I made it

I made it...it is Friday. Wow. The one thing I can always count on is that time will move forward. When things suck and when they really, really suck...time will move forward I just have to keep breathing...in and out...in and out. That is a good thing. I think I had one of the worst weeks in my life and I am glad it is friday. What is more impressive to me is that while it was emotionally draining, and I had to play the "this really sucks card" I didn't do what I usually do...which is just totally shut down. I did have some friends help me with that and push me out the door and get workouts in and kept encouraging me just to do stuff...no matter how menial or trivial...really helped me. And at the end of the day we all need that in life, friends and family you can lean on when life just plain sucks. Unfortunately this is going to drag on for a bit, and I am hoping it will only be for another month. That is the best case. I don't know if I may go MIA for a bit, it is possible...so time will tell how much i'm 'round these parts'.

Despite the horrible week, it hasn't been bad training wise. Some good runs were done, my legs hurt from some heavy lifting at Crossfit, I tried out my new wetsuit tonight and it ROCKED. I can swim SOOOOOOO much faster I don't even know how much faster i am going, i just FEEL wicked fast which to me, it doesn't matter how fast I go...just as long as it feels like i'm going super fast. Only thing that I wanted to get in that I didn't manage this week was a bike ride and unfortunately pilates will be put off for awhile, until the next session starts up. I think I'm going to *actually* try to go for a nice bike ride tomorrow. Better get some sleep.

EVERYWHERE!!

Today I'm lugging my groceries up my step and I can hear someone jostling the door from the other side and I step aside to make sure I don't get whacked by the door. Out comes some guy I haven't seen before acting like he lives there. I live in a 4 apt complex so I know all the other tenants and granted he could have been a friend of someones but he makes a comment about having just moved in, which makes him my across the hall neighbor. In an effort to be welcoming I make some chit chat...oh welcome, when did you move in, bla, bla, bla. Internally I'm just hoping he's not a psycho as the last tenants and I had become friends and I was sad they left. So I ask the question: Did you just move to San Diego or move from somewhere within San Diego?

Him: Oh San Diego...I just moved from No-arth Paaaaaaaaak

Me: Blink...blink...blink

To myself: did this guy just BUST out a boston accent??? Am I going crazy? My puzzled look caused him to interject:


Him: But i'm from Baaastaaan originally.

AKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK I can't get away!! Those crazy Bostonians are following me around!! Way.Too. Funny...now I can say "wicked" all I want to my neighbor and he will understand. I wonder if he's a crazy Red Sox fan ...and baseball season just started...yikes.

A look to the fall

Well with my discovery of how crappy my Lactate Threshold is and a desire to improve it I am looking at doing an Oly in Aug/Sept and a half marathon in the fall. The goal for the half mary, to see if I can do a repeat performance of 2006 and go under two hours as a lot of my training would translate well into lactate threshold training improvements.

I looked back over my previous training and have realized a few things, one...I don't keep a very good journal and will neglect writing stuff down a lot of the time...two...training the last month has been rather weak. I'm looking to change that up.

But as I looked at what I had on my schedule to do this week as far as exercise was concerned and it looked like this: yoga, run, swim, pilates(this will be something new to me), softball, crossfit, bike intervals, a (possible) hike, interval runs, open water swimming, biking and a long run. And my thought:

I have some serious sports ADD. It made me laugh. Hopefully I get to all of it this week. I'm notorious for making a big list of things and not getting them all in, especially if I don't have an impending race. I'm trying to pick out some races for late Aug/Sept and have narrowed down some Oly's but am having some trouble picking a half mary. I didn't really like Long Beach last year and bizarrely there aren't a ton of 1/2 mary's in the fall in these parts in Oct, so I may have to stretch my race calendar to November and do the Silver Strand half. Still debating this.

Got a nice 8 mile run in today and while both my hip flexors were slightly cranky, this was pretty normal. The dreaded hip was actually behaving. Maybe I really am on the mend. That would be nice.

wetsuits and interval work

Finally...four years into this silly sport I finally bought a wetsuit. Here's a tip...don't go wetsuit shopping when it is 85-90 degrees out and the tri shop doesn't really have air conditioning. That is actually the second time I've done that. I really don't learn.

The guy helping me was amazed I was even able to get into the wetsuits because it was so hot and made a comment about it right as I was getting ready to try on my last one. He totally jinxed my wetsuit shopping and by the last suit I could barely get it over my calves because they were too sweaty. But I found a nice Blueseventy sleeveless wetsuit. Bring on the open water swimming!

