Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Month: August 2012

Reviews of Things

Vacation was fun, but back to the grindstone.  Good thing I love what I do!

Two new things I did this week…

My Fit Foods:

Zliten is working a bunch of OT at work and they’re providing lunch and dinner.  Sometimes, that’s good, and he can snag a semi-healthy (or at least not calorie offensive) sandwich or salad or something.  Sometimes, it’s pizza or other nutritionally void stuff.  So we decided to hit up my fit foods and get some help to fill in the gaps.  We decided we needed some help getting through the next few weeks with work and training and vacations, and one cannot live on Amy’s food alone.

It’s not cheap.  The smaller meals are more reasonable, but being that we are training a butt ton, we went for the large sizes, which were about 10 bucks each.  It’s about a restaurant meal cost, however, it’s a whole lot healthier so there’s that.

The verdict?  Is good!  We both got the Fit Nugget Nation – almond and flax coated chicken breast, cinnamon carrots, and broccoli.  It came with a mustard sauce, but I replaced that with light ranch and franks red hot, and I toasted the chicken on a pan.  Zliten loved it as is though.  We also both got the chili, which I added olives and cilantro to, but it was really good as is (I just always have to add stuff).  I got the Blazin’ Cajun Shrimp which was really good but light on the veggies and needed a little salt.

I expected them to be adequate, but they were actually GOOD.  Some were better with additions, but for some quick and healthy meals it was perfect.

Veloway:

This is my last weekend that is both in town and not racing before taper, so I wanted to make the most of it.  Swimming is in the bag, I’ve been running a lot (and on tired legs and outside) and done a lot of trainer miles.  However, I keep trying to remind myself that trainer != riding outside and that just because I can crank out 40 miles on a weekday and run the next morning (or 56 and then run right after) doesn’t mean as much out on the roads.  I was feeling a little sheepish about my outside riding since it’s been a little, uh, lacking lately.  Not bad, just absent (which is probably worse).  The last time I rode outside was Jack’s Generic Tri 3 weeks ago. And looking at the training logs, I’m not entirely sure I rode outside before Couples’ Tri either.  The last time I really remember riding outside was the epic hilly 30.  I think that was in June.

I’ve been using the little time I can get outside when its not hot as balls to run.  Which is good, because running on a treadmill is bad when you need to be heat trained and ready for hills, and biking on a trainer is much closer to biking outside, and bike workouts take longer to do and stoplights and traffic suck, yadda yadda.  But considering going into this training, the bike was the leg I was most worried about, I just want to have one more check that I’m not in over my head.  So 50 OUTDOOR miles went on the plan.

We were going to do Lake Pf, a bunch of laps around our normal 15-ish course, but Zliten still hasn’t taken his new clipless pedals out for a spin, and Pf does have some cross streets and scary stuff.  So instead, we headed to Veloway, which is a 3 mile loop that is a little slice of heaven – no pedestrians, no cars, just rollerbladers and bikers.  We’ve never been there because…well… it’s South and feels like it’s in another town and Pfluger is nice, but it was perfect for the day we wanted.

Now some people might go bonkers doing the same 3 miles over and over.  Not me.  I loved it.  The first loop, I cursed and got my heart rate up a lot.  There were a lot of twists and turns and my legs were fatigued and there was even a mini-carnage hill (a sharp turn right into a steep hill – just like the one from Rookie and Couples).  I wasn’t ready for it, and I thought I was going to have to try to unclip and walk up, or just topple over, but I made it.

Usually a ride starts out rough while I warm up, and this was no exception.  I was struggling to keep up with my 15 mph goal of the day.  No bueno.  I decided to eat something every loop.  At first I felt like a big piggy but I think it worked out well.  About 5-6 miles in it got good though – I was warmed up and feeling good and average pace was 15 on the dot.  My goal through the whole ride was to stay at a pace that I could maintain through the ride.  So far, 15 seemed to be it.  I’ve been much better at maintaining a pace on the trainer but as I said, the trainer is not outside.

Miles 10-20 were uneventful and we stuck together. 20-30, I started feeling…great!  Once I hit the halfway point I was just feeling joyful about being on the bike, the day was beautiful, not dealing with traffic, and just feeling awesome.  The worst part of long rides are the first few miles (getting warmed up), and the second to last 10.  You’re just far enough through it to be tired and over it, but not close enough to the end to be excited about it.

Not today.  They were just as awesome.  My only complaints were in the hoohah region, and a little bit of stiffness in my lower back, and that’s totally normal on a long ride.  At 40, we ran out of water so we stopped and refilled.  Let me tell you, trading lukewarm liquid for cold water was just AMAZING.  However, the stop did make it hard to get going.  I liked seeing 15 average (it had been there almost the entire time) so I told myself to buck up and speed up, and besides a brief dip to 14.9 on the garmin, we stayed directly in 15 territory.

