Catch up Time!

I've had things rolling around in my head to post, but my 'duties' have been keeping me busy.. along w/ this pesky thing called spin class. I have a new appreciation for what goes into planning those classes I've been taking for so many years! Damn... it's hard work. Or perhaps it's just me!

I feel like the last two weeks have just flown by. Seriously... it's going to be December next week? And year end only a few weeks after that. My head is spinning just thinking about it!

I'm still waiting to find out about Trakkers, but it seems things are moving along there and I'm hopeful to know more by the end of the year (hopefully sooner). I've discovered that some of my bloggy friends have applied as well... and while I shouted it from the rooftops for the world to see they kept it a little secret. You sneaky devils! You know who you are. I'm excited about the prospect of maybe being able to meet some of these people AS TEAMMATES in the real world. Yeah REV3! And how could I not be excited about the prospect of calling these two amazing athletes TEAMMATE! Sonja and Michelle just kicked A$$ and took names at IMAZ! Both earning a KONA slot. Sonja's second Kona earn in A YEAR... after going to Kona in October. These women are both crazy cool and excellent determined ATHLETE MOMs! Check out their blogs... they both are working through their race reports for IMAZ!

Warning.. the rest of this blog post is likely to be one huge mess.. but this is kinda how I've been feeling over the last couple of weeks!

I learned in the last week that SLEEP is essential. Okay.. I learned it again. How many times will I teach myself this lesson!? Tom was in Asia and I'm a horrible sleeper when he is gone. Not only do I stay up WAY too late, but I don't sleep well at all. Top that with maintaining my workouts and keeping up w/ two whirling dervishes who, I might add, have really kicked it up a notch lately and I was toasted by the time Tom was due to return home. Well, he got home - AWESOME, sick w/ what we think was the flu - NOT awesome! Three days in bed for my poor husband.. 3 days OUT OF THE HOUSE as much as possible for me and the kids.... If I wasn't fried before I am REALLY fried now.

Unfortunately the quarantine of the virus dd not work and both kids woke up this a.m. with a fever. I'm still standing.... barely. At least I've been going to bed and getting some rest. I'm certainly feeling the affects of my body fighting something and the exhaustion still holding strong.

Goal numero uno during Tom's next trip... GO TO BED already! :) It's a must do non-negotiable to avoid the crash and burn!

When Tom was gone I was thinking a lot about my 2011 Year of Awesomeness. Most of the things that I have centered on this are athletic when really if it's going to be the year of awesomeness it really needs to include all walks of my life! I'm bound and determined to make this happen. I'm going to need a lot of support from Tom and the kids to execute on the athletic endeavors and in return I owe them the best I have to give them as a wife and mother... this blog, afterall, is called WIFE MOTHER ATHLETE. And Athlete is last for a reason. While these goals are important to me they are secondary to my role as wife and mother! If I want to have balance then I need to call out what my plans are regarding my family! I read a blog post not too long ago (was it Goals for the Week?) talking about how we schedule our workouts and THEY GET DONE... shouldn't we do this in other parts of our lives? I believe she was talking about her sex life. :) Hey, it falls into that WIFE category... big time! AM... how's that going? We DO want to hear! So on the list of to do's is to really dive into what this means to me. Instead of just letting the whole family thing 'take care of itself' it's time to get proactive about it. I need to schedule things in that way as well. (and my computer time... I know you all know the time suck that can be. I won't give up my bloggy friends, but I know I can stream line things... I need a "block" like parent block for some stuff... SERIOUSLY!)

Another way that I plan to make more time in my life for my 2011 AWESOMENESS goals to become a reality is to continue to clean my house out. And by clean I'm not talking vacuum and organize I'm talking GET RID OF IT! A quote to be placed on my "vision board"...which will get made as soon as my season is solidified... is "just enough"... it's directed mainly at STUFF!!! What the hell do I need all this crap for!? I mean really. I'm only forced to organize it, pick it up, clean it, move it to clean something else, trip on it on my way to do something... ENOUGH! Really I don't feel like we have a lot of stuff, but I swear I got rid of a CAR LOAD of stuff and I still feel like we have tons of stuff. Just unnecessary things.... I need to keep this in consideration as the holidays come and every time I go shopping ... like to TARGET! Jesus is that place a black hole of buying shit I don't need or what? If I'm finding myself so bored that I am shopping I need to pack the fam up and hit the woods STAT!

