Roses are red, violets are blue-I'm a Schizophrenic and so am I...

I must admit, my mental state has not been the best these last few days. Every morning I wake up and feel like Bill Murry in Groundhog Day...one of the best movies of all time by the way. This morning we hiked the "stop sign" trail, which is really just a path that starts at the bottom of snow canyon and goes to the top over 4.3 miles and a 1,000 ft ascent. This is the only paved trail they do here and the only trail that all guests do to establish a timed baseline. I don't love walking up paved paths, I find it boring. That, coupled with my poor attitude and the fact that somehow they placed me in the fastest paced group with several people that run marathon's and and triathlons, led to my grumpiness. My goal was to stay as close to the runners as possible for the first 2 miles, knowing the ascent really picks up on the final 2 1/2. As I listened to their conversation, I began to be bugged my their verbal measuring sticks of one another...reminded me of peacocks really. Then, one of the guys in the group, having spent 2 whole weeks in UT, started to tell the group all about Mormons, their beliefs and the kind of people that live in UT. You see, There simply are not very many people from here in the state that come here. Everyone is from out of state or the country. In any case, I had all I could bear and even though I was telling myself in my mind to just, let it go...I heard myself saying words that could only back him in a corner and not really give him a way out. We went back and forth a bit and he seemed to get mouthier when I would walk off, which really bugged me. One of the hiking guides told me to chill out and then the dude tried to apologize, which just infuriated me. Left to my thoughts, I kept walking and before I knew it...I was at the top. I finished ahead of the others and beat my time by almost 5 minutes. I felt a lot better, to be honest. A little confrontation is good for the soul from time to time. On my walk back down, he caught up to me. We talked, he was actually a pretty cool guy and we hung out most of the rest of today. So, it turns out I'm the jerk...go figure?

For the first time since being here, I wore my Polar during all exercise activities and recorded the information just during the activities themselves. I burned a total of almost 2,300 calories in cardio alone today. I ate less than 1200 calories for the day. So, my net negative intake looks really good and although my body is very fatigued, it's always a mental boost to see the numbers and trust that the numbers will translate to a good loss.

All the food was great today. I did however, trade the breakfast muffin for the same amount of calories in eggs and toast. I'm sure the muffin was great, but mentally just doesn't seem substantial enough.

I met some nice new people today and had some good laughs. There is one dude from Canada that is here. He and I go back and forth beating each other up and others seem to get a kick out of it. In the end, I have the last laugh, with him being a Canuck and all.

Picture 1--phot0 of me and the other dude fighting...he's the small one.

Picture 2--Photo of me and the other dude running together after we became friends. I'm the one with long, flowing hair.

Picture 3--Our menu for the day. Before I leave, I commit to erase the dinner entree and desert and replace with; Dinner-KFC 3 piece breast and wing and, Desert-Cheesecake Factory slice of your choice.