Update from Jenny

Whoever coined the term change is as good as a holiday was certainly onto something. My big recent change? Moving! Not a huge move geographically, I really just moved into the next suburb, but a wonderful psychological spring clean up to the 5th floor of a walk up in the East Village! The move has left me feeling re energized, and allowed for some changes to my daily routine, as well as a friendly wake up call regarding what I can realistically get done regarding training in the next 7 weeks, and what I need to be working a bit harder on.

This change has brought with it a few wonderful lifestyle in-builts – packing, moving place and then unpacking was great exercise, especially with all those stairs. And now, I get in-built daily stair training exercise. I am now also a little further from work which means 30 minute longer round trip walk everyday.

To my complete surprise, I actually joined the gym down the street from my office ....and I like the place! Who would have thought? Still chronically time poor, I have started going for a quick training session at lunch, namely a run on a treadmill, which is a damn site safer than navigating the crowds of NY streets at midday, followed by some strengthening exercises and stretching. It has started out as a quick 30 minute session; I slap out a couple of miles on the mill and am back at my desk for the afternoon round of meetings. It has been a long time since I used to run for exercise, possibly back in high school, so a 20 minute run without stopping has me pretty pleased at the moment. The plan though is that every time I go to the gym, I will add on an extra minute or two till hopefully, by the end of the month, I should be comfortably running for 45 minutes and still get back to my desk in a timely manner! As motivation to do this, and to provide a shorter term goal, I have signed up to participate in a biathlon on April 25, involving a 3 mile run, then 18 mile bike ride, then 3 mile run again.

So those were a couple of wins for the last fortnight. On reassessment of some of my earlier goals, I recognize that there are a few things that probably won’t happen before Ranier - actual hiking outdoors for instance. A bout of mild food poisoning last weekend meant I didn’t get to enjoy the sunshine on my bike, but some research for work will take me touring the Staten Island Bluebelt on two wheels this weekend so lets hope for some good weather!