Friday I got a short run in at lunch...but it was at lunch and it was close to 100F...and while it was only 3.5 miles IT.WAS.HOT. I had planned to do some interval work and the first half of the run I got 2 out of my 3 intervals in, but the last interval was not happening because I could tell I was on the verge of overheating, even if it was only 3 miles. (I am incredibly fair skinned so that also probably makes my ability to deal with heat not.so.good.). The plan was to get three intervals in that were at my AT (anaerobic threshold) which is ~170bpm for ~1 min, mixed in the run and then let myself recover down to aerobic levels for a few minutes and then do an interval after I had recovered. By my third interval my HR wouldn't settle down and I was starting to really feel the heat, so I bagged the last interval. With time I will increase the number of intervals I will do.

I didn't have my watch quite set up correctly so that I could time those intervals, so I had to sorta guess how long a minute was and in the end actually ended up going close to the same distance.

First interval: 0.24 miles, 1:51 minutes, 7:44 mpm pace, HR 168bpm.
Second interval: 0.22 miles, 1:39 minutes 7:27 mpm pace, HR 170bpm.

I'm pleased with the work even though it was crazy hot. Was supposed to go biking this morning but woke up feeling a bit sick so decided to bag it. 8 mile run is up for tomorrow. Planning to get to the beach too!

Mud Fun

Last weekend I did a 10K mud run with some people from my company. It.was.awesome.

About two months ago I found myself as the captain of this team and over the next 8 weeks I had to completely re-fill my roster. EVERYONE, aside from myself, from the original team decided to bail out. Even last week on monday I was having to find a replacement. Fortunately I work at a big company and was able to find people to fill in as it was a company team...and hey that meant that the company paid too. Nice. Sponsorship right?

The funny thing about this whole deal with the team is that the whole 5 people on your team have to cross together at the end in order for your time to be counted. We all decided that the best and most fun thing to do was to run the course together. It was way more fun that way.

The first half of the race wasn't really that interesting...no real obstacles and no real mud. There were some guys next to us who decided to 'make' their own mud by doing 'dirt angles' on the ground and hence mixing the dirt with their sweat. ewww.

The day started off a little cloudy, but once the clouds burned off (which was RIGHT before the race started) it got a little toasty. The first half of the race was pretty warm as there was no way to cool off really and it was more of a 'Mud Jog' or even a 'Mud Walk' as the trails got so crowded...although there was no mud...so i guess that would just be a 'Dirt Jog'. But no matter finally we got to some muddy obstacles.

We had walls that were in the middle of mud pits that you had to hoist yourself over, a river you sorta half swam across, a very slippery muddy hill to get up and a final muddy pit thing that you had to crawl on your belly through. My team was awesome. We had fun and cheered each other a long. We jogged most of it. Over all it was awesome. We were even the first team from my company to come in! Definitely doing it again and with a team...tons-o-fun!

Stuck in my head,

This weekend has been filled with a lot of things, a VO2 max/LT threshold test, An awesome 10K Mud Run, A bike handling clinic and the rest of the various things that typically happen over a weekend. First my VO2 max test, I'll get to the other bits in time.

VO2 max/Lactate Threshold (LT) test

I've done a VO2 max test before. I did one about 3 years ago and actually when I went to dig up that test I discovered something rather bizarre. I was 8-10% body fat higher (done with a DEXA one of the 'gold standards')and weighed 4 pounds LESS than I do now. The guy doing the test said "that is very unusual"...i'd say!


Last time I did this test I did it on a bike ergometer and had decent VO2 max and considering that my weight isn't that different I wasn't that surprised to see a similar number 45 ml/kg/min. Granted I'm off my ideal body fat at the moment, so with a quick re-calculation I had an idea of what my 'potential' is with VO2 and some people then indicate that can reflect into speed. I am encouraged and seem to have some reasonable potential.

A test is a test. It in itself is a 'neutral' entity, but sometimes our own perceptions of the situation then turn things into their own monsters. So this is sorta where things went from a scientific fascination into my own head game.

