Free Week

We got lucky this last week. Kelleys mom kept the kids. At her house.

FOR THE WHOLE WEEK.

Let me repeat that in case you missed it. For the first time since Bigun was born (5 and half years ago) someone else took both girls home with them for the whole week. The entire week. We had no kids in our house from last monday afternoon until today. TODAY!! No kids. It was good to see the kids when they get back today. It was also good to stay out past 8 pm while they were at nana's.

We went out to dinner. a lot.

We saw the new TRON movie in IMax 3d. It kicked ass. very cool. I loved the old Tron as a kid, so this one was a lot of fun.

Sunday was Kelley's birthday. It was epic. Fantastic.

I did not workout thursday or friday, or Sunday or Monday for that matter. I did however get in a run on Saturday. We both got to go to the same gym at the same time. People can do that! I knew I was due for a long run. So I got on the treadmill and went for it. I ended up feeling good and holding a 9 minute pace. In fact, I did that for the first 10 miles, then I felt ok so I bumped the speed up to 8:34 for the last 5k. I ran 13.1 miles on the treadmill in 1:56:00. That's my first time breaking 2 hours in the half distance! I've got to find a race.

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Found one! We signed up to run the half marathon at Myrtle Beach in February. Yes, Kelley did the full marathon there a few years ago. But we're looking for a half, have a ton of friends running the half, and until I finish the weight loss I'm not going to do anything longer than a half.

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Today I got in a good run over lunch. 4 miles total in 32:21 including a warm up and cool down. Between the warm up and cool down was a 5k run at an 8.0 speed (7:30 per mile). That would be a 23:18 5k time if it was a race. Dang it, got to find a 5k race. I'm starting to line up a 2011 schedule.
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MMNW:

This week: 188.8 lbs, 22.5% body fat

Last week: 189.8 lbs, 22.7% body fat
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I lost 1 stinking pound during my free week, and 0.2% body fat. This is ok. I can live with it. I didn't work out very hard or often, and while I did eat ok, I let the portion sizes slide and we ate out in restaurants a lot more. I still maintained the vegetarian diet, and tried to pick healthier things on the menu's. I could have done much worse than only losing one pound.

Finally, the epic conclusion. Saturday Raleigh got some snow so there wasn't too many people outside. My first target when I started putting together a weight loss plan was to cross 190. Once I got on the other side of 190, the reward was a new tattoo that I had been thinking about getting for a long time now.

I came up with the concept and meaning about 7 or 8 months ago. It took me that long to convince myself to get it. It's a tree. I liked the design idea of having the tree grow up my right shoulder. The tree is a metaphor for life. You have to know your roots; where you came from. That also helps point where you are going. You have to have a strong core. Values and beliefs that are strong and living like the trunk of a tree. And it is also very important to be open minded, and be willing to branch out in many different directions. I would not have been able to extend my comfort zone into marathons or triathlons or parenthood without being willing to branch out in different directions. So that was my concept for the tree tattoo. Roots that surround my arm, the trunk going up to the top of my shoulder, and branches on all sides (chest, top, and back) that extend out of a normal comfort zone. I wanted to put some red blooms on the tree just to get some color on the tattoo. They are also a reminder of how short life can be (tree flowers fall off after a short amount of time).

This guy hurt. The "Balance" tattoo I got on my chest was really a primer to see if I could take the pain for this one. This one bled. There was lots of pain and lots of bleeding that did not occur with the first tat. At one point I got pretty light headed. But then I drank a Coke (that was huge, I stopped drinking sodas in college but this time I needed the sugar), and thought I was going to puke once too. While that used to be typical Saturday night behavior, it's a pretty unusual side effect now.

The same tattoo shop I went to before was open and had the time to draw out the design. Tony came up with an amazing stencil. Then after the stencil was on my shoulder he filled in the rest of the design by hand. So this is a completely custom design. Ready to see how it turned out? scroll on down. These pictures aren't going on facebook.

No Regrets is a really cool shop. Lots of fun stuff there. And this is the last chance to see the bare shoulder. Ever. you know these things are permanent?

Finishing the design...


The final design is stenciled on.

Still smiling. He hasn't started yet. That's the face of a dumbass.

He's getting started. Turns out, this part of the body hurts a lot more than the "Balance" area on my chest. a lot more.

Yowsers that one must have really hurt! That's a pain face right there.

OUCH!! That one really hurt. That was by far the worst part, when he was up on the top part of the shoulder. Some of that is right on my collar bone!


The smeared ink on this one makes it look like a different tree. Pretty neat effect.



Shading the roots

The artist was hilarious! We both really enjoyed hanging out with him while he was working my shoulder.





Almost finished with the shading!


That's not blood (although I did bleed plenty!). It's red ink while he was filling in the flowers.

This is the best shot we could get of the whole thing.


I even had the girls names put on a couple of the branches. Pretty neat huh?

I hope you all have a great Christmas! We're going nuts around here.