Happy New Year's

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For Christmas I got the new iPod Nano plus the Nike sport-kit, which allows you to use your Nano as both an MP3 player and a pretty tricked-out pedometer. It records your time, distance, pace, and stores 1,000 runs in your history, and does cool stuff like offer up verbal info at the press of a button and let you know when you've run a personal best.

It is awesome, and also motivating. I've been out on four runs since getting it! It does need to be calibrated, though. It says you can use it out of the box and that it is very accurate for most runners without calibration, but I am wicked short and wicked slow: it wildly overestimates the distances I cover by nearly 20% (mapped and measured using MapMyRun.com) and therefore, wildly overestimates my speed, which, while very gratifying, annoys me from an accuracy perspective. I did try to calibrate it on the treadmill at the gym but I didn't do it right, and then I found out from The Internet that I need to do the calibration on a track (as running on a treadmill results in very different pacing than running outside). So I think maybe this Sunday I will find a nearby high school track to do my calibration on.

Also this coming Saturday is the start of a new running group "season" with my local Galloway group. For anyone out there that is at all interested in running, I highly suggest starting with a Galloway group in your city. They are really spectacular for beginnings, and train on a run/walk method that everyone I know who has tried it-- from short lil' fatties like me to my tall, lean, fit 8-min-mile friend-- swears by for injury prevention and their personal best race times.

The group that is starting up Saturday is training for spring half-marathons, including Atlanta's second ING half-marathon, which unfortunately falls on the Saturday after my wedding: I'll be kicked back on a beach in Fiji. But, truly, I don't join the groups with the intent to run half-marathons. I'm not sure that length of a race is right for me. So far the longest race I've run is the Army Ten-Miler in DC, which is a nice, flat, even course, and those were 10 painful miles. Well, the last couple were, anyway. I enjoy shorter races, 5ks and 10ks. But, running with the group keeps me motivated and that works for me! It is so worth the $79 just for that reason.

I am trying not to go overboard with the New Year's Resolutions this year. I am the kind of person that sets myself up for failure so I can wallow in self-hate for the rest of the year. Here are the things I am shooting for this year, which I think you will agree are attainable:

1. Get married!
2. Monetary goals:
* pay off all wedding-related expenses this year
* after that, refocus financial attention on jointly funding the house savings avvount
* set a monthly allowance for each of us, and stay within that allowance each month
* set up my own personal Christmas savings account
* set up and begin funding joint vacation, car, and investment accounts
3. Weight loss goals:
* Run with Galloway all year
* Follow the bandster rules
* Force myself to eat fruit and vegetables every day
* Do not allow myself to rely daily on the easy foods (prime example: mashed potatoes do not count as a vegetable)
* Count calories as needed to make progress on the weight-loss front
* Use my iPod+sport kit to set myself monthly running goals and meet them
4. Get a dentist and go for a cleaning & checkup
5. Get new contacts and glasses
6. Restrict lunches out with coworkers to once a week
7. Complete my ASA and EA designations this year
8. Meet my billable goal at work this year by setting monthly goals and meeting them
9. Focus more time and energy on this blog, both for myself and others considering the lapband procedure
10. Focus on self-love and self-encouragement

Today I am had a coffee with Splenda and two small half-and-half containers for breakfast, and a midmorning snack of 4 strawberries, half a banana, and half a large container of lowfat yogurt.

Coffee: 25 cals
Yogurt with fruit: 188 cals

My coworker and friend G is back after two and a half weeks of vacation, and I've missed her! So we are going out to eat. We're going to Outback Steakhouse, though, and they have a decent lunchtime spread so I'm sure I'll find something reasonable to eat. Tonight I also have dinner out, with my closest girl friend who is returning home to Cali tomorrow. BUT, I did bust out a 2-mile, 30-min run this morning at 6:00 a.m., when temperatures were in the teens, so I am okay with that.