Everyday I say, wow, I need to update my blog and still I never find the time to do so. There should be more hours in the day. Once again, I find myself pressed for time since I have to spend this beautiful day inside working at the club. Isn't it great when you need the money that bad?!

So for all of you still wondering how that snow shoe race went... it was awesome. i had so much fun!! Having never been on snow shoes for any notable length of time, I was somewhat nervous starting out, but quickly found it really wasn't too hard. I did manage to clip my right ankle far too many times than necessary creating a rather large bruise, but it could have been far worse. Long story short, the run was beautiful, running through the woods with all the fresh snow and I met some pretty cool people along the way. A big hill part way through knocked a lot of people off ahead of me which was convenient since it was pretty much impossible to pass anyone on the single track. I just kept going and actually managed to come in second female overall and first in my age group. Never expected that and I know it was a fluke, but fun nevertheless. I recommend trying it!!

Otherwise, got in 3 runs last week over lunch, a couple body pump classes, and taught cycling twice. Swim class started Tuesday night but luckily it was the intro so we only had to swim for about 25 minutes. The fun part of the week is that the weather was nice enough for the group lunch rides to really take action. I went riding on thursday and Friday. My legs weren't as fresh as I would have liked them to be. I spent Wed. night on the trainer for an hour which cashed my hamstrings for Thursday's ride and then I taught Friday morning which put a damper on Friday's ride, but it was all good. Needless to say, I had nothing left for the two classes I taught on Sat. morning. Good times.

Gotta run, the dog got the idea that I'd take her for a walk before I left for work and is freaking out. Have a good one!

Once again, we've made it to Friday, but wow does it feel like I have a long way to go! Work is dragging and I want a treat! Not a good combination...

Played vball last night. It was ok, but nothing special. Pretty much just went to bed after that in preparation for today's cycling classes. They went well. I think my run cashed my legs yesterday more than I had thought cause I the quads were burning pretty good this morning. I worked hard though, and from the looks of it, the participants did as well. I had to stick around to teach the youngsters after that which actually turned out to be pretty fun. They worked hard and made it through the entire class. The gym teacher told me that had been the most intensity they've seen so far on the program and they held through that well so I was really proud of them.

Other than that, not much has been new. Old roomie is coming into town tonight and they're all going out and want me to come along. Must say I really don't feel like it, but do feel some obligation. Not sure what I should do. Every time I enter a smokey bar I end up leaving sick. Again, leading back to the fact I wish I lived in Cali. Maybe someday they'll actually get the bars smoke free, but I'm not holding my breath.

With that, I'd better get back to work. Hope all is well and training is going well.

Haven't blogged in awhile so I thought I've give you a quick update... mainly cause I have no idea what I've done since I last blogged. All the days are meshing together! Don't worry, pretty sure nothing too interesting has gone on.

Monday I got to the club at 5:15 am to find the morning cycling class full. great start to the day. Luckily, my yoga instructor also didn't make the cut so we did yoga for an hour in the gym before I headed home to get ready for work. I suppose it was a good thing that I stuck around considering my initial intent was to go home and back to bed if I didn't get a bike. I'm pretty sure I went for a run over lunch with a few girls at work, but one of them is just beginning so it was a really slow 4 miles or around there. Actually I was fairly impressed that she only had to walk once and otherwise took on such a distance. I think that was it for the workouts that day.

Tuesday I did get a bike at the 5:30 am slot so that was good. I also swam during lunch and then did a few k on the skis that night. Surprise surprise, I chickened out on the race. Mark did really well though. At first I thought he'd gotten himself in way over his head, but he did well... I'm sure he blogged about it so make sure you check it out. It was fun.

Wednesday- finally made it to yoga with my knew Hawaiian print mat. Lovin' it... then I went to a bodystep class followed by body pump. Then watched a little OC and hung out. A good night.

Thursday... guess that's today huh? Skipped the swim workout in favor of sleep. Feel congested when I wake up lately so it's not ideal for the sport. Did get in an awesome run at lunch though. I think about 4.5 miles at about 8:00 miles. I was pleased. Now I'm off to volleyball (not very excited about that) and then probably to bed. I have to teach the early class tomorrow followed by another one for some middle school youngsters. Hopefully it will be fun.

