This week was another week of travel! There is a common theme with my life both prior to and after the harvest season… This week I was in Kansas City, and while I was cooped up for the majority of the three days that I was out there – I was able to opt for the outdoor walking option between hotels instead of using ‘The Link’ (glass tunnel in the picture below) to travel between meetings!

Anyhow… the title of my post is about the travel catching you. This past week marked the 4th week that I had spent more time on the road than in my own bed, and the attempts of juggling my job, my training, helping to promote Ragnar, taking a class, and attempting to still maintain a social life all collided. As my friend Tiffany is calling it, the “zombie apocalypse flu” caught me and hit me hard on Thursday. I felt funny when I woke up Thursday morning but went to the office since it was my first day back, however that didn’t last long as I was in home and in bed by 1 pm. Ugh! Friday morning I thought I’d be fine but when my alarm went off at 5am for my swim, I decided to skip the workout, sleep in until 7 then go to work. Until the alarm went off at 7 and I got up to realize that I really was sick.

Enter the reality call from your body – time to slow down. I ended up doing a couple hours of catch up work, sleeping for a few hours, waking up to do a couple more work hours and then passing out again. Then Friday night I logged a solid 12 hours for a total of 18 hours of sleep that day. A similar story for my life on Saturday. Where I was awake only to take an online test for my class, register for Boilermaker then go back to bed for most of the afternoon.

If you know me in my actual life (as opposed to my online one) you will know that me + sitting still doesn’t happen all too often. Even when I am sitting down I am usually doing something – blogging, reading, crafting, etc. <– yes, I’m one of those people.

My friend Kim sent me this on FB and I LOVED it. (Despite the fact I’m not a huge fan of these e-cards…) It helped make the fact that I was constrained to my house a little more tolerable.  (Ha!)

Anyhow, Sunday I managed to wake up and while I didn’t feel 100% better, I decided that it was time to get moving again. (Now I am sitting here typing this at night and hoping that I didn’t overdo things today… Mom, you might want to skip this next part – I know you’re probably not going to be too impressed…) but before I even got out of bed I decided I was going to attempt to tackle my long run – I would just run as much as I could before I thought I was being stupid and putting too much stress on my recovering body. (Note: I realize that any running was probably too much to really do today.)

Then, I got out of bed and saw the snow. Excellent. (Said in my most sarcastic voice.)  Whatever. I wasn’t going to let that stop me. Or the 20 degree weather. So I bundled up and headed out to Jamesville to run the 70.3 Course. This was my ‘take this mother nature and sickness, you can’t stop me’ attitude shining through this morning.

Again, I do realize this was all probably definitely not the right choice considering the past 48-72 hours of my life.

Although, someone was super pumped about the snow…

Bronco is certainly the type of dog that just loves life! Adopting him was one of the best decisions I made last year (although Roxie probably definitely disagrees with me on that one.)

Still feeling quite confident in my choice as I reached Jamesville Beach, I then stepped out of my car and had my first ‘oh crap’ moment. Holy Wind.

Too late now – I thought I would at least do 3 miles if it was terrible. Thank god for neck warmers…. and my miraculous insight to bring two of them to wear.  Anyhow, I’ll spare you a blow by blow recap of this run – the short version is that it was a long run (I stayed for 13 miles) and it was cold out. Luckily the wind wasn’t too bad except after getting over the first hill, and one spot on Palladino Road where there is little tree cover provided. I actually found myself enjoying running along the ridge near the turn around point on the course and didn’t find the second loop all that bad.

Annnnd yes, I am also one of those people. You know the ones you see running and think – what the **** is wrong with them?! (At least I acknowledge that I’m crazy – right?!)

Although as I started my second loop, I had fun looking at my footprints left in the snow from my first loop. Until the snowplow came along and finally cleared the shoulder – which was appreciated!

Anyhow, I’ll stop there and recap my workouts for the week:

• Monday – made up for missing my endurance run on Sunday – 12 miles on the treadmill at the hotel.
• Tuesday – Run – Speed Intervals – 7 miles total.
• Wednesday – Bike – Speed Intervals – 45 minutes.
• Thursday – Bike – 1:20 Easy spin session.
• Friday – No workout (the sickness sets in)
• Saturday – Shortened workout – was supposed to be a 3 hour brick, ended up spinning in the evening for an easy 1:30 Bike
• Sunday – Long Run – 13 miles in the snow! (Happy Spring!)

