I'm amazed by the camaraderie I've encountered

Maybe it was my childhood "trauma" of being the last one picked in gym class, not being athletically gifted (and catching grief for it), or being a "late bloomer" to fitness that I thought that I would be isolated in this journey but I have found the reverse to be true.

When I started running, I did it exclusively on the treadmill because I was self-conscious over the extra weight I was carrying. I trained for a 5K and my first 10K on the treadmill and it seemed to work for me but when I started training for a half-marathon, I had to bite the bullet and start running outside.

Until recently, a considerable portion of my running was done in the park or on a trail because I was hesitant to run on the street (once again, self-consciousness was taking control). I was amazed at the friendliness of the folks I encountered. A number of people will wave, say "hi" or "how are you doing," but some may actually initiate dialog to ask how far you're running today or if you're training for a particular race.

When I started going on the race circuit, I was intimidated by being surrounded by numerous runners who were a hell of a lot faster than me. When I go to the NYRR events, my corral corresponds with my best registered pace and I am surrounded by folks who run a pace comparable to mine. I've met a runners who were committed to running and overcoming challenges but yet we've joked about "how slow" we are and would check on each other during the course of the race to see how we're progressing.

I just moved to a new neighborhood and it's a bit of a burden to go to the places where I've run so I have been exploring the area while logging the miles. It turns out I was my biggest critic in terms of how I looked when running; as far as "everybody else," they don't care.

Wait a minute...did you...

Over the next two weeks, I will be spending a lot of time working at one of my client's offices. I haven't been there in over two years but I have run into some folks between now and then.

Within my first hour at the office, the first person I ran into looked at me and said "I know there's something different about you. I want to ask if you've lost weight but sometimes you just can't go there." We had a chuckle and I confirmed that I did lose weight. About 30 minutes later, another person looked at me with similar commentary.

I understand that some folks are uncomfortable with commenting about somebody's weight loss because of the fear that it opens a can of worms. For example:

• "You look great. Have you lost weight." So are you trying to say I looked terrible? Are you trying to say that I was fat?

Not for nothing, I appreciate the validation and the compliments.

Hitting a plateau

I have been slacking something awful since the fall. Running has been the only thing that has saved my ass from having the scale revert to my previous numbers.

I will admit fault. Yes, I can say that life got in the way, I picked up a crazy workload, I'm dealing with personal crap, etc. but the fact is that I haven't been on top of my game.

A few weeks ago, I went for my Weight Watchers weigh-in and the leader addressed plateaus. He was spot on when he said that we will plateau when we get comfortable with our results and take it as license to get lax in our routines. That's exactly what happened to me. I lost 60 pounds and have been getting compliments so it goes without saying that I did develop a sense if complacency.

Yes, if my life was different,  I'm sure the extra weight would've been long gone but the reality is that I have a husband, a daughter, and a career that seems to revolve around meals and cocktail parties so it's a challenge to modify my eating.

I'm running my first marathon in less than 4 months so I will be doing a lot of training runs and some cross-training. To be on top of my game when I conquer those 26.2 miles on November 2nd, I need to work on other components between now and then.