Oh! I have a blog to maintain, what?!?

Holy smokes, I've been a total slacker on my blog lately.  There has been lots going on, but not enough hours in the day to keep up.

This week was in a word CRAZY!  The school year for us was winding down with a lot of final grade "surprises", commencement, nurse pinning, and of course our annual Faculty/Staff vs. Students Softball game.  Now much of our faculty/staff is pretty fit, likes working out, and (of course) is competitive.  I'm happy to report the final score: 

Next  week at work begins a four day work-week for the summer.  I find that I have a love/hate relationship with Fridays off.  It is nice to have Fridays available, but 10 hour days are rough!  But, this year I'm planning to do a little working out in our school gym on my lunch break to keep active and break up the day.  I'm also going to be teaching an online class for PHCC this summer, which should be interesting! :)  

In other exciting news, Ben qualified for the National Xterra Trail Run championship in Ogden, Utah on September 23rd.  To qualify, you get so many points for each race that you fun in the Florida series.  You have to run at least two of the Xterra races (Wildhorse, Trout Creek, or Claw).  The first person in his or her respective age group can qualify for the National race.  Here are the complete Florida Series Points.

Ben and I also signed up for a six week Saturday morning boot camp with my buddy JJ from Itone Fitness.  Here is a link to his Facebook page.  The word I would use to describe JJ is BEAST.  But he has the BEST laugh of anyone I've ever known.  Check out his muscles (Seriously, his arms are the size of my legs):

As my friend from France, Marie, said when she met JJ, "everything is bigger in America!"  The workouts are pretty intense, but luckily only one half of a mile from our place.  We've been running there and then limping home for the past couple of weeks.  It's a challenge, but a really nice change from just my running workouts.

Next week is the first Picnic Island race on Friday night.  We are signed up for the Series which is one Friday in May, June, and July.  Also on the horizon is the Rap River Run on June 9th. PHCC has put together a team to run this one.  The course is right in downtown New Port Richey and relatively flat.  I've been following a training plan that Jenny devised for me.  It's been hard work, but Rap River has become my targeted race to dip below 25:00.

I'm being realistic about Rap River because it is typically a hot race (June in Florida...), so if it doesn't work at in June, I'm going to set my sights on a Fall 5K.  That's just a brief overview about what's been going on, more to come soon - I swear!