ARIZONA BOUND!

I guess it is time to get excited! The day is almost here. Tuesday morning, Don and I leave for Tucson, where we will meet up with none other than Fe-lady!

Typically, in the days before a vacation, work is ridiculously busy. So many details to attend to. But that's just me, I guess. I know there are things needing to be done that I don't want to entrust to others here, since they always come up short in my expectations of doing what needs to be done. Its the nature of our business too. A lot of anal people, strategic planners as we are called. Always searching for that last piece of information before being able to complete a task. Anyway, I digress.

I am looking forward to this trip for so many reasons. The first, of course, is just to have a nice vacation in some WARM weather. True, it is actually warming up here, but I want hot. After the winter we had here, hot will be great. I just want to bake in the desert for a few days!

Next, and maybe most important, is meeting up with Fe-lady. Something I'm sure all of you have found in the blog world, the tri-running blog world especially, is that there is always some people you seem to connect with. You form a strong bond, and then, if you're lucky, you actually get to meet the person. In my case, I felt comfortable enough with her to go visit without hesitation. I hope I am worthy of her expectations of me!

And I know this is horrible to think, but I am hoping this time while being gone nothing will happen to anyone in my family. I don't know why I have been jinxed with this curse, but four times while taking vacations, a tragedy happened, so of course I worry and feel guilty at the same time about going anywhere.

On another note, my swim times are finally improving. Just in the past month, since starting the Sprint 8 program, my strength has started returning. Its not something noticeable in amount of weight I can lift, although I have gone up some in a month, but it is the overall increase in fitness I seem to be experiencing. There is definitely something to a higher intensity workout that seems to have put me over the hump on fitness. I honestly have to say I have noticed a huge change in having less shoulder/neck/back discomfort even while increasing intensity. It just isn't there like it was for so long. I can actually make it through the day at work without losing my train of thought or watching the clock because of fatigue.

Now, it could be a coincidence, since it has been over 6 months since my accident, and I do believe the numbers there are a key too, but for so long (I am talking years), I have just been getting by on workouts, never really putting my all into what I'm doing, but always trying to do things because others are doing them, even while I wasn't really on board with that philosophy, if that makes sense. So I have to wonder if that's part of it too. When I look back to my competitive running days, there was something there that has been missing for a long time, other than fast running, where I didn't have injuries or long periods of down time, and I also believe that is a key. Yes, I realize I was younger, and I know that plays a role too, but I think I am one of those people who thrive on shorter, higher intensity workouts, so I really feel I need to focus my efforts there, rather than always looking to the longer, slower endurance events. Don't get me wrong, endurance events have their merit too, but I firmly believe we all have things we are better at doing than others, and we should capitalize on that. I know I have a LONG way to go to even get close to what my potential is, but at least I am finally seeing some progress.

So now I need to buckle down and get some work done too!