adjustedreality.com

Been a while, and I really don’t have much time to chat but I wanted to check in between the hustle and bustle.

First of all, the bodybug is fascinating.  I love being able to look down at my watch and see how many calories I’ve burnt already, how many steps I’ve taken, and how much activity I’ve had.

For example, the watch currently says 2223 calories burnt.  It’s 6pm.  I’m overachieving.

However, I’m not sure how much I believe it.  It seems like it’s overestimating my calorie burn.  I’ll believe it when I see progress like I should with what I’m doing… I’m on track to be about ~7000 calories deficit by the end of the week (and that means I should be 2 lbs down).  This week is hard to judge because it’s all crampy/bloaty happy fun time, but math dictates that I should be soon.  Because instead of losing weight since last week, I’m up 3 lbs.

As much as everyone cautions against daily weighing, I think its the right thing to do for me.  I fluctuate so wildly, it’s hard for me to see a trend unless I’m on top of it.

This is my life in numbers…

Saturday:
2108 burned
1313 eaten
(795 deficit)
Sitting on my arse, running errands

Sunday:
4292 burned
3078 eaten/drank
(1214 deficit - this was HARD to accomplish - I was shoving food in my face to get even here…)
Half marathon day (2:27 running), errands, drinking and merriment

Monday:
2364 burned
1389 eaten/drank
(975 deficit)
Work, mellow eliptical (25 mins), crunch time (30 mins)

Tuesday:
2894
1403 (/shrug, just didn’t feel like eating more)
(1491 deficit)
5.4 mile run (55 mins), work

Yesterday:
2627
1777
(850 deficit)
50 mins pilates, work, 30 min bike

Today so far:
2040 burned
~950 eaten
(1090 deficit) (I’ll be closer to 500-750 by EOD, workout’s done and I haven’t had dinner)
4 mile run (43 mins), work

Notes:

Unless I’m really either trying to a) earn more calories to eat more/increase my deficit or b) specifically use it as a recovery workout, there is no point in mellow cardio like the eliptical.  If possible, I might as well save my time and skip it and lift weights.

I burn more calories at work in the average hour than I do at pilates.  Rethinking that 50 mins in the morning as well, at least every week (it does hit a lot of muscles differently than I would throwing around dumbells).  I think I could get more done lifting for 30 mins and doing 30 mins of sprints.

Busting my arse on the bike for 30 mins burns less than an EZ run for me.  Like WAY less.  Sucks I still need to do it.  A lot.

I’m pretty sure my swims will burn next to nothing.  It might be best for me to limit swimming to just maintaining my fitness (1-30-45 min per week) until I’m deeper into tri season.  I can already swim the distance I need to swim for the half iron without feeling taxed, and while I wouldn’t mind some specific training to get faster at it closer to race day, I’ve got all the base swim endurance I’m concerned with right now.

So, we’ll see.  To give myself the best chance of success even if it isn’t accurate, I’m trying to get closer to 750-1000 deficit per day, which is still non-harmful if it’s not overestimating.  My guess is that it’s *fairly* accurate for living/breathing/moderate activity and overestimates vigorous aactivity (aka - 700 calories for my 4 mile run or 2500 calories for my half marathon), so on highly vigorous days I’ll make sure that my deficit is high.

Continuing with the good, as organic/home cooked as possible foods (as to not fill my calories with junk), and I completed January about 99% no sweet treats.  I’ve lapsed the last two days (a milky way mini and 4 jelly beans yesterday, a mini brownie and mini cookie today), but it’s time of the month and I’m gonna put the smackdown back down.  I found some fabulous 150 calorie a PINT vegan “ice cream” with all natural ingredients that I am loving, plus dates as a sweet treat, plus I found that fage + a squish of a fruit punch mios (water flavoring enhancer with artificial sweetener but whatevs) = tastes like trix yogurt.  Yummmmm…

Second of all - 3M.

I just don’t have that much to say about it (well, compared to my two part epic Kerrville Sprint Tri recap - and that race was even shorter than this one…), but here goes.

I loved the mostly-downhill course.  I loved that it ran through hoods I knew and loved.  It was c-c-c-old to start but I’m lovin my arm warmers and new super warm but not-too-hot running tights.  It started in the upper 30s and ended in the 50s, and my gear set up was:

-adidas wool wicking headband
-Kerrville Tri tech tee (short sleeve)
-ARC race crew tech long sleeve on top
-adidas arm warmers
-crappy cheap compression shorts
-mountain wear tights
-compression calf sleeves
-nike dri fit ankle socks
-my old Asics.  (I regretted this halfway through.  They are more busted than I thought)

I considered a jacket too - and I could have used it before we started running, but didn’t need it on the run.  I pulled down my sleeves around mile 2-3, and pushed my sleeves up and down the whole race depending on how the wind was hitting us.  I wore the shorts more because the tights tend to be lower cut on my waist than for heat, but it worked.

This one was all about Zliten.  While I probably dragged him a little faster than he wanted to go at times, I was running with him to motivate him on his first half.  While he kept protesting that he had set his sights on a 12 min/mile half when he got himself into this mess, I reminded him that he is a much better runner than he expected (than both of us did, actually), and we maintained around 11 minute miles the whole time (pretty much hit the splits even the first 3rd, exceeded in the middle, and slowed a bit at the end).

I told him that I would run his pace, but I also made it clear that we were going to race this race.  If he could chat with me, he was going too slow.  The dear he is, he couldn’t really talk but he made sure he said a breathy “thank you” to all the volunteers and police that were helping out with the race.  I did the same but since I was running fun-run pace, I was giving the horns, slapping hands, smiling, dance party karaoke USA with my tunez, and just having an awesome fun run (I’m sure the spectators thought I was nuckin’ futz at times but whatevs).

It was good practice in my “every race is not an A race” quest.  I didn’t taper, I weight trained twice last week, I ran/biked/swam like normal, and it was no big d.  And it was still fun.  It’s making me excited for a full on goal race where I can really open up and see what I can do, but being a little hungry is a good thing.

We finished in 2:27 (11:05 min/mile pace for 13.25 miles), and then drank champagne!  It was a glorious day!  Zliten definitely raced it because he was super dead that day, and took Mon/Tues to recover as well.  Huzzah for him!  He has earned the 13.1 sticker on our car! Next stop, 70.3…

I felt good enough the next day to do a mellow elliptical (wasn’t ready for normal sprint Mondays) and crunchtime class, and I definitely felt a little tired, but was good and recovered by Tues morn’s run.

Last Week’s Workouts:
Monday: 3.6 mile run - slow with .1 mile fast strides (37 mins)
Tuesday: 40 min bike hills (12.4 miles)
Wednesday: Pilates AM
Thursday: 5k run AM (29:43), half IM swim PM (1.2 miles in 43 mins)
Friday: off
Saturday: off
Sunday: 13.1 3M Race!

This Week’s Plan:
Monday: 25 min eliptical/30 mins crunchtime
Tuesday: 5.4 mile run outside (55 mins)
Wednesday: 59 mins pilatespilates, 30 min bike hills (9.05)
Thursday: 4 mile run outside w/Zliten (43 mins)
Friday: lifting heavy weights/off cardio
Saturday: 10 mile long slow run w/friends at Town Lake
Sunday: off

Still determining the plan.  On one hand, I should really start getting used to 2-a-days and 6 day weeks with baby workouts spread out more (like this week) I know I’m going to need for half IM training, on the other hand, I feel like I should enjoy my time now and not stress so much about getting in enough bike/swim training and concentrate on fast short runs and weights.

It’s all a lot to ponder.  For now, I’ll just do what I can without my inner child whining and my outer child (Zliten) whining.

So I got my body comp test yesterday, and I can’t lie - it was depressing at first.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt for me.  I have convinced myself that while my weight was higher than it should be, I am a fairly muscular gal.  I must just be bucking the trend and I’m fine, right?  Not so much.

34% Body Fat.  Anything over 32% is considered “obese”.

It doesn’t help that their scale weighed me 2 lbs heavier at 180, which just inched my BMI to obese.

I was in an awesome mood yesterday morning, let me tell you.

A half marathoner, triathlete, eater of as many healthy foods, and rocker of worlds should not be obese.  And I was.

