It's OK to feel good, right?

Friday and I am dragging today. My plans are to run in the zone this morning, getting some good cardio going, then after we dance the night away at Nacionale 27, doing 50 on the bike at dawn tomorrow, and then run long on Sunday. Yet I am struggling to keep my eye open after my Friday morning ride to work with the boys. Bolstered though I am by Cliff's comment-- he noted "losing some weight there?" and I told him about Hakes and his comments. We all agreed that people are quick to point out that you might have gained a pound or two (or three or four....) but that have to be nearly emaciated before they would notice you'd lost any weight. Now, two people have commented on my weight loss. Yeah. And it was Cliff who commented to me, a few months back, that I was "keeping my weight up" as though that was a desirable thing to do. Well, thank you sir! As a fellow big guy he can relate to the vagaries of weight loss and is suffering a bit this summer, not dropping his usual 5-8 pounds by now, due to his injuries. I hear you there! When I was sidelined with stress fractured knees and couldn't really run for almost two years, I gained a good SOLID 15+ pounds that I have now more than lost. Interesting how their advice rang true to me-- beer and pasta, the cause of weight gain. Indeed, my diet if you will, the P-diet addresses the common fattening component of those foods-- carbs. I am pleased to be dropping weight as I approach 210. The motivation to run-ride-run in no small part is my desire weigh 07, like the year. I haven't been under 210 in quite a while and it seems like when I do get down there I don't stay long. Not this time, mark my words. When bike commuting season runs into winter, then my challenge will begin. Riding the 1000 miles I have to work this year certainly is one of the key factors in my loss. So, losing weight and having someone notice definitely makes me feel good.

I feel good too, because I finally got that letter I've been waiting for. From the Board of Trustees appointing me to Full Professor in the Departments of Physiology & Biophysics, and Obstetrics & Gynecology. It took one year from the time I started to put my package together, the committees at each level, Department, College, Provost, Chancellor and then the Board. Yeah, baby, Bucky's now a full professor. I made the passing comment that I would have been more excited to have gotten a letter from the NIH telling me my grant was going to get funded. Despite my elation over the letter, goose bumps and tears in my eyes-- well, I almost got that letter from the NIH. I had a formative discussion with the program officer in the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, who has my flax seed-ovarian cancer grant, and she told me that they really want to fund my grant, that it was as close to the pay line as it could be with out actually being guaranteed of being funded and she was all but positive that it would get funded. She was going to defend the funding decision and advocate for it when council meets in September. So here we wait, encouraged, but still uncertain.... Yet ever so optimistic. I believe that good things happen to good people and I am doing all that I can to be a good person. Of course I could do more, and I know I am flawed and have my difficulties, but I do keep trying to do the right thing and to be that better person. I think it's OK to feel good about myself and about things, right? Might as well, it sure beats feel bad. Which brings me to that age old tome, religious music o mine, going down the road feelin' bad, woo oh oh, ain't gonna be treated this a-way. uh huh, no more, no way, going where that water tastes like wine. Sure, why not, wine has low carbs!