Although my consulting firm had our holiday shutdown and I was technically off work all week, I had a different kind of work scheduled – ski instructing at Beaver Creek! I had an absolutely amazing time teaching seven classes, mostly levels 4 and 5 (linking turns and getting parallel on easy blue terrain), and even ended up with a high-ranking political official in one of my classes! (No, not Mike Pence, though he was apparently skiing in Beaver Creek all week.) I was especially psyched that several of my guests came back for repeat classes with me, so I got to know them better than just for a day. But by Thursday afternoon, I was really missing my mom and Sadie, and I was excited to get home for New Year’s Eve.
What a weird New Year’s Eve, huh? While normally it’s all about getting dressed up and partying, this year, I spent it cozy in my pajamas. On the way home from the mountain, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a few essentials, and then put together this world’s best mac & cheese for a decadent NYE treat. Murray’s Cheese was unfortunately out of gruyere (I guess everyone had the same idea I did?), but after perusing the cheese case, I picked up jarlsberg and butterkase to add to the white cheddar and tiny bit of gruyere I had at home, for a nice four-cheese blend. To add a bit of protein, I also had shrimp cocktail on the side, which reminded me of my favorite meal at Capitol Grille (shrimp cocktail + their lobster mac & cheese).
Mom and I enjoyed our dinner along with a bit of champagne for me, as we watched Always Be My Maybe on Netflix. I thought it was a really fun and cute movie, and I loved Ali Wong as the lead! Curling up on the couch to watch a movie was definitely a non-traditional way to spend New Year’s Eve, but it was a nice one 🙂 And once the movie was over, we flipped over to some internet livestreams to see what was happening at Times Square (not much!), so we did get a bit of tradition in too.
The next morning, I woke up not feeling so great, which I think was from the super rich mac & cheese. (I devoured two bowls!) But I really wanted to start the new year right, so I immediately headed down to the gym for a nice long stack of a workout: 10 min core with Jess Sims, 30 min intervals & arms with Leanne, 20 min pop strength with Olivia, and finally a 10 min core with Emma. Whew! I am trying to work my way through all the 10 minute core classes in Peloton’s collection, with a goal of finishing them by the end of January. Right now, I’m roughly on track (I basically need to do one or two a day), though it will depend how many new classes get added before I finish. This week, at least, there isn’t a lot of new content coming out, so that gives me a chance to catch up!
I was originally thinking I’d have breakfast right after my gym workout, then take Sadie out later, but I ended up deciding to just get it done and take her out for a quick run. However, we ended up running 7.5 miles! It wasn’t super fast, but Sadie was just so happy to run after I had been away for several days and she had been cooped up with my mom; she was literally leaping in the air for joy when we were getting ready to go 🥰
From there, though, my day got a bit less productive. I met up with my friend Chris for a walk in the afternoon, and I hoped that would get me going again, but I still remained pretty unproductive afterward. Oops! But at night, Mom and I had a nice evening getting takeout Chinese, watching Schitt’s Creek, and then going to bed super duper early. Hey, if I couldn’t be productive Friday, I’d set myself up for success Saturday!
On a roll with morning workouts, I tried to get right into my workout Saturday as well: 10 min core with Alex, 30 min pop bootcamp with Cody, and 10 min core with Ally. I caught up on some work emails and other stuff on the computer for the morning, but then dragged myself out for my run with Sadie right before lunch… and we did 6.5 miles! Once again, I hadn’t been planning to go that long, but that meant I was already at 14 total for the month; I’ve set a goal of running 120 miles in January, so this gets me off to a great start 🙂 Although a lot of friends are doing streaking challenges, I figured that setting a mileage goal for the month would be a healthier way to encourage myself to run more while still allowing myself some days off.
Also on the goal setting front – the stacks I did both Friday and Saturday weren’t totally random. My fitness goal for January is to do at least 10 minutes a day each of core, cardio, strength, and yoga. Core I typically do when I first wake up, and yoga right before bed, so that’s really only 20 minutes a day of actual working out. I figure that most of the time, I’ll far surpass it, but this will force me to do something on days I want to be lazy 🙂 I created a January fitness tracker here, which I printed out and am using pretty pens to fill in daily.
