No Lifting for Me

Plans of lifting at work yesterday were spoiled when I realized, standing in the locker room half undressed, that I had forgotten shorts. ARGHH. This was made more painful by the fact that I had traipsed across campus in the cold rain. I briefly (very briefly I might add) thought about lifting in my work clothes. I was after all, wearing jeans and had a sports bra, t-shirt and sneakers, but did not want to be one of THOSE people. I see them occasionally – they are usually upper management and they waltz into the weight room and do some bench press and a few other machines before waltzing out. Seems odd to me. Even odder is the one guy I’ve seen hop on the stationary bike in work clothes (and these are not jeans). To each his own – hope they don’t have any meetings in close quarters after that.

Marty is tempting me with saying maybe we can buy me a cross bike. We can get a good deal at Inside Out, but I waffle between wanting it and wanting to save all the money we can. What to do, what to do.

Enough travel!

I'm sitting in the passenger seat of our car somewhere in the middle of Georgia while we make our way back to North Carolina. I don't have internet access but figured this would be a good time to type up a blog catch-up post from the past few days.

I left a very quiet work day on Wednesday just after lunch to head to the airport so I could fly down to Orlando. I had a layover in Charlotte - so the quick flight from Raleigh to Charlotte was on a small commuter jet. It was VERY windy that day, so we bumped our way up to cruising altitude, stayed there for like 1 minute, and then bumped our way down to Charlotte. Not fun. I know I have flown all over the world but I have never gotten used to turbulence. I got into Orlando a little late, but Marty hit horrible traffic on I-95 so our friend Dan ended up picking me up. He threw a fun party (of course). It was nice to see old friends, especially one of my very oldest friends Katy Rad. We had a lot of fun.

The next day we saw Marty's family, I took a much needed nap, we went for a short half-hearted run and then had a low-key dinner with Dan. We all needed to recharge from the night before!

Friday was busy - had breaky at our favorite greasy spoon near our old condo, then we drove to UCF to do a run. We hadn't been there since they built the new stadium and WOW it looks different! What a fun college to live on campus now! Luckily, they still left some of the trails we used to run on, something I was worried about would be all gone from all the new building that had gone on. These trails are the place where Marty and I had our first date, 8.5 years ago! In the rain no less. I figured if this guy liked me in running clothes soaking wet and disgusting we may have something here :) Next up we met one of my athletes for lunch, then off to Sanford so Marty could give a swim lesson, and then to Ormond Beach to stay with another friend for the next two days.

We had fun in Ormond - went for a gorgeous bike ride on Saturday morning through Tomoka State Park and down A1A - watching the beautiful calm Atlantic to our left. Then we went out on the boat and then to an Oyster Roast. It was a busy weekend filled with bad (good) food, beer and not great sleep.

So I'm pretty ready to just hunker down and get back on a normal schedule of training, working and eating better. December has been pretty much a prep phase training-wise and I'm definitely looking forward to building that base back up with more consistent training. Races loom in the distance!

And 2008? Eh, I'm glad it's gone. Not one of my favorite years for sure for many different reasons and although I know each day is really a new slate to work with, it's nice to have the number change and really wipe it clean. I'm looking forward to making this year MUCH better than the last and I have many ideas on how I'm going to do that.

Here Come's 2009!

I'm back at work for 2.5 days before some more time off. I actually only have New Year's off, but who is really going to come in on Friday and how much work could possibly get done? Anyways, we are headed to Florida so I won't be anywhere near the office. I'm flying down tomorrow afternoon and Marty is driving down in the morning. If he doesn't drive like a grandpa and doesn't stop too much he will be arriving at the Orlando airport right in time to pick me up. The one way ticket to Orlando was pretty cheap and this way I don't have to burn too much vacation time. I'll drive back up with him on Sunday.

The big catalyst for us going down there was our friend Dan having a New Year's Eve party, and we haven't been to Orlando in over a year now so it's time to see our friend's and family there. Dan always throws great parties - in the past he had a very fun pimps n' ho's party and a homecoming (Marty and I were voted king and queen, awww, but I think that had more to do with the fact we were checking out a couple of weeks later and we got the 'going away and maybe never see them again vote').

In other news, I moved up to medium on guitar hero over the holiday. I only play when I'm up in Virginia, so I think I'm doing pretty good. I'm definitely glad we don't have one or I would never get anything done. Here's a picture of me and my niece playing - she's almost 4. They have a 'beginner' level on the World Tour where you only have to strum - she rocks! And she'll tell you that, too :)

O Christmas Tree!

