It's Christmas Time in the City

My favorite time of year so of course I had to decorate my blog.

Now, first there was Thanksgiving. I was driving to my hometown, "The City that Care Forgot". I don't normally go home for Thanksgiving, but my niece is having a baby in mid-December and Lovable is the godmother. So we're hosting a baby shower on Saturday in New Orleans. I left the Land of Sugar at 1:25 on Wednesday afternoon. By 3:30 I had driven a whopping 35 miles and was stopped on I-10 at Baytown. Since I was driving by myself, I was just not prepared to be on the road for what would be a 10 hour trip at this rate. So I called Mom and Dad and turned around and went back to Sugar Land and bought an airline ticket to fly home after Thanksgiving instead.

So, not having planned to be home for Turkey Day, I volunteered instead of running the Turkey Trot. Walked 2 miles in the process since I was assigned to work the aid station at mile 4 of the 5 miles race.

Canadian Debbie invited me over to give thanks. It was very yummy! She's an awesome cook.

The good thing about staying home was that I didn't have to run the 14 mile long run by myself in New Orleans. Canadian Debbie and Alia ran with me on Friday morning. We started later than normal and with temps in the 70's and 100% humidity it was quite a mental challenge.

Now off to start Christmas!


Workout Log

Wednesday
100 crunches

THANKSGIVING Thursday
Walked 2 miles
Trainer 1 hour
100 crunches

Friday
Ran 14 miles at 10:24 pace on VERY hot and humid day!

Battle of the Scale

Why does the scale go down at the most inopportune times? Here I've been watching what I eat and exercising very regularly (see log below) and the SCALE HAS NOT BUDGED!!!!! The only weight I've lost since August has been from the surgical removal of tissue from a certain site. And that was only two pounds.

So now we approach the Thanksgiving holiday. Time for o'caroling and o'gourging. I've already told myself, "OK Self. You can eat what you want during the holiday. You've been good and the scale hasn't moved so go ahead and have fun."

Well wouldn't you know....I get on the scale this morning, the day before the start of Gorge Fest and the scale has finally budged!!!. So now what am I to do? If I eat what I want I'll be back to square one and very frustrated. If I watch what I eat and gain back the couple of pounds I'll be REALLY FRUSTRATED.

Oh the problems of being a girl.....

Workout Log

Monday
Cycled on Trainer for 1 hour (and watched my fave show Lipstick Jungle)

Tuesday
Gruelly hour of weights with my trainer, Hawaiian Girl, at the gym in the a.m.
52 minutes of running hills in the evening

I Love My Kids

Sweetie left this morning after a wonderful, but all too short weekend. Late afternoon decided to go see the movie, The Changeling, with Angelina Jolie. I only go to the movies about 4 times a year and am not sure what motivated me today. I think I just wanted to justify popcorn!

The movie was really good. It's the story of a single mom in the late 1920's in Los Angeles. After her 9 year old son is kidnapped, the LAPD return a boy who she says is not her son, while the police insist it is. If you're a mother, you know there's no way anyone could subsitute another child for your little one. The police try to blow her off and basically portray her as a crazy woman. You know, Sweetie sometimes asks me the question "If you could come back during any time period, which would it be?" My answer is always the 20's but if this is how women are treated, I think I'm going to have to rethink this.

I won't give away the full story, but highly recommend you see it. Made me come home and hug my kids. Had to just call Lovable since she doesn't live at home.

The movie is based on a true story which makes it even more wrenching.



Workout Log

Tuesday
Hills for 52 minutes - warm-up, 5 laps, cool-down

Wednesday
Rest Day (was supposed to ride but was lazy)

Thursday
5 miles at 9:50 pace (and no walk breaks)

Friday
Rest Day

Saturday
16 miles with Sweetie, Canadian Debbie and Chris. 10:34 pace overall

Sunday
Cycling 1.5 hours - rode by myself from the house and discovered a new route

ANTICIPATION

For those who are of my vintage (very young and beautiful of course) you may remember the ketchup commercial that was on TV when we were kids. It showed a little boy fixing his burger and just waiting for the ketchup to come out of the bottle. You could almost see the kid drooling. In the background they played the song "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. You know the one....Anticipation...it's keeping me way-yay-yay-ting.

Well this week I feel like that little boy! Sweetie is coming to Houston on Friday. I can't wait. His trips to H-Town have been few this year since he came to Houston all the time in 2007 while I was training for Ironman. BTW this won't be the case for my Ironman Canada training since I now have a bike at his house and I'll probably get better training when I'm with him in Raleigh since they have REAL hills there. And the last time he was here was for my surgery so it doesn't really count. He'll only be here for a quick Friday evening - Sunday afternoon. The TriPsy end-of-season party is Saturday night and I'm thinking about getting tickets for the Body World 2 at the museum for Saturday afternoon. Of course with a 16 mile run on the agenda for Saturday morning, we may skip the museum in favor of a NAP!

Friday can't come soon enough. This has to be the slowest week at work ever! I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do my workouts but I keep telling myself before every workout that if I don't do xxx (ride the trainer, go to the gym to swim instead of hitting snooze, etc) then Sweetie won't come on Friday.

Only 3 more days!!!!


Workout Log

Sunday
Rest Day - Cleaned my closet and gave lots of clothes to Goodwill

Monday
Cycled - 50 min
Ran - 30 min
First brick workout I've done since before Vineman!

It's another Makeover

After running 15 miles this morning, I'm getting rather comfortable horizontal on the sofa with the laptop and did a little research on bloggy stuff. Found www.thecutestblogontheblock.com. What a jackpot! Cutest backgrounds on the web and even learned how to create my own signature.

