Make it work

Life lately has been all about balance and making it work!  Instead of spending my time lamenting the things I use to do I've been finding ways to make it work and make it happen!  Somehow we need to make sure the dog, the baby and each adult in the house gets in their workouts!  Some days one of us gets neglected but never forgotten!  You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child?  It's true and we are so thankful that we have such a supportive community of friends and family around us. 

You want examples?  Ok.  In order for me to get my weekday workouts in I have to do it at lunch.  I am also back to teaching my 1 time a week lunch boot camp (oh except this year they decided to call it total body conditioning so to not scare away anyone)  Well I was in an important meeting with the director of my department right before I had to teach this class and was about 6 minutes late as I ran like a mad woman down to the class.  I had to teach the class in my regular work clothes and just took my shoes off.  Making it work!  Sure I may be a little stinky on some days after my lunch time workout but it's better than me being grumpy trust me!  That's what wipes, deodorant and body spray are for right?

In order to do my favorite group runs with my local running group I get my parents to come along and help us with the little man and we both get to run it.  For Valentine's Day I told hubs all I wanted was to run a 5k race so we are doing our first family race we are both running it together and I'm going to try running it with the stroller (gramps and grandma aren't always able to be there they need a break too)!  So can I do a separate category of Stroller PR runs or do I have to count those along with my regular races, they should create a stroller age group, right?  No?  Ok fine!

On the weekends we trade off who runs with the dog, with the stroller or both and if it's a bike ride we have to trade off who gets to go first or second.  My dad and mom help us take care of the little guy so that we don't have to put him in day care and guess what?  They both like to work out too!  Wooo Hoo! So last night when I got home from work I took over and got to hang out with the little guy while hubs and gramps got to go swim some laps.

Not to mention that in order to be able to eat home cooked meals every day of the week I have to shop and do ALL of the food prep on Sunday!  Did I mention we still try to have a little bit of a social life?  Ha! :-)  Oh and hubs needs time to study for all his classes so we schedule around that too. That still means that I'm usually in bed by 8:30pm because I'm up at 4 am.  So you just make it work, no excuses right!?!?!!  But we also have to be very flexible and stuff our Type A personalities WAY down sometime and be ok
when something doesn't get done.  Usually it's the cleaning! :-)

See how this can get complicated quickly?  The trick is having everyone on a shared calendar!! 

Very exciting news we took Aiden to the pool and he was a little confused at first but then he started splashing around and figured out to close his eyes and mouth when under water!! We might have a little swimmer on our hands soon!  I'll try and post a video if I find time! :-)

HAPPY TRAINING!

Adventures in hiking and riding!

Another great weekend in the books.  On Saturday I went with my brother and an old friend of his for a ride.  Even though my brother commutes on his bike and doesn’t own a car I hardly ever get to ride with him so this was very exciting!  It was also really nice to get to see him and his friend interact it reminds me that no matter how much he’s grown up there’s still a little bit of that goofy carefree kid somewhere in there.  It made me smile the whole time I was on the ride as I rode behind them and got to hear them talk. 

 So let me tell you a little something about commuting versus distance riding.  I commute 1-2 times a week on my bike during the summer and I thought I finally had this commuting thing down.  But the thing is I take my commuter bike which is clunkier and doesn’t make you clip in.  I also take back roads (non-congested) and/or bike path the whole way to work.  What this means is that I am forced to go slower and am not on the defensive for very much of my ride.  When I do my longer weekend rides I take my lovely tri bike (did I mention how much I love my bike!) which you do clip in to and is very light I can go fast!  When I ride this I usually am not in town I’m on a road with no stop lights and I can go for ever without having to clip out.  Well, when I rode with them this weekend we went from my brother’s house out, which meant lots of city riding.  Now my brother is both a pro and fearless when it comes to this so he was whizzing in and out of traffic using his hands to command which direction he was going.  I on the other hand was timid and doubting my moves which cause more confusion and probably put me in a little more danger.  Also add clipping in and out a gazillion times which let me tell you that and the brain power I was using made me TIRED before we even got to the hills we were going to ride!  J  I of course got a flat right at before having to head up a 6% grade hill which meant once I had the flat changed I had no momentum to get up the hill.  I’ve decided I need to buy new tires I think I’ve worn through these I can’t even remember if I’ve ever replaced them since I bought the bike, YIKES!  I also need to try and be more like my brother when riding in town!  I wasn’t able to keep up with these two guys but was thankful they let me tag along because I had fun.

Sunday I was up at the crack of dawn to join some friends for a hike up the La Luz trail.  I did a little bit of a run first just so I could say I ran then went back to meet up with them and hike the rest of the 9 miles with them.  I had never actually been all the way to the top and it was beautiful!  We took the tram back down.  It’s only my 2^nd time riding that even though I’ve lived here for over 8 years.  This was a tough hike and my legs were tired after but so much fun!  It was great seeing lots of people from my running club out there too they were running up the entire thing in preparation for the race that goes up that in August.  So I didn’t get a long run in this weekend but I figured that long of a hike should count for something?  What do you think?  I mean it does have about 3,775 feet of elevation gain!

Of course I had to end the weekend with some lovely ladies I had over for homemade empanadas and one of the brought over homemade strawberry short cake!

Happy Training!