I'm also cleaning out our photos. I'm HORRIBLE about backing up my computer and the macbook is acting up. I'm worried I will lose EVERYTHING! In the interest of keeping things streamlined I am going to make annual photobooks. (Got this idea from my friend Erin. They do this every year and it's great fun to look through them.) No ordering individual photos to then need to be organized into a book...which just end up rolling around the house. The books will all be the same size and will look nice on a shelf. I'm using www.lulu.com (at my friends recommendation) It's pain staking to load all of the photos into the software then into the template, but I know I will be glad I did when this computer goes to sleep for the last time!

And the Spinning. Good lord this opened a whole can of worms that I wasn't expecting! I was a nervous wreck about teaching this class. I got my cert YEARS ago .. I think 3 years.. but never did anything with it because I was so paralyzed by it. Well my friend Jill found a place that was looking for spin instructors... she was going to get certified... had just started taking spin classes and was all over this! What the hell is wrong w/me I thought? I've been taking spin classes for years, I've been certified for years.... why wasn't I teaching. I could get paid to get a work out, get a free membership to a place with a pool (albeit a place that is a tad far away). We are approaching THE YEAR OF AWESOMENESS! It's time to start being awesome already! So I contacted the lady, went to meet her and was offered a job. I think she was impressed w/ the fact that I ran right before I was meeting with her, I'm a triathlete and I appear to be relatively fit. Does any of this mean I can teach a class. HELL NO, but she was confident that I could do it. Others were confident that I could do it. I was fairly confident that I could do it. It was to be a week and a half before I taught my first class. I went to work on profiles and play lists. This was no small task for me. I had the same music on my play list for TWO YEARS!!! TWO YEARS! I am not exaggerating. Two years, six days a week... same 20 or so songs. I was all good w that. Needless to say I didn't have a lot of music in my iTunes Library to pull from. I got all my CDs out (mostly purchased in HS and college) and took what I thought I could use and put the rest in a pile to hit the garbage (hey I'm getting rid of stuff!). I came up with a profile and playlist that I figured would kick some serious spin ass. I was told these people wanted to WORK!! Okay then! I can do that! I used a mix of stuff... some Eminem (love him), some Christina Agruilera, some Flo Rida and I took a risk and put Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction and Janes Addiction in there. The Megadeth stuff went over just ok.

Tuesday came and there was no turning back. I felt like I feel the morning of a big race... and this made me feel absolutely ridiculous. I got there early and was able to talk to some of the ladies that were getting set up and it turns out their set up on the bike was all wrong and I was able to remedy that (they said their knees had been hurting). I felt pretty good about this and that made me feel a bit more legit. Once we got going it was fine. I have some things to work on, but I think I worked everyone. It's hard to really tell because while I'm kicking my own ass it's obvious that some people are dogging it. It's there workout though and I can't turn that dial or increase their turn over. I can only offer them some tunage and a workout!!!

These emotions of fear really opened some things up for me ... an insight into my psyche. I SO wanted to call and quit before I had even started. Thinking that I just couldn't do this. That I didn't need to do it bc we don't need the money and I'll certainly have plenty to do as marathon training picks up and then tri training after that. Did I really want to have this commitment to someone outside of my family and my training? When it came down to it I felt like I did need to do this... for a few reasons! I needed to prove to myself that I could do it. I needed to move outside my comfort zone! I WANT to share fitness and the lifestyle with others and this is a sure fire way to do that. I want to show my kids that you can do things you might think you can't. I'm not sure if this job (can I really call it a job?) will turn into anything more, but I guess that's not really the point.

Alright year of AWESOMENESS... I'm preparing for you.... are you ready for me!? Can you handle it!?

What plans do you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone in 2011. It's terrifying, but exhilarating!!! Come on all the cool kids are doing it!

(I warned you that it was going to get jumbled up in here!)