I guess I'm late so I'd better go. Hope everyone is doing well! Possible snow shoe race this weekend... could be interesting. :)

Not too much to blog about today... I buckled to my soreness and skipped my second workout and volleyball last night. I just wasn't feeling it. I saw this poor deer get hit on the way home -I won't go into detail- but she was freaking out and suffering so badly that it killed me. I, being the wuss that I admittedly am, started crying and it took every rational bone in my body to stop me from getting out of my car and trying to help her. Unfortunatly the vision has really stuck with me and I can't seem to shake it. I had never seen one hit before and I pray that I never do again, or even worse, hit one.

Anyway, had dinner with my mom and just hung out for awhile. This morning I taught my cycling class. I did try out the new mix on them and I think that it must be overall pretty tough. I had a lot of deep breaths out at the end of each challenge and a lot of the looks up at me with the head down, just moving to eyes as if waiting for me to say "ok- take a break." At the end they said they appreciated it though. I must say that my legs were cashed by 6:15 (45 minutes into it) and I was sucking wind pretty hard. That part I will contribute to the possibility of being sick. The legs, I'm not sure if they have an excuse, but I am still sore as hell from Wed. body pump class. Sad.

Other than that, I'm at work and that pretty much sums it up. It was pay day though so that's good. Unfortunately it's my weekend on at the front desk of the club so I don't get much of a weekend. They're reasonably short shifts, but in the middle of the day so it pretty much cashed any time before 5. I would ultimately like to stop working that job and just teach, but I need the money. Come summer I'll look more into that.

With that, I guess that's all I've got. Happy Friday the 13th. Hopefully everything is going well for everyone! I tried to use the excuse that I should just stay in bed all day so that I wasn't given the opportunity to have something bad happen to me, but no one bought it. Too bad.

Good Times...

Wow, I've learned my lesson for not lifting for 2 weeks. Bad decision. Granted, I was trying to baby my heel, but even so, I'm not sure my heel ever hurt as bad as my legs do today :) It's a good hurt though... at least it proves that I'm doing something by continuing to lift! I'll get in at least one more body pump hour this week and hopefully aim for 3 next week.

This morning I dragged myself out of bed to go to the gym on the way to work. I've decided (at least until swim class starts again) that Tues/Thurs am I will swim before work which will enable me to do something later that night as well. So far, so good. I've gone twice now! yeah!! I think my soreness really took a toll on my swim workout this morning. Again I only swam for about half an hour cause I was later than I had hoped and the pool was fairly crowded. I got in about 1400 yards (maybe a few more, but I lost count) but I felt like crap pretty much the entire time. I also have a really hard time breathing in the morning and I think that is largely because it's winter and I'm battling a cold. Can't seem to clear out the respiratory system too well these days. Hopefully that will fix itself soon.

Aside from that, I have volleyball tonight and would like to get in another workout but I'm not sure what exactly that will be. I'm contemplating skipping volleyball as well since I really wasn't supposed to be on the team in the first place. We'll see.

I did get my run in yesterday and the weather was beyond beautiful. I'd probably guess about 32 degrees, sunny and little wind. I loved it. Unfortunately, I don't know my way around Waterloo yet so I had to ask someone for directions and they had to kind of guess the mileage. I'm hoping it was at least 3 but since I felt so good, I kind of wonder. I think it was 3.5 based on time. Could have gone all day. Then, as already mentioned, I made it to body pump after work before heading home.

I guess that's it for the tridreams today... cycling tomorrow, I used a new mix for Tuesday night's cycling class and they said it was good and hard so I think I'll try it out on my class and see what they think. I'll probably just have to tell Jen to work her class harder :)

Happy training to all... Friday is not far away!

Did I say "no more slacking?" I think I meant to say "not as much slacking..."

Yup, didn't make it up for yoga this morning. Well, I was up and then the bed summoned me back and I couldn't resist it's strength. On my behalf, I haven't been feeling great lately so I can probably use all the rest I can get, but I'm still a slacker. I'm sticking strong to my goal to get in a run and body pump today though. If I skip those, I'm going to have to come up with a punishment...

I guess that's it for now... just thought I'd get down something for the day as I don't know if I'll find time later. I'll be too busy running! Ha Ha.

