Quick re-cap of the week

Wow! It's been an incredible week- lots of ups and downs.

Most importantly, Brandy's surgery went well, very uneventful according to the doc. She was feeling pretty good until the long-term novacaine wore off and then she was pretty miserable. It was awesome to be able to take care of her for a few days, although I really wish I could have stayed longer. We watched movies and talked about all kinds of stuff (well.... I had to do the talking - LOL).

I was able to get a couple of great workouts in - biked 11+ miles each day on the stationary bike going as fast as possible and then running 3 miles after. I proved I can do it on a treadmill, I just need to figure out how to transfer that ability outside. I'm thinking it's psychological... not sure what the issue is.

On the way home, I stopped at Santa Ana and checked out our hotel that we'll be using for that location - it was INCREDIBLE! Loves the sales director, Kristi, and I'm so excited to have our class there. The remainder of the drive was pretty uneventful and I was able to just enjoy the time and the music and think about life. I once again just realized how incredibly blessed I am to have this amazing life. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Back at home, I started yesterday with the best ride yet - 13 miles. It was great and I'm thankful that I can see improvement in my strength and endurance because unfortunately that's the only thing that's changing. After three weeks of training hard and eating right - no slipping up at all, I have lost no inches (oh, 1/4 of an inch on my forearm...good to know), lost 1/2 pound, and still can't fit into my clothes. Am I frustrated? You bet! Everyone says "don't look at the scale" or "sometimes it takes time". Well, I get that.... but 3 weeks? With NO change?

So I need to really figure something out and make some changes because bottom line, I need to get this weight off. I can't afford to go buy a new summer wardrobe and I can't fit into any of my summer clothes. :-( Here's the thing - I have at least 11 pounds to lose. Six of those pounds are what I consider "easy" pounds - usually I eat right or exercise they come off easily. The remaining five pounds are my "hard" pounds - it's really tough to get me under 120. There's no reason in the world I shouldn't be down at least the 6 pounds. I'm not going to change my exercising level, as I have to prepare for the tri, so I have to adjust the nutrition. We'll see what happens.

Now D and I are working under what I consider almost an impossible deadline. We have an emergency rush job for 20 of our books by Monday - so we're working feverishly to get them done. All-nighter tonight, probably. Then it's out to Cali next Thursday to deliver 7 Habits... busy, busy, busy - just the way I like it!

Cali

The trip to Cali was a bit longer than anticipated - closer to nine hours due to an accident on the I-10. For three and a half hours I only managed to go 30 miles... it was tough. Thankfully, I had just stopped for gas, used the restroom, and made my lunch shake, so I was in pretty good condition to sit and wait that long.

Brandy met me at the hotel and the treated me to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack - YUM!!!! After dinner, she took me on a tour of the base and I got to see her room in the barracks - very cozy. (quite interesting - she's on the third floor and I realized as I went up the 3 flights of stairs, that it seemed like nothing at all. A few weeks ago in Santa Ana, I was winded after 2 flights!). After the base we went to her Denny's for dessert (oops) and coffee and just got to visit for awhile. Finally back to the hotel around 10:45. It was such a great evening!

So yesterday's bike ride was a great accomplishment- I finally did more than 11 miles and it was awesome. I finished really strong and had great time. I still have lots of room for improvement, but that makes me just want to try that much harder. Today... not as good. My plan had been to get up at 4 and work out for an hour and a half, but ended up sleeping in a bit too late to do that. So I'll see how Brandy's doing when I get her home from the hospital, and if she's sleeping, I may sneak down to the gym for a workout. I really want to focus on my running this week.

I brought my blender with me and all of my reliv shakes - I made little baggies and marked them all - pretty funny. I think I went a little overboard with the fruit this morning, though. Sue suggested adding frozen fruit to my shake (AWESOME idea!) but I ended up with 3/4 of a picture. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely delicious - but may be a bit more than I needed! But I'm going to drink it all because I'll be at the hospital for awhile and I'm a little light on calories for the rest of the day. I need to make sure I stay above 1200 so I don't store.

I'll post more later after her surgery - please keep her in your prayers!

YAY! It stopped raining!

Quick post, because I'm running a bit behind...

Very productive day yesterday - finished up the 7 Habits material and sent a test file off to be printed - hopefully can get that today. Picked up working on the PM curriculum and I'm loving the example stories - our company is "Monkey-in-a-Can". Don't ask me what that means! We stopped over to the rental and picked up all the laundry and did it here last night while we were working - much easier with our washer and dryer - so five loads done!

I was slightly tempted to sleep in this morning, but realized I had only a small window to get my ride in. It was a pretty good ride, although for awhile I thought I was lost in Trilogy... I just kept turning onto road after road after road... but I finally made my way out of the maze. Not great time on my ride, but I did just shy of 10 miles.

Now off to church, clean the rental property and then back at work on the materials. At some point definitely need to squeeze in 30-day Shred and Yoga.

Peace!

Need to back track just a bit...

I forgot to write about our wonderful evening the other night. We had a special dinner for Devin's 30th birthday (about time he joins my decade, huh??) on Wednesday night. Sue and Tom, his parents, came over along with Telle and Kristin. I made a pretty simple dinner of lasagna, homemade garlic bread and my favorite yummy salad (red and green lettuce, spinach, dried cranberries, walnuts, feta cheese). I planned my attack out earlier in the day so I wouldn't get sabotaged by the food - decided to have mostly salad and a tiny piece of lasagna, no bread and no dessert. And I even bought some club soda to cut in with the wine to save myself some calories.

It ended up just being a glorious night - I couldn't ask for anything better! We sat out on the patio enjoying the silence of the desert and beauty of the city lights, drinking wine, fellowshipping and just realizing how blessed we all were. At one point in the evening the girls ended up on the lower patio talking girl talk and the boys on the upper patio doing whatever it is that boys do.

