Can I go home now.. please ;) Pretty Please!

I'm sitting in the Milwaukee airport, as I have been for the last 2.5 hours. I had no idea how to spell Milwaukee, as evidenced by the fact that I had to look it up on Google!

It's been a long week, but a good week, if you like traveling, eating extravagant meals, drinking wine, dancing, not getting enough sleep, falling down and losing your cell phone. That of course is the much abbreviated version!

Last week was crazy in the office trying to get ready for the School Nutrition Association show that we do every year in July. This year, it was in Dallas and I had to wear a pink cowboy hat. Not the end of the world or anything. We start off with a big company dinner on Sunday night where we talked about strategy for showing our products over the next three days and celebrated the fact that we've been in business for 20 years. Pretty crazy.

I spend most of my days yelling out of my office to this girl, my officemate Tamie!

Even crazier, we ran into this man (on the left, the other guy is my boss!)..

I knew that I knew this man from somewhere, but I just couldn't place where at first! The funny part was that HE came in to see MY BOSS (who I often forget is a little bit famous still), so he asked to get a picture with him etc. Pretty funny! We all took some time to converse with him (oh, it's Jon Voight by the way, Angelina Jolie's Father). I know he's been in some big movies, but he really was very approachable and nice.

We had a wonderful dinner at the Rtiz and we were excited for a great week.

I went running for a quick 30 minute jog outside in the wicked heat before the party that evening and I had EXACTLY 45 minutes to get ready once I returned from my run. Of course, in the last 2 minutes I must have been hot and tired and I just didn't see a ledge coming my way. If you don't lift your foot up enough, it catches, you go down. That's what I did. I went flying forward onto this little pebble concrete and scraped myself all up. I was bleeding from my hand and knee and pretty shaken up (ie. I started crying! I guess from shock!). I narrowly missed a flower pot with my face, so that was good! A stranger helped me up and called the hotel security where I got to file an accident report - WHILE still crying. I was stressed out so that wasn't helping me stop I guess! I was like "I don't have time to fill this out! I have to be wearing a dress in 20 minutes!!" I don't think they understood! It all worked out and I'm still bandaged, but fine!

Monday night after the food show, we had a party for our customers which usually brings in about 2000 people. It's a great evening of fun, food and dancing! We all dress up (which is kind of fun once in awhile) and I even broke out the heels, which I never do!

Some party pictures! It's hard to tell how large the room is, but trust me! It's huge! At the beginning of the night it is always freezing, then by the end you can't stop sweating with all those bodies dancing!

The band was AWESOME!

Black and white must have been a theme!!

These are my Florida friends! Once again, more ladies, more black & white! Too funny!

I also had a great friend that lives in Dallas and I haven't seen him in like 6 years. We grew up together and rode the same bus. It has been many years since then, but we've manged to keep in touch via email etc. Since he's had a son and lives in Dallas, we just haven't see n each other! It's been so nice to catch up and spend time with him that evening. Great to see you Ron!

All in all, it was a good week.

On the training front, I need to talk ONE minute and talk about recovery. I really think this is the biggest area triathletes have trouble with both during the season and the off season. I am a true believer that not only do our bodies need a rest, but even more importantly, so do our minds. When I train, I'm 100% in (in case you couldn't tell :). I eat, sleep and breath while trying to get around 90-98% of my workouts done, week in, week out. That takes a lot of mental energy. By my calculations, I've been hard at it since the week of Christmas 2009. That would be about 6 months. I didn't want to ride, run or swim anymore for an entire week after BSLT 70.3, so I didn't. I don't make excuses, I don't try to do it when I don't feel like it, I just don't do it. Some triathletes would have a real issues with this, not me. To each his own, but that is what I NEED, and I know that. The next week I did what I wanted, more running than anything but still two complete days off and no heart rate monitor, no set agenda. The past week was a bit of here and there, but once again, nothing of note. I've only swam ONCE in the past three week (obviously that's the one that take more effort for me!).

I really believe that is a key to pushing through to the end of the year strong. I've started to really get antsy to swim, bike and run so I know it's time to start having about 10-13 hours on the schedule and to just do it without much thought. I would never start when I wasn't ready though, that can only lead to a big burnout 2.5 months into a tough second half of the year - exactly what we don't want here people!

So what's on the schedule you ask? A little Irongirl Sprint in August (girl power!), an Olympic in September, maybe a half.. who knows.. I'm ready to dive in and see where things take me.

But for some reason, I've been craving Mexican food in November???!!! Anyone else??