It's been a quiet month in Lake Maxinkuckee... so I #NEVERDID some stuff

Who has two thumbs and hates the snow? This gal. 

It's been a quiet month here. After fifteen months of training using consecutive training programs (half marathon followed by full marathon followed by Dopey Challenge), I took an easy month. I ran a couple of times in the cold, but not in the snow. And it took me a couple of weeks to unpack my bags from Dopey. But it was a quiet month. No pressure. I also was looking for some inspiration. I crossed off something from my bucket list at the beginning of January. I really didn't have any "what's next?" inspiration. Not all who wander are lost, though! 

And then I received the exciting news that I have been named an ambassador for Skirt Sports. I'm a huge fan (although some of my new Skirt Sisters are showing me through their posts that I have to up my Skirt game!) 

Who doesn't love this? 

 One of the best parts of the Skirt Sports mission is that they are a group of strong frickin' women who support one another. It's about the skirts, but it's not about the skirts. So while I was looking for a challenge, I found one at Skirt Sports; I was inspired by a challenge they put out to the ambassadors. 

The #NEVERDO challenge asks that we choose something that we never do and do it. Simple enough? I interpreted it a little differently from perhaps the original intent of the challenge. I kept thinking of how I often remind my students that "sometimes they must do the thing that they don't want to do so that they can do the thing that they want to do." So I picked out a thing I don't ever want to do, and I did it. I ran outside in a snowstorm. Well, on snowy roads after a snowstorm. I have seldom run outside in the last two years if there was snow on the roads because I didn't want to risk injury in my pursuit of Dopey. So off I went! And I didn't hate it. 

And then I did another #NEVERDO. See the picture below: 

Bike on Trainer--My butt never likes this. My brain also never likes this. 

In the last two years, I haven't had my bike on the trainer. And in the summer months, I've mostly been running. I think I may have ridden my bike three or four times total all summer. I was running. So I headed to the basement, and I threw my bike on the trainer, and I watched an episode of The West Wing. And then I did planks! And crunches! And then a pig flew past the window...
not really. But it is a rare, rare thing for me to do anything but run. So maybe I'm turning a corner on this thing...

Because today, I rode again.

What's your #NEVERDO? Gonna do it?

Ride today! Wooppeee!

Missed my run or ride yesterday when I got something in my eye that felt like a lincoln log. It was a speck, but it knocked me on my back for about an hour while I tried to figure out why every time I tried to open my eye, my body's reflex was to slam it shut again. Big baby. Couldn't get out.

But today, after a bunch of after-school hullaballoo, I came home and took a quick nap. I needed it. Some afternoons, my energy is completely gone by 1:30, and it takes a lot to recover it. I'm trying to be better about spreading my calories out over the course of the day, but it doesn't always happen. So today, I was wiped.

I made a couple of slices of bread with some natural PB on them when I got home. Then I took a nap. And I woke up at 6:00 and jumped off the couch and got changed and was out the door by 6:10. Rock on. That's about as late as I can go to get a ride in here. So it was a shortie, but I was happy to have done it. 

Time for some relaxation.