End of the Off-Season.

It’s official, the “off” season has ended and the “on” season is here! While I had hoped that I would have been working out these past two weeks to prep, I sadly was under the weather and on my couch with one of the worst colds that I’ve had in quite some time, courtesy of my two little cousins… remind me to take vitamins and airborne before hanging out with 3 and 5 year olds during the flu season!!

However, despite being sick, I was actually able to get a few things done for the holidays – like Christmas cards and online Christmas shopping!

Anyhoo, enough about being sick. I’m not sure I have a lot of wisdom or a story to really focus on for this post, so I’m going to just let the pictures do my talking for me. We’re in the height of the holiday season and I have so much left to do… baking, shopping, wrapping, etc! All while trying to fit in lots of time with friends and family, train and work. But it’s all good. I’m not feeling stressed and I’m sure everything will occur just as it should – plus I’m having the time of my life right now. Feeling so blessed.

Hope you take some time to stop during this holiday season and just soak it all in. However crazy your life may or may not be – if there is one thing I’ve learned over the years – it’s all about balance.

Workouts//

I’m not going to bother spelling things out here, it’s too pitiful. I did try a 3 mile run early on during being sick which I really should not have done… my HR was sky high and the next day I ended up getting sicker than before. Finally this past weekend I was able to get a 30 minute cardio strength session in and an hour on the trainer. Other than that, it was all just cold medicine, tissues and sleeping!!

Photo Recap//

Christmas cards!! I love the Rudolph stamps this year, so cute!

My sweet wrap around address labels!

Christmas Tree 2014. As always, I love decorating the tree every year and taking a walk down memory lane courtesy of all the awesome ornaments my family and friends have gotten for me over the years.

This photo popped up on my instagram the other day, just love this! Fits in well with my life and outlook.

I love participating in our Christmas Tree of lights at work every year – I have so much fun picking out an outfit and toy for someone that would otherwise not have a Christmas.

Celebrate with style.

One really exciting and also a bit sad thing that happened a couple weeks ago – I said goodbye to my old house! I’m back down to 1 mortgage (whoo hoo!) and moving forward with everything. While it was a little sad thinking about everything that happened in my life and in this house over the past 7 years, I definitely was ready for the change of moving and being back home closer to family! Oh, and moving out of the city and into the country. I’m certainly a country girl at heart, and it’s made me so happy to be a little further away from neighbors!

All the parking spaces were full when I flew to KC on Monday… so this is what I got came home to on Thursday. Good times.

Woke up Friday morning to discover I was living in a winter wonderland!

Friday brought a day to work from the home office after being in Kansas City all week… and it also brought a loyal helper to supervise my every move while I worked. Bronco cracks me up.

Friday evening was my Christmas party for work. It also brought choices in what to wear… apparently I have the LBD covered.

Freshly fallen snow, white Christmas lights, peaceful & beautiful! I just love this time of year!

Saturday afternoon walk with the pups, and beautiful scenery!

Opened up my Training Peaks app on Saturday and what did my eyes see? A loaded up training schedule to start ramping into Ironman training! This makes me happy. I’m so glad that I had a solid break this fall but I am so ready to get back at it!

I just love Christmas cards – starting to get some holiday love!

Sunday-funday art the Davidson Brothers new brewery in Glens Falls!

And victory! Brought home a new growler filled with deliciousness.

Roxie’s Christmas toy. Any guesses on how long this little guy survived?

Well, that’s all, I hope you’re all having a fabulous holiday season and spending lots of time with friends and family. Enjoy!

Cheers!

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure a year in the life?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles. in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.

–Seasons of Love, RENT

Looking back on the past year, I just cannot believe how much has changed. How much has come and gone from my life. All the new experiences, adventures, people and places.

With Thanksgiving being last week, I was very busy working on prepping my house that I’ve owned for all of 3 whole weeks, buying food, and figuring out how to cook a full Thanksgiving meal for my family in between traveling to Syracuse for work, finalizing my prior house for sale, hanging out with friends and sneaking a few workouts in.

To say the very least, the past two weeks were quite the whirlwind of events (per usual, welcome to my world). However, despite the fact I was super busy, I also felt very relaxed, happy and definitely extremely blessed.

I know that most people typically wait until the New Year to review the prior year and look forward to the next, but Thanksgiving just seems like the appropriate time for me to take a step back and really look at everything. I cannot believe what a difference a year can make. There have been so many changes in my life. Last year I was struggling with a relationship that ended, I was struggling with whether or not I would race a second 70.3, and was questioning a lot of things in my life. This year I have moved to a new city, a new home, I have completed my second 70.3 and signed up for my third AND for my first full 140.6 Ironman event. I have made new friends, joined a new triathlon team with T2 Multisport, experienced new things (hello CX!), somehow secured a spot on Team Betty 2015 (still so pumped!) and worked to embrace life to its fullest taking the bad along with the good.

Despite feeling a bit lost this time last year, I did know and hold on to one fact – I had an amazing childhood and an amazing family that continues to love and support me. They have proven that they will support me even when I do crazy things – you know, like sign up for an Ironman event, or make the decision to move to be closer to home despite holding a job in a city 2.5 hours away – I know that I am truly blessed to have this support.

And I also found that I had a few truly amazing and steadfast friends that helped me immensely this past year – through cups of coffee (or pints of beer), workouts, conversations, and even a little assistance packing up a moving truck – you guys have been amazing and I can’t thank you enough.

I don’t know what this next year will bring, but I do know that I am excited for every experience – both good and bad – that will come with the next five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.