I met with the nutritionist today and she told me not to stress so much about the numbers.  She was happy with a) my BMR at 1672 was pretty great for my height and b) I have 118 lbs of lean mass.  She said her goal for me was to even increase the lean mass more - up to 120 at the next reading - while working to decrease the fat.

So to contrast the negatives, I can toot my own horn that I have more purely lean mass on me (118 lbs) than the bottom low weight for my BMI (my range at 5′5″ is 115 to 150 lbs).  At the bare minimum 10% body fat for women, I’d weight about 130 lbs.  At a very athletic 20%, I’d weigh 142. At 120 lbs of lean mass I’d be 132 and 144 respectively.  I think 144 and 20% body fat is a great long term goal to work towards.

How are we going to do this?  It’s time to recreate the past, my friends.

Step 1: No goal races in the first half of this year. I always have to balance my training and eating with what will get me to my A race.  Being in the negative with the calorie intake is always scary when you’re trying to train for max effort, and tapering means a LOT less activity than normal + cutting any weight training.  So, I’m going to take that out of the equation.  The one *sorta* exception will be my 10 miler in April, but really, I just want to run that one as hard as I can (and the best way for me to run harder will be to take off weight).

Step 2: Change my training program.  I will craft my training around lowering fat, increasing muscle, and we’ll see how that goes when I toe the start line.  I’m not doing anything in the first half of this year I can’t do with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back.   This means no tapers, less steady state long cardio, more HIIT, more lifting heavy things/crunchtime/pilates.  I am giving myself one day per week to do a 10 mile run to keep my run endurance up.

I will be putting in some long slow bike trainer time, but I expect most of that will be the calorie burn equivalent of a walk, so they don’t really count until I really start going more than a coasting pace.  Same with fun bike rides around town.  This is the stuff you file under “being active” not really “working out”.

Step 3: Figure out all the math to get to a calorie goal and stick to it. This is another thing I did.  I hit a certain amount of calories on average per week.  When I did that, I lost.  I eat WAY WAY WAY frickin’ better than I used to (looking at some of the days of food consumption from 2008 when I was losing weight I wanted to a) gag and b) pass out from exhaustion from eating way too little volume because it was all junk food), so I’m pretty sure I’ll have less energy issues like I used to.

Nutrition lady person says 1672 (BMR) + Activity calories = Total expended.  For example, today would have been  1672 + 235 (for 50 mins pilates) = 1907 is my total expended for today.

Total expended - total intake should equal 500-700 (so the goal is a 500-700 calorie debt PER DAY).  Or, in more simple terms, 1000-1200 + activity calories = what I can eat per day.  With today’s example, I would take total expended (1907) - total intake, and get =500-700.  In this case, it would be about 1200 - 1400 (since I wasn’t super active today).  Looking at it another way, 1000-1200 + 235 is about 1235-1435.

Today, I’m at 1237 after dinner and not feeling 100% satiated, so I’ll look for some sort of snack later that keeps me under 1400.

She said to pay STRICT attention to getting lots of nutrients/good food on my true rest days when I do nothing (1200 cal).  I have a feeling this is going to be motivation to take less 100% sacked out on the couch days anymore and spread things out a little more.  I’m fairly certain actually learning how to do some active recovery will do me good.

Step 4:  Get accurate estimates of how much I actually burn during activities via Body Bug. She’s loaning me hers that she doesn’t use to try for a few weeks so I can get a more accurate estimate of what I burn during different fitness activities (NOTE: LMAO of how bad this first draft grammar is and leaving it for posterity because it made me giggle - enjoy!).  If I love it I’ll buy one, but if I don’t, at least I’ll have a pretty good baseline to estimate from (which means you know I’m going to have to try to hit just about every type of workout I might do in the next few weeks… no complaints here!).

So while January has been sort of a bust for weight loss (I’m really sick of seeing 178), I’ve really gotten my shit together.  No/very little sugar.  Very little eating out.  More like 95/5 healthy/not healthy food.  My calorie goal has gone from a challenge to me needing to eat more most days.  I’ve gotten my weekend head in check and realized that when I was losing I never used to imbibe alcohol and eat high calorie food on the same day (or if I did, I VERY VERY carefully planned for it).  I’m just one of those unlucky people that no matter how great or crappy I eat, it really and truly matters how much goes in my cakehole (pertaining to weight loss, I can tell you I FEEL much better eating good stuff).

So, let me lay it out for you…

Next Week’s Plan:
Monday - 30-45 mins bike hills, crunchtime (food goal around 1400-1600)
Tuesday - group power or my own lifting for at least 45, 30 mins HIIT (short intervals) run (food goal 1550-1750)
Wednesday - Pilates, 30 min swim (food goal around 1400-1600)
Thursday - group power or my own lifting for at least 45, 30 mins HIIT run (food goal 1550-1750)
Friday - off/mellow (food goal 1200 + any activity)
Saturday - 10 mile run (food goal 2050-2250)
Sunday - off/mellow (food goal 1200 + any activity)

The calorie goals are from my own estimations on how much I *think* I burn for each activity, and once I play with the body bug, I’ll have a better idea.

It took over 6 months to exhaust other options, but we have determined that my body must need balanced equations to make the scale come down.  I’m ready to let science be the win.

Questions of the day: What does your strength routine consist of on a weekly basis?  What is the one most important thing you did to lose the weight?

I can’t lie, as the days go on, I’m feeling a little more let down about my marathon decision.  It’s still the right call, and I still have two half marathons in the next month so it’s not like I’m taking my toys and going home.  There was the buildup and release, but it was 6 weeks early and not full of happy “I did its”.  I’m having a little bit of negative thought rolling around in my head.  The things I need to remember are:

-I will have done 4 half marathons this season.  The first one I did this season was half marathon #4 ever.  So I more than doubled the amount of 13.1s under my belt.

-More importantly, I have maintained a double digit base long run for 6 months now, relatively injury-free (one minor injury that just needed rest).

-It didn’t take a full blown illness or injury to knock me down.  I listened to my body and mind made the right decision at this time.

-I am still awesome even though I am not marathoning in February.

However, this brings the focus to two other areas of my life:

1.  Weight loss.

This is now my biggest focus.  I’m considering this my “race” that I’m in training for as of today.  Now, this is the biggest endurance challenge I have ever taken on.  My previous training has been 5 times a week, an hour to four per day.  Now, I have at least 3 critical sessions per day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and there is never a day off.  I have to learn how to manage my “pace” of consuming calories to sustain me until the end of each “session” or day.  It’s on.  If I can do nothing else but take off 20 lbs in a safe and healthy way before tri season really starts, that will be the best way to increase my pace.

Being that the marathon is off the table, I have lost any excuses.  I can do 10-12 mile EZ training runs with little to no fuel.  The scarier prospect is parties and dinners out and not having the self discipline to really keep my calories where they should be while eating the good and healthy diet I’ve come to know and love with over the last 6 months.

My nutritionist and I are a bit at odds with how many calories I should intake, especially on long run days, so I’m going to get an advanced body comp test next week (I will definitely blog about that once I get the test and the follow up) to get a more accurate count of how much I burn per day.  I love numbers, so I’m all for it.  More importantly, I can know for sure what I need to do to make the scale move.  If I am just unlucky an efficient machine and only burn 1300 a day or whatever, I just know I need to eat less.

Right now, just putting my head down, convincing myself that weight loss is better than ice cream and french fries, and keeping at it.  The absolute worst I could do doing what I’m doing is uh be the same weight and super healthy and feeling great.  So, really, no loss there even if there is no loss, right?

2. Tri season:

The biggest focus here right now is not getting too ahead of myself.  I’m really going to have to hold myself back and not go full into training mode for a while.  I have to remember that a) I have the swim already for the half iron and b) if I just maintain double digis, I have the run no problem.  It’s just about adding a few (ok 20 or so) miles to my bike, and gaining the endurance to put it all together.

In my head, I really really could justify this early stop of marathon training and call it the beginning of tri training.  However, I have to remember that mental burnout was a major part of my crash and burn this winter.  My goal is to be so hungry to be on an official training schedule and race by the time April comes around that I have at least 6 months of major give-a-shit left.