There are, apparently, different ways to determine Lactate Threshold (LT). I was under the (false) impression that I was going to have to have my finger stuck every so often to get the concentration of lactate. But apparently you can utilize the information from the VO2 max test to get LT. By analyzing my O2 consumption and how I expel CO2 an inflection point can be seen where this consumption/production goes from a linear graph to something non linear. This inflection point is my lactate threshold. From this information my 'metabolic fitness' and lactate threshold can be calculated. This tells me a few things, how I burn calories and also my HR range where my threshold goes from being aerobic to where I start to increase lactate production which is believed to be a contributor in muscle fatigue.

Professional athletes have been reported to have LT's that are close to 95% of the VO2 max. You typically get to your VO2 max near or at one's Max HR...so we are talking 95% of one's Max HR! Generally trained/age group athletes have a LT about 75-85% of their VO2 max.

So we start going over my numbers and the guy points out my VO2 max...says...that's pretty good, bla, bla, bla...and then...the big BUT came into his vocabulary.

Him:Yes these are reasonable VO2 numbers BUT you have an UNUSUALLY low LT.

Me (in my head): huh? I don't really understand what he means. I mean, I don't really like speed work, but I have done it in my life, I have run hills, I have done intervals, crossfit is AT most of the time. What is this guy talking about??

So I did what most people in my situation do, I stare blankly at him: blink...blink...blink

He goes on to explain that a low LT can sometimes be from what is referred to as 'trashing' where you go too hard ALL the time.

Um...that' s not me.

Or a low LT is from not pushing the LT enough.

Um...sorta still not me, but I would closer to this than than the former. I have a zillion questions about LT that I didn't really have answered mainly because I was stuck on the words unusually low LT.

He then went on to explain that due to my unusually low LT I am, quite metabolically 'efficient' in a manner of speaking. huh? (I do hope I am explaining this correctly) He goes on to explain that I am VERY good at utilizing a calorie. At first glance that sounds like it might be a good thing. Then I come to the realization, well maybe it would be a good thing if I were a freaking polar bear! Maybe I should take up the the Iditarod. I would efficiently utilize every single calorie quite well out in a race...not like all those freakishly skinny people who just burn calories all willy-nilly. But then again...the Iditarod would be COLD...so I've thought better of taking up that sport.

Fortunately, LT can be changed. It's not like one's VO2 max which doesn't really change, LT can change with the appropriate training. And this is where we got talking about crossfit and it's 'role' in my life. There are two zones that should be utilized in order to improve LT, they are the lactate threshold and the anaerobic threshold (AT). LT zone is the zone that tempo work is done, where the AT is that edge *right* before you totally max out...so not quite a full on sprint, but a fine line and close to it. The concern came up that I may actually not be in the lactate threshold area during crossfit or even the AT...but that I could actually be in my anaerobic range...which is akin to doing sprints full out...which surprisingly isn't suggested. (for my situation of wanting to change my LT)

Always doing intense workouts in one's anaerobic range can lead to a situation called 'trashing' where there is little benefit metabolically or with the LT. I know I'm not completely telling the whole story quite correctly as there are some finer nuances, but since all I kept hearing from him was you have an unusually low LT...i was merely taking in the information that was important about how to change my LT. The prescription...1 day of tempo work (LT) and 1 day per week of interval work (AT) and maybe another day in either LT or AT....most of the time most people can't do much more 'quality' days than two to three and actually have their body recover properly.

The crossfit dilemma

The gist of the conversation that was my take home message was that I really, really need to work on my LT for a couple of reasons, to get my body to be more willy-nilly in it's desire to burn calories and to increase my LT so that I can compete at a level so that I am able to not build lactate so easily which will hopefully lead to some improvements in my times. The problem is...crossfit may not support these endeavors the way that I hoped. Now I think that if I had an 'average' LT, i'd just go about my own business...do all kinds of crossfit and then do my own experiment at the end and see how my LT changed with the help of crossfit. But since crossfit isn't shown to necessarily help and has the potential to hurt this endeavor to change my LT...i'm now torn on the situation. I could always wear my HRM to crossfit and make sure i'm in the right ranges or I may chose to reduce my crossfitting in favor of a sole focus on my LT for the rest of the season.

I know many may say...why give up/reduce crossfit? You love it. Do what you want. Yes I love it...but I have also come to some realizations. If crossfit were something that were neutral to my over all personal goals then I would continue to do it...but since it holds the potential to actually work against what I am trying to achieve my goals ...I'm feeling a little conservative on the subject matter.

