I Thought I Was Being Smart...

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I meet with my trainer every Monday and Wednesday at 2 PM. Usually this is a good time for me. I've put in a morning's worth of work and am ready to let loose. Today, however, I was not feeling it. Nope, nope, nope. Just not the least little bit in the mood to work out. 

So I thought I was being smart when I asked Ben to spare my legs in today's workout. "I've got a hard track workout tomorrow," I said, injecting as much "woe is me" into my voice as I could. "So I need my legs fresh." 

Mentally, I was congratulating myself. No legs means no cardio = lighter workout.

"Cool. We'll stick with arms and abs," said Ben. The slow grin that spread across his face should have warned me of what was to come. 

It was an evil hour. I looked at the clock early on and moaned, "I can't believe it's only 2:20."

"You're going to hurt my feelings and make me think you don't want to be here," said Ben. "Now give me 50 dips on the bench."

This is the up side of working with a trainer. I would never in a million years have worked out today if I were left to my own free will. Nap? Yes. Ugly exercises with a dumbbell? Not so much. But I feel all the better for having worked through it. Strong arms, strong abs and... oh shoot.

No excuse tomorrow for shaky legs.

Cheers! 

Dear 18-miler: I OWN YOU

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Whoo-hoo! Left the house at quarter of 6 this morning to meet a group of friends for an 18-mile run. While last week's nasty humidity lingered in the air, skies were overcast and the temperature was a pleasing 76 degrees which helped immensely. I've had some bad runs lately and have been feeling down about my times. But I had a great tempo run on Thursday night and came in 11 seconds per mile faster on this long run than I was scheduled for, so I'm feeling great. 
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Time Management: How Efficient Are You?

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Had an interesting experience with TIME this week. Late Tuesday afternoon I went into my spam folder, looking for an e-mail I thought might be there. While scrolling through the list, I found a writing assignment that had been sent to me on Friday. I'd known the assignment was coming but thought maybe the editor had just gotten bogged down and that's why it hadn't been sent.

I opened the assignment only to find that the 800-word article was due the next day. YIKES. I e-mailed the editor, explained what had happened and asked if I could have until Thursday/Friday to turn the piece in. Luckily, he was fine with that. 

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Dena Harris... Underwear Model

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HA! Not really. But makes you want to at least check out today's post, yes?

Underwear model is a stretch. Underwear mannequin may be closer to the truth. From time to time, Hanes Brands puts out a call that they need women on which to measure and test new bras. A recent e-mail to be the body dummy for sports bras went out and they noted they were looking for active women.

Hello! I feel like I plan my life these days around workouts and am occasionally up to three showers a day. Need to test a jog bra? I'm your gal. 

If my body is a match for their needs, that is. I went in today for a measuring. They'll plug my numbers into their spreadsheet and if I am close to the "ideal" (meaning, "truest form" not "perfect") for a bra size, then I get to be on call to come in for fittings as they piece the bra together. A little money is involved but the glory of claiming myself as an underwear model is where the real payoff is, don't you think? ;)

See what happens when you freelance? Waaaaaaaay too much time to fill. 

Cheers,

Dena