“Change everything you are
And everything you were.”
–Muse, “Butterflies & Hurricanes”

Three weeks have passed since I started the 1,500 Mile Project, and I’m a bit behind–26.6 miles behind, to be exact.

If I had been consistently averaging 5.6 miles per day, I would be at 117.6.  (That’s a lot of .6s.  It kind of weirds me out.)  Instead, I completed my ninety-first mile this morning.

If you’re an optimist (or a kindergarten teacher), you are probably thinking, Well, that’s still progress!  If you’re a hardcore disciplinarian (or a coach on The Biggest Loser), you are probably thinking, Good golly, woman!  Get you expletives together!

So, for the next week, I’m going to focus on kicking it into gear.  In a somewhat paradoxical twist of events, motivation is simultaneously a problem and not a problem at the same time.  I am definitely motivated to get healthy, but making sure I am still motivated when the time comes to get on the treadmill is somewhat of an issue.  Because I’m behind, I have been upping my walks to seven miles, which takes a lot of time.  Unfortunately, it’s very easy to tell yourself that you don’t have enough time to do it all and that you really need to focus on something else.  Part of ‘kicking it into gear’ this week is going to be ‘kicking the excuses.’

And now, I’m going to do something I really don’t want to.

I realized recently that I may have broken a weight-loss rule because I didn’t post a Before Picture of myself as I started my quest to become more fit.  Or are you supposed to wait until you have a good After Picture to compare it to?  I’m still not sure how it works.  Just to be safe, I suppose I will do it anyway.

The reason I didn’t before is that I just don’t like pictures of myself.  My only defense for this one is that I appear to be with someone famous.  I assure you–I am not.  If I were, my sister would have already murdered me for meeting this person without her.  Let me warn you, though, if you love the OKC Thunder and hate thunder thighs, this picture may make you sad in a lot of ways.

So there it is: My Before Picture with a window decal of the now injured Russell Westbrook and taken on the day of the Oklahoma City Heart Walk, which I volunteered at with a couple of gals from work.  Now it can be another source of motivation.  I won’t still look like this when I hit 1,500 miles.

All together now, in our best Dalek voices:  Mo-ti-vate!  Mo-ti-vate!  (That is probably more fun if you are a Whovian…)