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We spent the majority of our time at the pool overlooking the ocean today. Relaxing, reading, and listening to music. Highlights of the day were finding a map of jogging routes that are safe and off the road at the fitness center, learning that parking for timeshare owners is free, and finding a dinner option that didn’t have fish and was completely vegetarian.

It’s good for us to have this lazy day, for Thursday, Friday and Saturday may we will be driving around he island.

I managed to sleep a full, straight 9 hours overnight, waking at 6:00am. Not too bad for being up for 22 hours the day before. I woke refreshed and focused, ready to start my day on a healthy note with a 5K run in 29:05.

The run was followed by a nice relaxing 2 hours by the pool and a quick walk around the grounds and into some local shops. We were quickly suckered into signing up for a 90 minute timeshare presentation in order to attend the island’s best, most Hawaiian, Lu’au. The woman assured us that this Lu’au was not a Vegas-like show, like the rest of them. She was super sweet and threw in a bunch of other goodies including a huge discount on car rental.

Our timeshare/tourism expert also let us in on some of the local events and places of interest. We decided to go to this crazy farmers’ market with the freshest vegetables and tropical fruit around to stock our rooms with healthy snacks, breakfast and lunch options.

Without our rented car, we had to take public transportation into town. Everything we were told about getting around the island pointed to the need for renting a car. Locals and fellow travelers were shocked that we weren’t planning to rent a car the entire time we were here. But, public transportation really is OK and cheap, maybe not for sightseeing, but definitely for getting to towns. It only cost us $0.50 each way to go through town.

In town, we shopped a little at the local K-mart before wandering over to the outside market. We were informed that the market did not open until 3:00. We arrived a little early and saw people fondling and bagging the local faire like mad. We approached a stand and offered to buy some tomatoes only to be turned away. The rules are that you can find the fruit and vegetables that you want, but you must bag them and tag them with your name and price so the merchant can “reserve� the fruit for you. By law, they are not allowed to officially sell anything until the whistle is blown at 3:00. After the whistle, people start running up to the stands like crazy, waving fists of dollar bills and yelling for their bags. The whole ordeal is over in about 15 minutes as the stands are picked clean of all their goodness. We scored some tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, apple bananas and a papaya.

Mmmm. Off to figure out how to cut a papaya online :)

Finally after a couple of weeks of minuscule losses I can finally say I lost another pound for a total fo 24. I can’t help but wonder if it was due to my crazy decision to run 8 miles on Saturday when I’ve only been running 4 :)

That’s right! I’m going to Hawai’i. Lihue, Kauai, Hawai’i to be exact. A good friend of mine managed to arrange an incredible stay there through her timeshare. It’s a last minute trip, but much needed to revitalize and refresh myself from the work I’ve been doing.

What’s a little sad is that I won’t be going with my husband. He’s been planning a 3-1/2 week trip to Nepal in April so he doesn’t have much vacation time left to go on this trip plus another one to Croatia later in the year. So, I have some “extra” vacation time to take.

I can’t wait. I just booked my flight and I leave in a week and a half. My husband is really excited for me and so happy that I get this time to relax. He’s buying me my own cute digital camera to take pictures while I’m away.

I’ve been a Hillary supporter from the beginning. Lately I’ve been hearing more friends pledging the support for Obama instead. In most cases, each person claims that the candidates are very similar in where they stand on issues and the plans they are proposing. So, what’s different that makes people proclaim their support for Obama? What’s involved in a person making that decision?

My husband told me last night that he contributed to Obama’s campaign. I don’t have a problem with this, but it made me think more about my current choice to support Hillary. My husband chooses Obama (even though he can’t vote yet) because he is inspired by him and wants to give him the benefit of the doubt that Obama will be better and uniting the country and its officials towards change. I look at Hillary’s record and I see that she’s done very well pushing change through the system with support from all sides, but people still don’t see that as success or fail to see those points at all.

It’s obvious that personality and character are what people vote for, but that’s not as important to me as all the other values I hold dear. Obama is a very, very inspirational and honest candidate. I like that quality in him, but it’s not enough to counter my need for demonstrated experience and a record of change. Regardless of who is chosen as the Democratic candidate, I will vote for them because I like them both and agree with the majority of the plans.

How come I don’t hear about anyone questioning their support for Obama?

If you want to see where you stand with the candidates from either party to help you balance your decision with personality and character, visit Select 2008 and see. Here’s where I stand so far:

Some weeks are slow with weight loss, and other weeks are big. Last week I lost 2.5lbs. This week, just 0.5lbs. But a loss is a loss :)

In other notes, my training is underway for Broad Street. I’m determined to run the race at a faster pace than last year. I hope that I can run it at a 10:30 min/mile pace. So far I’m training at a 10:00 min/mile pace for short distances.

This weekend I managed to run 3 miles in 28:44! That’s faster than 10:00 min/mile! (That’s 28:44 for 4.8km for my Croatian friends :)

The fabulous, worldly, electronic mix from Jetlag Sound. See it live every last Thursday of the month at L’Etage, above Beau Monde at 6th & Bainbridge Streets in Philadelphia.

For those of you beginner to moderate runners out there looking for a partner to train on Saturdays for the Broad Street Race, here’s my schedule. It’s a modified version of the schedule I used with Team in Training to train for the 2007 Broad Street Race and Alaska Half Marathon. Weather permitting, I plan to vary the destinations from Kelly Drive, Valley Green and Valley Forge.

Training starts this weekend!

View and subscribe to my training schedule

The holidays were troubling for my diet. I stabilized my weight loss through most of it, which is better than gaining. Now that I’ve lost this much weight I need to reduce the number of calories I eat even further to continue to see more loss. In a week or so I will begin my training for the Broad Street race again. All should be fun!

My friend Rachael (on the left) is member of Team LaBelle on Clash of the Choirs on NBC. They rocked tonight! Don’t miss it on NBC tomorrow night and vote for Philadelphia!