Status Update

Hello everyone!

An update on what's up with your friendly neighborhood CPAGrrrl... 

WORK = CRAZY MID-JANUARY TO END OF FEBRUARY

I'm an accountant.  Other accountants need stuff from ME so they can start THEIR "busy season".  [Not to belabor the point, but I wrote this on Thursday and I'm finally editing, adding pix and links and publishing on Monday.] 'Nuff Said.  

RUNNING:

I have been in the habit of doing walk/run intervals for quite some time. I have begun to feel the walking breaks are more of a limitation I place on myself rather than a useful training tool.

One of my personal goals as part of training for my first triathlon, was to "step up my running game" a bit and use fewer breaks, get back to running at least 2-3 mile stretches without a break. Last night I had my longest stretch in quite some time, a 27-minute run!

More proof that my body does what my brain chooses to tell it to do!

[Bad blogger: no smiling post-run selfie!]

SPEAKING OF TRIATHLON TRAINING:

It's been going GREAT!  Here's a pic of my training schedule.  Yellow Highlights = completed planned workouts.

I'm into Week 5 of the 20-week plan and feeling great.  My shoulder was a little tweaky this week during my short swim.  I took it REAL easy and I'll see how it feels for my long swim workout this weekend.  If it still feels "off," I'll make an appointment with my PT to figure out what's up, but the swimming feels awesome, I feel so strong in the water! (My form is atrocious and my efficiency is low but I feel terrific.)

MILEAGE:

When I set my mileage goals for 2016, I had no idea there was a triathlon in my future!  I'm getting WAY more bike miles than I anticipated for the early months of the year (it's still WAY too cold here for outdoor biking), so I'm already anticipating blowing that 225-mile goal right out the water.  I'll need to reassess and revise the total mileage goal and the bike-specific goal.  And the # swims goal.  The plan was for 30 swims!  At this rate i should hit that by the end of April.

ONE AWESOME BIKE RIDE:

We had this ONE amazing day of spring weather last Saturday.  It was over 60 (SIXTY!) degrees, no wind, mind-blowingly awesome outdoor weather.  I had planned to do some laundry, take Coty for a LONG dog-walk and then do my long swim (as per my lovely Training Plan, sticking to that Plan, my friends, the Plan is my lifeline!) But when my awesome friend Raegan called and suggested a bike ride, I threw it all out the window.  I ditched the laundry, gave Coty a Quickie, dug out my bike helmet, and rode to her house.  From there, we went downtown for lunch, rode to the bike shop where I learned out what sort of bike I have (an "upright") and what sort of bike rack I could get if I was so inclined (the Really Expensive Kind), and Raegan gave me some pointers on tri suits, tri shorts, and the whole world of multi-sport gear!   Then we rode to the south end of The Trail, back up to the crossroads and east to the end of the Trail, then back to Raegan's again, where another gear lesson followed and I got to see her IMPRESSIVE bling collection. (We did talk about all sorts of things over the course of our 3-hour adventure, not just tri-stuff...) All in, I got about a 20-mile bike ride for the day AND got to spend some quality time with one of those people I always want to spend more time with.

A DAY OF HIKING:

The nice weather held on Sunday too, and The Hubs and I decided to make a trip to Starved Rock State Park.  I took about a billion pictures but won't bore you with those.  What I love best is that Coty got to join us for this adventure.  "Hiking" is something of a misnomer for what we did here, as the park is mainly accessed via man-made pathways - wooden paths, stairs (SO many stairs!) dominate, but I get why:  where there weren't pathways, it was MUDDY!  We had a blast and got about a 3-mile hike with the dog.  A VERY successful, ACTIVE weekend, I'm so glad I was flexible and chose to ditch my Training Plan for 2 days.  #wycwyc!!

I still have some other blog posts floating around in my head that I hope to get written up in the next week or so.  Things have cooled off at bit around the office so I'm thinking I'll be able to carve out some writing time in-between workouts over the next few weeks.  

I'll leave you with some pics from our day of hiking:

SUPER HAPPY #RUNNERDOG, EVEN AFTER THE HOUR-PLUS CAR RIDE.

What I Did Last Summer (or Late Fall)

I am surprised that my Manifesto Post was a full 2 months ago - I have been blogging in my head all along but haven't given myself the time to write it all down!  Life certainly hasn't slowed down, and neither have I... so here's a rundown of what I was up to the past couple of months, largely in pictorial form:

• I did that bike ride I've been talking about!  22 Miles from home to my brothers-in-law's house and it was just as much fun as I'd suspected.  

• Sadly, my #milestreak is broken, but I restarted it.  My mid-day walks have become part of my routine now.  I don't know how this might play out as the weather turns nasty, but I'm enjoying them, so I'll keep it up as long as I can.

• Ran a few races

We Care Twin Cities 5K and 10K Challenge, check

Wishbone 5K-9 Run with Coty the #RunnerDog!

• Celebrated Number Eleven with The Hubs!

• I am now a #261FearlessAmbassador! Check out the web site for this newly organized non-profit organization and see if there might be a 261 Fearless running group starting near you! Our mission is to bring active women together through a global supportive community – allowing fearless women to pass strength gained from running and walking onto women who are facing challenges and hence sparking a revolution of empowerment.   POWERFUL STUFF and RIGHT up my alley.  I will be incorporating their message into my social media posts and occasionally here as well.  I couldn't be happier to be part of this amazing group of women!

• I've been volunteering for some of my favorite organizations - answering the phones during the pledge drive for my local public radio station, and organizing next week's #YWCATrivia Night in support of the YWCA's Stepping Stones program - they do great work - check out their web site, and hey, click here to donate to my team!

• The Cubs blew it.  Again.  We had some fun watching, but I remember it being a lot more fun the last time around - 12 years ago we had a blast, right up until we lost it.

Wrigley Field on a happier day.

• I read this post from @RoniNoone and started implementing some different strategies.  These small changes have really made a positive difference in my life recently.  I'm going to write separately about this one... in LESS than 2 months.

• And I've worked.  A LOT.  Turns out, I have found myself yet another job where September and October are freaking INSANE busy and stressful.  But I'm managing, and doing my best to stay consistent.

Working from home, Louie likes to help.

• But these are still my best friends.
  
  
  
  
  
  

It was a pretty good "summer."