I've had a few days to continue to mull this one over. I didn't make it to crossfit yet this week. I DID get in a 'on-the-verge-of-puking-yet-why-am-i-still-going-so-slow' interval workout (both with LT and AT mixed in)on the bike today. Yea...not fun.

So...what is my conclusion with training and crossfit? I don't know yet, but my focus with races may have been sharpened, so watch this space for some potential things to actually come onto my calendar.

New things

So...I tried it. I promised I would, and I figured I would hate it and then move on. I could blame my dislike on the team, on my boredom, on anything but at least I tried, right? Give it the 'ol college try?

Last week at work someone asked me to play softball for their team. They needed more women. I just wanted to say: So you really just want me for my two x chromosomes...yea, I don't really feel that wanted. But in an effort to meet new people at work I decided to give it one try. I promised I'd try once.

Here's the thing, I don't play softball. I don't even know how to. I've only played ONE other time in my adult life. And I was bored. To.TEARS. So I never went back. And I think I might have played in high school gym class...but that was it. It wasn't until I lived in MA that anyone bothered to explain the rules of the game...being surrounded by red socks fans someone is bound to over excitedly explain how to play the game.

I played soccer in high school (use your feet) and Ultimate in college (flat ball...not round ball) and now...i do some tri stuff and a little bit of this and that, but throw and catch and HIT a ball...no way.

But I went out. And I threw the ball. And I caught the ball. And you know what?? I HIT THE BALL AND DIDN'T GET OUT!! I had a base hit! Woohoo! My team even tried to call me a ringer. (no i'm not that good, but they were being nice and i think secretly trying to get me to join the team). And...shhhhhhhhh...it was fun.

Granted the fun-ness of the game also was in the fact that we kicked some serious butt, the innings weren't too long, and there is a time limit on the game...so the game can't be very long either.

Me and my athletic ADD at it again. Looks like another thing to put on the schedule!

I DID IT!!

I don't really know why I have had a HUGE mental block to showing up to masters swim at my gym. I paid for it...I should just go...but I came up with a zillion excuses not to go.

I'd tell myself : "I'll just swim on my own," Except swimming on my own bores me to tears.

I've done a couple of masters swimming things in my past, even just a few times back in my pre-tri days. I just tried it. I didn't think about it and showed up and somehow swam a zillion laps on no previous swim training. So I'm not sure why I was inhibited to show up aside from the knowledge that I would be the slowest. But I did it!! I had a no excuse day and I went! It was sorta a non-event in the end, probably because it was a 'recovery' day. (good day for a first time to show up). Someone had some pity on me when I was looking lost and wondering where the coach was and told me just to jump in and start warming up. That at least made me feel a little more welcome.

As I predicted, I was slow...but I got a good workout in and more laps than I would have done on my own. We did this horrible drill where we were doing 8 x 75's where the first twenty five you would breathe every 7 strokes, the next 25 you would breathe every five and on the last 25 you would breathe every 3. Not a fan. But we had to do it again later in the workout 4 x 75's and the second time around the breathing was a little easier for me to get the hang of. Masters swimming will definitely become more a part of my training, WAY better than swimming by myself...for sure!!

Yoga helped a little with the hips this morning, but not as much as I was hoping. My legs were pretty tired from two days of back to back hilly running but I managed. Yoga felt good. I really am not doing enough of it these days...but it is so hard to fit EVERYTHING in I want to do!! And hard to convince my body that it really can handle everything I want it to do. I'm off of crossfit this week because I'm doing a fitness/VO2 max/lactic acid threshold test on friday. Yes, i'm a nerd...i want the data. I know the numerous debates on the how helpful VO2 max really is...but I think the lactic acid threshold test would be useful. Shall see.

The weekend...and more running

I had a bit of an adventure this weekend as I ventured up to LA meet up with Claire's (this time on the OTHER coast, just 2 weeks later after meeting her for a first time) and be part of her entourage on Saturday after she came in after her 545 mile biking adventure of the AIDS Lifecycle event from San Fran to LA. This also gave me an excuse to stay with a good friend of mine who had been a housemate of mine in MA.

Prior to meeting up with Claire, my friend, her cousin and I had plans to get Thai massages. They had a great experience...for me:

two.hours.of.constant.pain.

