WHERE IN THE WORLD AM I? CATCHING UP

I haven’t had much to say lately, so have been lax in updating my blog. Unlike last year, when I was spending countless hours training and when I had lots of time to think of things to say, this year my training has taken a new focus, at least for a while. Shorter, more intense workouts, usually done after work, and usually with someone or at least doing the same workouts on the track.

I do like track running, and I do like running faster. I finally gave up all hope of ever seeing a decent 5k time last year training long slow distance all the time, but now have been actively working on making a comeback, so to speak. Its been a struggle, but the legs are starting to come around. Having Don to run with again has helped tremendously.

Also, working out in the evenings or lunch hours makes a huge difference in my “free” time away from the job. Not having to get up at 5 am or earlier most days, I am enjoying the luxury of sleeping in—until at least 6:30 some days!—eating breakfast at home, and not having to pack a steamer trunk of food and workout clothes every day and haul that to work with me in the wee hours of the morning.

Weekends here haven’t been conducive to many outside bike rides either, with rainy and windy weekends nearly every week, making me glad once again of not needing to get those long bike rides in. Instead, we have invested in spin bikes, so that has also been an alternate way to work out, in the evening, at home, again eliminating the need to get up at o’dark thirty for those morning spin workouts. There’s no place like home.

I have also been experimenting with cooking and different ways to eat, often spending hours scouring recipes, reading info about, specifically, the wonders of coconut oil, and many recipes relating to its use. It was something I needed to acquire a taste for, and now use it in practically everything I eat, as well as using it on my skin. In the process of learning about coconut products, I am experimenting with gluten free cooking as well. Not that I have known problem with gluten, but going without it hasn’t hurt me at all either.

On the job front, as with many employers, cutbacks and job restructuring has found its way into my life, and the work I was doing in past years has literally either dried up or shifted elsewhere, leaving me in a constant state of boredom and/or scrambling for work, with not much prospect of a change any time soon, if ever. This is a law firm. We will always have work. But the way we are handling it now has totally changed, due mostly to economic conditions of our clients. Looking elsewhere is a hard decision even if there was an abundance of choices, because of the years spent on the job here and the benefits either earned or acquired. That in and of itself makes it hard to go elsewhere at this stage in my life. But I am always open to reinventing myself if necessary.

And then there has been the almost constant problem with my laptop computer, with one problem or another needing to be fixed in order to just use it. I have just recently gotten that fixed again, but in the process nearly everything I had stored was wiped out, so I need to start rebuilding all those favorites I have acquired in the last three years. Windows Vista? Don’t go there.

What races I will do this year and in the future still have not formulated in my mind or found their way on paper. Not only can I not decide what I want to do, I seem to be questioning the need to do some things based on cost and travel expenses involved in that process. I am not so quick to click the “submit” button without taking into account the cost of the race, the need for travel, and how much all that will cost, making me far more selective than any time in my life. I used to run a race every other weekend and not bat an eye at the cost, even in my poorest days, because I had such a need to compete and that was truly my only outlet or entertainment for many years. Now I am also weighing the time needed for training against the rest of my life, so that’s also a factor in making me think twice about the next event.

Then there's Facebook, which has allowed me, thankfully, to catch up on everyone quickly without the need to wait for the old dinosaur PC to awaken from its coma so I can read blogs--not that I don't like reading, just haven't been able to spend much time doing that and have lost all the links on my laptop.

And family life has always been busy and hectic so no need to recap on that. The fact that I can actually participate this year is almost a novelty after cutting myself off from the everyday things last year due to training and job responsibilities.

Coming up: a trip to Florida with my daughter and her kids. We likely won’t be hitting all the theme parks (thank God!) because we’ve been there, done that before, but are looking for relaxation and some unique things to do, like a manatee cruise? Or Gatorland for the boys? Probably at least Sea World, but other than that, spending time together.

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there! I will try to post pics from Florida (if the laptop holds out!) and maybe will have some time for updating also. See you all soon.