World's easiest job

There are many things so incredible about Mexico City that I find myself wondering if I can go back to a normal life in the US. I have a driver that picks me up every day and does all of our errands/maintence work on the house/watering plants/etc, a housekeeper that cooks and cleans three times a week, some of the best food around, markets with cheap fresh fruits and vegetables that are open every day, I could go on. Then there are the things that I have to sit back and say, well, it's Mexico. Like the time I was trying to buy something at Sears for the house that I really needed and there was no price tag. In the US, the sales person would look up the item and charge me for it. Here they tell you they can't sell it to you even after pleading and offering what is more than twice the value of said item. Obviously they arent working on commission. And then there are the times that I scratch my head and really have no idea what is going on. Today I came back from lunch and as I was crossing the street I saw this:

Two people helping cars go through a, wait for it, GREEN LIGHT. Now, this isnt rush hour by any means as you can see in the photo, so I am not sure why there are two people waving cars through. Especially since I know that in a few hours when there are thousands of cars jammed in those few lanes the traffic cops will be nowhere in sight. I didnt think too much of it until I walked about 10 meters and saw this:

Yes cop number three obviously working hard for the money. And then as I crossed the next block (yes these cops were all 1 block apart) I see this:

Three cops helping the few cars go through the green lights. There were 6 cops in 1 block directing about 15 cars through green lights. They will all finish work before the 6:30 rush hour, leaving hundreds of us fuming as we wait forever to go through this exact street light. I guess they are doing their job, but it would be really nice if they could work during the races on sundays so cars wouldnt try to run you over.
This Sunday is another 10K in the park, and I am hoping I dont repeat last weekend. There is no way that I will come anywhere near the top of my division since there are only a few: Women, Men, Military and Masters. My goal is to get a Mexico City 10K PR. This week's training has been going pretty good, but I am realizing I need to work on my endurance more than my speed. This will be the focus over the next few weeks - more long slower runs. I have been doing 3+ track and tempo workouts a week, and I am going to cut that down to no more than 2 with 1 long run and one medium run a week. I will continue that through the summer half marathons here. Hopefully that, plus another accidental Mexico cleanse that can get me to racing weight, will give me a PR in Chicago!

I am still here

I haven't been writing much, because, well there isnt too much going on. I guess I could write about the cooler weather, constant power outages in our neighborhood, or the fact that I went on a sugar binge on saturday and ate three krispy kremes, but it didnt seem like anything worth mentioning. I think the sugar binge caused me to sleep through my alarm on sunday. This has NEVER happened. Not in my years in school, not all through university and never after. I have no clue what happened, except I know I woke up to a dogs arse in my face at 8:20AM. So needless to say the race was missed. I was totally bummed, but realized that there is a race here every weekend and I could use the time to get on the trainer again.
I am one week into Pilates and I love it so far. It is a totally new way to exercise for me and I am definitely using muscles I havent ever used or havent used in a log time. I am taking a semi private class twice a week for one month and may bump that up to three times a week next month. It may just replace the hole in my heart left from not being able to swim. As much as we love Mexico City, it has been a huge change in so many ways. Most of them are good, but the worst change is that racing tris here is pretty much hopeless. I cant wait until the day we are back in a place that is easy to train in and has races within driving distance. I was especially bummed out because one of my favorite races was this past weekend - the Honolulu Tri. Congrats to everyone racing it! I was thinking about you all when I was on my trainer on Sunday and I think it made me go extra hard!
Even though it isnt feasable to train on a tri bike in the city, there are other ways to ride. I cant remember if I mentioned this, but Mexico City has started a new program called Eco Bici. It is very similar to what they have in Paris, Spain, the netherlands, etc where you basically pay a fee for the year (here it is less than $25 USD) and you can rent the bikes. You go to a stand and pick up a bike and ride it and then drop it off at any other stand. They dont have them all over the city yet, but they have started them in our neighborhood and all by the park and my office. It took about 5 times as long as it should to actually get a card and we had to visit the office three times, but we finally have full access to these bikes. Mom, no comments about not having a helmet - I am just testing out to make sure the card actually works here.


Unfortunately it rained the entire weekend so we havent had a chance to use them yet, but I think Chris is so excited he has decided to walk the dogs using the bike instead of his skateboard.

Finally May!

