Tapering and Talking

My wonderful sister just left, and I'm so bummed! I love it when she comes to El Paso. She is a total blast and a very easy houseguest! My kids adore her (and her wonderful husband), so they are sad that she is gone. But they will both be back for Christmas, so YIPEEE!

A couple of business items to attend to. Remember when I said that we were doing the Goji experiment? Well, results are in. Himalayan Goji juice is by far superior to the brands you can just buy over the counter. The taste is significantly better. Linda said she could hardly get her otc brand down - it was thick and funky tasting. The few that I looked at were not 100 percent Goji, so I didn't even bother. The one drawback: Himalayan Goji is SOOOOOO expensive. I mean crazy expensive. But, we are sucking it up and continuing with our program (for now) because we do both feel so much better. Neither of us are reps for the company, so we don't get any kind of discount. I may have to take out a loan if I want to stay with this program :)

I've also been closely monitoring Ronda's food plan. I'm not as strong as she is, but when I saw she dropped 1.5 percent body fat in 6 weeks, I thought I might try to at least take a stab at it. Olga is also following the program, and has made tons of progress too, so it seems to be worth looking into. Julie follows a different plan, but also seems to get good results. I think a lot of this is about taking it to the next level. When I first started training for ultras, just getting my mileage in was enough of a challenge. Then, after I was a little more comfortable, adding the gym, stretching, and pilates was work. I'm inspired by these ladies' commitment to improve their fitness on the fueling front. So, I better get busy with it!

I'm in taper mode, and as usual, I don't think I trained enough. I fell short on my last few long runs because of some prior obligations and just plain old running out of time. There is nothing I can do about it now, but it does make me nervous. I keep telling myself the old adage, "It is better to be 10 percent undertrained than even 1 percent overtrained." Hopefully, I'm less than 10 percent!

My hubby and I are meeting for a Green Tea massage at lunch today. As I mentioned earlier, I am officially addicted! They rub your feet and calves (reflexology and deep tissue), and it is like heaven on earth. Tim broke his fibula in four places a couple of years ago on a trail run (slid into a ravine and had to climb out on a broken leg!), so he has some residual issues that I'm hoping this will help. He isn't particularly excited about going, so I hope he ends up enjoying it!

I'm still trying to post pictures. I am so technologically inept, but I promise to work on it.