My Zliten does have his own free will that he exercises at times to my disdain, and one of his 2012 resolutions was to do 2 races a month (or 24 this year).

Twist my arm.  Ow.  Not more races.  Oh no what will ever I do having to do more races.  *worstfakepoutever*

So, I have no disillusions that I can race hard that much, so I’ll pick my battles and find some interesting races that are just for the experience to fill in the gaps.  There are a lot of cycling races that are really just timed supported rides.  Oh gee, oh no.  A timed supported ride when I am looking to ramp up my biking.  How ever will this fit in with my goals? *secondworstfakepoutever*

I’m not entirely sure I want to pack in more than the 6 triathlons I’m signed up for, but I’m definitely looking into some duathlons, swimming races, aquathons, and early season indoor triathlons.

So, it’s not so much trying to find races, but more trying to decide between which fun thing I get to do every other weekend or so.  2012 is going to be awesome!

So far, here’s what I’m signed up for:

Gorilla Run, 5k Jan 22, Austin TX (signed up)

3M Half Marathon, 13.1 - Jan 29, Austin, TX (signed up)

Austin Marathon, 26.2 - Feb 19, Austin TX

Austin 10/20 10 mile run - April 15, Austin TX

Texas Tri Series: Rookie (May 6), Pflugerville (June 17) (4 more here, I just haven’t officially plunked down the cash just in case, but I HAVE registered for the series.  In light of that, I also plunked down the cash to get my USAT license for the year.  I feel like an official athlete - Chrissie Wellington, watch out!!!)

Some potentials for the first half of the year:

Feb 25/26 Indoor Tri (Sat in SA, Sun in Austin, 1o min swim, 30 min bike, 20 min run as far as you can go)
March 3 Sombrero Beach Run 15k race (birthday weekend trip to the keys hehe, I can dream, right?)
March 11 Blue Norther Duathlon 5k run/14 mile ride/5k run
March 24 Rosedale Ride 20/40/60 mile cycle
March 31 Jailbreak adventure race 5k
March 31 Spirit Reins Ride/Brick 62 or 44 mile bike, also a supported 5k/10k run if we wanted to make it a brick after
April 22 Iron Striders Duathlon l 5k run, 25 mile bike,  5k run duathlon
April 28 Red Poppy Ride 30-100 mile bike ride
April 29 Tour De Pure (free, 8 hour supported ride around town with challenges, sounds cool)
May 19 Congress Avenue Mile one mile balls to the wall - could be fun!

I’m still doing some digging and refining, but I think after Austin 10/20, I want to chill on the run races for a while.  Maybe do something early summer as a tune up so I don’t totally lose my half marathon skillz .  However, I can’t think of a way to get to be a better cyclist than riding with other people pushing me to go faster/longer.  Although, as I dig for races, I totally reserve the right to change my mind.  I also really want to do a swim only race at least once, I’d love to be all, “what did you do ths weekend” “I ran a 5k, what did you do” “I did a 5k too, but I swam it..” heh.  My best so far is 2.2 miles in 75 mins, and one of these days, I’m going to see if I can do more (need to find a time the pool is SUPER dead and just say I’m swimming until they kick me out, heh).

Anyhoo…Ever had your body composition tested?   Any races I should check out?  Is Zliten crazy for wanting to do 24 races?  11 in 2010, 18 in 2011, this year is just going to be epic-er.  Seriously, if you hate race reports just stop reading this blog until next year…

As you can see, these are the closest to pouty pictures I have over the last few years.  I really, indeed, do have the worst fake pout ever.

13.1.  And I’m ok with it.  A little bummed but ok.

This week I worked on another great week of nutrition, more calcium (I eat way more dairy than I used to, but even so, I resumed taking supplements), more potassium (a zico a day keeps the leg ickies away?), stretching, using my shockies (muscle stimulator), and getting good sleep.  I ate my normal pre race meal - steak, potato, veggies.  I slept as late as I felt like.  I read tweets and saw pictures about Houston Marathon Olympic Trials and got pumped.

Then I got out and did my own run.  Zliten and I started together, but agreed that if I felt like I wanted to speed up or slow down I would.  We got a mile in and just after that my legs felt zoomy so I took off.  I was feeling good at about 10:30s so I went with it.  Around mile 4 I realized I had forgotten both my nutrition and my sweatband (and it was hot-ish at upper 60s) so I stopped by the house and grabbed both.  Around 6 I saw Zliten ahead of me and picked up the pace to 9s to catch him.  I did about 6.65 and we ran together for a little bit and chatted, but then I felt zoomy again so I took off.

I got to the bottom of the hill and turned around.  My plan was to do a bunch of loops so I wasn’t going straight uphill for 2 miles but I lost it around 8.5 and walked.  That was when I made peace with my fate. I also couldn’t get the second gel down - it sounded gross and I felt full.  All I wanted out of life was some pretzels or something salty.  I ran/walked up to the house (at about 10.5) and stopped real quick.

I refilled my camelback, as at that time, I wasn’t sure how long I was going to go and was almost out, and mowed the fuck out of some tortilla chips (the first salty thing I could find).  After about 5 mins I felt better and headed back out.

I did another quick loop, and though I actually felt better, I decided to call it at 12.1.  I wasn’t mentally ready to do more.  While the “I don’t have enough salt” thing was a breakthrough to try to implement in the future, I had done enough wear and tear on my body by 10.5 that I didn’t think it was prudent to try to push through.

If I would have been aiming for 12 miles, I could have done it way faster and not walked, but the net with all the walking was 2:22.  About 11:40 pace.  Again, I finished with the feeling I could have done more after a rest and gone faster, but you learn something from every run.  And I learned a lot:

-More salt.

-More mid week miles.  I can rock a half and even PR on minimal training, but I think I need more miles under my belt or a significantly larger running level of endurance to pull of a marathon.

-More mental toughness.  This is the one I struggled with the most.  I didn’t feel like it was a good excuse, but after thinking about it, I realized you only have so much “give a shit” and I have run out for the season.  I am mostly succeeding at shutting out the thought of “wuss”, and have also mostly made peace with it.  I took a chance coming right off tri season feeling good and realized that you need some downtime.  Even if you don’t think you do.

-More love and reverence for the distance.    This was just a thing to do in offseason.  A step to ironman.  I need to pick this up when I either a) accidentally have the endurance (aka, after tri season this year) or b) when I really want it and am excited about it.

-A race that is more suited for me.  I hate hills.  I am trying to get better, but still a weak point.  This was one of the clinchers of not running 26.2 Austin.   A pancake flat marathon?  Might be good for that.  A hilly ass run?  Definitely not ready.  Thinking about RnR San Antonio because of this.

- I don’t just want to crawl across the finish line of a marathon, I want to finish strong.  I want to feel like I dominated that fucker.  I’m not there yet, so I don’t feel justified in trying to race the distance.

So all in all, I’m ok.  I’m about 15% bummed and 85% relieved.  As I said on daily mile, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you end up among the stars, and this is so true here.  I will run 4 halfs within 4 months (and would have done 5 if See Jane wasn’t cancelled).  I have never put in so many run miles in a season.  I have never felt BFFs with 13.1 the way I do now. 13?  Aint no thang, chicken wing.  I run it a little slower than I used to, but you can’t race every weekend.

And while that frustrates me a little that 13 is fine but I couldn’t do 20, it’s huge endurance in the bank for my real A race in October.  I’ll be needing to ramp up to 6-7 hours of ass kicking without a rest, and having a good handle on 3-4 hours running will be huge.  I will have a chance at attacking 20 miles again soon.

I know right now I’m as trained up as I need to be for a half that I’m not trying to PR.  I’ll be cutting my long runs to what I have prescribed for Zliten through Austin (8, race, 10, 8, race) and then see where I go from there.  I have a 10 mile race I’m looking at in April, and there’s really not time to lose much run endurance between then and ramping up for tri season.  I’m still looking into training plans and coordinating my strategy through October, but I don’t see dropping much below the double digis any time soon minus a possible intentional brain/body break after Austin for about a month.