Marty and I didn't have a Christmas tree and had big plans to buy a good one after Christmas so we could get a deal. We struck out today though, hitting two different Lowes, a Home Depot and a Target with NOTHING left. Bummer...until I went to Kroger to get some groceries and there it was! A 7.5 foot with lights for 50% off! Who would've thought Kroger?! We may be the only people in the world who just put up our Christmas tree. Ta da!

Christmas Catchup

We had a nice time celebrating with my family in Virginia over the past few days. Marty and I managed to get in two runs while we there - to try and balance out all the eating we did. We ran on the Virginia Beach boardwalk on Christmas morning and I was able to sniff out some trails for us the next day (trails are hard to come by up there). Yesterday we bummed around after driving home and then watched FSU slaughter Wisconsin in their bowl game. And today we got in a nice 2 hr ride in short sleeves. Every warm day in the winter just means one less cold one, right?

After our healthy ride, we decided to head to a local pizza place (Brooklyn Brothers) where we stuffed ourselves with garlic knots and sausage pizza. They have a couple of tables outside so we decided to take Tassie with us since she loves going with us anywhere. I tied her to my chair and watched her shiver, shake and keep her tail between her legs the entire time. I guess Chair-Gate 08 really left an impression on her - it was pitiful and although we thought we should make her stay the course so she could get past her demons, we caved pretty quickly and put her back in the car (where she proceeded to fall asleep).

Anyways, here are a few pictures from the holidays.

That's me in between my two sisters, my mom, and my two nieces.

The Gaal's (Tassie is a very sloppy-sitter)

And this is what she looked like Christmas morning after playing and rolling around in the mud.

Warm Christmas!

We're back in Virginia to celebrate Christmas with my family (mom flew up, Shana, me and Marty drove from NC) and Heather/Sean and cute nieces are all here! This is the 3rd Christmas we've celebrated up here - all previous have been in Florida where I swear every year it hit 80 degrees. Well, we're almost there now! Not quite, but I am in a short sleeve t-shirt -- love it :)

I got through a head/chest cold rather quickly the past two days. I'm feeling great right now, but there were about 18 hours in there where I was not so great. I have a little raspy voice and a bit of a leftover cough, but all in all, I will take a cold like this over any other! Marty is about a day behind me, but he is feeling good again. We had a fun Master's swim this morning (the 8 days of Christmas set - we only had an hour this morning so couldn't fit in all 12). I thought the turnout would be low, but with some visiting Master's swimmers and people who were staying in town for the holidays we had a good group.

I hope you all have been nice this year and get all sorts of goodies tomorrow morning!

You know it's time for some new suits when...

I typically wear the same suit every morning at practice. A navy blue speedo endurance with light blue piping. I am such a fasion-ista, I said piping. Anyways, this suit is awesome because chlorine is nothing to it – it has lasted forever…it might be going on a year by now and there aren’t any signs of wear. The only thing I don’t like about it is it will occasionally chafe me under my arm. I actually have a faint scar from all the times I have just swum through it. This only seems to happen when it’s very cold and dry outside – the WORST times of the year in my opinion. Again, anyways these suits are expensive but we get a sweet discount at Inside Out and it is SO worth the money since it lasts so long. But this morning I realized I may need to switch up the wardrobe a bit.

I do have another suit – it’s purple and swirly and is nice, I don’t actually know why I don’t wear it more often but this morning I put it on and no less than TWO guys at master’s commented about my new suit. Hello! GUYS!!! And that’s not even counting Marty who said something immediately to me PRE-COFFEE!!! If those aren’t glaring red flags that I need to wear a bit more suits I don’t know what else is. I do have one splish that ‘the nicest lady in the world’ sent to me, but I have yet to wear it to Master’s practice, although I’m sure everyone would get a good laugh out of it (it’s the ‘Who Rocks? I Rock’ swimsuit). That one has only been reserved for times when I know the pool was empty ;)

We’re driving up to Va this afternoon; Dad’s flying up to my sister’s house to do a bit of pre-Christmas celebrating. Then we’re back in NC for a few days before going BACK up there on Christmas eve for a couple of more days. I’m really looking forward to spending time with my family – never a dull moment, that’s for sure ;)

Dan told me today that I looked like a real swimmer in the water. He hadn’t swum with us in awhile and this is a huge compliment! I swam my next interval extra fast still beaming about it. Then I pooped out and was happy we only had one more to go!