Kasey was FULL of energy! So she and I started walking twice a day. The forest was just a block over from our home, so together we hiked the trails. One evening we encountered a bear. We had nearly finished our walk when we came around the bend to find a big black bear between us and the end of the trail. He was just after the garbage, but I was sure he was going to eat us for supper. As we turned and RAN all the way back the way we had come, I remember being shocked at how slow I was going. I was so SCARED and that was the fastest I could possibly go; but if he had wanted to, that bear could have caught me without much effort!
Anyway, my enthusiasm for walking the dog didn't falter....we just made a lot more noise when we were out from then on!
We had begun discussing the possibility of starting a family. I knew that before we could do that, I had to get my weight down to a more reasonable level. I set my goal to get down to 180lbs and then we could talk turkey. So, that Spring & Summer Kasey and I walked, hiked and played. She didn't care that I was slow. It just gave her a chance to loop back and run laps around me! I walked on the treadmill, I did yoga videos and workouts from a series called "Walk Away the Pounds Express" that incorporated a resistance band and I once more started counting Weight Watchers points. Over the course of the summer I got to feeling pretty good again.
Cumberland House is a neat place to live because it is on an island. The Saskatchewan River is on one side, the Cumberland Lake on the other and all of it is smack in the middle of the swamp. So this translates into a lush habitat with giant fiddle ferns, squishy moss, beautiful huge soggy maple trees (which incidentally produce maple syrup) and mosquitos unlike anything you've ever seen!
It rains a lot in the summer and come winter the precipitation just converts to snow. HUGE amounts of snow....SO I DUG OUT MY CROSS COUNTRY SKIS. I'm not talking about a state of the art pair of sleek, shiny skis. Mine are the kind you find at a garage sale with the old blue boots and bamboo poles. The kind we learned on in Grade 7 around Wascana Park. Anyway, they weren't pretty (and I'm sure the sight of me using them wasn't either), but when the snow came that Fall, Kasey and I continued to loop around and through the forest trail happy to spend our time after my work day out together getting a sweat on!
I've heard it a gazillion times, research shows that we are more likely to stick with something if we have a partner. This partner holds us accountable, makes it harder to back out of a workout, makes exercise more fun & social, encourages healthy eating choices, etc. etc. etc.
Well, for me, Kasey was my partner. She was like that girl at the gym with her sweatband on who's just so pumped and excited to workout. There was ABSOLUTELY no way of getting out of our walk. She knew the routine and as soon as she saw me walking on my way home from work, she was ready and she was RELENTLESS. In fact, on the days when it was so cold her paws would freeze or when it was too dark to be safe in the bush, Kasey would actually run on the treadmill! She was an endorphin junkie.
I have since had a couple of great running partners, the regulars that I looked forward to seeing at step aerobics and more recently at BOSU class, my awesome soccer teammates, last summer's fellow diet followers (seriously, without someone to share the pain with, the 17 day diet would just not be doable!) and the camaraderie of the larger running community. However, I have yet to find anyone who can match the quirky intensity my little pup brought to the table every time we went out the door!
At the end of March that year we went on a holiday to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The skiing and walking had paid off, I had a little more pep in my step and had met and exceeded my weight goal. I was weighing in somewhere between 175-180 lbs.
In May 2005, my pregnancy test came back positive! GULP!! It worked, we were going to be parents.
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