FAT TUESDAY

Trying not to live up to the name of the day (no Paczkis for me, even though I am Polish!), I was at the gym bright and early again today, going into week two of worst work weeks from hell. Actually, I would have been there anyway, but if I needed an excuse, one reason would be to maintain weight. Another would be to combat the stress of the job. I can't help it if I really like to work out. (most of the time)

Our office has its own annual version of Fat Tuesday, where they live up to the "fat" by everyone bringing goodies in the form of any desert you can think of, including the Mardi Gras King Cake, and the office supplies pizza either for a grazing party or a Fat Tuesday luncheon. Of course, there is a catch: you have to pay to indulge, with all monies collected going to fund our yearly charitable giving program. So you can ease some of that guilt by giving to a good cause.

My sister, on the other hand, trying to quit smoking, bought 2 boxes of the Packis and---are you ready for this?--ate 17 of the things! OMG! A donut coma was imminent. And this is the sister who is as thin as a rail. What is it about the skinny ones that can eat themselves sick and still not gain any weight??

Last week's workout wrapup is as follows:

• Monday: weights; spin


• Tuesday: Run 3.5; swim 30 minutes


• Wednesday: Spin; swim 20 minutes (in a hurry)


• Thursday: Run 3.5; swim 30 minutes


• Friday: Weights


• Saturday: Run 10k


• Sunday: Spin 1 hour 30 min.; swim 1200

Our Sunday spin that Jan and I did consisted of two DVDs: the first was a circuit spin workout, which we thought would be a nice warmup for the longer one. Ha! It was 40 minutes non-stop. Absolutely no rest, other than going from a standing to a seated climb or a standing flat to a seated flat. By the end of that one, we were looking forward to it being over. I almost dreaded the second one. The second one, however, was great! It was an actual "road" spin DVD, meaning you had scenery and real cyclists to follow. The scenery? Las Vegas, in the Valley of Fire State Park. It was wonderful, and the 60 minutes went by so fast. What was really great about it was on the screen you had a countdown clock, a cadence counter and instructions on what cadence to follow, and the heart rate effort to go by for each segment of the workout. Along with that, you had some motivating music and inspirational quotes faded in and out. It was much more realistic of a ride also, and no spin instructor screaming at you to "come on work it, don't quit, you can do this, etc." We just rode along in silence with the other cyclists, enjoying the scenery, cranking it up for a hill when necessary, spinning at high cadence on the downhills, and as I said, the time went by so fast it was unbelievable. I definitely would do that ride again and wouldn't mind having that DVD for my own collection.

Last night was the first official babysitting night with the new granddaughter. I'm glad they weren't gone too long because sitting there holding her and watching TV, I had a very hard time staying awake myself!

And then this morning, back at the gym at 6:15. I'm glad I got there early and was able to first get a treadmill and second get in the 4 mile planned workout before heading into the stress pit. I know I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite treadmill workouts is Yasso 800s. I can do these for a long time it seems and not get too sore or too tired. Naturally, I'm not really pushing the pace right now, going strictly for distance, but it is easier to keep a consistent pace on the treadmill, one of the advantages of indoor workouts. I just know the weather is going to break soon, but right now I can't focus on outdoor running in the early mornings when it is this cold and I am really pressed for time and would rather get in a quality workout than gut it out and go out in the cold darkness.

What keeps me going right now is knowing that next week at this time I'm going to be on a beach in Cancun!

Happy training this week!