Like many people, I did not want to wake up this morning, but I did and proceeded to hound my daughter to drag herself out of bed. As I was making plans to lie down after taking her to school, I decided to check the calendar. In my hurried and sleep-deprived state, I mistook next week for this week and saw I had a doctor's appointment. The dreaded physical. While muttering expletives under my breath several times, I got dressed in more suitable attire and put on some make-up, then rushed out the door to get the girl to school and make my appointment on time. While driving to the doctor's office, I regretted eating that fast food dinner last night and hoped my cholesterol wouldn't be outrageously high because of it. At least I worked out that night too. Nothing like the first day of Eco-Challenge television coverage to motivate this girl to exercise.

It was after sprinting up the stairs I started doubting my appointment, and I just wanted to turn around when the receptionist couldn't find my name on the list of the day's appointments. I knew then I got the days mixed up and told the woman I'd see her next week. At least it got me going rather than wasting a whole morning slugging around the house.

Instead of working out this morning like I usually would, I'm waiting to do that until this evening when my new training partner and I will run together. We are running the trail in South Park where a man died of an aneurysm and ran over three pedestrians, killing himself and his wife as well as the walkers. I'm hoping I don't start crying. I have a tendency to do that, and it won't make for a very good run.

I did quite a bit of research on preparing for this adventure race this morning, and I realized I'm going to have to work out a lot more than I've been doing. It seems like I'm doing an awful lot already, but when you go from nothing to five days a week, it will seem like a lot. Most of the people that do these races work out ten to fifteen hours a week though. I don't intend to jump right to that, but I will need to increase my times, which will make for a lot less time to do other things. I'm going to have to be more efficient and spend less time doing things that can wait. I'm making lots of adjustments, and everything seems to be working out well so far. I'm sure I can do this too.

After an early morning goof-up, I've done pretty well the rest of the day. I learned a lot about adventure racing and then got my grocery shopping for most of the week done. One of the downsides to eating healthfully is not only do you have to go to the grocery store, but you have to do it more often. Fresh foods don't have as long a shelf life as Hamburger Helper, and fish has no shelf life whatsoever. I'm sure shopping more often helps us get a lot more vitamins, but adjusting from going every couple weeks to going a couple times a week is definitely a pain in the butt. The sacrifices I make.

I did manage to get in a little scrapbook time this morning too, so the trips to the store can't be all bad. Going to the scrapbook party this weekend motivated me to do something. Maybe it will continue for more than two days this time, but I'm not counting on it. Plus, there's only so much I can accomplish. Scrapbooking means there's something else not getting done, but it sure is nice to see it getting done. Of course, putting the pictures in albums and getting film developed are two different things, and I can't do one without the other. I have close to twenty undeveloped rolls of film at least as far back as 1992. At least I got the ones from 1988 developed. I'm getting better. Getting all those pictures will make it easier to do the scrapbooks. As it is, I have gaps, and it doesn't make for easy chronology.

The scrapbook party and Hammy's first soccer game were probably the biggest events of the weekend. The band gig was relatively uneventful unless you count watery eyes from a bar filled with more smoke than air. I'm very tolerant of smoke, even as an ex-smoker, but that was hell. Combine that with a less than enthusiastic regular bar crowd, and it just wasn't the rockin' good time I had the previous outing, but I didn't have the wretched headache the next day either. It was nice to hear the new singer. He really is marvelous but needs a little help in stage presence. I'm sure it will come.

With that exciting recap, I must depart and get Hammy some new soccer cleats, so he doesn't have to hobble and suffer blisters because he grew like a weed. There's strength training to be done as well, so I can be sufficiently worn out for my first training session with my partner. She'll really be impressed.

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One Year Ago Today:

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