Puerto Vallarta Anyone?

 After my shit Sunday I have managed to pull together 2 very good, very productive, very sweat inducing days. This is the great news.  I honestly was not feeling it on Monday. I was actually not hungry (I am sure it was my body saying wow, let’s process those 4,000 calories from the day before first before we go stuffing ourselves full again), and I accepted that gleefully. But that did not mean that I wanted to work out. I honestly thought it sounded horrible. But I put on my clothes and headed to the gym anyway. Monday night I had a half hour class and then an hour class. Even if I wasn’t feeling it, I could manage thru classes. No brainers, someone else tells me what to do!

I warmed up with a 15 minute run on the treadmill. I pushed myself, because I knew it was only 15 minutes, and ran at a 6.4 mph on the treadmill. And about 2 minutes in, I felt awake and alive. And despite feeling awful just a few minutes prior and not wanting to do it, I suddenly felt AMAZING. And like I wanted to keep going. The thought occurred to me, that my horrific Sunday probably would have been remedied had I just got my ass moving for even a few minutes I would have felt better. Excellent lessen to be reminded of. When I really don’t want to exercise, give it just a couple minutes and I will either feel great and amazing and snap out of my funk, or else if it’s still awful and I don’t want to then I can quit. But it’s a good distinction to realize that it’s my brain telling me no more than my body. After 15 minutes I felt that awesome happy glow and headed into class where I killed it again. And then an hour of Iron Power class and overall I felt blessed that I felt so good after working out. It’s that endorphin high you know.

Yesterday I felt much better and managed to once again have that afternoon lull that made me think I did not want to exercise. I had no classes last night, so I knew I wanted to do a little bit longer of a run. Of course I forgot socks in my gym bag. I HATE when that happens and really should keep an extra pair in my car. I honestly have no idea why I don’t.  Seems stupid. But I was determined to run anyway, so sans socks I managed a really killer 4 mile, 40 minute run that left me drenched in sweat and feeling awesome. I then spent another 40 minutes doing strength training and then decided to call it quits. I knew tonight would be personal training and Iron Power and it was going to be hard and therefore last night was enough.

I am so certain tonight is leg day it’s not even funny. I have such mixed feelings about leg days. I hate them but then there is something satisfying about the sore that follows. Of course I am running a half marathon on Sunday so I just pray that the sore that WILL come following leg day will dissipate by Sunday morning. Amanda is going to kill me tonight; I guess that is her job. And I guess I pay her for that and all.

I should talk about the reality that I have booked my life crazy full of running events this year and honestly I am looking forward to year’s end when I complete my personal goals and can relax a little next year. In the end I set some pretty lofty goals for myself and I am going to follow thru on them, but secretly am looking forward to mid-December when my goals should be done and accomplished. Until then persevere.

Next year we will be more selective about our race choices and I am not going to set any goals, instead just doing what I want or what feels right.  But I have one big goal for next year. Next year is Maui half marathon. Yup, it’s the end of September, so in the back of my mind I am planning an end of September Maui trip which will be expensive and therefore I can’t do a lot of the little race traveling ones. But we will see. Chris and I are beginning to discuss next year’s goals and calendar and overall picture of stuff. I think we are pretty much on the same page which is great.

We would like tentatively to do at least one half marathon a month just to stay active. We can do little 5 or 10k’s here and there as we want. Although we love and adore Rock N roll races next year might not be the big heavy travel year because of Maui. But we will do Portland and Seattle for sure. Because of the way the calendar looks we might try to squeeze in San Diego because we just loved it so much and Vegas in November, because we will always want to go to Vegas to run the strip at night and its close and cheap and fun.  With all that said we would have gone to Arizona in January because I have to admit Arizona was one of my favorite places ever but for some reason in the last two days Chris and I got a brain child and something else came to fruition this morning.  No Arizona in Jan, because instead on Feb. 6, 2015 we are going to Puerto Vallarta Mexico.

You see, the thing is, we got an Alaska Airline credit card last April when we kept flying Alaska for all these trips and they hawked their card on every flight and of course the card gives you an annual $99 companion fair ticket to anywhere they fly including Hawaii and Mexico. After doing the research it really seemed like a good deal, so we got it. Means, you buy the first ticket and your second ticket is $99. We get a new code every year. We had this year’s code sitting in our account. We will get a new one in April, which we will use for our Maui trip in September of next year. In the mean time we had to use this year’s code. Suddenly I’m researching Mexico and bottom line is this, we are just doing a quick little trip 4 nights, 5 days. Leave on a Friday come back on a Tuesday. With airfare and hotel it was a little less than $800. Super cheap. Going to Arizona would have cost us at least $600 so this was not that far off plus a longer trip. I’m super excited for this.

No run. Just a trip for fun. Imagine that! It seemed like a good time of year to get away, and while it won’t be Maui by any stretch of the imagination, it still be tropical and beachy and that is good enough for me. We are going to do some excursions for sure.  We want to do a swim with the dolphins and some snorkeling/kayaking trip or an adventure trip of some sort, but it’s too early to book those just yet. But the air fare and hotel are now booked. It is really happening. So I had to give up RNR Arizona this year to go to a tropical locale instead. I guess that’s an okay substitute.

These are the pictures from outside the hotel we are staying at.

Chris and I are not 5 star resort kind of people. We like smaller hotels, and definitely wanted something with an ocean view, which we paid for the ocean view room. Nothing like waking up and seeing the tropical ocean. Of course, location was important as we will be without car, and this one is within walking distance of stuff. We have never been to Mexico this will be an experience unto itself. In fact we’ve never left the country, so that is all new.  In fact, we have to get passports.  We printed the applications and are going to get our photos on Saturday and take in the applications next week.  We have plenty of time, but still crazy.  

So this is what my tentative schedule looks like:

October 2014: San Jose

November 2014: Las Vegas

December 2014: Levenworth WA (Christmas village with the family)

February 2015: Puerto Vallarta

May 2015: San Diego

September 2015: Maui

November 2015: Las Vegas

This is a pretty good looking calendar if you ask me! Thank you Alaska Airlines for having awesome service and a great rewards card that truly does save me money and makes my husband more inclined to do these awesome trips. I am a happy girl today, because as of today I have a tropical vacation on the books. 5 months out but totally something to look forward to. Yeah, yeah!  Hopefully this knowledge can power me thru leg day personal training tonight!