5:30 comes early...

As my alarm goes off, I reach over to turn my phone off and squint through one eye to scroll through emails, but its time to get up. I lie there for a minute, debating whether to stay in bed for 5 more minutes, but as I lay there I know I will be late getting to the gym, late having breakfast and late starting my day. I get ready and make a quick shake and I'm in the car on my way to the gym. It hits me as I'm driving over the bridge that I drive past the River Rock every morning and look at it. In 9 weeks I will be on stage in that same building competing. This makes the drive and the day that much better.
The other thing that makes my early mornings better is that my mom is up at the crack of dawn to leave for work and she is getting ready when I leave for the gym. When I come upstairs to head out she comes smiling and waving down the hall to give me a big hug goodbye and seeing her bright smiling face puts me in a good mood and I am off and ready to train. The second best thing about my mom is that she does Costco runs for me because buying bulk egg whites is a lot cheaper there when you go through 3 cartons a week. It’s getting a little ridiculous. My parents are both very supportive of me and all my crazy ideas and ambitions. My dad I think is still coming around to the idea and understanding why I am doing this. I think once he sees me on stage and all my hard work come together he will get it.
My lifestyle right now isn’t ideal or understandable to a lot of people. Yesterday my friend Anthony and I went for a walk and we had been gone for awhile and I asked him what time it was and he said 5:30. I said okay well I will need to eat soon. He asked where I wanted to go and I told him I had brought my meal in case we were gone longer than expected. He looked puzzled and I told him I had a chicken breast in my purse. Immediately we were stopped on the side walk and he was inspecting my chicken and baggy of peppers with almonds. It was chow time. Who else do you know carries a chicken breast in their purse?
Getting up early to train, means being in bed early to get 8 hours of sleep and cuts out a lot of night time activities. Not being able to drink with friends cuts out a lot of social activities as well or it’s hard for someone to understand why you can’t just have one glass of wine. Training early is important so that I can be refreshed and ready to work during the day so that I have time in the evenings to do stuff with my friends. It is all about learning to balance and surrounding yourself with those that are supportive and even if they don’t understand listen when you said I can’t or can we do this instead. My dad’s new thing is whenever I leave to go to the gym, he tells me to “train hard.” I love this.
The weekend was a little tough. Nat and I were suppose to do plyos (plyometrics) on Saturday but we were both pooped so we took an active rest day instead and went for a long walk. This left me up to my own weights and cardio on Sunday and it took me a long time to get to the gym but once I was there it was all good and I am back on track! Oh yieah!
Shannon, a friend that is also training for bikini, and I had a very long conversation on the phone which was amazing! We text constantly about hiccups, meal ideas or random hellos, but talking was so great and we decided it was important that we call each other more often for support and sanity.  Here’s to 9 weeks left to competition and a great week ahead!
Eat. Train. Sleep. Repeat.

Thanks everyone for all your support and mom, can you pick up some egg whites for me.
Thanks J

Nic