Happy New Year everyone!!  I hope you all enjoyed your holidays.  2015 was a great year for me and I am looking forward to making 2016 just as fun.  I am officially counting down the days till Key West (8 days)!!!  While I am still disappointed that I won’t be running the half marathon, I am still pretty excited about the trip.  I am looking forward to spending the weekend with 3 amazing ladies and exploring Key West with them.  We got together last weekend to plan out our stay.  We booked a couple of excursions, but plan to spend most of our free time exploring on our own.

I went back to yoga on Monday night!  While I didn’t have “permission” from my physical therapist, I have been feeling really good and just knew it was time to give it a try.  I checked to see if Sam was planning to go and to my surprise, not only was Sam going, but Kevin was also going to try it out.  So, they picked me up and we headed to the gym.  I totally felt like the “new girl” because it’s been almost 8 weeks since I’ve stepped foot in the gym (I really can’t believe it has been that long).  I was a little intimidated, but once the class started, I felt pretty good and I was glad that I decided to go.  My hip held up just fine.  I give Kevin major props for trying it out and watching him do “Happy Baby” was the highlight of my day.  I REALLY wish I had my camera with me.  I’ve got to get used to taking pictures for my blog again!

I started back at physical therapy on Wednesday night.  I hadn’t been since Christmas Eve.  I was scheduled once last week, but had to cancel.  It.  Was.  Tough.  I had been doing my exercises on my own, but not like I was supposed to.  I probably only did them half as much as I was supposed to.  She was okay with me going to yoga but I forgot to ask about Body Pump this weekend.  She put me on the bike for 10 minutes to warm up (with resistance).  My goodness!  I don’t usually have a problem on the bike, but I was definitely watching the clock the whole time.  I couldn’t wait for my 10 minutes to be complete.  Then she let me run ½ mile on the treadmill.  Woot, woot!  While I was very happy to be running, I was sucking wind pretty bad.  How am I THIS out of shape already?!?  After squats, bear crawls, planks, and a few other exercises, I was released.  So, the good news is that she told me I could run a mile tonight on my own!!  Outside.  Yay me!  But only if I promised to also do my exercises.

Today, I came home from work and immediately changed into my winter running gear (including my new running pants I got for Christmas!) and hit the pavement.

I decided since it was getting dark that I would just run the mile around my neighborhood.  I started off feeling great.  By about ¼ mile, I was exhausted.  I stuck with it though and finished.  The good news is that my hip didn’t feel too bad (not perfect, but no “pain”).  The bad news is that I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was. While I was pleasantly surprised with my time, I know I couldn’t have kept that pace up much longer.

I’m hoping that I’m allowed to do 3 miles soon, but I will probably have to slow down a bit.  I plan to do my exercises when I get home from swim practice with Gabby.

Along with getting back into my fitness groove, I have been trying to clean up my eating habits and stop eating out so much.  I have been doing really well.  I have eaten my “go-to” salad a lot lately.  SOOO good!!

I’ve also been cooking healty(ish) dinners and having leftovers for lunch.  The real test will be this weekend, especially Sunday when we plan to have people over to watch the Redskins host the Packers in their playoff game.  Go Redskins!

I hope your New Years have started out great!  Has anyone started a new routine or started back to an old routine?  I’d love to hear about it.  Comment below 🙂