December has been nuts! I have been so insanely busy that I was no way ready for Christmas and was a total Grinch. But... after some shopping, Christmas tree and house decorating, and gift wrapping - I am beginning to get in the mood.
I started coaching swim this month unexpectedly and the kids are great. I love them. Swimmers rank up their with cross country runners... just really really sweet kids. I was extremely worried about coaching this team but I do the work outs two days a week and have a helper who comes in once to teach skill work and technique. She went to college on a swim scholarship and is amazing! I try to soak up all her tips as well. The bad thing is practice is from 7:30-8:30 which leaves for a late night. I can't decide if I like it or hate it. It is good that I can do my own work out, get dinner for the kids, etc before practice but then it is bad because it makes for a very long day.
I also finished off my run club with the St. Jude kids marathon. It was a really emotional day for me. The Lausanne kids were so pumped to be running and just being down there for that cause is just an amazing feeling. The kids run ran along the marathoners for a bit and as we rounded the corner and saw the stadium they were so excited. I have not done St. Jude in years but next year I am pretty sure I am going to run the half. I loved being part of the crowd and they did an awesome job with the kids race and after party.
We have celebrated Christmas big time this week as the kids will be with the other parents for the week before Christmas. We all had a secret Santa this week and we hid presents around the house for each other. We ended the week with a reveal party with way too much food and by then everyone had figured out who was who. Noah definitely took the prize for the most creative gifts. It was so fun buying for everyone. At our kids age it is hard to get them in the Christmas spirit. When they were younger, we had santa visits, enchanted forest, alpine village, etc to get them excited. As teenagers it is hard. This year I put a bunch of activities in a bowl. Make cookies, Make snowman ice cream, watch a Christmas movie, play Christmas Pictionary, Christmas Cake eating contest, go look at lights, etc and we picked one every morning to do that night. Lots of fun and all the kids had a great time.
Stewart rewarded ourselves with a quick trip to NOLA leaving the 19th and coming back the 22nd so I have a busy week getting everything ready for Christmas day!
And on the training front... I have hired my old coach Liz starting in January. I have been free wheeling it and doing just enough for a while now. With Boston and Ironman on the horizon figured it was time to get back to work. I do plan on doing the CC winter series which I have not done in forever so excited about that!! I am extremely nervous how I am going to fit IM training in my life so decided it was time to hand that back over to a coach. Liz is great, knows me, believes in undertraining vs overtraining and in the past she produced lots of PR's. January will be back to hitting the training in a more structured way ...
Happy December!!