First of all I have to give huge congrats to everyone that raced this past weekend in Utah, San Fran, Mexico City and everywhere else, especially Beth who rocked her first IM!
My month of work hell is over! I love my job, but sometimes everything piles on at once and I can barely breath. But it is finally over, and I am back to normal (whatever that is). Unfortunately there is no race report. The virus that Chris had ran through him and over to me and I woke up sunday feeling like I was going to die. I started to get dressed and then Chris talked me out of it reminding me how bad it would be for me to go out and run a half marathon when walking to the bathroom winded me. I am really glad at times like these that I have a smart person in my life. Plus I have a 15K in a couple of weeks so I dont have to go too long again without racing. This week is another 50+ mile week mostly on the dreadmill. We are getting air quality warnings, so as much as I hate it, I know I have to stay inside. It makes me miss the Vog that I used to hate so much.

This morning was one of those extra hard to get out of bed mornings. Especially when I woke up to this.


Yes that is my little friend that sneaks under the covers at night (not to be confused with chris the cover stealer). He pretends to sleep when I leave at 6AM so I wont move him, and I have to say it works. This morning I was so unmotivated to run that when I got into the office I did what any sane person would do. I went shopping. Normally I would hit one of my staples - Lululemon or zoot, but today I made an unexpected change. I purchased a new garmin 310 along with the hookup for the bike trainer and foot pod since 90% of my workouts are indoors. My old garmin is in the crapper and takes about 30 minutes to even find satellite signal, so I definitely need an upgrade. I dont get it until I go back home in a month, but even the thought of it brings about some much needed motivation. I debated between that and the 405 until I read all the bad reviews and saw that there is a $50 rebate on the 310. Also, I am trying to change things up a bit so I dont get so bored from running. I am on the trainer about 10-12 hours a week, and since the hills marathon has been deleted from my DVR, I am getting bored of the trainer as well. Since I cant swim here I decided to look for a new event. About two blocks away from my house is a pilates studio (with machines and all), and I decided to make this my third sport. I have my first private lesson on Friday to assess my skilz. I have lost a tremendous amount of flexibility from my days of dancing and gymnastics and even more now that running is such a big portion of my workouts and figure that if I cant swim, at least I can learn a good party trick.

Am I really that old??

Warning MOM - do not read this because you will feel even older than I do.

I have to work on sunday during the day, so I figured that I would look around for a race that would force me to get out of bed in time to finish my long run. I found a half marathon that is being held about a mile from my house so I decided to sign up. When I got my confirmation I saw this:


At first I thought that they had made a mistake and sent me the wrong number, but with further investigation (read: looking at my driver's license and doing the math) I realized they were correct. I have offically moved up an age group and am entering the last of the 30s. How can this be? I am still 22 right? I dont actually turn 35 until October, but that still doesnt make me feel better. I was telling people incorrectly all year that I am 32 until I was corrected and reminded that, in fact, I am 34 and my little brother is 32. I long for the days when I would be mad when the age groups were in bundles of 10 becuase I didnt want to actually have to click something that said 39 when I was only 30. I guess I should not complain too much because things could be worse. I could have a 4 in front of my age instead of a 3.

Almost through with hell month

April has probably been the roughest work month I have had in a long time, hence the slacking on the blog front. Other than a ton of meetings/traveling, there is nothing too much to report. Last week I was in Puerto Vallarta with our divisional team, which means late nights, heavy food, and long days. I did get a full week of sea level/beach training in, which is always fun! We made it out one night to one of the local bars where I met some new big, sweaty friends.

Yesterday was my first race finally! It is a big race and ended up selling out, so I am glad I planned ahead and signed up. The plan was to run the 3 miles to the start, run the race and then do an easy jog home. There was a last minute change to the course due to the president coming through the area, which made for a difficult run to the start. As I was coming up to the starting area I realized that there were metal detectors everywhere, so we had to go around the park and come back. This added on another mile plus to my warmup. As I have said in the past, the races here are very well organized and well run and the volunteers are great, however I did have one issue this year - heavy human traffic. I know it was due to the last minute course change, so it really couldnt have been avoided. The first mile was run on residential streets instead of the main road here, cutting the size to about half of what we normally would have, causing a huge jam. I had a few people around me stumble and fall and noone could really pick up the pace much faster than a fast walk until we hit the 1.5 K mark. After that we spread out a bit and were able to pick up the pace. I was feeling good really the entire time with no stomach issues (I drank only water at each station) or breathing problems. As soon as we hit 8K, the traffic started up again. The runners converged with the 5K walkers and there was once again a cluster that we couldnt get around. Most of the runners started having to walk unfortunately, but again I think this was due to the course change. I wasnt too worried about it since I never expect fast races in Mexico City and this was really just a tempo run in the middle of my long run for the week, but there were a few of angry people shoving their way through. After the race I ran home weaving around even more barriers that had been set up for whatever was going on. 14 miles later I was home where I parked it on the couch to watch the Hills marathon.

