Friday, October 24, 2014

The season is over folks!

Yes, fall has finally arrived and with it a teeny bit of the rain we so desperately need here in Norcal. Its been a very busy, full season - quite a blur actually - but a good one! It did seem to be one of the busiest I've had in recent memory though - so many pics and thoughts to post. This actually is one of my favorite times of year. For all of us endurance athletes fall signals the start of 'off-season' and signals a time to rest our bodies, brains, and spend more time 'goofing off' with family and friends. With that said I do still have goals, let's be real folks. But these are my 'happy list goals' and one's I look forward to checking off my list. If you haven't put your's together yet I hope this inspires you to grab a pen and paper!

So my goal by the end of the year is to do the following......

*Spend more time at home with my sanctuary - hubby, home, and K-9 companion
We spend all race season working so dang hard not only training all our athletes and running the TTE Nation Team but working events and training ourselves too. It leaves little time for romance and cleaning out the closets when the whole house suffers from 'training neglect'. I hear a date night calling......




*Quality time visiting the family!
I've already been on a couple trips - Seattle to see the grandparents and North Carolina to see all my aunts, uncles, and cousins back east (aka home).  Up next is another trip to Seattle to spend more time with my grandparents and Aunt who are going through the challenges of transferring to assited living and Virginia for Christmas to see my bro. I think this time is important. While my hubby Dave and I don't have children we are very family oriented and its important to balance my life with real time spend with the family. Its always fun to be "Aunt Jenny" who gets to spoil all the kids. It also helps keep grounded and gives perspective on what an amazing life we have out here.




*Sleep in! 
No early a.m. crack-ass of dawn workouts every day of the week - period! I am absolutely RELISHING my sleep in time and have simply split some of training sessions in two and do 1 a.m. and 1 p.m. OR I just do one (a novel idea!).  I recently added a new sleep app to my phone called "Sleep Cycle". Its free and even takes your waking heart rate. The nifty charts and graphs even help you track your worst and best nights sleep, average sleep, time in bed, and heart rate. A very useful tool that I plan to use all year.



*Spend more time in the kitchen
Baking, experimenting with friends, and breaking out the crock pot are at the top of my list.
I've already started this and the husband is loving the smells walking in the door :)



*Run, yoga, and strength train more
My goal is 4-5 days a week of healthy running and specifically more hill and trail running. And of course 2-3 days a week of 'non-sissy' hard-core gym work. I was at a trail race recently in Marin - the Coyote Ridge Trail Run put on by the folks at 'Coastal Trail Runs' and after a brief discussion with my BFF we opted for the 10-miler. Of course we always bump into peeps we know doing the 20 miler and all we could think was - 'thank god we decided to go shorter'! Yes - its true - I am a total distance diva....but I am SO done with that for the year. I go long all year and right now I want to go fast, go short, and go home! So - I've got a bunch of half marathon stuff to keep me leaned up this fall including the Stinson Beach half, Napa Harvest Half, and we'll culminate with the North face challenge half. So hills, hills, and more hills - hill intervals here I come! Enough said :)  WRT strength- I have a minor obsession with body pump!!@ So 2x a week sessions now is SO much fun though I am sore as hell- I LOVE it! I plan to add some other fun stuff including TRX and yoga to work out all the kinks as well.



*Write a weekly post in my blog!
I KNOW, I keep saying this but its time to commit for reals. I should no better than to over commit during race season when I have ZERO time...but alas writing and bloggin is a passion - so its time to 'buck up' as I heard recently on the Big Bang Theory.  And yes - I do have a book or two in mind as well...but for now I am starting here with my newly re-designed blog and WEEKLY POSTS!!! Thank you for the support!