Stick a Fork in Me!

Hallelujah! The holidays are over! Yes, technically they are not. We still have to get through New Years, but that holiday is going to be FAR less stressful than all the days leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So a quick recap is in order. Sorry, there are no photos to post of all the holiday chaos. If you are my friend on Facebook, well if you are RDJr.'s friend on Facebook, you might be lucky enough to have seen a couple that he took with his iPhone. But I'm just so bad about pulling out the camera to capture the moment which is another stressor all together. Sigh.

Let's see ... I went to Dallas, TX with my parents for Thanksgiving. My grandmother, aunt and uncle live there. Another aunt and uncle and a cousin came to visit as well. I raced a 5K and took a lot of naps.

The Aubs and I hosted a holiday party at our house. I volunteered to do all the cooking because it's what I love! And even though over 90% of the guests were cyclists or triathletes, no one touched the healthy food I prepared!! It just goes to show, no matter how serious they are about their sport, even athletes expect and WANT junk food at holiday parties. My flax-seed brownies apparently tasted like "earth". No one touched the quinoa cookies. And don't get me started on the prosciuto wrapped melon (RDJr. gave me the hardest time of all on that one.)

The following weekend we had three parties in one night - my work, his work, and then a friend's. It was a FUN night but we were oh so tired afterwards.

I celebrated Christmas with my parents the Tuesday before by going to dinner at Pot Pie, then home for gifts and dessert. It was weird and a little sad without my brothers and might-as-well-be-sister-in-law there. Brian and Maria are traveling the country in their RV. They called me from Cochella Valley and said the average age of the people in the RV park they were staying was 73!! Kevin was (happily) let go from Louis Vuitton/Edun and, saving every single penny he has, opted to stay home in NYC this year. They both promised they would be home next year.

Christmas Eve Day was fun and exhausting at the same time. TEAM BAD were up early for a trail run in the SNOW (we got a dusting) at Shawnee Mission Park. It was sort of magical - we saw seven or eight white tailed deer and a grey fox. All three of us were MUDDY but it was worth it. Headed to Eggtc. for breaky then out to Brookside Barkery and Bath to give Bailey (the "B" in Team BAD) a much needed bath. He was so good!!! It took us about 90 minutes to wash and dry that 100lb Golden, and he still wasn't 100% dry until 8pm that night! RDJr.'s dad came over for dinner. We opened gifts and played dominos. It was nice.

Christmas Day RDJr. and I opened gifts then headed to his mom and step-dad's for more gifts, lots of laughs and a THREE HOUR Monopoly game where I dominated!!! Hey, don't get mad at me cuz I'm savvy. ;)

And ... DONE!

Sunday was, I think, the best day of the whole weekend. We ate a HEALTHY breakfast at home, I finally got to do laundry and go to the grocery store (WHOLE FOODS SAVE ME from my holiday eating binge!). TEAM BAD got together later in the afternoon for a long run, dinner and a DVD. Oh, and some beard shaving. Get your mind outta the gutter - RDJr. shaved his Gizzly Adams beard. We did get some fun photos of that!

And ... now it's all over. Back to our regularly scheduled program. Back to full-on training and full-on work. I didn't send out Christmas cards this year so I'm going to send out New Years cards. And instead of including the usual "I did this, I did that this year" holiday letter, I'm going to write a "things I am looking forward to this year letter" which seems more appropriate for my situation than a "looking back" letter.

Hope everyone (all two of you who read this) had a wonderful holiday with your families and that you find time to decompress before the usual grind gets to you again.

Merry Christmas!

This photo makes me laugh so hard! Not just at Christmas, but throughout the year. More so because I actually know this little boy. I'm kinda feeling the way he does -stressed out by Santa and all that surrounds him.

Hopefully by the time Christmas actually gets here next week, things will have settled a bit. Looking forward to a Christmas trail run with RDJr. and B the Super Dog, most of all!!

Lot of really good training!

Enough about food, time for a quick update on my training and just life in general. I actually have two ideas for blog posts but I wanted to have pictures to go with them, and then I keep forgetting my camera. Oh well. So you get boring words here.

So what's new pussycat? Six weeks of SOLID training under my belt and I feel good! I keep surprising myself with how well it's going and how quickly the speed is coming back. And even though my abs are so sore from the reverse push-ups on the stability ball that it hurts to sneeze, and even though I've already taken five ice baths in five weeks, I don't really feel like the training has been all that hard.

Sure, there are intervals in the workouts that are tough, but I'm rising to the challenge and haven't had to make an excuse yet. All of this is very encouraging and gives me so much confidence that this year is going to be great!

Swim speed is coming back - hopped in lane 3 instead of lane 4 at Blazers masters on Saturday. I even led the lane toward the end of the workout. Nice!

Bike - Best idea I've ever had: Netflix!!! Workouts fly by when I'm watching Mad Men, Date Night, It's Complicated, Lars and the Real Girl. (Romantic comedies are easier to follow than dramas.) I'm also drawing up blueprints for the new and improved "Pain Cave" that is our basement. Hee hee! Well, not really blueprints, but exciting things happening at the home gym.

Good things happening with my run as well. Did a run "test" in the form of a 5K on Thanksgiving and while I set no PR's (and didn't expect to) my time is consistent with where I should be for this time of year. Actually, maybe a little bit better than this time last year.

Recovery has been going REALLY well! This is the one thing I am most proud of - and the one thing I am working the hardest at. I am getting, on average, 8 hours of sleep each night. (Sometimes 9, sometimes 7, but never less than 7. ) I'm eating a recovery snack 10-15 minutes after every workout over an hour. Ice baths, ART, stretching - all of it. And ... AND ... I have only had two tiny little glasses of wine in six weeks.

What else?? RDJr. and I have been keeping it real on the weekends because I'm tired from training and he is so busy studying. We've seen a LOT of movies lately. This weekend we got out of the house and headed out to the Overland Park Arboretum for their luminary walk. It was COLD but so pretty and a lot of fun!! We laughed a lot that night - mostly at the fact that I'm a huge sappy dork and started to cry when the bell ringers played "Carol of the Bells", which is my FAVORITE Christmas song, and it was just so beautiful that tears began to roll and RDJr. just thinks it's hilarious that I cry at stuff like that. And really, it is.

Laughing so hard, I'm crying ... Or crying and then laughing?