Hello December!

I'm not really sure how it happened, but November is behind us. It seems like it happened really fast but I know that December will only go faster. This fall has been a whirlwind of activity, both personally and professionally. I'm quite ready to get the hell off of this ride and slow down for a little bit (though I don't think that's going to happen).

So lets talk about last week.

Yuck! Yeowza's. Disgusting. I'm not quite as disappointed with my miles as I am with my Minutes of activity. Particularly since last week was damn near double

Oh well. We knew that this week would be lower, didn't we? I managed to get in a short run on Wednesday before we got in the car. I desperately needed it but my body hurt. Everything was creaky and sore and just didn't feel right. Maybe I've been pushing it too much without a plan? I think I need to get some variation back in the mix to keep my body happy.

Thursday was the annual Gold's Gym Turkey Trot! I think this is my fourth or fifth year running it - I love it! More and more of the family has gotten in to it and this year we ALL had funny hats!

The Teenagers are just *so* excited

It was too freakin hot to run in them - 55 degrees at the start! - but my sister in law made sure we got our pictures! 

Hands off ladies - he's all mine

The race itself was ok. We had Chinese food late when we got in on Wednesday and it was fighting me. I decided to run slow and then about 2 seconds after the horn sounded decided I just wanted to get it over with. I negative split the race in a big way, which is exactly what I was going for. The pace overall was....slow. I was almost 5 minutes slower than the previous year, which was super disappointing. I guess I need to keep in mind that last year at this time I'd just run the Urban Bourbon 13.1, so I was definitely better trained. Oh well, there's always next year!

Then it was to the couch for football watching and complete and utter relaxation. I'm happy to report I wore stretchy pants the entire weekend and ate pretty much whatever we wanted. I made Hubz stop at Kroger for some Good Belly before we got home and I hit that pretty hard. It seemed to really help the discomfort from the Chinese food AND help me get hungry for dinner. 

I'd taken extra workout clothes so I could run Friday but...my knee was not happy. In fact it was less happy on Saturday after a day off than it was on Friday. So Friday & Saturday were big fat 'ZERO's'. 

Today I decided that I could avoid the office - and the trial I'm set for on Tuesday - so long as I cleaned up and went for a swim. With extra time on my hands I headed to the suburban YMCA that has the super nice pool. It felt really good to get back in the water but I was quickly reminded that it has been 5 months since I swam. Seriously? Good lord. I did 1500 meters of a 2000 meter set and 

called it a day. 

Now I'm just working on the Cleaning Part and...

Last week was the first week I'd flat out ignored my meal plan. With Thanksgiving I decided, eh, F*&@k it. I was right to do it. This week, back on track. 

This week I'd really like to aim for 200 minutes of activity. I plan to break that up with 30 minutes x 5 week days and 60 minutes for Saturday. It's ambitious given the fact that I'm going to start this trial Tuesday BUT I think I can make it.

I got to the grocery after my swim today and tried to just keep it to the list. It was hard!

Tonight we're having sausage and potatoes - Hubz request! - so I'll pre Tuesday's Mexican Chicken soup & my overnight oats for the week.

Primed for a good week. In the midst of all of the work chaos one positive thought has really helped me through:

Happy Running!!

Are you prepared to have a successful week? What'd you do?