Also, most importantly - I successfully set out a plan and coached and supported Zliten to expand his runs from 5k to 13.1. He actually ran the distance last weekend strong.   I am a proud wife!  I thought it was a little ambitious but now he’s running longer distances like a champ!  I have no doubt if we set out together to train for something, we’ll get there. (It also makes me think I might consider getting my first level coaching license but that’s another tangent…)

My brain is already going 1500000 miles about the training plan for tri season in a completely different way than I was for this marathon, so I know we’ll get it.  We registered for the Texas Tri Series, which is May super sprint, June sprint, July sprint, August sprint, Sept olympic, end of Sept half iron.  We need to pick what we race and what we run, and set our sights on hitting that half IM.  It will be a challenge (considering my swim and run are there right now like a champ, but I need to add TWENTY MILES to my bikeness), but I think we can dominate.

So, whether it’s the safe choice or the wussy choice or whatnot, it’s been made. 26.2, we’re a missed connection right now, but I’ll catch ya later.

2012 has really started off opposite of most of last year. Let’s look at 2 of my major goals:

1.  Lose weight.  More specifically, 1600 calories on all days but long run day.  No sugar.  Mostly organic.  Keeping the ratios pretty even.  Basically, good, clean eating. For most of December, I struggled HARD with 1600 calories.  This week, I rocked it out of the park.  To the point where some days, I was eating more at night to get to 1600 on purpose.

While I don’t necessarily think that I should be shoving food down my mouth if I’m not really hungry, I want to get good data if I’m losing at this calorie range and not just my normal TRY TO EAT AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE without going insane and then get frustrated. So yeah - no sugar.  Very little nutritionally void food.  Mostly organic/good quality.  Only out to eat 4 times last week.  Around 1600 each day, 2400 on long run day.  I feel so much more fabulous than I did this time last week.

Weight is 178, while it’s up from my last official weigh in, is actually down from the damage I did on vacation.

2.  Marathon Training Most of 2011 (at least the last half), it was all about “my training is going awesome but I can’t get my eating habits together”.  Sadly, I’m just about opposite this week.  I missed one workout (my swim - not critical, but still, not good).  I had to take my 10 miler at planned marathon pace down to 6 miles due to time constraints, and worst of all - I couldn’t get my long run done - I only did 14.5 instead of the 15 minimum I had required, and the last mile + of that was walking.

Now I’m in a bit of a pickle.  My goal was the Austin Marathon in 6 weeks.  I have thus far done one terrible 18 miler with much walking, one 16 miler, one 15 miler, two 14 milers, about 5 half marathon distance runs, and probably another 10 double digit runs.  My during-the-week training has been spotty as well. Most importantly, I’m not having success with my longer-than-half runs, my calves, hammies, and glutes seize up like whoa and running is painpainpain no matter how slow I take it or how many walk breaks I give myself.  If I simply was undertrained and was feeling good during runs I’d probably go for it, but this feels like there may be a problem.

I’m trying to remember how getting from 10k to 12 miles felt, but I really break down somewhere after I hit double digits. The super frustrating part is that I remember some of my long runs for halfs I really trained for wasted me for the whole rest of the day, maybe 2.  While I’m in major pain during the latter halves of these runs, after I walk, stretch, and get some food in me, I’m feeling great and could probably finish the mileage.  Either I’ve somehow lessened my ability to tolerate pain and uncomfortableness, or this is worse.

This week I’m loading up on potassium and calcium, and will attempt to take in more calories before and during the run, and see if that gets me through the 20 miles.  If not, then I have some hard choices.  Enter the proverbial pro/con list.

PRO running 26.2:

-I set the goal, I want to follow it through.

-I have a month set aside to rest and recover.  This is the right timing in the year with my other goals I want to accomplish.

-It’s one step closer to ironman.  If I can’t run a marathon, I will never do an IM.

-I want the silly little decal on my car.

-It’s proof that I can indeed do anything I set my mind to.

-It’s going to be HARD.  I haven’t done a race that’s really hard besides the arbitrary standards of time I set on myself for a long while.  Since my Olympic tri in 2010 for sure.  Everything else has just been either chasing a PR or for fun.

-5 hours of running is a good experience if I want to consider 6-7 hours on my feet for the half iron and/or century

-Not doing it after I said it so publicly feels like giving up.  I’m convinced y’all will think just a tiny bit less of me if I wuss out on this.

-I’ve been training for it since October.  If I wasn’t going to bother, I should have spent the time resting.  What a waste!

-This would be false start #2 for marathon training for me,  I’d like to see it through.

-I’m not trained up for a half marathon PR right now, so what’s the point of even running it?

CON (running 13.1):

-Supporting Joel to the finish line on his 2nd half marathon

-Running a distance I know literally is just another weekend jaunt and I can move onto other things sooner than a long marathon recovery.

-Another lesson to myself that every race is not just about Quix PR’ing it.

-Less chance of hurting myself means I can start tri training earlier

-I hate training in the cold, less time I have to be out during crappy cold weather! (Yes, I would much rather heat train - I’m silly like that…)

-Getting as comfortable as I am with double digit runs and running 4 halfs this season is still a huge accomplishment.  I’ve always run 13.1 miles and threw a fit and stopped running for a month and taken 6 months to even want to attempt a long run again.  A double digit run is now just another Saturday now.

-I will have another chance at a marathon in the fall.  After I run the half iron in October, I can bank on all that stamina and training from the summer and probably do the same thing I did with the olympic and the half marathon 6 weeks later in 2010.  Also, RnR San Antonio is perfect weather, a nice fast and flat course (which Austin isn’t), and I really liked it in 2010. (However, I was considering banking my endurance and doing a century in October.  Can I do both?  Will I be so OVER training by October that I don’t want to do any of this? Will taking the pressure off myself earlier in the year help lengthen my post season motivation?)

-I don’t feel ready for the marathon.  I’ve never entered a new distance feeling as if I had so far to go from training to race.  I don’t feel as if I have earned the right to do it.

-Unless the nutrition really is the key and I have a stellar 20 miler this Saturday, do I really want my first marathon to be mostly memories of being in pain?   Maybe it’s worth a few false starts to grow more comfortable with longer distances.

-Will I really feel accomplished and worthy of calling myself a marathoner if I just drag myself across the finish line in what feels like not a respectable time?  I don’t want to just finish a marathon, I want to run a marathon.  I’m not sure if I can do that yet.

-I don’t really have love and passion for the distance.  It’s really just a stepping stone to do something more (Ironman).

-If it was between a marathon and a tri, I’d have dropped the race like a hot potato.  This really is because I feel like doing this is the most efficient use of my time to improve for tri season.

-If I just make this call, all the stress about training schedules goes out the door.  I can start ramping up my biking and swimming NOAWWWW which is all I wanna do.  I am the sick puppy that wants to go out and buy my trainer NOAWWWW (yes, again for emphasis) and cycle through movie and tv marathons.

-I may just have to accept the cold hard fact that 178 lbs is heavier than my body wants to be to do the miles in a manner which does me proud.  Not that I’m an advocate of waiting until you’re perfect to accomplish your goals, but doing this after taking off 10-20 lbs later in the year (please, let that be reality!!!) might be a game changer in terms of how the miles feel to me.

So in summary, I have a lot of thinking to do.  Most people I’ve talked to say to not do the marathon, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m being weak willed about it and trying to cover it up by making it sound like I’m making the smart choice, and really, I just need to push my boundaries and buck up and do something REALLY HARD.  I may be longing for tri season and not feeling a lot of run love right now, but isn’t that always the case for me knee-deep in a running training cycle?  Right about now all I want to do is anything BUT run (but then the light at the end of the tunnel appears near race day and wheeee!!! the love returns in spades).

So yeah, my thinker is going overtime.  I’m also trying to think of what is best for weight loss, but it seems like my eating is pretty well in check and once I accepted that training more != the ability to eat crap and/or not be stringent on how many calories I’m taking in (make sure it’s an appropriate level), I don’t think it matters either way. So, if you were in my position, what would you do?  Will I regret the race I ran without full and complete feelings of preparation, or will I regret not taking the chance?

Five years ago (geez, was it really FIVE YEARS!!!  Holy crap!!!)… erm, wait, not the point, let me start again.

In Jan 2007, I awoke from my bed in San Diego morbidly obese at 265 lbs (estimated with rate of loss - I didn’t get a scale until 250s but anyhoo… I’m easily distractable today so expect lots of parens…).  My main priorities in life were work, work, work, and figuring out the easiest way to get through life without moving my body much.

