 10 or 15 pounds on my own before I got up the guts to walk in the door. And here I am 10 years later still down almost 30 pounds. Go, me.

My week was interesting. DH and I have been together for a total of 8 years. We started dating as the 2008 Summer Olympics were starting. We spent our anniversary volunteering for a triathlon, and as timing would have it we were driving from our volunteer post back into town and police stopped traffic just shy of a big crowd of people, flashing lights and bicyclists. As we waited, an ambulance showed up and stopped about 30 yards ahead to pick up an athlete who crashed on her bike. We watched as they put her on a stretcher - her legs were moving, which was a good thing because at least she wasn't totally broken or paralyzed, but what a terrible way to have your race interrupted. The ambulance left the scene and traffic slowly resumed. As we rolled by the site of the crash there was a LOT of blood on the pavement, along with some "stuff" - which could be anything - bike gloves, bandages, whatever... it was gross. DH commented on the amount of blood. I know you can lose a LOT of blood and be fine, so I was happy that I had seen her legs moving while she was on the stretcher. We rolled on into town and met our friends for breakfast. Then the rumors started... hit and run (not true)... not enough police officers (not true) or traffic volunteers (possibly true)... and then we found out she died - TRUE.

And the image of the blood and the stuff I had seen on the pavement was burnished into my brain.

I spent a fairly obsessive six hours researching the girl, the scene, the stories that were coming out on Facebook and online. And I came to the conclusion that there was no way it would have been a hit-and-run, with the number of witnesses and police in the area. I also realized that there was no way some car would have crossed all those cones into a bike lane FULL of cyclists, this rider must have ventured outside the cones and into traffic. As it turns out, both my conclusions were true. The man driving the truck stayed on scene and cooperated fully with officers. The girl on the bike did indeed veer into the traffic lane, was struck by the vehicle and run over as she went down. What a horrible, horrible accident. I was relieved to hear it was rider error rather than DRIVER error, but at the same time clearly I wish it had not happened at all.

In any case, I spent a lot of Sunday evening eating. And eating. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. I was over my points for the day. I knew I was doing it because I was racked with that image and the fear that OH MY GOD I RIDE ON THE ROAD HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN DURING A RACE WHAT AM I DOING DO I NEED TO GIVE UP BIKING WTF WTF WTF and so I just ate. Some crackers. Some cheese. Some potato salad. Fruit. A brownie. More crackers. I ended up about 10 points over. C'est la vie. I knew what I was doing, acknowledged it and kept on going, but righted my ship on Monday.

Then a friend wants to throw a (good) wrench into our upcoming Euro-trip, so I spent time on the phone with her about how to hash that out with another friend... and then there was work drama, and I also had to prepare for a job interview (which I have no idea how it went but the hiring manager did seem very happy to see me today, so... good?) and then I was on the phone for an hour with my sister talking about all the things that happened in her life (major, major things which are good but a LOT to digest) so... it's a miracle I got even one workout in. But I got 2. And today it will be 3. And I tracked everything and made it to my meeting. So, go me.

At the meeting I had them update my weight to my correct starting weight. So even though I have posted a gain this week (likely due to the tomato sauce I ate at dinner last night) I am -29.2 overall. Seriously awesome. And it's a new week. I am totally ready to put all the drama from last week behind me and just begin again.

Happy Friday, friends!