 

Weekly Workouts//

 Week 1:

Monday – Tuesday – Wednesday – Work conference in Indianapolis/embracing the “off” season…

Thursday – 20 Min Bike, 3 Mile Run

Friday – 30 min Strength Session

Saturday – Swim Ladder 1800 yd

Sunday – 3 Mile Run

 Week 2:

Monday – Rest Day/Buy Local Bash & Travel

Tuesday – 30 min Strength Training

Wednesday – 45 Min OUTDOOR Bike

Thursday – 1 Hour Trainer Ride

Friday – Sick Day

Saturday – Run 3 miles

Sunday – Sick Day… should have just taken it easy on Saturday!

 

Weekly Photo Recap//

Our company tied in a community service project with a few other companies and the Indianapolis COLTS with the Thanksgiving season. Had the opportunity to participate in the Million Meal Marathon in Indianapolis!

Airplane time = thinking time.

So I’ve owned the new house for 2 weeks and a couple of trees fell down on my deck… this is what I came home to.

We WILL be replacing the blinds… good ole Bronco.

Date Night! (Can’t believe there was agreement to this…) With a little help… the fallen trees are now next year’s bonfire/campfire wood! 🙂

Officially Official! Loved seeing the announcement and the start of our discussion forum – so many amazing stories of amazing women! Not sure how I was selected but so excited to be a part of #teambetty15! A little reminder from a fellow Betty:

Buy local bash at the Landmark. Crappy picture of a gorgeous building. If you have never been inside the Landmark Theater in Syracuse, you must go

Clarks Ale House is open and I’m back in Syracuse. Obviously this had to happen:

Got to hang with this dude in Syracuse this week.

Yes, it happened. Can’t wait until next year’s CX season!

Just 3 hours after my outdoor bike ride… winter wonderland has fallen on us!

Mini pumpkin pies for all!

About mid-point on cooking the Thanksgiving Feast!Had to get a little creative with the oven space…

Whoo-hoo! First ever full thanksgiving meal that I have prepped! AND we managed to fit all of us around my kitchen island/dining room table mish-mash.

Bronco is thankful for puffy vests that fall on the floor!

Yep, claimed this one.

Family photo time!

Outside lights are up!

I have a lot of railings…

Remember the GIANT knitting needles that I shared in my last post? We’ll here is the finished project! A blanket in about 3 hours time!

Absolutely LOVE how it came out – and it was a fun and fast project!

More good news! I qualified again this year – sadly, I once again will be unable to participate since it is the weekend AFTER Ironman Lake Placid. Maybe next year…

Last (but certainly not least) Miss Roxie relaxing. Not sure how this position is comfortable, but she seems to be happy with it.

Cheers! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!!

 

Running is my Main Squeeze

Ragnar put out a series of Valentines day running cards, and I just realized I never shared any on my site! I just loved these cards but my favorite one was definitely this one (and totally appropriate given my current training schedule).

Source: Ragnar Relay

Happy Holidays

By far, my favorite elf on the shelf photo I’ve seen… I’m not sure where it originated, but I love it! Happy Holidays Everyone!

Festivities and Family.

This past weekend was a crazy and fun weekend – lots of family, friends and fun packed into the 4 day holiday weekend. A and I kicked off the weekend on Wednesday by going to see Despicable Me 2 – I loved loved loved the first Despicable Me and was so excited to see the second movie. (Yes, I am really only 5 years old…) I am happy to report that the movie did not disappoint even though it was a sequel – the minions and Agnes are still just as awesome in the second movie as in the first!

Thursday was July 4th & the only day that A and I didn’t have any set plans – so obviously the day was amazing. We were not sure what we wanted to do, so the day and decisions throughout the day were determined by flipping a coin. Heads, we head north – Tails, we head south. We ended up heading to Ithaca with Roxeroo for a day of hiking, eating and relaxing… It was pretty amazing, we hiked at Taughannock Falls, ate at CTB (most amazing sandwiches ever…) and then chilled in Fall Creek for the afternoon before heading back north to meet up with P & R & a few other friends to check out the fireworks displays in Syracuse.

On Friday, I woke up early and made the most amazing cookies that I’ve ever made… S’mores bars! But these are not just any s’mores bars, I seriously feel like this recipe combines together to form unicorn pixie dust and rainbows inside the cookies. If I was a mean person, I would just keep the recipe as my own personal secret weapon, but since I’m not truly a mean person – I will let you all in on my source of such magic. You can find the recipe here on Janae’s blog: The Hungry Runner Girl. Seriously, it’s amazing. So amazing that after I delivered the first batch to A’s family party, my life was threatened if I ever showed up with them again since they couldn’t stop eating them. I know this really means I just have to bring them again… so what if they have a bazillion calories in each bar?!

Saturday was S&C’s wedding day!  It was a very hot but very good day for a wedding.  It was so much fun celebrating the start of their new life together with coworkers and friends. Plus, S had covered every last detail for the wedding with little personal details – from the ribbons made out of scrap fabric to the popsicles served after the ceremony and the salsa dance lesson that we all had fun with!  It was a great day and I am so happy for them – I’m just sad to see S leave us to head to Alaska to start her new life… although this means I now have a definite reason to check my visit to Alaska off my bucket list! (Bonus!)

Finally, the weekend wrapped with my annual family reunion.  Every fourth of July, my mom invites all the relatives near and far to attend a cookout at our house.  This year we had a particularly large gathering with 92 people in attendance (including all my cousin’s babies).  It was another scorcher of a day – and a long trip to ENY and back, but so worth it to catch up with everyone and to get a few snapshots of people enjoying their time together.  Also, my cousin J made a lawn jenga set which was a ton of fun, but super dangerous for little kiddos – hello 2×2 super sized jenga pieces… no so kid friendly – although they all wanted to have a go at it.  I finally was the one stuck with no easy move left and toppled the tower over, but it was all in good fun!