Running again!

I am finally running again and I'm so happy!! I ran two miles yesterday and three miles today and I am feeling good. My long break and many weeks of swimming for multiple hours and lots of core and strength work has made me even more appreciative of running. I am still swimming 7 thousand yards every other day and on the days I don't swim I'm doing two hours of core and strength work. As my running gets ramped up, the swimming will decrease a little, but while running low mileage I love the cardio workout from swimming.

The weather here in Tempe is absolutely gorgeous right now. It's about 75 as a high each day and nice and sunny. The air feels crisp in the early or later hours of the day and it felt fantastic on my run this evening! I truly believe there is no better place to train in the winter than the Tempe/Phoenix area.

I have been substitute teaching a few days per week and I enjoy it a lot. I like being a little busy and having a routine or schedule most days of the week. It makes me feel so much more productive. My little doggies don't like it when I leave and I wish sometimes I could just take them with me! haha

Whenever I have free time I absolutely LOVE to bake new things and recently I made some homemade maple pecan sticky buns from a delicious recipe in my Bon Apetit cookbook. Four hours of mixing, kneading and waiting for dough to rise, they came out of the oven and the house smelled amaaaazing! :)- I have put a picture of them in this blog. Next up I want to make some pumpkin spice muffins.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving! If you are doing a Turkey day race, good luck and have fun!

Grateful :)

Well this is my first post on my own personal blog. I am excited to share my training and racing stories and experiences on here. Right now I am swimming a lot in the pool and doing tons of core and strength work on the days I don't swim. I am doing 6 thousand yards of freestyle, pulling, drills, kicking, etc. and now that I am in the habit of swimming so much I am actually looking forward to it each day I go to the pool. The suit I have right now is disintegrating more and more by the day. At this rate I am going to be buying a new suit every three weeks! ha :)

I am so grateful of this life I live as a professional athlete each day. Sometimes the hard work seems to be endless and I feel the "pressure" from society to work a full time day job. However I absolutely love working hard toward fulfilling my dreams, having amazing opportunities to meet great people and travel all over the world racing. It makes me realize there really is no better "job" than what I do right now. I substitute teach on average at least once per week and have done a long term sub position, and every time I go teach I am even more grateful that I am able to make a decent living doing what I love the most- being an athlete! :)

I am extremely excited for the holiday season and closing out 2009 on a good note. I have had a super successful year of racing and ran personal bests in every race. I can already feel good vibes for 2010 and I know it's going to be incredibly successful on so many levels! :) The companies that continue to believe in me and sponsor me are truly what keep my spirits up on the hardest training days. Thank you to Sole Sports Running Zone, GU Energy and Endurance Rehabilitation!! You are the best :)