CLEVELAND, IL - 52 Pounds in 52 Weeks :: Weight Gain!!

Welcome to Cleveland, Illinois

Population of 300 - and I didn't see one

Flashback
August 14, 2015

Nestled along the Rock River, no - not Rocky River, but, Rock River, just 20 miles east of where it spills into the Mississippi, Cleveland Illinois is a - well - piece of land with a few run down homes and a Church.  When I went there, I wasn't expecting much.  We did walk down the boat ramp and touch the river water.  The Rock River itself is pretty cool - nice relief from the hot and very HUMID day.  Living so long in Southern Cal now, I really forgot how dreadful the humidity can be.  I suppose when you live in it all your life, you don't know any better.  You just sorta get used to that, and the snow.  And although when the snow pounds hard we act like we are complaining about it - the truth is we are bragging about how awesome the snow is.  It does get exciting - but for me; I'll take the California winter storm, like the one we had today.  It rained for about 2 hours - okay, maybe 1, but I'm bragging.  It was enough, offering a couple of distant thunder booms, to scare my Golden under the bed...

Cleveland Illinois was a passabye between Peoria, where my wife's sister lives and some Caves that we visited up in Iowa.  We did all this last summer and I never shared it on the blog.  And since now I have another Cleveland trip planned, no - not Ohio, I figure I should post this one now.  But, if you are heading on the Cleveland world tour like I am, head over to Rock Island - Moline - Davenport.  They call it Tri-Cities, I think.  It has a nice water park there - we didn't actually go to it, but we did go to another one and with all that humidity, ahhh, what a relief!

52 Pounds in 52 Weeks

New Year's 2016 Weight: 240.9

Week Nine Weight: 245.6

Total Weight Loss: +4.7 Pounds

Week 9: 245.6 Pounds (Friday March 4, 2016)

57 Pounds in 43 Weeks - This doesn't quite have the same ring, but it's what I am up against now!  I did it to myself.  I started out mocking the process of wait loss.  Bragging about how I could have a beer after my run and losing one pound a week would be easy.  But here I find myself gaining all that I lost, and then some!  I even wasted the progress I made from the long overnight hike, last weekend.  All I have left from that is a lot of crazy poison oak!

After the 15 mile trip I unofficially weighed around 234, but as the week progressed, I just craved - starved, to refill my gut and diabetes.  As I type here, I'm still hungry thinking about the left over BBQ Chicken that I just ate a few minutes ago, you know, the portion my wife could not eat yesterday when, we had BBQ!  Of course, my portion was wiped clean at the time.  Urgh!!!

**In other news, On the Track:

Ayden in full stride, Lane 9 - 200 meter run

 It was the first meet, bascially just a home friendly practice meet.  Ayden ran the 200m and 400m.

Later that day, we headed out to see Alyssa run for a high school event:

Cleveland - High School

Alyssa's team is in the black jersey, with the "V" for Ventura.  Just happened to be next to a Cleveland High School team - somewhere in California.

That's all for now.  I'm hungry and I gotta eat!

-Jeremy