Renewed purpose! (and a wordy post....I must be bored at work)

Since Southbay Girl and I are meeting New Orleans to run the Mardi Gras half marathon, I feel I have renewed purpose in my workout regime! Obviously that vague or perhaps just to broad goal of health, fitness, etc...just doesn't do it for me..although I am generally always working out..I like have an event goal. So this week I am starting my running plan. Monday was a strength and stretching day. I was at the gym on Monday morning doing strength and stretching. I am sore today. One move I was doing was pikes with a pushup on the exercise ball. Those are hard! I superset them with a dumbbell deadlift, row combo thing. I have worked up to 5 or6 pike/pushups and then 10 deadlift row things.... rest and then do another superset. I am feeling the hurt in all the right places. I, of course, did other exercises to round out my ~45 minute workout.
I find many of my strength and core work outs from Women's Health Magazine . I like that it is not the same old thing all the time and I am not using those machines that I hate! I also can tailor the work out timing to fit the time I have in the morning for the gym. My mornings have to be on almost a precision schedule...be at gym by 5:20 am, leave gym by 6:15 am, get home wake daughter, walk the dog, get coffee, eat, get in the shower, dress, etc, out the door by 8 am, drop daughter at school, get to work. Some mornings I am lucky as her Grandparents (my former in-laws) will take her to school, then I can just head to work at 8.
Tonight, I have a 3 mile run on my schedule. While the weather is nice out, I may do this on the deadmill at the fitness center here at work. Although I may change my mind by the time I get around to this. I don't have an outdoor run route planned and I hate running around here during rush hour.
My darling daughter set off this morning for a class trip for the remainder of the week. They were off to do some work with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and then do a little backpacking/camping. They have been studying about the environment and specifically water quality issues in their science component. I am sure they will learn much from the folks at CBF. I love her school and am thankful that her Dad and I can afford (and give up a bit) to allow her to go there. The environment is so supportive and empowering, which is awesome for adolescents. They are treated with respect and they must also be respectful... which comes very easy to practically all of them because they are treated with respect. Funny how that works...
This weekend I am off to Amish Country. I am doing a weekend bike trip with some people I know from the hiking club. There are about 15 people going. I know a few of them as I have hiked with them, but I have not done any cycling with any of these people. I think it will be fun... as long as mother nature doesn't decide to rain on us all weekend...it is in the forecast.

I will check in again with my workout updates later in the week.