I work for a large pharmaceutical company that is doing “Capacity Planning” and “Future State Discovery” (aka – how many people can we get rid of and still make money?). It has been going on for about a year and it makes for a very stressful work environment. We are told to focus on our work and try not to be distracted by the fact that your badge might not work when you come in tomorrow. I try to make the most of it and look on the bright side; at least I have a job …… for now.
The one bonus to this craptasic scenario is that my company has an onsite fitness center. So, while Mother Nature has made it difficult to train outdoors, I have been utilizing this employee benefit every day after work.
Monday I did some strength and an hour on the elliptical. Tuesday I did my new favorite “jump rope-run-bike” workout. Wednesday I did more strength training and elliptical. Then Thursday, my plan was to drive into Boston and run the Newton Hills for the first time this year. Unfortunately, we left too late and got stuck in traffic and couldn’t find parking then just ended up doing an out and back to BC. It was still about 9 miles of hills, but not the same scenery.
Friday was the mother of all bad days. My computer crashed and I was unable to do any work so I sat and stared at a blank screen totally helpless and annoyed. I left early because it was driving me nuts. I went home and decided to take a rest day and use the free time to go grocery shopping and do my laundry and watch a few movies.
Saturday morning was another Lowell Ladies run with my prego friend Kim and our running buddies. Yup, she’s still running. You have no excuse if you say you can’t get to the gym or go outside for a walk – She’s 37 weeks pregnant and STILL running! It was cold and windy but we managed to finish a nice 5 miler (plus 3 miles for me to and from her house).
Sunday I got up early and did my 14 miler then took a quick ice bath and a hot shower and met some friends at my favorite restaurant in downtown Lowell – Life Alive. Lunch was awesome. I got home, relaxed, and made plans with some other friends to go back to Life Alive again the next day because I actually had the holiday off.
Life Alive Monday was delicious as expected and my friends convinced me to take another rest day because I ran a total of 22 miles over the past 2 days so I went home after lunch and watched a few movies before going to bed.
This week was almost identical to last week. Go to work, then the gym or a run, and home.
Wednesday night was the annual condo association meeting. It’s always entertaining and stressful. There are only 8 units in my condo association. Half of the residents are elderly; one resident is a completely insane psycho; one resident is a new girl that doesn’t say much; then there’s the young couple that didn’t even show up to the meeting; and me. We do the best that we can with the resources we have available to us and every year the psych guy threatens everyone and yells the entire time. The elderly woman that is the treasurer tries to justify wasting money. Everyone else just sits there.
This year I couldn’t take the chaos anymore. I stepped up and facilitated the meeting. I showed the treasurer all her accounting errors and demanded that we stop throwing money away on non-essential stuff. I cut the psycho off mid-rant and made him leave because he was off topic and disrespecting everyone. After he left I blew through the agenda and adjourned the meeting within 15 minutes. Hopefully, we can follow though on all the action items and keep the crazy guy from killing us all. We already have a report on file with the police department and if he tries anything I’ll put his ass in jail.
Thursday was a pretty normal day at work followed by an awesome hill run in Lowell after work. I went with my friend Scott and took him on the hilly non-hill 7 miler. It felt really great. The weather was perfect; in the 40s and partly sunny. The roads were sort of clear from some of the warm weather melting everything. Cars were still not nice and I had to jump into the snow bank a few times but overall it was a fantastic run.
Friday flew by and after work I went to the fitness center to get my body composition measured again. I could tell immediately when Beth wrote down the first few numbers that I had changed significantly since the last time she measured me. The first few numbers were in the single digits. We plugged the numbers into an online calculator and hit “calculate”. I’m down to 16% body fat!!!! No wonder my clothes feel huge and everyone keeps asking me if I lost more weight. I can’t believe it. From couch potato to lean marathoner in three years, blows my mind.
I went home and baked cookies for Dana Farber and Saturday I volunteered at their long run in Lexington. I didn’t think it was suppose to be very cold, but when I got to the water stop we were working, the wind picked up and cut right through me. I was shivering for 3 hours and I still needed to do my own long run. I got home and put my running stuff on, but with my fingers still numb, my legs really stiff and still frozen, and the clock ticking away the daylight hours, I decided to skip my run and warm up instead. I fell asleep on my couch and woke up 3 hours later. So, I guess I needed the rest.
Now it’s Sunday morning and it’s SNOWING AGAIN!!!!!! I have a 3-mile race this afternoon and I wanted to try and squeeze in a few miles before the race to get my long run in for the week, but it might be too dangerous while it’s still snowing and the roads are not cleared. We’ll see if it looks better in an hour or so. In talking with some of the veteran runners at the Dana Farber training run yesterday, they were all convinced that a tough training season means a nice race day. I really hope they’re right.
No comments:
Post a Comment