I, once again, was reminded how incredible my mother-in-law is. She is such a strong, honest, smart, vibrant, sweet woman. I seriously could not think of one thing to make her any better - and I realize just how blessed I am to have her in my life! (and I'm not even kissing up to her because she doesn't read my blog... that I know of!). It's easy to see why her boys are so wonderful!

Kristin and I had a blast with Sue talking about the guys, our lives, exercising, the perkiness, or lack thereof, of certain body parts! :-) At one point I looked at Kristin, as she was leaning against the outside of the house and realized there was a scorpion right near her head. But she didn't panic - just took my shoe and killed it!

It was a wonderful night and one I hope to repeat many times over!

(Oh - and day 2 of my Shred - did it this morning! Weight is dropping very, very slightly. Another day with no biking - such a bummer. And I have another few days to rest my feet before I start running again.)

10 Weeks and Counting....

I got an email the other day from the sponsors of the Tri - 10 weeks and counting was the subject line. Definitely made my heart jump a bit. Will I be ready??

My training got a little derailed over the past few days... decided on Wednesday that I needed to take at least four days off from running/walking, even with the new shoes, as I suspect some tiny stress fractures in the balls of my feet from running on the old shoes. Instead, I decided that I would focus on my biking and swimming.

But.... that didn't turn out so well because now we are getting rain. Which normally I LOVE, but for biking, not the best. Yesterday was a complete blow-off day, anyway. We had Brooke's graduation and so we were busy all day and part of the busy-ness, unfortunately, was lots of really good "bad" food. The cake was calling my name... I couldn't resist! Although when I decided to have another piece last night as my nightly snack, Devin persuaded me to eat some raw veggies instead. Yum. Not.

Back on the wagon this morning and I decided to commit to actually doing the full 30 Day Shred. It's only 20 minutes and it's only 30 days. I can handle that. No excuses, no skipped days. My goal is to actually do the 20 minute shred and then follow it up with 45 minutes of yoga. Yoga quiets my mind and really helps my back. So that's my new commitment.

Today has been a good productive day of work. I'm still trying to finish up the 7 Habits one-day course material for my June client. Honestly, I'll be really glad to have it done so I can be focusing on the PM classes and designing some new programs.

LinkedIn has turned into a great marketing source for the business. We're getting a lot of hits!

Ok, back to the 7 Habits.... I'm on Habit 3... only four more to go....

Manic Monday

Awesome day, just very, very busy!

I started off the day with a 4+ mile run/walk - doing the 5 minute intervals - the last couple of miles were very uncomfortable because of my darn toes. I really need to get over to the Runner's Den and get a pair of running shoes. (mental note: do that tomorrow while I'm downtown).

I learned a good lesson this morning - normally I get up at 5:30 am and am out the door for run or bike by 5:45. This morning I slept in a bit and didn't leave until almost seven. Given that the highs hit 111 today, by 7:30, it was already cooking out. Thus the value of leaving at 5:30! Don't think I'll make that mistake again!

Came home and did some work on the upcoming class schedule and I have to say I'm thrilled with the way our site is coming out: www.passionatepm.com. Devin has really done a great job (as always!).

We had a meeting over at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort and Villas to tour the facility and discuss holding our Phoenix camps there. It was AMAZING! They were very much aligned with our thinking that clients come first. I expressed that I wanted my students cared for and treated well so they would only need to focus on the class. I'm very confident, after meeting the staff, that they will make sure that it happens. Our first class there will be on 8/31. I can't wait!

They also treated us to lunch at their restaurant - excellent! I even chose well, having an ahi salad.

Back at home to do more work - I was hoping that I'd squeeze in a 30-day Shred, but just ran out of time and energy. D did get my bike computer on, though, so I'm totally stoked to go for a LONG ride tomorrow morning. Still didn't get to the pool for my laps, so hopefully squeeze that in tomorrow, especially since the rest of the week is going to be crazy.

Crossed over to the dark side

I've officially crossed over to the dark side... I'm a cyclist.

Let me start off by saying in the past I've been relatively anti-biker - not necessarily against the people that bike, but the actual act of riding their bike in the road thus creating a traffic hazard gets under my skin.

But now I'm getting it! A couple of things I've realized that I never thought of before....

1. If you are in your car coming up on a biker in the bike lane, if possible, go into the other lane if it's a two or more lane road. Pretty simple thing to do, yet I never did it. First off, what does it hurt? Secondly, why make a situation any more risky than it needs to me. Now I have a feeling that some drivers out there (believe it or not) might want to flex their "muscles" and prove something to the cyclists and show it's THEIR road and not move over a lane. Two words: grow up. At least these people are out there working out versus sitting around and succumbing to our epidemic of laziness and obesity.

2. If you are taking a walk or a jog, please do it on the sidewalk, not in the bike lane. I came upon two people strolling the other day and had to go out around them, in traffic, to get by.

3. If you are cycling, follow the flow of traffic when using the bike lane. This morning, I'm on my way home and caught a little downhill so I was moving pretty fast. And I see this guy cross over on his bike into my bike lane and he kept his head down. Didn't look up once to see me approaching. It was rather like playing a game of chicken except he was blindfolded! I ended up having to go out into the road to avoid being hit by him. It wasn't until I was within a few feet of him that he realized I was there.

4. So I guess that's thought number 4: keep your head up! :-)

Anyway, all seems to be going good on the training. Got my first donation this morning (thank you Heather!!). But the weight thing is another issue. I officially gained two pounds this week and I'm really upset. And I know, muscle weighs more than fat, but I don't think that's what's going on... I think I'm storing. So I'm going to add more fruits, veggies, and lean proteins into the diet to see what happens.

Off to shower and church!