Sick or lack of Protein?

Yesterday I woke up more exhausted than normal even though I slept through the night (this is a rare occurance because of the two dogs and the many times I normally get up to pee in the night), but got dressed and made my way to the gym. I got on the treadmill for a 9 mile workout that I had planned. When I got to mile 5 and could barely turnover my feet, I knew it was time to call it a day. I was drained and felt like I was getting sick. Here is the picture of me after running. I have looked like this before, but normally my eyes are only this puffy after downing many shots of tequila and getting 2 hours sleep.

At work I tried to eat lunch and my body was so tired I almost threw up anything that I was swallowing, so I decided to go home and take a nap. 3 hours later and I felt ok enough to try and eat again. I decided that all of this could also mean I was low on iron, protein or anything else, so I abandoned my pescetarian diet for the evening and had some grilled chicken and a large salad. I was in bed at 9 and slept in this morning getting about 10.5 hours of sleep. I feel much better today and am going to attempt yesterday's run again this afternoon.
I am still not sure if my new diet was to blame or if it was because I was getting sick and ended up getting enough rest to ward off any problems. I felt great for about a month of the diet, so I am inclined to think it was something I was coming down with. Though if it happens again I will adjust my eating habits accordingly.
It is spring here and the jacarandas are in full bloom - this is mexico's version of the bluebonnet. They are gorgeous and streets are lined with these trees in full bloom. It makes running outside that much better.

This week is a big week in the city and security is out in full force. We have the first lady staying at the hotel where I work out of, which means that you have to pass through the same security system you do at the airport anytime you want to enter the hotel. It has made me late to several morning meetings because I normally am carrying in at least two bags a large coffee and bottle of water. This morning one guy must have remembered me because he didnt search my gym bag like he did yesterday when he got an unpleasant surprise of sweaty clothes and smelly shoes. I am hoping to catch a glimpse of Mrs Obama, but security is so tight I doubt it will actually happen. I hope everyone is having a great week!

P.S. Sorry for any spelling errors now or in the future (yes mom this is for you since I know you are mentally correcting my spelling as you read). My computer has been switched over to the spanish language and I dont know how to change it. So unless you want to read about life here in spanish, you will have to deal with the misspellings.

Food Rules

My brother recently got every girl in our family Food Rules (not really sure what he is trying to tell us). When he came to visit us he informed me that he was now a pescetarian after reading the book. This coming from the boy who ate an entire meat lovers dominos pizza a day and in college existed on meat and potatoes. I finally sat down to read it while I was waiting for our plane in austin, and decided to try out what the book says for a while. It is all stuff that we all know already, but he breaks everything down into one simple statement - eat food, mostly plants, but not too much. I have been trying this for about two weeks, and it is hard! I realized that almost every day I am eating something from a box (cereal, granola, etc) and in two out of three meals I am eating chicken or steak. Not only am I still craving meat, but things are harder since Chris is not changing his eating habits at all and gets really annoyed that now he has to cook two dinners instead of one. I am really trying to eat as much fish as possible to get enough protein as I am not a tofu person. But I am very lucky to live in a place where there are plenty of cheap fresh fruit and vegetable markets so I stock up several times a week which really helps. I also found that I cant really deviate much from what I eat or I will run into trouble (IE not having a clue what I can eat that doesnt involve something coming out of a box). I think it is too early to tell if there are any changes, but I highly recommend the book, especially since you can finish it in about an hour.
After spending a total of 20 hours on the trainer last week, I am giving my bum a break and have another 60 mile run week this week. I also spent the better part of lunch yesterday signing up for some races. Here is what we have for the next few months:
4/25 - 10K in Mexico City
5/2 - Half Marathon Mexico City
5/16 - 15K Mexico City
6/13- 15k Mexico City
6/20 - Half Marathon Mexcio City
8/22 - Mexico City Half Marathon (I may end up running the full depending on how training is going)
9/12 - Chicago Half Marathon
Thanksgiving Turkey trot
12/5 - Las Vegas Half Marathon

I am still deciding on an October or November marathon (NYC maybe) to add in there as well, and will hopefully get a few chances to do some 5Ks and 10Ks in Houston. I know this schedule keeps changing but at least now I am not as much of a slacker and have actually signed up for these so I wont show up the day before to a sold out race.