Alright, and for the weekly photo dump… because pictures a just SO much more fun to look at & remember various moments by!

As of last week my Monday Mornings start with an AMAZING email for a Monday Morning Breakfast Club. (Yea, I’m part of a secret society… of sorts… be jealous!)  Anyway, it’s a kick@$$ way to start my week each and every Monday. I love it.

A not so great pic of being all dressed up after running 12 miles. Ready to take on my Monday! I think every Monday should start with an awesome run… if only I was that motivated! (Honestly Monday mornings are typically pretty tough for me.)

Tuesday morning I was outside a bit earlier and discovered the plaza outside my hotel was all lit up with Christmas lights.  These pictures don’t really do it justice, but I do love Christmas lights and enjoyed seeing them!

Back home Thursday with Bronco – keeping watch over his backyard, protecting it from all that is evil (namely, squirrels).

A lot of cooking took place this week – it felt great to really get back into it a bit and I did remember to take pictures of most of the dishes… although I missed the carrot cake muffins (which are really cupcakes but I’m calling them muffins…)

Pineapple coleslaw for homemade fish tacos! I’m not a good food/blog person, I forget to take pictures of the finished product before I dive in! BUT they were delicious!

Chocolate Cranberry Energy Bites – I’m attempting to come up with some homemade energy options for while I’m on the biking portion of my triathlons this year… unfortunately these will not do the trick – ended up being too messy.

However, they are quite delicious, and they may make the cut for my Seneca 7 team…

Oh, and I did whip up a new batch of my homemade granola. I ran out a couple of weeks ago – it’s been a rough go without it!

Um, and this little reminder…. kind of hard to read at the bottom of the screenshot but we’re 3 months out from the Syracuse 70.3! Here we go… !

Hopefully Palladino Road won’t still look like this (although I really hope we don’t have another scorcher like last year!).

Registration for the Boilermaker 15K – the race sold out in record time, only a few hours and 14,000 entries filled! Holy wow!

I wondered how they were going to handle the volume of people signing on to register and quickly received my answer when I was placed in line to be able to access active.com… luckily my wait wasn’t too long! —> This girl wanted to get back to bed!

Game of Thrones. Started reading it on my flights this week, and now I’m knocking off a few chapters a night. It’s nice to read something fun once in a while! (Plus I’m a sucker for a book turned into movies or tv series. Can’t get enough – love to see how the characters are translated from the pages to the screen!)

House of Cards. Took a few episodes but since this show had come so highly recommended I stuck with it – and plus, what else was I going to do while trying to rest and recover from the zombie flu?! I’m hooked now. At least it will make my indoor bike rides a little more tolerable for a while longer.

Speaking of indoor bike rides. I decided I’ve had it with my trainer and I took advantage of Syracuse Bike’s winter clearance sale. I am now fully geared up to ride out in the colder temps. Gloves, shoe covers, lined fleece spandex, and 2 jackets for about $150. (Never mind the fact I would have paid almost anything for additional warmth on my first few outdoor rides last year. Biking outside in Spring can be brutal – and this year appears that it will be worse than ever!) Seriously, this was a steal considering the pants and each of the jackets retail around $100 each. Next weekend – unless the roads are snow covered – I’m hitting the roads!

More cooking… This time – little delicious frozen chocolate-peanut butter-banana dessert bites. (aka my bananas were going bad because I didn’t feel like eating them while I was sick and had to do something with them…).

I hadn’t attempted to make these before because I thought they would be time consuming, but overall I whipped these up in about 30 minutes and they’re delicious! I used a mix of dark chocolate and peanut butter chips for the outside which really ended up being a winning combination!

I know this is getting to be quite the lengthy post – a lot can happen in a week – even when you’re sick! But had to share this picture of Roxie. She kills me – always looking to cuddle…

Finally, I saw this post on a fellow runner’s FB page this morning. It quickly became my mantra for today’s run. It’s a great message for running and life in general. You really never know what is possible until you’re outside your comfort zone.

The theme continues from last week! – Obviously I find it an important point to consider and embrace!

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Cheers! And Happy Monday everyone – I hope you have a great week, regardless of what mother nature dishes out for weather.