balance and sleep

Well, I figure I should write a bit about my New Year's resolutions or changes since it's the nearly the end of my first week of IM training and school. My first week back at work has been wild. Which I expected. Today was the culmination of it all with a program lasting until around 8:00 p.m. (complete with lots of public speaking for me which always takes a lot out of me because it's not my favorite thing to do - although I'm way better about it all than I was a couple of years ago). We had a good turnout at our presentation for seniors and their parents (all about this last half of the sr. year, "senioritis", and what the separation process looks like - the good, the bad, the ugly). It's one of my favorite programs, but this year it conflicted with the BCS Championship game so we knew turnout might be a little lower. Bad scheduling on my part, but I can't work around everything! Anyway, those who were there really enjoyed it and had nice things to say about the program. One more event tomorrow (alums coming back to talk to the current seniors) and a pretty busy Friday otherwise and then the weekend is here - yeah! I like four day weeks but they always feel rushed to me...especially when it's Monday that we have off. I like having Fridays off better because on about Wednesday you can start saying, "Well, you know school is closed on Friday, so I might not be able to get to that until next week." When you return after having Monday off it's just a rush to get five days worth of work done in four days! Still, it's an easier re-entry to work to only have four days so I'm not complaining. (I realize I'm spoiled to have such great breaks.)
Workout wise it's been a really good week...although I have felt tired at times, I'm completely digging this training. (Yeah, I think I'm going to be weird this way...stay tuned about that over the next 6 months, but I think I might have been wired to do this sort of thing - at least discipline-wise. We'll see how my body holds up!) I think this is probably normal - a mix of being energized and tired at the same time - and it will probably be worse in weeks to come. But I can already tell that I really need to get this sleep thing under control. I don't know why I thought it would fall into place since it hasn't in about 7 years?! Anyway, that's where I've sort of fallen apart this week. Making it to practices and giving it my all even when I wasn't sure what that would look like isn't the problem. But I've been trying to get caught up with stuff at work that piled up over the holidays and stay on top of everything training-wise and that has made it tough to get the adequate amount of sleep. But to that end, I'm going to bed very soon AND I'm taking tomorrow off. I love Friday a.m. run workouts but I'm good with my hours for everything this week (well, once I do the Sat. ride and the Sun. run, I will be); and, as was wisely pointed out to me, I'm going to need my energy for our ride on Sat. It's likely to be a tad chilly and windy. I know my legs will thank me, and I can afford to take tomorrow off right now. Won't always be able to swing that.
I'm terrible about giving myself permission to take days off so I think it's just as important for me to do this in week #1 mentally as it is physically. Off I go for a good night's sleep and no super early morning rise...changing habits is tough! But a lot of things in life that are good for us are, right?