I had a Thai massage once when I was in Thailand and that experience was much of the same very painful. I don't really know why I agreed to this again aside from the fact I did need a massage as I've been pretty tight lately. But basically in a Thai massage you are paying to have a 100lb Thai lady literally walk on your back, or step on your hamstring, or stand on your thigh...repeat or try to stretch you like you are more flexible than you really are. The intent is to find all those lovely trigger points and then get rid of them...lots of accupressure. Owch. My hips are still sore from this endeavor, fortunately not the part where I have been battling my injuries...but still...it's been two days.

After this lovely massage, I did manage to meet up with Claire and her friends. Claire and her friends who had come off of this ride seemed no worse for wear. They commented that they could have just kept going. It sounded like the week was a great adventure and a ton of fun. Claire and I had our own bit of adventure as we were caravaning with some of her friends back to where they were staying. My advice, when driving in LA always have directions on where you are going...don't think you can caravan across this city and actually stay together. Um...yea. We had no directions. Claire had left her cell phone in the other car. I had no one's phone number and we had barely a map that would take us to the right suburb of the city. While the adventure became a boarder line fiasco...we somehow managed to A)not ever technically get lost B)find everyone in the end. All in all...it was more hysterical than anything else. (especially after she said: "Do you think they would answer my phone if I called it with your phone? I have you listed as 'Pants in my phone." For some reason, we found that little fact hilarious. It almost produced uncontrollable laughter....I think Claire was disappointed it didn't. )

I headed back to my friend's place that evening and stayed for part of Sunday. When I got back to SD, I managed to squeeze in a hilly 7 mile run. My hips weren't too crabby and weren't talking to me too...too much. But then today I decided that I'd go trail running, ummmm...today, with some colleagues since the mud run is this weekend. Not too far though, just under 3 miles. Um...my hips aren't really happy, but they aren't terribly pissed off either. I think tomorrow I'm going to get myself to yoga and hope that helps a bit.

Finally admitting it

OK...OK...OK...I admit it...I HEART crossfit, and I don't know why. I've stopped asking myself 'why do you like it? It is kinda insane'...and just accepting the fact that as insane as it can be, I like it. I like the intensity. I like that in the middle of it you think "dude this sucks so bad" and then you finish it and think "AWESOME...i just finished that!!" The sense of accomplishment with pretty much every workout is totally worth it. The strength gains I have made over the past 5 months also are pretty awesome in my book. Here are a few:

1)Resistance bands for pull ups come in a variety of colors, black, green, blue, red and white. Those are in order of decreasing assistance (black has the most resistance hence will help you the most with a pull up). Once I got the hang of the kipping pullups and how they 'worked'...I was started on the BLACK band in January. I just recently moved down a band to the red band! Although if we have lots of pullups in a workout of the day, I do move up to blue.

2) I've started doing my pushups in my warm-ups with my knees off the floor, finally.

3) I FULLY accomplished doing box jumps on the 24" boxes...i started on 12" inch boxes and was generally afraid of the taller boxes to begin with. (I fall on things...that's not a good habit of mine)

4) I can deadlift well over my bodyweight and am closing in on 1.5. One day I hope to at least backsquat my bodywieght...i'm getting close.

There are many other little accomplishments, these are just a few. And while I enjoy these accomplishments, I still have a long way to go to get to some of the prescribed weights for a workout. Like this week on Wed our workout was 'Snelen' ('Helen' with snatches rather than kettlebell swings.) It looked like this:
3 rounds for time
Run 400m
12 snatches (supposed to be 45lbs for women, 95 lbs for men...me...i'm a weakling and could only do 22lbs)
21 kipping pullups

23:18 was my time. Pretty darn slow..someone did 10 something and I think there were times that were shorter than that too. But no matter, I'm improving.

Tuesday we did:
First we bench pressed: 5-5-5...i'm a weakling therefore I only pressed 68lbs.

Then the timed workout of the day was:
Run 400m
30 kettlebell swings (1 pood for women, 1.5 pood for men. pood = 16kg)
30 box jumps (24" for women, 36" for men)
30 knees to elbows (not even close to even getting my knees near my elbows...one day)
Run 400m

One of the guys made a comment that when doing kettle bell swings we should all be 'equal'...bla, bla, bla. (he just didn't want to do 1.5 pood which is about 55lbs)I had to point out to him that for me and the other woman who was doing the workout if you scaled the workout according to how much weight we as woman could throw around, we actually were swinging more weight proportionally around. I had pressed 68 pounds and the other woman had pressed something like 80lbs...and I had just watched this guy bench 200 pounds, so proportion to our upper body strength the women were doing 'more' so to speak. I know kettle bell swings aren't really the same muscle recruitment as a bench press...but it was more of an idea of that kind of strength ratio.

