Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Temperatures in San Jose have been in the 30s at night this week. We may finally be approaching that time of year when I can no longer walk the dogs at 5:30am in flip-flops.

*sob*

In 8 days, Jeff and I will head down to the Arizona house for Christmas. It can't come soon enough - I'm ready for the mental break from work. I have accomplished all of my (work) goals for 2008 but one. The procedure is revised and ready to go, but there is some question of if I will get the approvals needed to release it in time. In the end it will come down to the degree of pettiness and infighting people choose to exhibit, because the changes themselves are non-controversial.

Gee, and here we thought adults outgrew the sandbox mentality of preschool. 10 years in the working world and I can tell you?

Not so much.

To revisit the Vegas race for a moment...

I just want to send out a big thank-you to all of you. You were in at least 3 countries tracking results and sending congrats. You posted comments on my Facebook page like "Doesn't puking at the finish line just mean you are a real athlete now? Pretty sure it does!" You get me. You really do. So...

Thank you.

Since Vegas I have taken my recovery quite seriously. I have taken coach's suggestions to eat pie especially seriously. The tally for junk food after 4 days is something like this:

• 2 margaritas
• 2 mimosas
• 1 King-Size pack of peanut butter cups
• 1 personal-sized pumpkin pie
• 1 spicy Italian pizza
• 4 pieces of baklava
• 2 baguettes
• 6 oz of duck and chicken liver pate
• 6 mini chocolate donuts
• 1 hamburger with jalapeno cheese and bacon
• 1 vanilla shake

And let me tell you the amazing part - my body is SICK of it! It wants its 12 servings of fruits and vegetables back and it wants them NOW. I guess that will be the end of the fun as I've literally made myself queasy with all this garbage eating.

I finally got my 2009 season goals and objectives written up for coach the other day. Today she wrote me back to confirm that yes! my goals are achievable and she detailed how we will make that happen. It's going to be a very exciting year.

Even putting Ironman aside - because I'm sure there will be points in September and October when that feels like a really stupid choice - I'm eager to tackle the year and be even more successful at the sprint and 70.3 (half-Iron) distances.

What's it going to take? No big surprises...I'll be riding a lot (and dragging Jeff and Nigel and my dad and George out for all the long ones), I'll be swimming a LOT (good thing I ordered 2 new Splish suits for motivation), and I'll be running a lot (but this is my strong area).

I'm ready to charge on forward into training.

Well.

Maybe after another piece of pie.

I'm only following coach's suggestions, after all. There will be enough time for training in the new year.