Yes, I’m making light, but seriously, my idea of a perfect weekend was not leaving the house in my pajamas, moving only from the bed to our office and to the couch.  We were in a 600 sq foot apartment, so it wasn’t very far.  I wore stretchy skirts and shirts so I could avoid the plus size stores.  XXL at mervyns and target were my friends.  If you didn’t shop in the plus size stores or sections, you weren’t fat, right?  Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt folks…

However, that river ends.  Late 2006, we ended up taking a trip north to San Francisco for a friend’s wedding which necessitated jeans.  I didn’t own any.  I went and tried on 16s, then 18s, then was shocked to find that 24s fit me (and were even TIGHT).  Well, I certainly couldn’t be that plus size, so I resolved when I got back to really do it this time, buck the odds working in the video game industry (long hours sitting on my ass and unhealthy crunch food, oh my!), and lose weight!  Not the most epic reason for the epiphany, but whatever works, right?

I also resolved to work a 40 hour week instead of the 80-100 I was imposing on myself.  I was doing so much fast forward it wasn’t funny, and it never got to the good part when everything was sunshine and rainbows.

Early 2007, I got a good start taking down 25 lbs and then went on vacation and job hunted - once I wasn’t so caught up in my own work involvement and drama, I realized that I needed to move on (amicably), both professionally and location-wise.  This stalled weight loss.  Always in my life, anything that wasn’t optimal conditions stalled weight loss.

I relocated, I rejobbed, and BAM! My first week, I got a stomach bug that took me down 10 lbs in 5 days.  At that point, I had made peace with my 240 lb-ish self until “things settled down”, but some old jeans at my 230-ish self fit.  Of course, when the weight came back on and they didn’t fit anymore, I was sorta sadface, and thought, “Hmmm, there must be a way to do this without eating only Gatorade and saltines…”

After research, I found www.sparkpeople.com (I’m not paid, just a fan).  This was the “hacker diet” I had read and liked the idea of, without having to mess with my own spreadsheets.  I decided I would give spark a month and do whatever it said.  Looking back at what I was eating back then, it was utter junk, but it was LESS utter junk - in general around 1200-1500 most days, more on weekends.  Seriously though - how did I eat a PIECE OF FRUIT or a 100 CAL YOPLAIT for breakfast?  I would FAINT DEAD AWAY on that nowadays…

Also, sparkpeople said to do 20 mins of cardio 3 times per week, and 15 mins of weights 3 times per week.  I remember thinking “geez, this is a lot, how will I make this a habit?  This isn’t doable forever…”  I elipticaled Tu/W/Th to give myself maximum vacation from the “suck” that was cardio and did weights M/W/F.  On Wednesdays, I had to do a 35 minute workout.  This was SO MUCH TIME to dedicate.  I didn’t enjoy one bit of it, but spark said to do it so I did.

After one month, I had lost just about the same amount I did being sick, and I felt great!  Progress is the best motivator, so I kept at it.  I knew I had a long while to go, so I just dug in and kept going.

I wish I could share with you what a struggle it was to go from 240 to 170.  I would love to give you a dramatic play by play of what I gave up and my journey from junk food junkie to organic goddess, but that’s just not how it played out.  I spent August 2007 to August 2008 eating pretty much the same things, just less of them, and making myself do cardio and weights 3-4 times per week.  The scale went down pretty much every week, sometimes 0.2 lbs, sometimes 2.0, but I rarely had a gain or maintain week.  Once I got the inertia going, it was almost effortless.  I lost 70 lbs just by counting calories, most of the time keeping them under 1500 with some splurge-y days, and doing said workout schedule above.  I still smoked, albeit less and less, and I still got drunk, but less often, I still ate cake, but smaller pieces, and still ate tacos plates, but had the rest of my day healthy.

Racing was but a glimmer in my eye, and my only real goal was to make the scale go down, but somewhere in there I found a little joy and feeling of accomplishment in the workouts themselves.  And down it went until I got stuck.

Around 170 I had a bit of a plateau, but I attributed it it over a year of steady weight loss and just being TIRED of it.  I took a few months to maintain and give myself a break, and then refocused in Dec 2008 and continued the loss to April 2009 when I hit my low of 150.2.

April 2009 was also the month I started to train for my first half marathon.  I had run a 5k and got hooked.  I saw a “train for a hlaf marathon” plan in a magazine and figured “why not”.  I did another 5k and then a 10k before the race.  By the time I ran the race, I was 155 - one cannot train for a half marathon on 1200-1500 calories, and I didn’t count calories.  After two years of restriction, I’m pretty sure I just went crazy.  Can’t say that I looked anything but awesome though…

Besides about 2-3 weeks of pre-wedding crash diet where I got back down to 152 (and then spent a few days partying in Vegas pre-wedding, I’m lucky my wedding dress fit, heh), I’d never see the low 150s again.  By the time I ran my second half in Feb 2010, I was just about 160.  By the time I ran my third half and got through my first tri season in Nov 2010, I was 165.  I didn’t like the trend, but I still liked the way I looked in the mirror and loved what my body could do!  I PR’d a half marathon!  I was a triathlete!  I was unstoppable!

Last year, I’m not sure WTF happened.  I gained some weight when I hurt my back and couldn’t do much (170), and actually gained another 5 lbs trying to figure out my nutrition over the summer that never really came back off.  It’s a bizarre feeling having your insides feel awesome and healthy and athlete-y and having your outsides just keep.getting.bigger.  I can also credit just not being ready to put in the “do whatever it takes”.  I wanted cake more than I wanted to lose weight.  We raced A LOT this year and did a lot of long weekend training.  With that, however, came a lot of “OMG I just spent 2 hours on the bike and ran a 5k I’m going to eat and drink all the things for the rest of the weekend”.  I am living proof that you can absolutely outeat your training.  A lot.  However, I PR’d my sprint tri (did 3 total), I ran 2 half marathons, helped support Zliten becoming a full on triathlon and race addict like I am, and did other various and sundry 5ks, mud runs, and duathlons (PR’d that too!).  2011 was an awesome year - just not on the weight loss front.

Here we are at 2012.  I feel like something has awoken.  That patient determination, that something is wrong enough that I’ll do what it takes even if it’s hard (why I couldn’t do this at 5-10 lbs gained, I don’t know).  That I know I can’t just lose this weight in a month.  That I need to make some hard choices sometimes and focus on priorities.  That I probably need to continue tracking my food and calories for a while, and it may be doubly important during training season to make sure I’m not over/under eating.  That I’ll always feel like I can outtrain my food and it’s JUST NOT THE CASE.  That it’s unfair that a lot of people can eat more junk food than me and look like uber athletes.  This is my reality and I can accept it.

It’s not that I eat one slice of pizza and gain 10 lbs.  I can indulge for a birthday or a vacation or even because it’s Saturday and I’ve been good all week.  I’m not destined to a life of militant abstination from anything but veggies and chicken.  However, it has to be the exception and not the rule.

I’m starting the game over, the wakeup call I had in Jan 2007, but this time, the game has changed.

-MORE DIFFICULT: There are some foods off limits.  Instead of just a calorie goal, I also have my ratios (3-4 protein, 1-2 nuts, 4 oils, 1 grain, 1 carrot/corn/potato, 1 dairy), PLUS I’m trying to eat as much organic, non-GMO, no hormones/antibiotic, and 8-ingredients-or-less foods.  In 2007, my requirement was just less foods.

-LESS DIFFICULT: I’ve proven to myself that I could lose weight, fairly recently.  I haven’t only lost weight due to starvation or an accident.  I know it’s possible.  I just have to be willing to do whatever it takes.

-MORE DIFFICULT: Before, if I was feeling hungry, I could just go smoke, or get caffeinated, or just deal with it.  However, hunger made me kind of brain dead and weak.  You can’t get 100% out of training hungry and having given up smoking and caffeine (both for the most part), I have to really manage my hunger so it’s not crippling.  I have yet to have a day where 1600 calories is REALLY REALLY not enough, but I know that day will come, and I will need to figure out a better coping mechanism.

