MIA - with time on my hands

I would say things have been really busy lately, but mostly I have just been living life away from the regular routine that I had been in since April. St. George and its corresponding vacation weekend came to an end two Sundays ago. My legs continued to ache, hot spots on muscles, tendons, and just overall fatigue plagued me most of last week. Evenings presented new opportunity for fun, family time, and just overall flexibility of life.

The flexibility of life is so much fun...I had forgotten what that was. Seems like once you devote your energies into training for a marathon, you somewhat self-righteously give up a certain amount of flexibility in your life. Most runners I know are slaves to the schedule whether they will admit it or not. Their life is about eating, working, running, family obligations, and sleeping. There is little time for much else. It is amazing when you drop one of those five things how free you can feel (except the eating and sleeping of course).

Last week we went out to dinner with family in the evening. We watched TV. I went on a walk. We slept in on Saturday. We shopped. We drank wine. It was great!

Sunday was my mom's birthday (which when I get around to it will get a post of its own). We enjoyed brunch and the early part of the afternoon with her. I spent the rest of the evening preparing for my business trip.

I typically only expect to travel twice a year for meetings...January and June. When I took over the job from Molly, she mentioned that sometimes I might be helping with a Q4 meeting, but last year did not involve me traveling anywhere. When I found out that I would be expected to travel to LA this week, I was somewhat excited about it. I would be helping with the logistics of the meeting like I normally do, but instead of staying 5-6 days, I only needed to travel 3 days. As an added bonus, I would get a chance to go to our corporate office and meet some of the people that I know through email only. It was so nice to put faces with names.

Monday I flew to LA and arrived early into LA. I checked into the hotel and took a cab to the office to pick up a projector and some boxes and to meet a few people. The rest of the evening was pretty low key. Tuesday was a full day of meetings. I was 'working' from 7:30am until about 11:15pm when our final dinner/activity was over. Some of our folks continued into the night playing cards, but I just could not stay up as my body clock still felt like it was 1:15am.

So, this morning (Wednesday), I had some time to myself before my flight. I was able to get to Hermosa Beach where I enjoyed a simple breakfast of fruit, muffin, and tea overlooking the ocean. Nevermind that the fruit was a huge bowl of fresh sliced strawberries, the muffin was an oatmeal raisin muffin that had to be baked by The Muffin Man himself and the weather was a perfect 70 degrees and clear. I have not had a morning like that in a while. Fabulous. I walked up and down the boardwalk/sidewalk through Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and up to almost El Segundo. I knew when the power plants started to loom in the foreground that my scenic adventure needed to come to an end. The walk was glorious. I saw surfers, beach volleyball players, lots of people walking their dogs, and beautiful beachfront homes. If I ever have a chance to stay awhile, Hermosa Beach will be a place I'd like to come back to to just chill out and decompress.

I'm arriving back in Austin this evening and looking forward to the rest of October. I hope to stay in non-schedule mode for a few more weeks before I really decide how to start training again. My body is starting to feel better. My mind is certainly more quiet than ever. I'm in a good place.