Where have I been? What have I been doing?

I feel so out of my own loop, i've been traveling quite a bit for the last two weekends, and i'm finally home and trying to work through what I think may have been some sniffles donated to me by several millions of people at Gate B at LaGuardia Airport.

Let me recap at bit: two weeks ago, yes, two weeks ago, I took some fun pictures of the best track workout ever and that was because Dave was able to go with me! We rarely, I mean rarely get to run or doing anything together due to our schedules and for some reason on that Tuesday, he finished work early and came with me to track! I'm not sure which part of me had more fun, me nailing my workouts, or watching Dave run in the first group and hold his own against some of the fast guys. I have some documented pictures which i'll post later, but right now i'm at work and I figured at the very least, I could blog, but the pictures will have to wait since i'm the only person in the entire working world with a computer that doesn't have a USB port. And, I still have a "bubble" monitor.

My training was going well the last two weeks and then I traveled last weekend and then this past weekend Dave and I took a red eye to NYC on Wednesday night, landed Thursday morning and spent the weekend with all my cousins, and immediate family for my cousin Mike's wedding. It was ....AWESOME. By far one of the most fun weddings i've ever been too---let me just say the band alone was worth the red eye =0. They played between every course, so not a whole lot of sitting around. I've been to some weddings where you sit for like hours, sit through speeches and then all of a sudden the last hour, the DJ or band is playing and you're thinking "oh yeah, there is dancing at weddings." Anyway, my Aunt Denise and mother of the groom (HI Aunt Denise!) informed me she is a loyal blog reader, so I felt compelled to let her know what a blast we had at her son's wedding. Mike is my cousin and after years of partying it up with him in various locations, Harrisonburg, VA, Boston, MA, NYC and other family adventures--it was so great to see him celebrate with his new wife Gigi! So, cheers to them and we can't wait to see the pictures!

We tried......"tried," being the key word here, flying back on our originally scheduled flight on Sunday. It didn't pan out well. We were supposed to leave at 4:30 from LaGuardia...so we were there at 2:30. 4:30 turned into 7:00 and the story is even longer than I am willing to type--we took off at 1:15 a.m. I know this because I looked down and I'm like "I cannot believe I was that calm for 11 hours". Anyway, we landed in Atlanta at 3:00 a.m.....made it safely to our cheap Hilton hotel room ($59.00 bucks for a stay at the Hilton, I'll take it!). And no, the airlines didn't reimburse since all the issues were due to weather. The kicker here: AirTran could not get us a flight out of Atlanta until 7:45 p.m......on Monday, so we spent all day in Atlanta. AND, I will say you learn quickly: some things are worth paying for like $8.00 for one pair of CLEAN underwear at the hotel gift shop.

When we finally sauntered up to the ticket counter on Monday...after waiting all day for our 7:45 p.m. flight, I did some quick talking, a polite smile and we found ourselves flying business class for FREE =0.....so, it made it all a little more comfortable.

Arriving back home, I had the itch of a sore throat and yesterday I was nodding absentmindedly during a meeting I really needed to pay attention to, but my eyes were really heavy. Then, my phone rang and I hear "Meredith! It's Amanda!"......and then "You sound like you're sick." So, then I was under strict orders to skip my track workout and to go home and put my head down. She also won't write me a schedule until she knows i'm feeling better....smart woman, because today I woke up and I was thinking a masters swim might help my sore throat.....i'm feeling like if I am going to lose all my hard work for Vineman.

However, I know.....I need a day or two off, so i'm feeling a bit better today, took a ton of "Emergen"C" and an Allegra, thinking it may have been the hideous humidity and awful allergy-ridden East Coast that threw my little system off =0.

So, hopefully I'll be back on track by the weekend and feeling a bit more secure for Vineman. I'm not sure what to expect, I will say that i've learned from the past that for some reason I do really well with a lot of rest before races, I tend to race well if i've had some time off. What would happen in the past before I was on any schedule or I had a coach is something would come up, or I wouldn't be able to train as much and then I would go out and race, having a good base and typically I was happy with my results, so hopefully this bit of down time for two days will help a little!

Thanks for reading and i'll post pictures soon!!