-LESS DIFFICULT: I only have to lose 25 or so, rather than OVER 100.  While needing to lose 100 lbs really impressed upon myself the seriousness of my condition, it also was a daunting, multi-year task.  If I really buckle down and stay on the straight and narrow, I could be onto the maintain part of this process by summer.

The point of this is to both to…

a) remind myself that I’ve come a long way, and if I can lose 100 lbs, anyone can.  It just takes the full and true WANT to do it.

b) focus on the task at hand.  After being in denial for a year or 2, and a long winter’s nap, I’m awake.  I’m ready.  Let’s get er done.

So yes, time to wake up and smell the coffee before I’m 250 lbs again and wondering what happened.  Starting next week, expect accountability and progress!

While I’m not exactly a slacker all year long or anything, it’s time to join the resolutioners and emerge from the long winter’s nap I’ve been taking and really hit it hard.  I have some extra in my middle to take care of and some marathon training to catch up on.

Last week I started training again - not with any speed or flair, but I got 3 solid, albeit SLOW runs done, even a double digit on Saturday.  This week, I go whole hog - back to complete and total healthiness, and training as much back to normal as I can while I cleanse my poor, junk food addled body.

The January Plan:

-No sugar.  No sweet treats, no deserts, etc, unless it’s fuel during a run.  Again, not going crazy trying to eliminate every source of hidden sugar from my diet but I’m trying to cut out the easy stuff.  Also, it’s easier to say no when I’m completely abstaining.  Exception is, of course, fruit, proteins, smoothies, and protein bars (which are very low sugar anyway) in a pinch.  If I’m freaking out, I will allow myself some homemade frozen yogurt w/stevia.

-1600 calories per day, minus long run day.  Long run day is 1600 + allowance for a reasonable amount of booze (~2000 total).  If I want to drink any other day, it has to come out of the 1600.  I’m treating this like a bank - once my calories are gone, they are gone.

-Continuing with nutritionist recommended 1 grain per day, 1 potato/corn/carrot per day, 1 dairy per day, 3-4 proteins, 1-2 legumes, and 1 nut.  Calories are king here, but attempting to stay with these ratios as closely as possible.

-Also continuing with the organic/grass fed/no hormones/no antibiotics thing, and trying to get back to the “less than 9 ingredients” thing whenever possible and it makes sense.

This week specifically:

-3 runs - speedwork (1k, 2k, 1k, 1k w/400m rest in between), tempo - 10 mile at planned marathon pace, and 15 miles.

-2 other sessions - DDR and either a bike or a swim.

-stretch after each session

-do my little plio7 strength routine each morning

I’ve got my groceries planned and we’re precooking chicken for lunches this week.  I’ll also be batch cooking *something* each weekend so we have some EZ lunches and dinners ready.  I’ve also conceded that keeping some decent frozen dinners around (like kashi, amy’s, etc) might be the lesser of two evils rather than getting takeout or going for other easy and less healthy options.  And I’m pretty sick of soup, I need more variety.

So yeah, the goal for January is trying to be boring for the most part, get some good healthy eating and training under my belt, consistency and some solid progress.  The only plans we have are the gorilla run (possibly) and Zliten’s first half marathon - 3M - at the end of the month.  I know I can’t be boring until I’m at my goal weight, but it will give me a good start.

Being that I’ve just eaten crap-tastically (for me) for a good chunk of December, and the fact that it’s TOM, I think I’ll skip the weigh in for this moment, and take it later in the week once I’m back into the swing of things.

Today: so far, so good.  One day, one week, one lb, and one mile at a time.  Let’s do this!

Before we pop the bubbly at midnight, here’s what I hope to accomplish next year!

1.  Take care of this weight problem that keeps creeping up.  Beyond my Zliten, and my job, this is what I need to deal with in 2012.  Continue to work with the nutritionist and take whatever steps necessary to end 2012 lower than 2011.  Starting the year at 1600 calorie avg, attempting to stick with my current ratios (1 grain, 1 veggie b, 1 dairy), should be interesting to see where I end up…  I’m starting on the typical Jan 2nd and will be really giving it a good solid effort.  If I can get a month of routine and weight loss under my belt, perhaps the rest of the year will go better.  Also - do not sacrifice quality of food.  Organic, pesticide free, hormone free, etc etc whenever possible.

2.  Work/industry goal:  While I enjoy what I do, I can see myself easily working my way up into more and more senior management, further and further away from the creative parts of making a game.  I need to get back there.  To really be inspired, I must play.  I’ve found myself having urges to play games this year, but the laptop I had was 5 years old and couldn’t play anything modern.  This has been rectified for Christmas - I have a nice, shiny, new lappy.   I don’t want to feel like I hold on to my gamer card de facto because I work in the industry.  Sacrifice to get this done: internet dorking time.  This website is probably not going to be updated any more frequently than it was this year.  Sorry/you’re welcome.

To that end I will:

-Dedicate one evening per week to reading, and one evening per week of gaming.

-Come up with one good, well thought out, game pitch, whether it’s something I take to work, or something that’s just for me.

3.  Race/workout goals:

-Finish a marathon, a century ride, and a half ironman.  I was going to go smaller on this and had written down “complete at least one new distance” to give myself an out, but in my head, this is what I have planned.  No sense in not putting it out there.  If all 3 don’t happen because I had to make a smart decision for my mental and/or physical health to drop to a shorter race or drop out, so be it.

-Note that with this goal, I’m NOT making the next goal to PR everything.  When I race a race, the goal is to always PR, but I’m really pushing the distance envelope this year, which means I’m ok sacrificing speed.  The only exception: sprint tris.

-Really concentrate on my bike times.  This is the best place for me to improve my tri times.

-Complete all TX Tri Series races (6 tris in 5 months).  PR at least 1.

-Take at least 3 months of the year not in training (off season) to mentally and physically rest.

-Stretch after every workout.

-Strength train 2x week (catch another crunchtime class at lunch?)

-Let’s try this again.  Run a race somewhere outside Texas.  I’ll have some opportunities next year, very likely San Diego.

-Volunteer at more races.  I was able to volunteer once this year and while I think it’s what got me sick for vacation, it was a great experience.

4.  Start one major house renovation this year.  Likely, the windows.  First priority, the kitchen windows that have no seals anymore.  This has moved up from just a one liner to a line item.  We’ve spent way too long looking at some major things in the house that need changing and being lazy.  If we don’t do this, something else just as major that’s on the list (counters, bathroom, etc).

5.  Yet again, more one liners:

-Get the office set up as an office/craft room, not a junk store room (we’re halfway there, it’s cleaned out, we just need to look for some furniture and decide exactly how we want to rearrange it and such).

-Decide what to do with the savings now that we have some, that doesn’t incude something at 0.000145% like our savings account.

-Do more batch cooking so having healthy lunches and dinners available is easier.  It’s not my favorite thing to do but I’m going to get really sick of Amy’s and Annie’s real quick.

-Learn to sew. So I can modify my horrible men sized race tees. And maybe making skirts. And other stuff.

-Learn the party rock anthem dance.  Every day I’m shufflin….day I’m shufflin….

Here’s what I wanted to do last year, and how I did at actually *doing* it.

Resolution 1.  First and foremost, I need to get a handle on my free time.  I spend most of my weeknights just dorking on social media because it’s easy, I haven’t had a chance to look at it all day - and then all of a sudden it’s bedtime and I’ve done nothing.  I’d like to start with a goal to not have my nose in my lappy all the time.  I’d like to make one weeknight per week a reading night (no laptop after dinner), and 1 day per week gaming (again, no laptop after dinner).  I need to accept that I don’t need to read EVERY tweet or facebook update if I don’t have time.  I love keeping in touch with people, but if they care that much, they can @ me or tag me.

I’ve done *better* here, but there is definitely room for improvement.  I’ve read more this year than I have since I was in college.  I’ve taken some nights where I close my laptop, turn off the tv, and do something else.  But I also accepted this year that sometimes there is not enough time (when I have less than 2 hours from get home time to bed time) or I don’t have the mental capacity after a tough day at work and tough workout to do anything else than just veg.  I am a little more tied to Facebook and Twitter than I’d like, but it’s less of a compulsion than just an intentional timewaster.

