Back to the grind...

...It's good to be home.

I returned to a spotless house, thanks to The Hubs. How lucky am I? I don't think I will have to clean for days! The Hubs took LB to Ju Jit Su tonight so I could stay home and I actually got completely unpacked. That is a first! It usually takes me weeks to get unpacked. I put all my new goodies away, including awesome samples that were given to us at our Bloggy Meetup last Friday, Nuun samples, Gu samples, and a gift bag from onlineshoes.com with a water bottle, t-thirt, hand sanitizer and a coffee mug (SCORE!!).

Today I tried to go to Master's Swim but the pool was closed due to some issue with the chlorine. Of course I didn't prepare so I had no tennis shoes or other clothes to run in or go to the gym so I didn't work out today. I wonder what they would have said if I would have tried to go lift weights or hit the elliptical in my swim suit and flip flops? Hm...don't think I want to find out. I really needed to get a lot of work done anyway so I headed back to the office to begin tying up loose ends before I start my new job on Friday. I am feeling a little stressed out about the transition and need to really work out my plan for getting my workouts in. I am thinking early, early AM or evenings. That is my only option. Really I'll only have a couple of evenings a week due to The Hub's schedule unless I use the bike trainer at home, which is a good plan.

Speaking of the bike trainer, I have a sprint triathlon coming up next weekend (not this weekend). I had hopes of doing really well but I have been slacking on the bike big time. I was told it is a hilly bike course too which is not boding well for me. I am certainly starting to see that more is not necessarily better. I have too much (i.e. too many races) on my plate. I need to focus on key races and train my booty (literally) off so that I can do really well in that one particular race. After this tri, on July 11 I a supposed to start my full marathon training. This could workout ok since I only have one other race planned in September.

The idea of marathon training is a bit daunting. During the Seattle Rock n Roll half we joked about being glad we were only doing the half. Actually I'm pretty sure I have felt this way during every single half marathon I have run that has a full marathon too. When I see the Marathon Mile 13 marker I usually say, "wow, thank goodness I'm only dong the half." But, I guess during 2 out of 3 marathons I have done I wished, at least at some point during the race, that I was doing the half. During OKC, my first full, the half never crossed my mind. I was loving the life of a 26.2 runner. During Portland I wanted to be done at mile 12, throw myself off the bridge at mile 17, and wished for a Mac truck around mile 23. During Vegas I was tempted by Tall Mom and the half finish line and declined, I stuck to my goal of 26.2. But by mile 13.5 I wished I had not taken that right hand turn that lead me to 13.1 more miles of fun (term used lightly). With all that being said, I am ready to tackle 26.2 in 2011. I think one this year is respectable. If anyone wants to argue that all I have to say is....Ahem, cough, cough....70.3! With marathon #4 my goal will be to run the race and not wish I was doing the half or for death at any point during the race. I think those are achievable goals. Don't you?

So with the excitement of Seattle Rock n Roll behind me I am going to ride the high for a while. Hopefully it will carry me right through my next tri and into full training.

Finally, I leave you with this picture of LB at the airport in his Cowboy Hat, like Farm Grandpa