A Day In The Life

I have been getting a lot of questions lately about how I manage to fit in running, yoga, my law practice, and the Challenge.  So I thought I'd throw together a bit of a play-by-play of my typical weekday.  Things can be busier.  They can be slower.  But since the first of the year, this has been it on the average day:

5am - Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze.

510am - Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze.

520am - Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze.

530am - Crawl out of bed.  Cuss several times.  Check email

               Part of what makes this waking up experience what it is is the joy of having an old home
               with inadequate upstairs heating.  And the fact that chemo sent my body's ability to regulate
               its temperature totally out of whack - making me crazy hot when I sleep at night - and
               bitterly cold when my bare feet hit the floor come morning.

               I quickly triage any emails that came in overnight, responding to the ones that are somewhat
               pressing while I'm throwing my running clothes on.

6-650am - Run. 

               This includes driving to the yoga studio if I have a class that day, and then running from
               there.

               Other than the fact that I need to get up earlier than I'd like and that its bitterly cold out, I
               dislike these morning runs because I am just not a good morning runner.  My morning runs
               are always slower.  More sluggish.  I'm at my best late morning or early evening when my
               neighborhood looks like this:

                Not when it looks like this:

                  But that just isnt happening these days!

650-7am - Quick catch up session with Lauren.  

                  This is actually one of the rare moments in our friendship where Massey almost never
                  comes up.

7-8am - Yoga

                  This hour has become SO important to my sanity.  It lets me ground myself and breathe
                  before the day ahead.  But there are days where I find myself using Shavasana to lay out
                  my day rather than connect and reflect.  I'm working on that.

                  On the way out, Lauren and I quickly regroup and chat about whats on tap Challenge-wise
                  for the day, chat about anything pressing in the next 2 hours, and usually trade off some
                  kind of materials (posters, t-shirts, postcards).

8-9am - Run home.  Get myself ready for work.  Grab breakfast for the car/office.

                  An older home also means it takes a bit of time for the shower to warm up.  While it is, I
                  try to triage any important emails that came in during the last few hours, and respond to
                  any that are urgent.

                  I had a really good habit for awhile of making a smoothie for breakfast every morning.  I
                  still do if I have time while Greg's getting ready, but I think the guys at my local coffee
                  shop have noticed a significant uptick in the number of bagels I grab on our morning
                  coffee stop.  Oops.

9-930am - Drive to the office.  
     
                  I use this time to make calls to any Challenge contacts I have been meaning to reach out to
                  or to to run through my to-do list in my head.

930-10am - Settle into the office.

                  Check in with Malissa about any work-related deadlines we may have that day, finalize
                  the day's blog post, write out three separate daily to-do lists: (1) work (2) Challenge (3)
                  personal.

10am-5pm - Be a lawyer.

                  But mixed in here are at least 50 emails/calls/texts about the Challenge, as well as a
                  consistent off-and-on gchat stream with Lauren to address issues/ideas/opportunities as
                  they arise throughout the day.  Unless a matter is urgent or a question can be answered
                  quickly, I have a quick system for flagging emails and texts so I can respond to them in
                  the evening.

                  I used to have a pretty heavy lunch out habit, but the last few months have forced me to
                  start bringing my lunch and eating at my desk.  My waistline thanks me.  My social life,
                  not so much.

                 This office time can definitely be interrupted though, and at least a handful of times a week
                 I run out for a Challenge related meeting, lunch, or event.  Like this:

5pm - Scoot out of the office to head to the evening's event.

                  Especially when its so cold, I try to grab some tea on the way.

530-830pm - Attend Challenge events

                  This might be a committee meeting.  This week there have been lots of back-to-back
                  events - like the UR Coaches Show followed by the John Rolfe YMCA, or the Downtown
                  YMCA followed by the Chester YMCA.  It could be a third-party event.  Other nights,
                  Lauren and I will hit up an event being hosted by an organization or company that we
                  think would make a good partner, in hopes of connecting with someone who can make
                  that happen.

830-11pm - Home

                  This depends.  If things at work are busy, Ill quickly grab something from the kitchen and
                  settle into my desk to knock out a few more hours of work.  If work isnt calling, I catch up
                  on emails, draft the next day's blog post, pay bills.  If Greg and I have a "date" (or what
                  counts as one these days with our schedules) we'll cook dinner while we catch up and Ill
                  usually fall asleep while he watches a movie.  I almost always text with Lauren in
                  preparation for what we have planned the next day.

11pm-12am - Get ready to do it again

                  I pack my lunch, lay my outfit out for the next day, get my running and yoga stuff in one
                  place, and pack up my tote bag.  Read a chapter from my Bible and a passage from Daily
                  Om.  And then crash.

So there you have it - a typical weekday.  Weekends are reserved for catching up on work, writing any guest blog posts, and moving my own personal fundraising projects along (dont forget to click above to make your contribution toward $25,151!), as well as hanging out with the YMCA training teams on Saturdays and squeezing in some other community outreach activities.  Sleep is hard to come by these days.  Gratitude is not.