Lunch treadmill. Forgot my headphones so listened to the lady next to me gasp and grunt the whole time.

Friday night swim. They had a sign saying the water was colder than normal due to maintenance and it was glorious. My Garmin recorded 77 degrees. It’s normally 82. This included 8x50 sprints so a wee bit faster average.

Ellie Mae

Down 1.6 pounds this week for a total of 3.1 pounds. All though I had to get on my backup scale because my normal scale gave me the same reading as last week, which is virtually impossible with my calories in and out this week. My backup scale historically reads HIGHER, but today it read a pound lower. So I'm going with that because it makes the most sense based on my meticulous tracking efforts. 

I was all prepared to start the search for a new dog sitter since my go-to had raised her prices multiple times over the last year. I had bookmarked one gal after a few back and forths around a cancelled work trip, but when I went back to her Rover profile yesterday, she had raised her rate from $35 to $50/night. No ma'am! Went back to my go-to sitter and she had LOWERED her rate $40/night. So we're staying with her for now. Like I'm OK with $40/night but the constant changing of prices is ridiculous. I'm guessing my go-to gal didn't get any jobs at her $45-$50/night rate and realized her sweet spot price point. And jeez if I worked from home more often I would 100% do in-my-home dog-sitting as a side hustle.  Think about just collecting an extra $30-$40/day for hanging out with dogs?!

Hard trainer ride! Oooof.
Patted myself on the back for leaving work just after 3:30 to finish working from home this afternoon. Another rainy day and I just didn't want to sit in traffic for an hour... again. Felt super smart for doing this as it took me 15 minutes to get home and I was back online before 4:00.

More travel - now I'm going to be going to New Orleans next month for work! I've never been there, so will look to arrive or stay an extra day to see what it's all about. I was actually offered the option to go to Kansas (home) like I did last year, but I gave a soft pass and chose a different market to visit. So my upcoming travel plans through April are Paris, New Orleans, Nashville and Puerto Rico... Fun??

Looking forward to my weigh-in tomorrow. I feel like I've been killing it this week.

Hills in the drizzling rain. Strava says "This was harder than your usual effort." :/ Heart rate maxed at 190 again.

Upper body

Cool down with Ellie Mae

More travel news - realized that even though I purchased the Paris Pass, I have to make a timed reservation for The Louvre. So I did that today and now have something timed/planned for each of the full days I'm there. Macaron cooking class, Eiffel Tower and The Louvre. Then I'll fill in all the rest of the time trying to get my money's worth out of the Paris Pass. I need to sit down with a map and the pass book to avoid wasting travel time, but getting excited! I leave a week from today.

AND I booked my work trip to Nashville this afternoon. Going to go out a day early and find something fun to do the night before. The session doesn't begin until 1 p.m. on a Thursday, so I can potentially even do something that morning (but let's be real, I'll probably just sleep in LOL). 

Trainer ride just decompressing from work and from the rainy commute home. Today is the 2nd day in a row it took me 45-50 minutes to drive 7 miles home. Thankful for a remote work day tomorrow.

Pretty excited about going to Puerto Rico in a few months with my sister... I think this may be the cheapest vacation I've ever planned! Round-trip, direct flight from Atlanta was $128, and I just booked a swanky AirBnb 1/2 block from the beach for three nights - each of us will pay $257 for that (which includes cleaning fees, service fees, all the fees - AND it has two beds which is rare for a studio condo). It has a kitchen, so I'm guessing we'll just hit up a grocery store and stock up on wine, chips and guac - what else do you need?! 

Lunch treadmill walking at an incline.

Dog walk

Going strong on tracking my food intake. This is the second week in a row that I have NOT bought my standard bottle of red wine for the week. I love red wine so much, but... calories. This week's menu (still cranking down on the meat, so only one meat-based dish per week) is: 

• Lemon chicken picata with cauliflower muffins (these are SO GOOD!)
• Buffalo baked tofu with rice and veggies (onion, celery & carrot to mimic buffalo wing veggies)
• Black bean/sweet potato/veg tacos on corn tortillas w/ salsa verde

Gray and temps in the 40s, but thankfully not raining. Felt pretty good all around. Found a wallet about 1/2 mile from home. No ID so thought it had been picked through and tossed, but there was a $20 bill inside.

Dog walk got cut short.. got caught in the rain