New Neighborhood, New Training Routes

Last year I sold my home and moved to a different suburb. This also meant that I lost the great training routes that I had mapped from my home. When training by myself for the 3 Day, I like to be able to leave from where I live to begin walking, instead of needing to get in my car and drive someplace to walk. Where I live at now is near a large shopping area, which means there are lots of restaurants, hotels, and you guessed it, TRAFFIC! So now my training routes include stopping and obeying traffic lights and watching for cars that turn in and out of parking lots. This morning I decided to start walking early and beat the traffic of people going to work.

A few days ago I drove the route I was planning to walk this morning. Only one major intersection to cross and the office park parking lots weren’t busy with traffic since it was still early. The only downside to the walk was that it was just short of 3 miles. I can sometimes be a little anal about making certain I walk 3 complete miles, not 2.9 miles. I know, I know…

When training for the 3 Day it is important that you hydrate during your walk. Now that it is already 80 degrees at 6:30 AM in Dallas, I am definitely sure to carry more than just water. I carry two sports bottles – one sports bottle with water and the other sports bottle with a beverage that has electrolytes. I am not a Gatorade fan, so I use a powder by Crystal Light that is meant for fitness workouts. And by time I returned home, I had nearly finished all of my liquids!

Another important factor for training walks is to make certain that restrooms are easily accessible. The route I walked this morning had a nice gas station that was open….just in case. Although I didn’t need it this morning, I can see stopping there on longer training walks for a bio break and possibly to refresh my fluids.

One of the no-no’s on the 3 Day is walking with headphones. I will admit that I am guilty of walking with my headphones when walking alone. This morning I just made certain not to turn on my music until after I had crossed the major intersection. I also made certain to walk against traffic in order to see the vehicles that might try to turn in front of me to enter a parking lot.

The only thing left to do is to perfect my route to be a true 3 miles instead of 2.9 miles!

Taking a Break

For the past 15 months I have been working on my master’s degree, and I’ll go on record to say that time has been a very precious commodity during this time period! I used to say ‘People make time for the things that are important to them’. I have learned that I need to modify that statement since it seems that I don’t have enough time for all of the things that are important to me. So, I finally decided to throw in the towel and take a short break from school.

The decision was pretty hard for me….on one hand I am at my breaking point with balancing my career and school, and on the other hand I feel like I am giving up. (I forgot to mention that I only have 3 classes left, which makes me feel like an even bigger loser right now.) Placing all of those things aside, I know that taking a break is the best decision for me right now.

Although this is only Day 3 of the break, it is refreshing to know that after working a 12 hour day that I can go back to my hotel room and watch mindless TV, or catch up with friends, or learn more about my iPad. And I won’t feel guilty that I should be reading an assignment for class or working on one of the many assignments that I have due for the week.

I am looking forward to this break to get my life back (temporarily!) and refocus on all of the things that are important to me. Hopefully I’ll come out on the other end refreshed, reenergized, and motivated to finish my last 3 classes!