As we were doing the workout the three of us were kind of going back and forth as far as who was going faster on what activity. The guy could thrown down knees to elbows pretty fast so he ended up finishing first, but the other woman and I were still toe to toe by the time we got to knees to elbows. She actually was a little faster on everything and headed out the door first for the final 400m run. She took off...I took off...and it.was.on. I caught her before the turn around and finished well before her. She asked me afterwards "Did you used to be a runner? Cuz you smoked me on the run" OK I rarely ever hear something like that! But I just dug in for that last sprint and made it count for everything. Sweet.

My heart is full...

I've been trying to write this post for a few days now, and I don't really know how to without being a total rambling mess combined with large doses of philosophical introspection that I'm not sure will make a lot of sense, but I will blather on anyway if I can get the words together.

For my vacation I decided to go back East to my graduation from graduate school and then stay for a week to see friends. I somehow felt that I needed to be hooded, mainly because I was more afraid that 50 years down the line I would regret missing the opportunity. So I used it as an excuse to see my friends who I dearly missed.

Graduation was filled with the necessary insane fiascoes that only my dept is capable of...but amazingly a few people stepped up to the plate and became some unlikely heroes in my book. It was refreshing to see that people are capable of unexpected behavior in a good way, even if they have proved to be difficult to deal with otherwise. My sister came out for my graduation so it was great to share this with her and then show her around western MA and boston over the weekend.

Being the SUPER planner in my 'everyday' life...my vacation planning took the opposite...none. Or very little. So sadly I just walked my sister around Boston and gave her my own 'walking tour' of the town rather than actually making a real tour, because I messed up times of tours and we were just slow to get anywhere...but we had a great time and she really enjoyed being in MA for the weekend. I played 'tour guide' for her for Boston a city I know very little about since I spent 5 years not in this area, but somehow it worked out and she had a great time.

During my planning of this trip, Claire suggested a meet up. I somehow convinced Angry to join our dinner fun too. Aside from randomly meeting Paul at a workout out here in SD, bloggers that I know in real life I had met in my pre-blog days. This was my first "meet other bloggers convention" where there was an actual event...that was planned...where we had to make actual conversation for a set period of time. Err...for an introvert like me, I had no idea how this would fare. I mean...what would we talk about? Sure we have similar interests...but I quickly found out that people who read your blog...well they know all your stories...so then you have to come up with other topics. In the end the meet up was fun...no weirdly awkward silences (which is death to me). I didn't display my uncontrollable hysterical laughter, which I think Claire was disappointed by, but people have to be really lucky to witness that, maybe next time.

After two days in Boston I headed back to western MA for most of the week. It was a great time of seeing friends and catching up. I had the opportunity to help a good friend of mine move to her new diggs as she just defended and is starting her job soon. Helping her move was soooo awesome in the timing of the move because we had shared so much throughout grad school as we had started in the same class together and struggled through gradschool's twists and turns. Also while I was out in MA, one of my previous housemates , a good friend of mine, got engaged while I was out there. This was just an awesome time to share with her. I never would have dreamed that I would get to BE there after it happened and share in her excitement. Over the course of the week I got to spend time with many different friends, laughing so hard I cried at times.

I got to spend my last day and a half with Joe and J...who's friendships have been so easy. Very rarely do I come across people where they slip into my life and it feels like they have been there the whole time. In my life they have skipped the sometimes long time requirement that other friendships take to become the 'comfortable' friends and more have expected the friendship to be comfortable...like old friends.

My trip back East reminded me how blessed I am by the people in my life. And while I miss them all dearly, I also gained new insights into my need to start cultivating new areas in my life out in S.Cali...so it was good...it was so, so good. I really can't coherently express really how great the week was, but my heart is very full...

Back...safe and sound

I am back in good ol' SoCali from an awesome week on vacation out in New England. There is much swirling around in my head...much happened...and lots of resting also happened too. Only bummer thing I forgot about on the way home is that darn jet stream...took 4.5 hours to get out East and 6 to get back...bla.

My heart is happy and full from my time back East and it has changed some of my perspective for the better.

More later.