you have a tiny neck.

well i've had a lot of compliments over the past few weeks, but i had a brand new one tonight. i work on the side running lights and sound for a band, and i went out with the guys for beer and wings tonight after practice. we'd been sitting there for about 10 minutes when chris looked across the table and goes, "you have a tiny neck now." it caught me off guard. "what?" "your neck is so tiny now. it's really small." so i'm going to put that in the compliment column, and maybe also stress a bit about if my neck was fat previously.

today was a pretty good day. i was down another pound this morning, putting me safely into that "overweight" zone on the BMI scale. work went well, my personal life went well. the one bad thing was i had terrible ankle, calf and shin pain all day. i ran last night, but only for 20 minutes. maybe running for so long on sunday and not resting was the issue. i really hope it's not my new shoes. my cousin is an expert runner, and he told me tonight that he spent 2 years transitioning into a minimalist shoe, which is what i just got. he thinks they put me in a shoe that's too advanced for the type/distance of running i do. great. i really love these shoes too. they feel good, i run well, they're super cute. but i have 20 more days to decide to take them back if i need to. so for tonight it's elevation, compression socks, ice and ibuprofen.

the insane thing is that i feel kind of cool having a running injury. like...that's the real deal. i don't have my feet up because they're tired from hauling around my fat ass all day; they're up because i've worked them hard getting in shape. but the not-cool part is that the hot chocolate 5k is this weekend in columbus. it's a huge deal, and it's the race that got all of this started. i've wanted to do a hot chocolate for years. it's a huge race held in several big cities around the country. i'm going with 4 friends and staying in a nice hotel saturday. there's a runner's expo that day, then we're going out for dinner. the race is sunday morning. two friends are volunteering and three of us are running. it benefits the ronald mcdonald house, a charity that has personal meaning to our group of friends. so i really don't want stupid shin splints or whatever this is to get in the way. i wouldn't stress except it's a serious national race, so there's a 45 minute time limit on the course. which means even if i walked it, i'd have to be walking pretty fast. i'm going to ice and rest again tomorrow and then maybe do a light jog on thursday to see what happens.

sleepyhead over here so i'm off to bed. i hope everyone is feeling good about themselves. remember, no matter what the scale says, if you know you have done your best, you should feel proud. the scale will move, i promise. don't give up.