The last few miles it became clear how HOT AS BALLS it was and I was definitely ready to be off the bike.  I took one last hike up mini-carnage, one more trip up the zig zag hill, one more practicing cornering sesson down the the last twists and turns, and I hit 50 and unclipped and found a place in the shade to wait for Zliten.  We stuck together for the first 42-ish, but I just couldn’t slow down and he just couldn’t speed up.  Soon he was along and we packed up and went home.  We ended the ride at 97 degrees.  Deceptive how hot it had gotten – I figured it was just pushing 90.  The plan was to run a mile after but considering how late and steamy it was, we skipped it.  But I knew I could have run. 50.12 mile done – 3:20.  Easy peasy. 15.0 mph average.

I really and truly feel like that was the last piece of the puzzle I need to feel ready for the 70.3.  A couple more weeks of maintaining where I’m at + some with running ramping up into higher double digits, and then taper (glorious taper!).  I’m in shock that 5 weeks from now, I’ll probably be extremely drunk on champagne and celebrating the completion of rocking a half ironman!

TL:DR?  Confidence, I has it.

The Scale:

I was worried about vacation taking it’s toll on my weight.  I mean, there was definitely a lot of eating like an asshole.  Plus, TOM and all that.  I was certain it would be tragic, but I’m back down to 176.0.  Awesome!  Lots of training + good foods = back to normal quickly.  Should the progress continue this month, I will be happy.  My pants are also looser, which is a good thing.

The Schedule:

Here’s the deets.

Last Week:

MONDAY: off
TUESDAY: swim all the laps (but we had to share a lane so I only got 600m done)
WEDNESDAY: 5 mile run + weights
THURSDAY: 10 mile run (8.7) + 15 mile trainer
FRIDAY: 3 mile run (4.3) AM
SATURDAY: 50 mile outdoor ride
SUNDAY: off.  Was going to swim, but the AC broke and that was drama and wasn’t resolved until the pool closed.  So the universe, or at least my house, wanted me to have a rest day.  I can dig it.  I’ll swim longer tomorrow.

This Week:

MONDAY: swim + weights
TUESDAY: 45 mile trainer + weights
WEDNESDAY: triple bricks (20 mile bike, 3 mile run) + weights
THURSDAY: 10 mile run
FRIDAY: 1500m swim
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: 15 mins swim/bike/run w/pickups

…and then on Monday I have a little Olympic Triathlon to do. 🙂

Time to finish watching Clueless (As IF! I totally paused…) and laundry.  My life, it is terribly exciting.

You Can’t Go Home Again – But If You Do, Run a Half Marathon…

So, they say you can never go home again.  It’s always proven true to me.  Home is really where my Zliten is.  And my bed.  And right now, that is really and truly Austin.  I suppose it’s that I have lived in a handful of places for just about the same amount of time (besides growing up in Chicago), but we both expected to feel much more pull and attachment to San Diego.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved being able to see the beach.  And the nummy Cali-style tacos.  And the beautiful weather.  And getting to hit up some of our old haunts.  It’s just really weird to me now that in So Cal, people just don’t smile, say hi, say bless you when you sneeze, hold doors open, let you over when you signal when driving, and are just generally obnoxious.  I remember being that and thinking that it was weird not to, but southern hospitality has rubbed off on me and there’s no going back.  I had fun with the hippies in Ocean Beach, and if I came back, it would totally be to live there and be a (ridiculously rich) beach bum.  I’ve even picked out the condo.  However, I don’t think that in real life, I’d want to move back.  I just don’t feel like it’s a fit anymore (or maybe ever was…).

Anyhoo, high points of the trip:

-We took a prop plane from LA to San Diego.  It was a tiny 20 seater and really loud, but sort of fun.

-Taco shop food. Fried, shredded beef taco + enchilada combo = love.

-Getting to see Zliten’s parents.  It’s been since Thanksgiving.

-I read two books in 4 days.  One more to go in my sci fi series!

-The awesome weather.  It was 80 and they were calling it hot and muggy.  Pffft.  Puh-leaze.

-We stayed at the W hotel downtown.  It was super fancy.  There were some nice touches like pitchers of water in the lobby with different flavored fruit, an acura that would take you around (though we walked everywhere for the most part, or it was wayyyyy out there – OB), a nice cabana area, different rugs in the elevator depending on what time of day it was, and custom ordered pillows (feathers, synthetic, etc).  However, there was some bad/weird – the shower had a half wall that wouldn’t close with a hole in it.  It was supposed to be edgy and artsy, I get it, but there was no way around just spraying water ALL OVER THE BATHROOM while showering. Also, they had a TIIIIIINY pool to which they were serving drinks in glass glasses.  And there was a dude in it who drank way too much and didn’t get out of the pool for 3 hours.  So we decided it was hazardous and did NOT go in at all.