So I was thinking about my blog yesterday and realized that I forgot a major event in the afternoon of skiing on Saturday. So in case I've never mentioned this, I had never been on skis (downhill or xcountry) before we began our little journey otherwise known as skate skiing. This may play a small part in why I am having a harder time picking this up, but the real purpose of this knowledge is to proclaim my fear for hills (going up sucks, but down is much scarier.) Keeping this in mind, I will continue on with my story... so we're skiing, I finally make it up this gigantic hill with my poor little cashed arm to hear Mark say "that should have been the last hill to climb" so I'm all pumped that all the tough stuff is behind me and continue on skating gracefully along the path. I turn the corner and there it is... the mountain of xcountry ski hills. I completely freaked out and apparently tried to turn to avoid flying down it at that moment meanwhile choosing a much better route straight off the trail and into a huge thorn bush. Lemmie tell ya, that felt great! I was tangled and laughing so hard that I didn't move for a good 5 minutes. On top of Mark standing there laughing his head off (it all makes sense why he was still wearing his helmet when he passed me now doesn't it...) the only other skier we say all day passed us at that time and also got his share of laughs in. I'm glad I can at least keep everyone entertained. I did make it down the mountain by the way... not so sure how I'd do at downhill...

Ok, back to the present and now that I've wasted all my time embarrassing myself, I'll keep this short. After taking 2 lazy days off, I pulled myself out of bed early to hit the pool before work. I can't say the swim felt great, but I managed to get in about 1700 yds in a half hour before dragging myself into the locker room. That was an adventure as the power went out leaving me stranded in an unfamiliar club in pitch blackness. Went to work... blah blah blah, left early to get back to the club to sub for cycling class. I think I killed the majority of the cyclers, including myself, but I think that's what I needed. No more slacking.

Tomorrow I plan to go for a run (hopefully during work) and then hit bodypump since I've missed it for the past 2 weeks. Tomorrow is early yoga as well. Skipped that last week too... wow, don't I sound like the dedicated athlete! Lovely.

Aight- good night all! Rest well.

This has to be a short one as I'm already an hour late for work. I woke up feeling pretty crappy this morning and thought that everyone would benefit if I slept for an extra hour rather than going to work and not accomplishing anything because I felt ill. Hopefully this extra hour of sleep will help... I'm not sure yet. Needless to say, I bailed on my early cycling class this morning so unless I summon up the motivation to go tonight... I will have used up both of my free days before the week even got going, as I didn't work out yesterday either. I don't think 20 yards on a pair of snow shoes would count as a workout. I'm definitely a fan of them though! Need to find myself and extra $125...

The weekend was fun. Went skiing on Saturday. A little of 6 miles I think. It was fun and the weather was awesome... not too cold for once. Xcountry skiing really is a pretty, calming sport... until you have to climb the hills that is. There were quite a few of those. Unfortunately, rather than making me stronger, I think they were killing me. Apparently, the way I push with my pole on my right arm is really really screwing up my shoulder. I really need to work on that if I'm ever going to make it past a couple of miles. By the end of the 6 I was skiing without poles or with only my left which is quite a bit slower and clumsy.

Sunday was the quadathlon. It was very cool, but I felt like a slacker for just sitting there and not doing anything... good thing that motivated me to work out later huh?! Anyway, one of the guys in my masters swim class showed up and parked in the next spot so that was kinda cool. It was fun seeing him... haven't seen him very often since the class ended. Also stayed and talked with the winning relay team for quite a while afterward. I think they said they were from Baraboo and all 4 of them looked extremely familiar, and they actually approached me with that thought, but we couldn't pin down where we'd met. Turns out one of them did the ironman last year, and at least 2 of them are signed up for this year so we exchanged email addresses and maybe have some training partners along the way. They were all very cool.

With that, I suppose I should get going to work. I'm still feeling iffy so maybe they'll let me leave early. Wishful thinking... happy training.

Aren't Fridays great? I'm about to head out of work (about an hour early) with nothing but the thoughts of what to do on a work-free weekend. I'm very appreciative of that. I don't know that I have that much planned. Will hopefully ski tomorrow so I can get it down heading into Tuesday. I figure that I should be able to do a wussy lap if all these 13 year olds can. You'll listen to me cry when they all beat me too! Something to stay tuned for!

Got the wonderful swim in last night. I lost count but am pretty sure I swam at minimum 2500 which was my projected goal. It went fairly well... again, it's disorienting because it is so much easier with a pull bouy. My arms can feel it though. Might hit the pool again tomorrow am prior to leaving for the ski thing. We'll see.

Today I actually got to do something other than swim... I taught my Friday cycling class. There was only 7 people in attendence due to the large snow fall we received last night. It was a big change from the super hyper, full class I normally have. I must say it wasn't quite as motivating, but a workout done nevertheless. The foot didn't love it, but didn't hate it completely either. I do think that I either strained or tore a ligament or tendon or whatever is down there though. Annoying to say the least.

