Off the road and temporarily unemployed!!!

Well today I am technically unemployed - my last day at my old job was Friday and my first day at my new job is tomorrow. And how do I feel about being off the road?

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(times 100)

(or maybe more)

It is funny. Taking a job with 100% travel enabled me to move without looking for a job across the country. And at this job I feel like I met some lifelong friends and professional contacts and learned a ton, for which I will always be grateful. And it allowed me to hedge my bets with regard to moving - if I didn't like it here, I could have easily moved somewhere else. That said, I don't think it's a very healthy lifestyle for me (especially when the travel is to Houston). And now that I live here, I want to be able to have more of a life here rather than coming in for the weekend, training, and leaving again. So I am so excited to be working in the city. I am also excited that I don't have to get on a plane tomorrow. In the first two months of the year I flew 25,000 miles. That's just about enough I think!

It is truly amazing to me how much better I feel just knowing I'm off the weekly travel schedule. My load feels lighter and the stress I always felt weighing on me is gone. It's a good feeling. I also feel excited to be integrated into the daily life here. It will be weird to walk to the train station and go to work in the city like I always wanted to. The funny thing too is that when I was in school I almost moved here, so it's like I'm a new graduate just 10ish years late!

So in the spirit of meeting people and getting to know the city and surrounding areas, I signed up for a 10 week ride program with the NY Cycling Club. I went to an orientation meeting yesterday and I'm excited. It was great to meet some new people who share my interests and it sounds like we'll be doing a bunch of cool rides! Right now I know two rides so it should expand my repertoire quite a bit! It starts next Saturday which is great. I am about ready to stop doing long trainer rides.

Other than that I am just kind of trucking along with training. My butt has been bothering me which I think is due to travel related alignment issues, so now that I won't be sitting on a plane for 7 hours a week I am going to get adjusted and hopefully my butt and hips will feel better. But outside of that I feel good and I am finally feeling excited about the season ahead. It's my last year in 30-34 and probably my last year of hard training so I'm ready to tear it up a little!

Since I have recently sucked at taking pictures...

Yes I confess I have been a big loser about taking pictures recently. I don't know why. Well maybe I am just waiting for spring, so that there are leaves on the trees and such. Who knows. And of course not taking pictures makes me not want to blog, because my blog is boring enough with pictures, much less without! Ha. Anyway I plugged my old iPhone into my computer because I've finally figured out how to easily import pictures, and I thought I would do a blast from the past photo montage! First off who doesn't like a Bodie picture?! I miss that dog. Boy she was cute.

I seem to have gravitated towards the warm weather riding snaps. Ha, I wonder why. I might miss riding outside just a little bit!!!

A few are from my trip to Solvang in spring of 2010 I believe for cycling camp. I almost went again this year but I have a friend coming into town so I couldn't! This is me getting fired up to ride in sunny California.

Here is me and my camp buddies at the beach. I love this picture because I think it looks like a cell phone commercial or something, with how our heights go down.

And this is from the top of Mount Lemmon last February...

And this is from my ill-advised mountain bike frame purchase. You might wonder, where is this frame now? It is in my friend Gavin's garage waiting to be sold! Oops.

Well sometimes you make good purchases and sometimes you don't, is all I can say.

So that was a fun trip down memory lane. Well in other news, let's see. I have ONE MORE WEEK of traveling for work. I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was a lot of exclamation marks and I don't think it is actually sufficient. There should be more. Because I am THAT EXCITED!!!! It is weird, when I had to travel I was able to convince myself that it wasn't that bad. Now that I am almost done, it is horrendous and I don't know how I could stand it. Life has a way of helping us get through things when we have to I suppose. So I think not traveling is really going to help me live a healthier lifestyle, train more consistently, meet more people here in NY, and generally be a more balanced person. I cannot wait.

Who knows, maybe I'll even blog more!

I swear, after this the major life changes are over for a year!!!

I tell you what it has been a crazy last year or so. Many major life changes. And just when things were calming down I decided to add one more - a job change! I know I just switched but I got recruited, got a few great offers, and decided to go for quality of life and stop traveling. I must say although I have made the best of Houston I am super excited to be done traveling and to be in New York full time! In 2.5 weeks that will be the deal. I am pretty pumped. This should be great for my quality of life as well as for exercising.

This is the view I will get to see every day...

Yeah, that should be okay. Nothing much of excitement is going on outside of the job drama thank goodness. Training is going pretty well but I think it will be even better when I don't spend 8 hours a week on a plane!

Good and bad

I am in a funky place right now. Lots of good stuff going on right now, and some bad stuff. Luckily things are on balance BUENO!! How about a list of things, that seems like a fun idea.

Good!!!
- I crushed swimming this morning. CRUSHED. As in swam a 300 (meters) in under 5:00, shazam!!!
- I am back on my running form after a little snafu last weekend.
- Even though I had a crappy run last weekend I found a pretty new spot in the park!! See, this is not bad.

And here is another instagrammed up. I am so into instagram.

How awesome is that?! I just never seem to get tired of it.

