First Week of 2012

While most people hit the first week of the year head-on and hard core, mine happened to coincide with a rest week.  This was actually probably a good thing as I still seem to be somewhat reeling from the holidays and the tiredness that accompanies them.  Monday morning I headed in for a swim, fully expecting the crazy January crowds that always flock to the gym for about 3 weeks before 97% of them give up.  I've been going to that gym for years, and there is very rarely a change in who you see there at 5:30 in the morning.  Well, imagine my surprise when I arrived to find literally six cars in the parking lot.  It seems I didn't realize that it was the official holiday and therefore most people were using the opportunity to officially sleep in before they officially decided to start working out.

Then it was time for the blessed monthly rest day.  Ah.  It coincided with the day last week in which it topped out around 21 degrees.  I only just now thought about how Christmas eve was the same and yet I still went out and rode for over 4 hours in it.  Yikes.  Wednesday morning was incredibly cold and windy.  And that day marked the first time in a very long time, since this probably never happened to me last year after skipping the entirety of winter, in which my eyelashes froze during a run.  The following day was thirty degrees warmer and yet I still had to wear a hat and gloves.

On Thursday night my sister, brother and I took our mom out to dinner as part of her Christmas present.  The other part was a pair of very expensive Uggs gloves.  I only say they are very expensive not to show off, but just because she was talking about them a lot in the weeks leading up to Christmas and about how she couldn't justify spending that much money on gloves but they were so comfortable, and since we can never think of anything to get her that she doesn't already have, splitting the cost three ways made it much more sane.  Of course she loves them, and we just have to hope she doesn't lose track of them!

Anyway, we went to the Mile Away which was Mom and Dad's favorite restaurant.  Or at least it seemed to be as far as I could tell.  It is in a farmhouse on a hill and is just one of those cozy places with a fireplace and genuinely good food.  The owners had also come to know my parents through the years from their regular visits, to the point that they usually wouldn't even have to tell them what they wanted to drink, it would just appear right after they sat down.  So we had a great dinner and it was nice to hang out with just the immediate family.  My sister even got to tell me that for the first time ever someone came up to her and asked if she was my sister because we look so much alike.  He probably didn't even know I had a sister, so he must've seen something but that has literally never happened before.  Sure, aside from having different colored hair, different colored eyes, different body types, different skin tones, different noses/faces and my being five inches taller we look exactly alike.  Katy was probably horrified by this!

The rest of the week swimming was, fortunately, not nearly as bad as expected.  Though the number of cars in the parking lot have dramatically increased since before Christmas, I really have no idea where those people go once they come inside, because it doesn't look like there are many more people around.  I don't know where they're hiding.  Maybe one or two people in the pool, including one guy who seems to swim extended sets with a pull buoy and his ankles banded together.  Isn't that kind of redundant?

Today being Saturday, you'd think I'd be on my bike for hours like usual but instead I had a short recovery ride and that's it.  Kind of unfortunate because it is freakishly about 50 degrees outside.  I could've ridden in almost normal clothing!  As it was, I stayed inside because I don't think I quite realized how warm it was going to be.  But fortunately I was browsing around the on demand on the cable box and found, buried deep down amongst the options, Race Across the Sky which is a documentary on the 2009 Leadville 100.  It looked ridiculously hard and yet I'm stupid/crazy enough that as I was watching I was thinking, "I'd like to try that someday."

Nothing else exciting to say, really.  Not that any of the above were particularly exciting.  I have to run a 5K tomorrow which as you can imagine I am very much not looking forward to.  But the good news is that this particular 5K has a $5 entry fee.  Race fees are truly getting out of control.  Did you guys see how much the New York City Marathon is going to cost for 2012?  Pretty soon only the rich/privileged are going to be able to afford to race. 

Anyway, next week we begin the much more real training for 2012, and more unseasonably warm weather so maybe I can even sneak in an outdoor ride or two.