Broiled chicken breast tossed in olive oil, garlic slivers, salt & pepper with sauteed mushrooms & onions along with garlic mashed red potatoes. Quite easy to make.
When thinking back on the week there really isn't any one thing that sticks out at me. I'm really enjoying my new schedule because it has a lot of variety and I'm learning some new skills. I didn't get to a couple of my goals for the week because of some substitutions like putting a bed with drawers together. I find that if I don't look at my list of goals it is very easy to slack off. Here are my actions from last week:
Last Week's Goals & Actions:
* Improve programming skills and finance/business knowledge for work
* Read 250 more pages of the ASP.Net 3.5 book
* Read two articles daily on various technical topics
* Stay fit and healthy
* 3 days of strength work last week and getting stronger
* Mountain biking at the White Water Center on Saturday
* Racquetball w/ Tyler & Seth on Tuesday & Thursday
* Ran twice for 6 miles each
* Be a great husband and (soon to be) father
* Cooked dinner a couple of times (improve cooking skills goal)
* Cleaned out and arranged the baby room and our bedroom
* Continued to read the Baby Care Book each night before bed
* Improve handyman skills
* Worked on the deck from 2-5pm Saturday and 9am-5pm Sunday
* Put together a space efficient king bed w/ drawers underneath
* Nurture and improve relationships with family, old friends, and new friends
* Had friends over for poker night on Friday night
* Had dinner with Clarke on Saturday night at his place
* Worked on the deck with Watkins
Recap:
Since my last triathlon I've put on about 10 lbs......some muscle and some fat. I went hog wild on the cookies over the holidays and I'm ready to trim things down again. My approach to doing this will be to continue what I'm doing for activities and eat more clean foods like fruits, veggies, chicken, lean beef, fish, and good sources of fat like avacados. I'm going to start looking for some cleaner recipes that are tasty but don't have quite as much fat. If I find any good ones maybe I'll share them.
The deck project took a step forward, then a step back, and now we seem to be in a good place. Neither Steve nor I really know exactly what we're doing so the process is taking a little longer than it should. That being said, we're still having fun and I'm learning a lot. We put the deck band up we didn't realize that flashing was supposed to go behind it as well so we spent the day Sunday ripping off the deck band and installing the flashing. It wasn't easy to take the 40' deck band down with 3 nails every 6".
I had five other guys over for poker on Friday night. It was a different crew than last time and I didn't know most of them very well so it was a good opportunity to get to know them better. I had a great time. We were playing texas holdem and one thing to note is that on one hand I flopped a royal flush. I was holding JT of spades and the flop came AKQ of spades. I slow played it and ended up taking in a good sized pot.
Saturday I rode my mountain bike at the WWC for the first time. Those trails are awesome. So far that's my favorite place to ride. I ended up riding with three guys that headed out on the trail just before me. My technical skills are still a bit shaky and I went over the bars 5 times. The good thing is that I was fit enough to get back on my bike and catch back up on the uphills after dusting myself off. Crashing in mountain biking isn't as bad as on the road. The pavement hurts much worse at 20+ mph than the dirt does at less than 12 mph. I came away from the ride with a solid workout (156 bpm ave hr, 190 max hr) and only a couple of bruises.
On Monday's run I had a conversation with one of the triathletes and he asked why I couldn't just go back to training 8-10 hrs a week instead of giving it up completely. I guess I just don't see the point. If I'm going to train to race then I'm going to train my best to race my best. Since that doesn't appeal to me anymore I'm only going to do the things that make me happy. I'll still go out and run occassionally.....but only when I feel like it. I'll still ride my bike.......but only when I feel like it and mostly on trails because they're FUN. I doubt that I'll swim much unless it's in a lake and possibly after crashing on water skis......because staring at a dark line for 4-5K isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I've been having a great deal of fun just doing whatever I feel like doing so going back to a routine of SBR for the sake of competing at a lesser level just doesn't make sense to me. I think a lot of people think that I stopped training for triathlons because I wouldn't have as much time to train with the baby coming soon. That is a part of it but it's mostly because I just didn't enjoy it all that much anymore. The training was becoming stressful to fit in with my other obligations and it was also quite boring because I've nearly tapped out what I can learn from the sport. I enjoy learning and attacking new things and once I get to the point where there isn't much left to learn it's not as fun for me and it's time to move on to something else.
Next Week's Goals To Focus On
* Improve programming skills and finance/business knowledge for work
* Stay fit & healthy - shred some fat this week w/ clean nutrition
* Be a great husband and (soon to be) father
* Improve handyman skills
* Nurture and improve relationships with family, old friends, and new friends
* Improve cooking skills
I'm putting the "learn spanish" goal on hold this week because we've got the Zack's staying with us this weekend and I'd rather focus on finishing the Baby Care Book to ensure that I can get to the other book that Jen is reading before the baby actually arrives. We haven't seen Eric & Laurie in a while so it will be fun to catch up with them this weekend.