Other good things -
- I am still loving being (mostly) gluten free. I have been having one bagel or some such thing on each weekend day, which frankly does not do wonders for my stomach, so I might go totally gluten free again.
- Did I mention I swam like a rock star this morning? I am pretty pumped about that :)
- I have somehow found enough TV to watch what with On Demand, the DVR, and a number of DVDs, for some crazy trainer rides. I am kind of used to it now. This weekend four hours didn't even seem that bad.

And in the bad things area -
- I seem to have a nasty cold. I hardly ever get sick (the last time I remember was in 2008), so I am a big baby about it. I feel like I have had a headache for three days. BLAH!
- My calf felt terrible a week ago Sunday on my long run. Luckily this has been a good reminder that I need to stretch and use my little Trigger Point ball, so I have been doing that and I am now on the mend.
- Even though I felt great in the pool today sometimes I feel like my swimming will never improve, and it kills my hair.

Well I definitely think that on balance things are stupendous, so I am happy!

Sunday Morning Entertainment

After I got to thinking about running at Bowdoin due to my blast-from-the-past workout this week, I asked my stepmom if she had any pictures from my college running days. She didn't have much but I think this is cute, it's a picture of me and my dad from one of my first cross country meets at Franklin Park in Boston. The best story about this day was that my parents parked at a church and when they tried to leave the meet they were stuck because churchgoers had parked all around them. My dad and I have awesome matching hair here :)

She also had a picture from my high school track days. You can see that I had a sweet neon scrunchie if you look really closely and you can also tell that I was sprinting those days because of the look of sheer pain on my face.

And before she found those, she found an early bike shot. Clearly the seeds of cycling greatness were sown on a banana seat.

It has been an awesome weekend so far. I am about to head into the city for a run and a swim, it's been a beautiful weekend thus far so I am pretty excited for some nice sunny temperate weather today. I will not miss the 16 degrees from the last two weeks, not one bit!

What's New...

Well I cannot believe it but January is almost over. That is crazy! This year has been so busy and awesome so far. It looks like it's shaping up to be one of the best ones yet. I am loving where I live, I am energized by training, and life, and I am super excited for what the year holds in store. I am so proud of myself for moving and taking this leap and glad it is turning out to be as awesome as I hoped. It was pretty scary to move across the country, but I really feel like it is home now, and I am so glad and also a little bit relieved, I can't lie! I didn't know if I would really like it here or if I would miss Denver. Oddly I don't really miss Denver at all. I do miss my family and my friends, but it was kind of a rough place for me in a lot of ways, and I do not think the climate ever really agreed with me. I love humidity, and water. I ran down to the water this afternoon and it was just so peaceful and beautiful. So that is good.

So let's see, what else has been up? Chad has me doing all kinds of crazy stuff. He has me running faster than I have in years. One workout I did this week was actually reminiscent of one we used to do at Bowdoin, it was called Flow Miles. We would drive out to Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park in Freeport and run around like crazy people - five miles at a progressively faster pace for each mile.  Luckily the scenery was nice...

Here is another picture. We didn't run down to the water but I used to go a lot with friends to play around.

It was really hard then, and it was hard this week, especially without my teammates! But it's been nice to push myself. I will basically look at my schedule, think to myself 'how in the world am I going to do that?!', then I just try my hardest, and I find that most times I am able to do it as written.

In other news I have for the most part given up wheat/gluten. I know it is a fad and everything but I have noticed that I feel way less bloated and my stomach in general feels a lot better if I do not eat wheat. However I really miss bagels. They are so good, especially here in New York! I have a new food obsession - oatmeal with peanut butter and raisins mixed in - which is amazing. I found at first that I was suffering peanut butter withdrawal because I didn't know how to eat it without bread. But the oatmeal is great.

I suppose that is all for now, I really must get in the shower as I have not showered yet today and I have already exercised for 4.5 hours. I swear, you can take the girl out of Boulder, but sometimes you can't take Boulder out of the girl!

I wished for winter, and we got it...

Sorry, Northeast, if this is my fault at all. But I have to say that even though I have spent way more time on my trainer, and watched way more TV than is healthy, I am loving it. This morning we got our first snowfall since I've moved here (and that I've been in town for, I would imagine it's snowed a bit during the weeks).

I took a few pictures, it is really pretty. This is from this morning in one of the nicest parks in town. I used Instagram, my favorite new thing on the internet, to pretty it up.

I also like the effects on this one. Kind of brightened up even though it was cloudy.

Then this is from a walk I took this afternoon after a torturous four hour trainer ride with some intense quality. It was about all my legs were capable of. I love walking though, it is my favorite way to explore my new home.

Last weekend it was very, very cold, without the benefits of snow. So my friend Laura who was in town and I went to the Guggenheim for a really cool exhibit by a famous sculptor (we'd never heard of him but we are not really 'art' people). The exhibit was awesome, the artist had arranged all the sculptures and hung them from the ceiling in the big atrium. Here is a snap from the show.

The exhibit was pretty interesting and thought-provoking. And the Guggenheim is always fun.

Tomorrow I am heading into the city for a 17 mile run. Luckily I do not have any evil speed workout stuff to do, but it should be fun. I can't wait to see Central Park all covered in snow. I may take my phone and take a few pictures.