So why "Tri Chick" you ask? Well for years Lovable and Mr Smarty Pants have wanted me to get a personalized license plate on the car. I finally did it earlier this year. Since I was limited to only 6 characters by the big, bad state of Texas, I went for "TRI CHK". So, my bloggy signature is the same...well almost!

What do you think?

What's all the hype about YOGA?

With the 6 weeks "rest" from working out I seemed to be really tight and inflexible now. So, I joined Canadian Debbie in a yoga class this week. Gotta tell you that I've tried yoga twice before and hated it. I get B-O-R-E-D. When I exercise I'm looking for action, sweat and most of all socializing with my buddies. In yoga you are quiet, relax and I didn't sweat a drop. Can that really be exercise? Doesn't seem like it.

Now all the Hollywood stars do yoga and claim it's what they do to keep in shape. I'm not so sure I believe them. I think they are secretly running and doing crunches when nobody is looking and then claim they're doing cool Pilates and Yoga.

But, I'm going to give it at least a few more weeks and see if it helps me before being a yogie drop out with ADD who can't sit still!

Workout Log
Tuesday
Hills - 5 loops/52 min

Wednesday
Yoga Class

Thursday
Swimming 45 min
5 miles at Memorial Park

Friday
Rest Day

Saturday
15.3 miles with Canadian Debbie

PD'ing

It was an adventurous weekend. About 15 of my gal pals and I ventured into the 'Big City' near the Galleria and had a private pole dancing class at a place called Sheila Kelly's S-Factor. What a hoot! Now before your thoughts get too racey, we only learned one 'trick' on the pole. Mostly it was a fun GNO! The majority of the class was spent doing yoga-like stretching. Only difference was there were lots of hip swings in between! Then we did some killa abs. My stomach is still hurting 3 days later. Finally we learned a pole trick where we wrapped our legs around the pole, hung on and spun around. I was pretty spastic and have a purple shin and knee to prove it. After about 5 tries I finally got it and even eventually could do it and look pretty sexy...as per the girls! Most fun was had trying on the shoes that you wear at the "advanced" class. I think we're ready for that one already!

The rest of the weekend was spent in Austin with Lovable. We have a tradition of having one Mom/Daughter weekend every sememster since she started college. I just love these weekends! We shopped, ate, ran, shopped some more and ate some more. We made our usual trek to Nordstrom's but were actually more successful this time at Banana Republic. Gotta love the new purple for the season. New purple sweater and scarf for me, new boots and dress for Lovable. On Sunday morning we ventured out to Town Lake. Love that soft trail around the lake. Lovable ran 5 miles with me and then I did another 7 miles by myself.

Finally, I spent a little time doing some serious run calendar planning today. I have until Nov 19 to decide if I'll be doing the Houston Marathon/Half Marathon. Right now, I'm favoring the option of doing the full in Austin and either spectating or doing the half in Houston. I think I've even got Sweetie considering pacing/running with me. It would be awesome to do a full marathon with him by my side. He's an incredible runner and is such a great coach/encourager. I always run better/faster with him. We've done several half marathons together but never a full --- so this would be a first. More on that later. I have a little convincing to do yet!

Workout Log
Friday
Rest Day

Saturday
Rest Day

Sunday
12 miles around Austin's Town Lake

Monday
Cycling on Computrainer 45 min

Guilty Tracking

I'm gonna copy Augie's idea and start recording my workouts in my blog. Just putting it out to the public will keep me more honest.

So here it goes:
Weights - 1 hour with personal trainer
Running - 4 miles at Memorial Park loop with Jen and Kathleen

My legs are sore!

Happy News All Around

Well it was quite a weekend for some of my "younger" friends.

Zeenie and Wes got married. It was a beautiful wedding! Only the second "Houston" wedding I've been to. Bride was absolutely beautiful. Groom was quite handsome. Food was DELISS!!! Good thing I watched my calories at lunch time!

While the wedding was going on, fellow TriPsy member and swim coach extroidinaire, Markell, finished the Florida Ironman in a time of 12:28:08! Wow - I can't even imagine that. Of course Markell is young enough to be my daughter ;-) Congrats to Markell.

Augie, Shannon, Michelle, Chad, Sandy, Coach Bob, Trevor, Cory G and Darwin are now officially committed....Ironman Florida 2009. Although my race will be a few months ahead of them, it will be nice to have a larger crowd doing long distance training over the summer.

Splish Splash

So I did my longest post-surgery run this morning. Honestly I wasn't sure I could do it and it wasn't my fastest. But I ran 11 miles at 10:50 pace and I'm happy. It started out much faster due to pacing with Canadian Debbie. But at about mile 5.5, nature called. So I peeled off and thankfully St Laurence church was open before 7:00am this morning and had a bathroom. I ran the next 4 miles by myself and I'm sure that's where the pace slowed. At about 9.5 I ran into Canadian Debbie, Alia and Sam. (They did 11.5 so sinced I cut off the Plantation Colony loop, I was now up with them.) Ran the last 1.5 miles with them. at 10 min pace. Made my goal for the day. Hoo-Yah!

Now for the real topic of the day. Yesterday, I received my order from Splish. If you don't know them, they make the cutest swimsuits. They even make custom suits. So Patty and I partnered to have them make TriPsyclone team suits. OMG, they are the cutest. I also splurged and ordered a custom Christmas suit. Nothing like getting into the holidays. Hey, based on the decorations at the malls, I can start wearing my Christmas swimsuit now. OK - I'll wait until after Thanksgiving. It's just the bomb. Everyone at the pool is going to be sooooooo jealous!!!