Running and Cold Weather

UGH...have I mentioned that I am SICK of winter??? The high today...45, and sadly that sounds warm to me. This is so ridiculous that I am considering asking you guys to move our girls weekend to March next year and going deep into Florida so I can escape this cold. Normally it is only Mid Dec -Mid March but not this year...Dec 1st was the first snowfall and it is still freezing.

I ran a 5k last Saturday where the starting temp was 24 degrees...that is WAY below freezing and honestly I couldn't feel my legs or thumbs for the first mile until my body warmed up. I was still moving forward so I assumed my legs were still running. I got my best time since I moved to Ohio and started keeping track. It was nice. I had to redeem myself from the week before. The week before my 5K didn't go well. I realize that Drena and maybe Carrie, might be the only people who find this funny but I will tell you anyway. Two weekends ago when I did my 5K I wasn't feeling 100%. My stomach was just "off" and it was going to be Day 1 of my "friend" visiting...not a good combo for a 5K. Let's just say that about 1.5 miles into it I had to ask the people along the route (through a neighborhood) if I could use their bathroom. Not my proudest moment but not much you can do...and that severely altered my time! Ali told me that I had to redeem myself and run another one with her last weekend so I am glad that I was able to beat my time.

Yesterday I ran almost 2miles and I had a good time for me so I think that I am starting to overcome my mental block on the running. I have completed two full runs without looking at my nike+ or stopping to walk...hopefully this will continue and not just be because it is cold and I can't feel my body.

In other news, Craig and I have decided to train for a Century ride...100miles on a bike. I think that I might be insane...of course we had planned on training by now but the weather has had other ideas :-(

I have been in town for 2 full weeks now and I think that I will be here next week too. It is so nice to be in town, spend time with C, exercise, and eat right :-) I love it. Unfortunately I know that it will change soon but I am still going to enjoy it while I can!!

Napa

Last weekend (almost two weekends ago now) Leslie, Terah, Morgan and I headed to Napa for a few days of some sun, wine, and friendship. We accomplished 2 out of the 3 (and a little of the 1st).

Us at the Golden Gate Bridge on our way to Napa from the airport. You would think that it would really simple to get someone to take a picture of us but it wasn't at all! This was our 4th or 5th attempt with different people and we were laughing so hard by the end that I am surprised that this picture even turned out at all. Good times.

After that we headed to Sausalito for some lunch...yummy! and some catching up. It had been about 10 years or so since we were all together. I can't even believe that was true but it is darn close! Sad. After that it was off to Napa where we checked into our awesome little house and spent the next several hours just catching up...it was so nice! Then it was time to walk around downtown Napa and get some Grub. We picked Tuscany as our restaurant of choice...again, yum!

The next day we headed toward some wineries...stopped at the Oakville Grocery on the way to get some sandwiches, cheese, bread, and cookies...all the essentials for a trip to Napa and some wine drinking. After the first winery we hit up a second one. I didn't take any pictures from the first one but the picture below is at the second winery and right before we (I) were pretty tipsy. After this visit we waited out the rain in the car with our lovely picnic lunch.


Last stop of that day was the bubbly :-) This place was really yummy! All of the sparkling wine/champagne was really good. So good in fact that we bought a bottle for dinner that night (with the plans of cooking a healthy plate of pasta to go with it).
We got back and got lazy though so we ended up just ordering pizza. Things were also not going so well for Morgan :-( Somehow Morgan ended up getting a little sickness while we were there. I think that at first we all just assumed that it was too much wine that day but it turned out to last much past just that night or that next day. I think it was several days before she was back to normal. It was so sad! This was her idea and a little send off to her singledom :-( We left her in bed the second day (after getting her gingerale, applesauce, saltines, and coke zero) and headed out for a tour of Napa on bikes...it was awesome! It was 16miles total and our booties were sore by the end but we really had a good time. I love incorporating a little activity on vacation.The trip was just one of the most awesome times I have had. Everyone was so happy to see each other and we just fell right back into our old times...Leslie performed routines from SNL for us, Terah and I shared a bed and chatted way into the wee hours of the night and it was just really fun to see everyone all grown up and married and kids and all that but still able to be our "college" selves. I really cherished the time I got to spend with Terah because she was one of my best friends in college, I was her maid of honor (9!!! years ago) and then we haven't gotten a chance to see each other as much since, at least not for that long of a time. When I think about it, we have definitely seen each other a good bit considering she has lived in about 5 different places and I have lived in 2, but it was still nice to pick up right where we left off. I also loved see Leslie and seeing that she can still make Morgan laugh harder that I have EVER seen her laugh! I think that I even snorted a few times. And, Morgan...she was my Atlanta going out buddy for so long and now neither of us lives there and even though we make a lot of effort to see each other, it is usually a quick dinner here or there or a lunch around Xmas time when we try to get the boys together.

I can't wait until next year!!

Happiness Project: March

Um, yeah. Well, since it is almost mid-March already and since I failed miserably at my Feb goals of getting organized, I am going to do a redo.

I have kept up with the Jan goals pretty well and even have kept up with my vitamins. I also did some of the cleaning and organizing that I said I would do in Feb but my email still has 2000 messages in the inbox. UGH. I think that Feb was the month that was the best example of how I have such good intentions in life and how my life is so much smoother when I am in town. Once I started traveling, it all got crazy. I was working crazy hours and just was drained. I really need to find a way to balance that out. It is the thing that is the hardest in my life. My eating was a little worse when traveling, it became harder to do p90x and I got off schedule, and I didn't have time to organize. All these are excuses but I just haven't found a way to not make excuses. When I work from 8:00 to 10:30pm including eating lunch at my desk and dinner at the hotel desk (room service), I am not sure when I will have time for much else.

My new boss asked me an interested question the other day when we were talking about my work and I casually mentioned that when I am out of town I work a lot. He asked if my deadlines were self imposed or whether they were real. I realized that it was some of both. Some of them are real deadlines and there is no getting around that. But some of them are just my work ethic. I want to be the person that responds to questions timely, I want to return emails without someone emailing me 3 times, I want to return phone calls and I want to get things done quickly. Maybe I need to step back. Maybe I need to realize that not everyone is putting this pressure on me and maybe I need to relax it up a bit. This is easy when I am home. As soon as Craig gets home, I am done so I can spend time with him. On the road it is a different story. The other night I was in Albany and at my hotel at 6:15. I worked out and then didn't know what to do with myself. Normally I would have booted up my computer and finished some of the work from the day but this time I made myself leave my computer in my bag. Instead I got out the iPad and looked at photography websites. Not quite as productive but a lot more relaxing. I sort of felt guilty for doing that but I am not sure why. I am hoping that it will start to go away and eventually I will learn a better balance. I think that it would reduce a lot of stress in my life.

I am going to continue to work on it through this month and maybe I will get a list of goals up in a few days and then I think that since next month is my relationship month, I will make a real effort in May to work on the work/life balance in my life.

I am off to Cali tomorrow with Morgan and Leslie...we are meeting Terah out there and all going to Napa for a few days. I am so excited (especially since we got a couple inches of snow last night). I am not taking my work computer and I think that it will be a nice little break!

We signed a contract yesterday to redo our bathroom. I took some before pictures and we spent 2 hrs in Lowe's last night picking everything out. They are going to start on Wed when I get back. I can't wait!!

Hope everyone has a great weekend, hopefully I will have lots of awesome photos to post when I get back.