-I came back with a sweet orange floppy hat from the swap meet I scored for 5$.  I expect to obnoxiously sport it all around town as I did in SD.  Or maybe just in my back yard.  Either way…. ORANGE FLOPPY HAT!

-On the way back we landed exactly 9 minutes before our connecting flight took off.  They had to hold the plane for us.  It was sort of exciting!

….and oh yeah, I ran a half marathon.  +2 miles after.

It really felt kinda like that except for the reminder I even have today about downhill running, which I THOUGHT was my BFF, maybe she’s a little more of a bitch than I thought.  Because my quads sort of lost that arguement.  Toilet sore to quote Charlotte.  Squatting sucks even today.

So I didn’t have much hope for the race since we got crappy sleep all vacation and walked at least 5 miles per day, but I figured maybe I had a sub-2:15 in me.  We got up at 3:30 after having to call security on the room next to us who were partying just a little too loud (I felt like an old fogey doing it – but I mean it was LOUD.  I couldn’t just hear noise, I could hear what songs they were playing and what they were saying.  And it was after midnight), and did normal pre-race things.  We got to the shuttles, and immediately got loaded on (which was AWESOME), and they took us backwards through the course, pretty much.  Climbing, climbing, climbing, and we got off the bus to two amazing sights – rows and rows of porta pottys (they planned well), and a beautiful sunrise with an amazing view of the ocean and city.  The monument we were at is never open to the public that early so it was a rare opportunity!

I had intended to run 2 miles easy to warm up to get my mileage up to 15 for the day, but I didn’t see anywhere to run, so I supposed I needed to tack them on at the end.  We went to the bathroom like five times and walked around and tried to stay loose.  As it got to be time, we folded in with the crowd and got going.  Zliten’s goal was to take it super easy on doctor’s orders, so I left him for my own pace.  My goal was 10:30s to start, and then see how I felt.  Mile 1 went well, and I split that exactly and was feeling good so I sped up.  Until about mile 5, I just kept picking up speed, rolling mostly downhill with some uphill stretches, through this adorable neighborhood with tons of people out with their hoses squirting runners.  It was awesome!

At 4.5 I decided to take down my first gel.  It didn’t set well without water, so I held onto it until the next one.  WHICH. NEVER. CAME.  Either I missed the next water stop or it didn’t exist.  I started to fade and curse a bit and get grumpy.  I was feeling really, really dehydrated.  Around mile 8 we finally got another station which I walked through, chugged one water, and took my gel with another cup.  I picked up a little bit but the damage had been done, I needed that gel earlier and more water and some sports drink which was noticeably absent.  I kept running but my pace was definitely not what it was – more like high 10s and 11s.

Then, the mile 9 water stop was just fucking missing.  I had intended on doing another gel but I couldn’t do it without water.  I wanted to wait until the aid station to walk but at about 9.5 I just couldn’t hang.  I was just.so.thirsty.  I made the call to wuss out on the race, and just enjoy the views at a slow pace.  I walked a lot of the rest of the course –  when I got to the next aid station I even had to stand in line and it was “get a cup” “shuffle, wait” “have it filled with a HOSE”.  I didn’t care.  I got three of them.  I chugged them so fast my stomach hurt.  Another aid station came up quickly and I did the same thing.  I tried running again for a bit but then we hit the hill of stupidness, so I just walked it.

Finally, after I was mostly up the hill, I think the water finally kicked in and some people had squirt bottles around mile 12 and that finally jolted me out of headcase town and I started running.  Fast!  Mostly 9s and 10s.  I felt pretty great and got my second wind!  I finished up the race, did a lap around the parking lot, and then ran back to get Zliten and ran him in, and then took another lap… on the way back to the car I did a combo of running and walking and ended at the truck at 15 miles and feeling great!  Even with a TON of walking I ended the race with about an 11:15 min/mile pace (2:32) and the 15 miles with 12:15 pace.  My legs have never felt so awesome at the end of a race!

However, the downhill miles really screwed my quads.  The front of my legs are rarely sore when running and my quads and shins even are still sore today.

Then, we partied in Ocean Beach, hit the water for just a little bit, and had a few drinks at our old favorite bar Nunu’s.  I crashed HARD that night.

After Monday off and today really easy (15 minute swim), it’s back to the grindstone.  5 mile run and weights tomorrow morning, 10 mile run and 15 miles on the trainer Thursday, 3 mile run and weights Friday, and a 50 mile outdoor ride + 1 mile run Saturday.  I also would like some more swimming, so maybe Saturday afternoon or Sunday.

