June 10 travel/rest day

My travel day started at 6:00pm local time in Mumbai. 

After the marathon brunch, we all went back to the apartment to relax and I packed up my things. 

Jagdish arrived and took me to the domestic airport per Jackson's direction. Thankfully, he waited a couple minutes because I pretty quickly learned that I needed to be at the international airport. My first flight was to Delhi and there was much debate on which airport was correct. (Of course the AirIndia website wasn't too helpful.)

I got back into the car and we drive about 20 minutes more to the international airport.  It was really no issue since Jagdish took me and I made sure I was pretty early for my 9:30pm flight. Some shopping, browsing, and a snack purchase and I was on my way. 

A transfer in Delhi and then the 14+ hour direct flight to Chicago!  Thankfully I was assigned an exit row seat so I was relatively comfortable and got some sleep too. On both flights I watched a TON of movies so that was cool. 

We landed about an hour early, I collected my bag & went directly to the CTA to go into work. Michael was starting later than usual, so he brought me the car and we caught up for a few minutes in my lobby before he went to work himself. 

When I was gone, I had made an appointment withy doctor for both my stomach issues and a nasty bug bite. He gave me some steroid cream for the bite (and it started helping immediately!) and sent me to Northwestern for blood tests (which have since come back negative, thankfully).  I felt pretty gross and dirty and itchy all day. No make up, crazy curly hair and leggings aren't my usual work look,but no one seemed to care- thankfully!

I made it at work until 3:30pm, then headed home and manages enough energy to do all my laundry and unpack!

Mumbai last day- 2 hour workout post-party

I was still waking up early but forced myself to stay in bed until about 8:30. Unfortunately when I walked over to Jackson's gym at 9am to get an earlier start, the gym was closed. 

When I got home, he remembered the gym opened on Sundays at 10am so I just hung out until then...

When I got back to the gym it was pumping!  Loud music and the most people I had seen there all week. 

My workout was 1 hour on stationary bike in a variety of heart rate zones, then to the treadmill for 20 minutes at a 10:30/mm and back to the bike for 45.   I had to stop after 25 minutes since we had lunch plans and I had to shower and get dressed. 

As it turned out, we were still late -because of me- and also monsoon season had started so it was tough to get a tuktuk (motorized rickshaw). Added to that, Jackson & Jacob really didn't know where the brunch was so we had to circle around a bit. 

The food was good, but we were essentially stuck there for almost 4 hours while the American Consulate ate and drink their way into a food coma.  Another day, I think I would've been happy to do it, but I didn't expect that my last day on vacation in India would be spent in a Greek cavernous restaurant while "real India" was a mere steps away!!

View from the back of a rainy tuktuk

June 8th Mumbai- slum tour

There was a workout on the books for today but we had to leave before the gym opened for out slum tour of Dharavi. 

We were asked not to take pictures when in the slum, so we got this one before we went in. Needless to say, there were tons of amazing photo opportunities that I was sad to miss!!  The tour was run by a non-profit and was excellent. 

When we got back, Jacob and Jackson wanted to prepare for the birthday celebration for Jackson and Kate and the motivation to get to the gym in between that and the party was low!!

Mutual birthday honorees

Birthday party picture, sisters

Pre-tour in Dharavi

June 7th Mumbai gym. Indoor ride

June 7th was my first bike ride in quite a while!

1:05 on the stationary with a workout I actually enjoyed as notes below. 

Kate joined me this morning and did some treadmill, elliptical, & weights from her chiropractic workout. 

3x 5 minutes zone 1 5 minutes zone 2 build 5 minutes zone 3 criss cross 5 minutes high zone 4 low cadence Cool down 5 minutes easy

Kate's first rickshaw ride- back from lunch

June 6- travel day to Mumbai

Despite the flight from Jaipur to Mumbai, there was a workout scheduled for this afternoon. 

We landed relatively early in the day and Jacob and Jagdish (their driver) picked us up and brought us to their palatial apartment. 

We immediately dumped out all out clothes and did two loads of laundry since we had pretty much sweat through all of our clothes by then!

After that, Jackson got home from work and they walked us over to their gym where they had secured me a free four day pass. 

I had an hour interval run and I was finally feeling human again so it felt good!!  I think I needed some extended rest and I think I'm tuning in to what type or length of taper I may need in August. 

Unfortunately for a couple days prior to that, I had horrible stomach issues (strangely not related to "Delhi belly" or India specifically) and couldn't workout- the extreme heats previously mentioned didn't help. 

Street shrine to Ganesha I'm Mumbai

June 2: travel day/official rest day

I gave my coach my intended itinerary before I left and I tried to outline what facilities I'd have available at each place along the way so we could continue with a reasonable plan.

June 2 was a LONG travel day...

We were picked up at 6am in Delhi and our driver took us 4 hours to Agra where the Taj Mahal is located.  We spent several hours walking around the Taj and the Agra Red Fort before getting back into the car and going the next 5 hours to Jaipur.  We really didn't think it necessary to stay overnight in Agra since we had seen what we wanted to see and thought it best to "wake up" where we wanted to be.

So this day I was "officially" not supposed to train.  I complied!  :)

Map of northern India; cities highlighted

Taj Mahal on a balmy 115F day

The Red Fort, Agra

June 1-3-4-5

I had workouts in my plan for these days, but between jet-lag and some latent stomach issues (upper GI) and the insane (!!!) heat of 115F daily, it was next to impossible to keep up.

We did walk a ton as we were in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur over these days sight seeing like crazy people!

Even when I was getting up at 5am it was 90F+ and super humid with no relief in sight.

Delhi street scene. Note the cow!

Amer Fort detail, Jaipur

View of Jaipur from the Royal (male) cemetery 

My hands w Henna designs. Loved it!!