Time Away

So I bet you thought I fell off the wagon....  

Well, I feel like I did, but I promise you I didn't!  I left last Sunday to go to Columbus for work.  I was in Columbus for 4 days/3 nights and got back on Wednesday.  I should have spent some time writing, but I just didn't.  What I DID do, was stay on track the best I could.  All 4 days I stayed within 300 calories of my daily calories when I ate back the calories I burned running (I don't always eat them back, but I figured I had to enjoy being away from home at least a bit.)  

I also got up and ran all 3 mornings.  The day I left I swam 3000 yards and then each morning in the hotel I ran 2 or 3 miles.  I didn't want to run 3 days in a row, but hotel pools are a non-option to me and the "bike" was more like a dinosaur with a grinding noise!  There it is....the other side of the elliptical that didn't move!

So instead I ran on this....

Not much better, but it worked.  Thankfully this was the first of 2 hotels and we only stayed here the first night and then switched to a better hotel when it had open rooms.  Especially because this was my view out our window:

Yep!  That's a trash compactor over there and a beautiful ally where those construction workers regularly took their smoke brakes.  AWESOME!  So glad we paid more than $100 to stay here.  

Anyway, I enjoyed the work conference.  It's always the best one I go to, and hence the reason why I am willing to spend some time away from my family.  

While everyone enjoyed drink after drink, I enjoyed water.  I wasn't about to waste my calories on alcohol!  I did enjoy spending time out with some of my coworkers.  We went to a piano bar called the "The Big Bang" and had a great time singing and dancing until 2am on the last night.  I got back to our room around 2:30 and then got up at 5:30am to run.  UGH!  I am still trying to recoup from that and I am extremely tired.  And *MEN...stop reading!* I started that favorite time of the month on Wednesday so I am struggling with my diet today (the worst day of aunt flo) and I ate about 1500 calories too many.  BLAH!  Back on program tomorrow.

I did manage to not gain while in Columbus and now after all of that hard work, I'll probably gain 3 pounds from my binge today.  Oh well... gotta have a cheat day every now and then!

I'm so glad to be back home and with this guy:

Who was so excited that mommy came home that he couldn't stop clapping.  

I was also excited to see middle little showing off her silly side (and her snake tongue!)

And...big little who was trying to be cute:

I just got done with 2 long days of work and now IT'S THE WEEKEND!

Tomorrow we leave as a family for Lansing, Michigan and I'll being doing my first triathlon.  It's just an inside mini-tri, but I thought it would give me a good first experience of what it is like to go from one sport to the next.  Just for fun!  I'll let you know how it goes soon.