Resolutin2.  Race goals -

-I’d like a new half marathon PR (goal - 2:05).  I’d love a sub 2 hour, but improvement is all I care about…
Wasn’t in the cards this year.  I ran 2 halfs, neither were PR-worthy but just for training.

-I’d also like to feel that I could run 10 miles at any time (do at least 1 double digit run per month)…
The first part of this year? Nope.  August on?  Yep.  Each time I grow my distance from 10k to double digits it gets a lot easier, so it’s probably not necessary to feel like I can just bust out 10.

-Do another sprint and olympic triathlon, PR at least 1….
Only did sprints, which was an intentional choice.  Major PRs, getting better each race (I took 11 minutes off last year’s PR, and the bike distance was 3 miles longer, so effectively like a 25 minute decrease in time).  I decided to focus on my short game and it paid off!

-I’d like to attack my 5k, 5 mile, and/or 10k PR…
Wasn’t in the cards this year.  I suck at running 5ks lately, while I ran a great 5 miler it wasn’t a PR, and didn’t run a 10k.

-Do a trail half marathon/duathalon in one weekend…
This was a non-starter.  I realized I needed a mountain bike, which wasn’t on the docket.  Maybe someday, and this race is still on my bucket list, but for now, I’m enjoying road biking.

-Do each workout in the new tri training book at least once…
Once I started to work about the short game, I didn’t always have an hour to dedicate on each sport per workout.  I’ll pick this up again next year.  I did all the pre-season ones though!

-Do a destination race outside Texas (any distance)…
I tried really hard with this one, but vacation schedules got all mucked up and I never made it anywhere beyond Texas.  However, I raced in Conroe, Flatonia, Rocky Hill Ranch, Kerrville, Azle, Cedar Creek, and Spicewood.  Nothing more than 4 hours away, but 5 of them are new places I never would have visited without my racing habit.

-Adapt these as I see fit next year… the goal is mainly to get better at the distances I’ve do…
So far so good, looking to expand next year though!

Resolution 3.  Weight Loss/Maintenance goals - get down to and maintain 150 by summer. Once i get down to 15o, never go above 155… that will allow me to fit in all my clothes, still have flexibility to gain a little during race training that I can easily lose after, and once I get there, feel super fit, awesome, and hot while not being a weight I have to only eat celery to maintain.

Nope!  However, I’m getting help and working on my nutrition.  I’ve not taken any weight off, but I have been feeling a lot more capable and my body feeling like I can tackle more, so that’s good.  We’ve started counting calories again but also using the ratios, and I have a feeling this is the silver bullet (though it’s HARD, it’s at least something concrete to do).  While I can’t really say WHEN I’ll solve the problem, I won’t give up trying.

Resolution 3b.  Continue with strength training, yoga, and things that don’t immediately contribute to torching tons of calories or race training but definitely helps build definition, makes me look thinner, and most importantly, helps me improve my race times.

Ehhhh…. when I haven’t been injured, I have at least ONCE a week done weights (crunchtime class).  I have endeavoured to do at least one more session but I’d say it’s at about a… 25% success rate.  Yoga, I did horrible at.  Once I injured my back I stopped going to class (except for the once I went back and REINJURED myself).  This fall I’ve done a little better about taking some time to stretch, but still, I should be stretching each and every workout and I’m just not.

Resolution 4.  Continue with my job in the same position at the same company continuing to improve, grow, and become a better producer capable of handling more things with more ease.  I have much more specific goals here but that’s about all I’ll say publicly.

Yes indeedy.  It’s been a hell of a year volume-wise, I may be sprouting more grey hairs than I did last year at this time, but I believe I’ve definitely grown and made progress as a manager, and my game has definitely been successful because of it.

Resolution 5.  More one liners:

-Smoke less.  Continue to allow smokes only with alcohol, and I’d like to get to the point where I can take it or leave it.
A little, yes.  Not sure if there has been much progress with the number.  My one triumph this year: I can have a few drinks in a social situation where it is not convenient/appropriate to smoke, and not really want one.  Wine especially.

-Less hangovers.  I hate getting one of my weekend days eaten being laid out on the couch.  I just need to quit just BEFORE that switch flips where it’s on like donkey kong and all of a sudden it’s 10am and I feel like death warmed over.
I’ve gotten better at this later in the year.  I’ve been better at not going too crazy this fall, and found that just a touch of caffiene before bed or right when I get up cures most ills.

-Pay off the car (January), pay off Zliten’s college loan (August), and continue to meet our savings goal of 1k per month.
Car paid off.  Loan almost paid off (more due to forgetting to pay rather than not having the money - this should be taken care of early next year).  Savings goal highly exceeded.

-Visit one new city I’ve never seen before.  Denver? NYC? Seattle? Portland?
Technically, yes.  Not counting all the new places we visited racing, we saw Roatan (Honduras), Belize City, Houston, Port Aransas (Texas), and Montego Bay (Jamaica).  However, I think what I was going for is a non-Texas in the US city.  This I didn’t do, but I can’t really complain with the other trips we took.

-Begin one new major house renovation.  Failing that, start planning and budgeting for it and establish a timeline (windows, bathrooms, counters, etc).
We got estimates for the windows.  We decided to get more and find a place that doesn’t just do replacement windows, because it would make us lose 3 inches on each side of the beautiful windows we fell in love with in the kitchen.  Non-replacement windows are expensive.  So we need to do a little more planning.  Hoping to undertake this next year.

-Find something that makes me happy that is not goal oriented.  Some people knit.  Not to be the best knitter and to make x scarves per week and improve by March to be onto stripes instead of solids, but simply because they enjoy the act of it.  Same with Zliten and reading.  I’d like to find mine.
I don’t know that I made any progress here.  I didn’t really concentrate on this, I just really tried to shut off the competition and the drive when I’m not either a) working or b) training.  Maybe that’s a good thing?

-Continue to do things that frighten/excite/challenge me (like trapeze lessons or flight lessons) and continue to pick out of the hat - the whole life goal of one truly memorable thing per month.
January: Ran in Austin in a Gorilla Suit
February: Visited Roatan, Belize City, and Cozumel
March: Did Warrior Dash, saw the biggest aquariam ever, and saw NASA
April: Rookie Tri (Zliten’s first tri!)
May: Our first splash and dash, Yelp Goes Gaga party (aka, an excuse to leave the house in fancy sunglasses, a feather boa, and a tiara)
June: Did a haunted tour of Austin in a Hearse Limo, Pflugerville Tri
July: Saw Judah Frielander at Cap City Comedy Club, took back the summer and started training outside
August: Yelp Finn and Porter Fancy Party
September: Port Aransas Trip, Six Flags minus all the lines with M and her awesome company
October: Kerriville Tri PR, 1st place AG at Dash for Dads 5k
November: Second place AG at Azle Lake Half Marathon
December: Jamaica (and probably much more by the end of the vacation)

…some are bigger than others, but definitely something awesome each month.

I had big goals this year, and I hit quite a few of them, missed a few, and abandoned some.  Although I have not made the progress I want in some important areas (weight, some PRs, some personal growth, some projects), I definitely have had a year to be proud of.

NOTE: Pictures are not from an episode of Hoarders, but from our very own “office”.  Since we have laptops and have never really needed an office (the living room is our office), it became the storage room for junk we didn’t know where to put or didn’t have a place for.  One spoiler goal for 2012 is to make it into an actual, usable space and we got a jump on it yesterday.  Here is the after:

Closet organization instead of piles of boxes spewing forth…

There’s carpet in there now, and a usable desk!  There’s still a long way to go until it’s actually set up the way we like and everything is put away completely and set up properly, but we’re much closer after a solid afternoon and evening of work!

Goals for 2012 coming up sometime before, well, 2012.  How was your 2011?

I’m back home after 6 days out of the country, a little tanner, my belly a little jigglier, my mind a LOT more relaxed.  Day by day below…but some overall impressions of my vacay…

If I didn’t detail a time it was probably due to reading, either on the day bed letting the light come in between the leaves of the tree outside my window or on the beach, in a cabana, right by the ocean (pretty much right there where Zliten is).  I got through about 800 pages of the second George R R Martin’s book A Clash of Kings, reread one of my fave childhood books A Wrinkle in Time in one sitting, and started (and finished when I got back) a really cool campy sci fi book, A Galaxy Unknown.