Otherwise, life has been fairly uneventful. Hopefully something fun will happen this weekend. I think it is starting to be needed. It was a long week. :)

The joys of having an injured foot...

no skiing, no running, no biking, no volleyball... you name it, the answer is "NO"

e x c e p t . . .

swimming! yeah, I can swim! I can't think of anything else I'd rather do!! There truly is a God. So are you sharing the excitement with me yet? Trust me there really isn't too much to share. I still haven't found the motivation to swim yet, but I'm trying... that should get me credit right? Yeah... my workout consisted of a swim last night. About 2000 boring yds. but it's further than I've put in quite a while and it felt pretty good so I guess that's a highlight. It was probably much easier than normal because I swam the entire thing using a pull bouy to avoid using my stupid foot. Not that I'm complaining... I like swimming with the pull bouy! I figure it's about the same as my beloved QRoo. Also good news... I think that I've finally started to get that whole swimming technique thing down. Last night I was really pulling all the way through and although it was tough, I definitely felt the water more. I am also an accomplished bilateral breather now. Come the start of the Tri swim class Derrick will be so proud of me! He used to make the whole class do bilateral breathing drills just to make me do them- without having to single me out. sneaky fella.

On the agenda for tonight... more swimming! yeah!!! Maybe I'll aim for 2500 yds. Too bad I cheat with my little breaths at each turn around. hee hee.

One more thing to quickly mention... yes I did wuss out on the Tuesday night xcountry ski race, but one of my coworkers attended (who happens to be a great skier) and made me do a quick loop to see if he could help me. He said that I've got it, that I just need to practice so that's good. I thought he could have just been being nice, but I guess he told my boss that I'm better than 90% of the people he's seen just learning how, especially since I'd only been on them 3 times. Not bad I guess. Maybe I'll stick with it a bit ;)

Happy Thursday and better yet, good luck in your training!

So this must be a sign... I've written 3 long blogs while at work, and everytime, just as I'm about to send it, my computer goes dark and tells me that I must restart, losing the entire blog. I can't tell you how annoying that is... so if it does it again tonight, I am removing myself from the blogging community. Just in case, I wish you all a long, fun and healthy training season!

So now I'm not even sure what my other blogs were about, but I'm sure they must have been extremely interesting! Something about cycling, another about skiing (which I can guarantee must have been at least mildly entertaining...) but since I don't remember specifics, I will just start again with this week and vow to do better once again.
Maybe I can actually keep my word this time! Again, please, no one hold your breath!

Quick recap though... last week I did a little better about working out. Monday I did a spin class for an hour and then bodypump, Tuesday I swam 1800 yds after an hour spin class, Wednesday I swam another 2000 yds (or somewhere around that, maybe more) and then did another bodypump class. Thursday I took the day off with the exception of an hour of Volleyball (I was nursing a twisted knee from the previous weekend ski excursion) and then Friday taught my cycling class. Saturday was a big day as I taught the two morning classes for a total of 2 hours cycling and then xcountry skied for about 5 miles. It was a very fun day. Sunday was supposed to warrant another trip to the ski trails, but a late start and an unhappy shoulder changed that plan. Instead I just ate a lot of cookies :) Can't complain about that right? I swear I might have been cookie monster in previous life. If not previous, I'm sure they'll be signing me for the afterlife. I'm damn good at it! Wouldn't mind being blue and fuzzy with sweet googly eyes either.

This week started with a am cycling class (which was a struggle... love those days where you just feel off!) I've found I have some issues with my right side-bottom heel as well. I'm not sure what it is, but it's not very comfortable and quite frustrating. I need to get running! Anyway, I cycled through it and now I think it's trying to lecture me so I'm not sure what's up for tomorrow. Maybe an am swim. Still haven't decided on the xcountry race, but I think I might wait til the following Tuesday and see if I can't get a few more practice runs in this week.

With that, I think I'm cashed for good info. Almost wrecked my new car though... gotta love driving in snow. I'm still wondering how the van all of a sudden wound up sideways in the middle of the road. As far as I know, everyone made it through the event unharmed. I just got out of there with my near death experience as quick as the 25 mph pace would allow me too. I need the brontataurus back at least through the winter! I wouldn't care if that thing got hit. Oh well... I guess I could walk everywhere!

Good night to all and happy training like always!