And as for my strength on Saturday? I signed up for the Peloton Reddit #ReBOOTYourBooty Challenge, and am working through the advanced program: three days a week of 20 minute glutes & legs classes; specifically, I’m following Selena Samuela’s recommended program here. I often procrastinate on doing leg day strength, because I don’t want to be sore for running, so I’m happy that this challenge is holding me accountable and making glutes & legs classes a priority. While my legs are definitely getting sore from the classes, I am really in “base building” mode for running right now – just running outside (rather than the treadmill), and pretty much ignoring pace. Hopefully this will help my legs get that much stronger for more speedwork come spring!
I ran a few errands in the afternoon, including trying to get replacements for my heated ski boots that seem to have stopped working. Unfortunately, the replacements don’t seem to be working either! My boots have worked flawlessly for two years up until now, so I can’t imagine it’s user error, but it’s so bizarre to me that the brand new pair wouldn’t work either. Another trip to Salomon will be needed to sort this out, unfortunately 🙁
In the evening, Mom and I had another quiet night on the couch. I made a spinach coconut black bean curry that came out absolutely delicious, and we watched The Prom on Netflix – which was really fun and cute! I never got to see this on Broadway, so it was great to have a movie version. I’m sure I have no idea what I’m talking about with how difficult the logistics might be, but I really wish that more “current” (aka current in March 2020) Broadway shows were able to tape their productions for people to enjoy. I would be willing to pay close to the price of an actual Broadway ticket to stream a production, even if it weren’t with all the camera angles and production value of the taped production of Hamilton!
On Sunday, though, I mixed up my workout routine quite a bit – and right after my 10 minute core class with Robin, I bundled up to take Sadie on a hike rather than a run. We headed over to Rattlesnake Gulch, and learning from my last experience, I wore Yak Trax to help with the icy trail. The trail actually wasn’t quite as icy as I expected, but maybe I just thought that because I had my Yak Trax on? Haha.
We didn’t see too many people, and we had the top all to ourselves, which was amazing 🙂
After we got home, I did a 20 minute chest and back strength with Rebecca, 20 minute best of 2020 yoga flow with Aditi, and another 10 minute core with Matty. Then, a shower and early lunch! I supplemented our Chinese food leftovers with some frozen broccoli, and it was really good and filling, especially after all that exercise.
In the afternoon, I took down all our Christmas decorations while catching up with my good friend Mike on the phone. It has been forever since I’ve seen him! When I finished with the Christmas decorations, I moved on to cleaning the house (washing the windows, scrubbing the sinks, etc) – and it felt so good to have the house clean again. I used to stick to a strict cleaning schedule that varied by week of the month, but that kind of went by the wayside when my mom moved in with me; I really need to get it going again.
As the sun went down, I moved into evening with a training clinic to prep for a ski instructor certification exam (PSIA level 1) I’ll be taking in February. It is going to be a lot of prep work to get ready, and I have to admit, I got a bit stressed out thinking about how to balance that with my other commitments! But I’ll be done by mid-February, so I keep reminding myself that even if it’s a little overwhelming, it’s only for six weeks and then it will be done. (And hopefully passed.)
Finally, I threw together a stir fry for dinner with a pretty unusual combination of flavorings: garlic, ginger, turmeric, soy sauce, sesame oil, sweet chili sauce, and a dash of rosemary. (The inspiration came from reading the ingredient label on this ground chicken, which I thought was delicious; I wanted to flavor the whole stir fry like it.) I couldn’t tell you what proportions I used, but it came out amazing and I will be experimenting with rosemary in my Thai dishes in the future! YUM.
I can’t believe it’s January already! I am still not feeling ready to commit to a year of resolutions or 2021 goals yet, but I made those fitness goals for January above, and I think I will just keep trying to stack some new habits and changes on throughout the month. Maybe by February I’ll be able to commit to something longer term? Or maybe 2021 will be the year of setting one month of goals at a time. Either way, I am happy the new year is here 🙂