I had gotten a scratchy and sore throat the day before we left, and I’m still coughing.  So yes, Mrs. Never-gets-sick has gotten sick on TWO vacations this year.  If I would have had the time to really take it easy like I normally do this would probably be gone by now but fun in Jamaica is worth a little extra recovery time.

I WAY overpacked - I brought a big suitcase and a carry on (which could be suited for a normal human 5 day vacation).  On vacation I usually bring a lot of stuff and end up with some of it unworn (but sometimes, not, and sometimes what I wear is what I don’t think I’ll touch).  The carry on came back with everything unworn.  I even made the effort to change a lot once I realized my effort, but still.  I packed for a cruise, which sees you changing multiple times a day and there is a lot of hot-to-cold due to blasting AC and changing climates.  This vacation, I spent most of it in my swimsuit and found that I needed no pants nor sweaters/wraps as the only AC was in the room at our control and the rest of the resort was open air, and that lovely air was between 75-85 degrees, so, yeah.  Perfect.  I brought dresses for dinner each night, which wasn’t needed, but they were comfortable, so I didn’t regret that.

Next resort vacay, I’ll take two swim suits, workout clothes, dresses for every night, two pairs of shorts, a handful of tank tops, one pair of pants, and ONE sweater (just in case).  I did alright on shoes, especially because one pair broke, and a new pair ended up giving me blisters.

My goal was to do as many watersports as possible since it was all included.  However, day 1 we got settled in just before sunset, and day 2 was a “danger” day (although I’m pretty sure below was the most dangerous thing in the water) so they recommended everyone stay out.  I swam the rest of the days, but only for an hour or two.  I expected to be in the water every second, and try every piece of equipment they had - but I was just not operating on 100% Quix power.

To be honest, there was nothing spectacular about the food.  They had great soups, fresh bread baked there with butter, and always had salad fixins, but to be honest, everything else was hit or miss.  Zliten noted that since the majority of the guests appeared to be from England, the food was probably styled to their tastes.  Which, to be honest, was a bit bland for my spice and heat-lovin’ self.  I became a pseudo vegetarian a lot of the time because the cuts of meat at times were just no bueno for me, or it was something like squid, or pigs feet, or weird looking fish.

I’d like to say that it kept me from being a little piggy, but sadly, I just indulged a lot on the things I liked (let’s just say that I probably had more bread last week than I have since I started low grain, if not double).  The pants, they are tight this week, but today resumes normal, healthy, sane person eating and calorie counting.  I am going to wager that I shouldn’t be incurring damage for too long.  Let’s just say since I’ve been back… uh… the remenants of Jamaica are moving through me at a much more right and proper manner.

All you can drink rum is a wonderful thing.  However, I think I’ll avoid the super molassess-y rum for a while, there is definitely too much of a good thing.  I didn’t go overboard on the sugar-y drinks, but I did indulge in a few pina coladas, and random fruity conoctgions, and had many, many, rum and diet cokes.  I’m pretty sure I ran the whole vacation just on caffiene alone, and I’m working on THAT hangover this week.

The resort itself?  Just about exactly what I expected for what I booked.  It was not luxury, the room definitely had “character” with half the bed being just about unsleepable (sadly, took me two days to realize it wasn’t just me being a princess about it and I aggravated my hip again), weird little white bugs in the open air bathroom, and a tv remote that you had to jiggle to work, the walls were impossibly thin, and there was always SOME sort of noise outside making it impossible to sleep past 8 most days.

However, I expected it all and more, so it was no big deal.  The resort was BIG, and we lucked out with a room right by the stairs to the lobby, so we were close to everything.  We had both a bedroom and a living room (with a REALLY comfortable day bed, I spent some of my nights there).  The staff was super friendly, especially the bartenders.  There was ALWAYS some sort of music going on - often Jamaican rap, sometimes the house band that played at mealtimes, sometimes a singer on the stage, but it definitely added to the atmosphere.  I also dug that Jamaica is an English speaking country.

And, uh… all you can drink rum.  QT with Zliten.  Beautiful ocean right there.  Watching the planes land during the day.  Watching the sun set over the water from the bar.  Reading from a shaded cabana hearing the harmony of random music and the waves lapping on the shore with a view of the sun, sand, boardwalk, and palm tree?  Everything I wanted in a vacation and more.

Here’s some quick day-by-day notes I took:

Tuesday:

Had to get up at 4am to get to airport (ugh), was definitely sick that day, uneventful flight, got into Jamaica, hotel was 5 mins from the airport, put stuff in room, changed into shorts, and then went to the bar.  Bartender took it upon himself to get us supremely drunk, and considering we had only a light soup and salad lunch with pretzels to snack on, it wasn’t too hard.  Dinner was hazy.  Had a fun night.  Nommed a burger and fries at the late night kitchen, it was SOOOO good.

Wednesday:

Read read read in the cabana most of the day.  Boozy banana drink was excellent (Zliten asked for something blended from the bar, bartender put some alcohol and a banana in the blender and served, and it was delicious, tasted like a milkshake).  Prime day of sickness, lots of cold medicine, cough drops, and such.  Made use of my first ever hankerchief and had to wash it out twice during the day (ewww).  Nap in the cabana was excellent.  Didn’t even get in the pool or ocean (red flag day) and it rained on and off all day - I didn’t mind, it was gorgeous and never got cold.  Walked around the whole complex exploring, we saw lots of weird stuff at the edges of the property, like a cool graveyard, a greenhouse, and a weird shed with random stuff in it.  Super mellow mellow day.

Thursday:

Spent the morning reading in the sun on a nice padded red couch/futon thing right on the ocean, got burned in the spots my running stuff doesn’t cover (apparently I need to get some more revealing running clothes…).  Spent the noon times in the ocean swimming (tried to play catch the fishies but it was way too murky in the water).  Zliten’s back lost a battle with a jellyfish (owie!).  Spent the afternoon time in the pool swimming and at the swim up bar.  We attempted to stay up to hit the disco, but my body shut down at around 10 and even a cup of coffee didn’t help, so we fell asleep before midnight.

Friday:

Read most of the day, this time we sat by the pool.  Swam, and the ocean was much clearer so we saw some fishies.  Encountered the diver man, who strapped bracelets on our wrist and then made us pay for them (we were kind of amused so we paid, but seriously, we got accosted in the WATER?)  Went kayaking, was super fun - tried to get as close to the landing strip at the airport as possible, but sadly, never caught a plane on camera while we were out there.  Decided we wanted to actually leave the resort and walked to Margaritaville and split some fish tacos as a snack and watched the sun set on their deck.  Noted it was kinda nice to hear familiar music since all we’d been hearing was Jamaican for the last 3 days.  Had a pretty mellow night.

Saturday:

Goals of the day: go for a run (no check, still felt crappy), chase the fishies (check), water trampoline bouncing (check), souvenir shopping (not check, enjoying the beach too much).  Made liberal use of the bar that day, and stayed on the beach way past sunset not wanting to give up our last day.  We said we were going to go back, but after a shower and dinner, it was definitely relax-in-the-room time.  We got one last late-night meal at the grill and I wanted to at least SEE the disco, so we walked over there - it was not really worth even staying (although there were almost exclusively single ladies there, so a dude’s dream!), so we went back upstairs and watched Christmas movies.

Sunday:

Got up, packed, had breakfast, and then went crazyfast souveneir shopping.  We were accosted on the way to go into some dude’s shop which was in the back in an alley (yikes) and he totally wouldn’t let us go.  It was creepy.  We ended up at the big souvenir shop which was advertised by the resort and got most of our stuff there for peeps.  I’m all for supporting the little people and all, but I really didn’t want to deal with haggling when we had like, 30 mins to shop.  We made it to the airport on time, and in general, it was an uneventful flight home besides WAY bad pressure in my ears because of the cold.  Still recovering from that today.  Was neat seeing Christmas lights from the plane on the way into Austin.

So all in all, just the vacation I needed.  Rest, relaxation, no email, no internet, no training, no worrying, just quality time with my Zliten, the ocean, the bar, and some books.  Part 1 of vacation complete, now moving onto part 2 (quality time at home by myself this week).

Did I like Jamaica?  To quote the locals… Yeh mon.  No problem.