For the love of the Sconnie Nation.

(Photo: Lisa) We love Wisconsin. I still really, really want to move back there. If I'm raising a Packers fan who enjoys snow, I may as well do it right. Did you know that our Packers won the Super Bowl? Just thought I'd mention that.

Dan and Lisa givingly invited the team to their place up north this weekend for some winter frolicking. Elliot got his first taste of cross country skiing. He took it like a champ. Dan even brought beers out with us, so on the return it was baby on my front, two poles in the left hand and beer in the right. Cross country skiing is something that I do so rarely but learned so early that it's never a struggle. Gotta teach Elliot. I guess we should let him learn to walk first, though.

Sunday I wanted to make up that 10 mile run. After running a total of 3 miles in the previous 13 days I was pretty intimidated, and waking up to see 2-3" of fresh snow on the sidewalks didn't help. After the usual hemming and hawing I put the yaktracks on, leashed Molly up, and sucked it up. I'll run at least 5, I told myself, get out there and see how it goes. It was super hard- like running in sand- and at every crosswalk we had to jump over 3' snowbanks. But we kept at it and got it done. My shoes weighed a ton and were soaking wet. When I got home I was surprised to see I somehow lost one yaktrack and didn't notice it. We'll find that one somewhere in the neighborhood when the snow melts in a few months...

Either way, after being in a no-time-to-workout, excuse-filled funk, finishing that 10 miler makes me feel back on track. I can do this! It's amazing the hit my self-esteem takes when I miss a few workouts, and how quickly it rebounds when I get back to it. I've always said it's harder to skip a workout and hate myself for it than it is to suffer through even the most difficult workouts. I should stop proving that to myself again and again.