road warrior

I work for what I consider to be THE BEST team within Oracle. We are a part of the Public Sector (generally these are government accounts like Cities, Counties, States and K12) Enterprise Performance Management group and are responsible for preparing and presenting software demonstrations during a sales cycle. I have completed on-site demos to customers in all 50 states. This means that I travel, a lot.

So, folks frequently ask how do I balance athletic demands and a professional workload? Well, there is no easy answer. First, I do have a coach and a schedule and he does a great job at scheduling a rest day on a travel day and putting together workouts that maintain my fitness. I have found that most hotels have at least a treadmill and more often not an elliptical machine and lifecycle and an assortment of weights.

Second, I have learned that I have to get my workouts done in the morning. If I wait till after the work day is over I find to many excuses to bail out. I have also learned to be flexible with my workout options and not let the loss of an interval, or even the loss of a workout, ruin my day.

All this has served me well for running and triathlon but I'm sure there will be some modifications as we gear up for RAAM 2011. Over the next 15 months I'm sure there will be some posts about various spin classes I've taken across the country and how much I really hate Life cycles

However, I have to remember that it is hard to balance all that I take on. I stared this post by trying to answer peoples' inquiries about 'how I do it...' and I can give you pages of workouts, motivation tips, time management skills, etc. In reality it is very hard to find any balance and, guareteed that as soon as you do, it will be wripped out from under you. So, ride the highs, manages the lows, stick to the schedule as best as you can, and continue to chase that carrott on the end of a stick.

oh my...I'm blogging

Now what...? I guess I could start by explaining the name. I am part of Team Galaxy. A team of 4 women who are competing in the 2011 RAAM. Our 1st meeting was at the Galaxy Cafe in Austin, TX to brainstorm and decide on our team name. Someone said doing RAAM make them feel like a 'Rock Star', I think I said something about we will all be 'Seeing Stars,' Susan had some childhood story about a 'Stinky Star' and, well, we were at the Galaxy Cafe. The rest as they say, is history.