Thoughts and suggestions welcome...

While my nutrition today left a bit to be desired (slice of homemade bread for breakfast, leftover ham and potato casserole for lunch with a Coke, two slices of Papa Murphy pizza for dinner - no produce?  oops), I did get my exercise in 3 times!  I already mentioned the swim (and the rude guy which I will get over).  But then I went on the usual 2 mile walk with my husband (which is great time together and he still walks fast enough I have to focus a bit to keep up with him).  And THEN, 5 min into my movie tonight, Stacy called and wanted to get in another P90X workout.  She is an animal!

We flipped through the DVDs and picked Kenpo X (reminded me a great deal of cardio kickboxing class I took in the late 90's - many of the same moves).  Tony put us through a nice warmup/stretch which was needed and then we got our sweat on.  So another hour of working out checked in the done column.

We chatted for a long time afterwards and did a bit more stretching.  We discussed trying to follow the program more closely, but I'm not sure I'm quite "there" yet.  She is definitely looking to get more definition while I'm just hoping that a little more core/strength/aerobic work will add to my fitness base that will help me get through my race season with no DFLs.  She was going to print out the schedule and we'll see how it goes.  I'm not sure I can face more of that Plyo DVD.  Yikes!  Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Today I started sorting out how much I'm going to hork out in race fees this year.  Wowser, it adds up.  I want to nail down the schedule a little tighter because Ultramax events has early bird deadlines 1/15 (saving $10/race isn't much until you think about 3 or 4 races).  I'm pretty settled on the Duathlon in April (though I need to decide between the long and short course - long isn't really that long 1.5 mi run / 15 mi bike / 3 mi run).  I am pretty settled on the Tri in May.  I have pretty much decided to repeat Pewaukee with my sis in July (although it's early bird deadline is in March so I have time there) which would allow for me likely to try to attend the Show Me State Games tri the end of July.  Just need to decide if I want to add another sprint June 23rd and where I would go to shoot for a longer (Oly-ish) race right after school starts in Aug (and if I can even achieve this BHAG - Lake St. Louis or Jackson County are options if I can).  I tried to convince sis to come to MO to do a Mud Run Sept 1, but she didn't seem too keen so I need to do some other recruiting because Stacy wanted to do it, but has a wedding that weekend.  Club championships are in OKC this year and it might be fun to try that too (Sept 22).  Would end the year with a sprinkling of local 5Ks (or maybe a 10K?) in the fall/winter (Jog for the Cause, Pie Run, Jingle Bell Run).  Could be a pretty epic 2012.

But others have been starting to discuss the value in racing less and focusing on training for and peaking to hit one or two "A" races.  I get a pretty good kick out of participating in races and just finishing, but I'm not sure if racing once/twice a month is a good idea or not.  Maybe one year of this to get it out of my system.  :)  Have a few more weeks to really decide.  Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Going to start doing some heavy research on a road or tri bike.  I'd like to purchase one sometime in the next three months.  I'm not above doing any or all of the above events on my trusty ugly mountain bike like I did last year, but I just think if I am going to keep doing this, I should invest in the proper equipment.  I would really like to buy used, but I'm not sure how much of an option that will be.  But I'll visit a couple LBS's and see what it would take to get a reasonably priced setup new as well and do a fair bit of brain picking as time allows.  Of course, I don't own cycling shoes or anything either and the new bike may necessitate a purchase there.  I am sure it will be a matter of setting a budget and just doing what I can to stay close to it.  But thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Better shut up and get my butt to bed.  I've barely done any work this week so I'd better rectify that tomorrow in between keeping my kids occupied.