Back At It...Sort Of

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The past week and a half has been a very good one, but with that said it hasn't been without its not so great parts.

On Monday, February 7th I started my new job with Chartis (AKA AIG) down in Philadelphia.  It is a sales job, a position that I have never done before.  After the issues I had with my prior employer/manager, I am extremely excited to be starting fresh and looking forward to "competing" against my former employer for business.  My first day in the office was akin to starting at a new school half way through the year.  I had been with Chubb Insurance for over 10 years and had grown very comfortable there, almost to a fault.  To move to a new company has been a very unique and mildly stressful experience.  All of the little things that I had grown accustomed to were now different, such as:

• Working in a city as opposed to a very rural setting in western NJ
• Commuting an hour and 20 minutes (or more) on I-95 as opposed to 50 minutes on country roads.
• Employing systems/programs that are a bit more archaic (e.g. IE 6.0)
• Using a new laptop that is a step down from my old one
• Having to buy lunch everyday instead of bringing it in (I am trying to eat breakfast before leaving the house

Yest things are different, and it may seem like they are worse from the list above, but trust me I am much, much happier than I was a month or two ago.  Once I get used to things here and start spending more time out on the road and less in the office, things will improve greatly.

Now for the training portion of the is post.  Ugh, I can not seem to get healthy!  My back is finally back to normal, or at least I think it is.  That is a good thing.  Last Wednesday I started playing indoor soccer with some friends; I was really looking forward to it.  I could tell within the first five minutes that my hip flexors were not 100%, so I decided to take it somewhat easy for fear that I might reinjure them.  Things were going well, I had scored two goals and we were winning pretty handily.  With about 10 minutes left in the game I landed a bit awkwardly on my right foot and my heel really started to hurt.  I kept running around, trying not to let it bother me. 

Well, flash forward to today, a full week later and I am still feeling some pain in the heel.  I have not idea what the heck I did to it.  I have dealt with Plantar Faciitis before and I don't think that is it (the pain isn't on the inside near my arch).  The pain is on the bottom/outside of the heel, I think I may have bruised it or the padding.  I am going to try tapping it before playing tonight, hopefully that is all I need. 

As for actual "training", I have been limited to cycling on the trainer for the past two weeks or so.  I did go running a week and a half ago, but that was for all of 25 minutes (coming off of my back issues).  Swimming has been no existent for the better part of the past month since I don't presently belong to a gym, although I am hoping that my wife and I can agree to signing up for a family membership at the YMCA.  Sooner than later would be ideal!

I definitely need to get out running again soon as I have a few races coming up that I have to get ready for and the fact that I have not done a run over four or five miles over the past two months is a concern.  I am anxious to get back to serious training and losing some of the excess weight I have put on over the past two months.

That is all for now.  Peace out!