Well named blog....

I must say I picked the correct name for this blog, struggle to run, when I decided to start this! Back in August, after Shawn started working over the road, I let life get the best of me and I stopped running. Well, I stopped exercising all together. So here I am, about the same place I was last year at this time....just starting back up again. Better late than never huh?

Because I loved running when I did it, I decided to do that again. So, I started the Couch to 5k program again. It saddens me that I'm back at the beginning struggling like I did a year ago, but I keep telling myself that struggling to run is better than not running at all. About 4 weeks ago I started making better food choices and am slowly dropping weight. I've lost 6.5 pounds so far and weigh again on Thursday. I wanted to add some strength training of some sort to my running, so after my run I am doing the 100 hundred push up program on my ipod touch and then on days I don't run, I do 30 day shred 3 days and then I'll do yoga or pilates on another day.

I got really good news this week. Every May I have my blood checked for cholesterol, including HDL and LDL and triglycerides. Here are my numbers:

Last year:

Total Cholesterol: 176 (should be <200)
HDL: 41 (should be >50)
LDL: 106 (should be less than 130, but less than 100 optimal)
Ratio of total:HDL 4.3 (less than 4.0)
Triglycerides: 141 (should be less than 150)

This year:
Total Cholesterol: 139
HDL: 54
LDL: 76
Ratio: 2.6
Triglycerides: 47

I'm pretty darn happy with those results!!

So.....I'm back to my struggle, but as much of a struggle as it is, I'm glad that I'm back at it again.