With all that, there’s work stuff going on and getting ready for the Olympic Tri in 2 weeks and getting ready for vacation #2 and unpacking for vacation #1.  So it’s time for me to stop yapping and start sleeping.  Thanks for indulging the rambly and potentially incoherent recap, but that’s all I have for ya.  Alarm in 8 hours… G’nite all!

Emerging

Notes on my very very very very weird and unnormal week:

1. I crashed and burned hard last week, and took an unthinkable 2 back to back rest days (MON + TUES) and put in very short workouts the rest of the week (I did get almost 3 hours on Sat but at this point in training, that’s not much).  I wish I could have seen it coming, but hindsight being 20/20 I really should have done my recovery week last week before the race and gone out hard this week on the trainer.  I’ve learned a lot about stepback weeks – aka – I need to plan them.  I’ll go out at about 80% next week (I decided to cut a few run miles and actually try to enjoy my half marathon on Sunday instead of using it for back to back double digits again.  I have some times in my head but we’ll see how much the hills eat me.  It certainly will be nice to run in the upper 60s instead of the upper 80s!

2.  You could start a tumblr from my Jack’s Generic Tri official race photos called quixisnotimpressed.tumblr.com.  I had some really, really bad ‘tude.

It’s one thing to train through a C race, but it’s another to crash and burn into a race on your highest mileage week EVER.  Oh yeah, and it’s about 10000 billion degrees outside.  And you got almost ZERO rest before it (bad, bad, bad).

3.  I took a break from social media (twitter, facebook, only getting on daily mile to log workouts) and oddly enough, the world got on without me, and I didn’t miss it that much, and I felt much more….relaxed.  It was nice to be more in the moment with my hectic days.  I think I’m going to continue to stay off it, for the most part, unless I have time to kill.  I also am going to look into pruning my feeds – I follow a lot of fluff on twitter that I just don’t care about.  I care more about my free time and mental health than if someone will get upset about me unfollowing them so I will be doing that sometime soon.  Hint: if you read and comment here, or I actually interact with you on twitter, you’re safe. 🙂

4.  Related to the crashing and burning – I have not yet taken a day of PTO this year before Monday, and that was only justified by a trip to the ER (don’t really want to go into it, it wasn’t for me, everyone is fine).  That day off made it very clear to me that I had been not very good at my job the last few weeks due to exhaustion, and since I don’t actually get sick, I need to realize that my sick time needs to be used for exhaustion because I need to function at closer to 100% than I have been some days.

5.  Holy crap you guys – I lost weight this week.  So I’ve held steady at about 178-179 for quite a while now.  Last week, I saw 177, which I figured was a product of increased training.  I just followed my appetite and food wants this week and didn’t try to restrict food since I wasn’t training crazy-like and got on the scale Saturday after my workout (but also after chugging 100+ oz water, a milk, and eating breakfast and a decent amount on the bike) and I was 175!  Lowest this year!  Apparently rest did me good.

Breathe in, breathe out.  Going to keep this short and sweet in the spirit of relaxing this week and enjoy the rest of my Sunday.

Last week:
MONDAY: off
TUESDAY: 30 min swim, 30 min weights PM off
WEDNESDAY: 30 mins trainer (10.23 miles) + weights
THURSDAY: 3.25 mile run (32:19)
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 6 mile run (1:08), 25 mile trainer (1:30)
SUNDAY: off 45 min swim (1650m)

Next week:
MONDAY: weights
TUESDAY: 7-10 mile run
WEDNESDAY: 35 mile trainer + weights
THURSDAY: 4 mile run + weights
FRIDAY: off
SATURDAY: 15 mile cycle
SUNDAY: Race!!! 13 mile run (+2 warmup) = 15 miles

Question of the week: how do you relax?  Where is your happy place?  Any social media tips to have it not eat your life besides abstaining from it?

Somewhere Over(training) the Rainbow

Short and sweet Long and explanatory…bloggy friends… this has been my week

120 miles on the bike trainer this week/152 miles total from 7/30-8/5 (176 from 7/28-8/3)

5 stressful days at work

2 nights of piss poor sleep and elevated resting heart rate

1 smart but mediocre race

=

impromptu recovery week next week

The math is simple friends.  I have often experienced the mental edge of overtraining and pushing my boundaries with ennui about getting out for my training (I don’t WANNA), and have had stressful weeks at work and some temporary degradation in my workout output because of it.   But I always sleep like a champ, and my resting HR is soundly in the athlete-approved 40-50 bpm.

Not this week.  I took my resting hr last night and it was about 120.  Thumpity thump thump.  Friday night I had the same thing but I thought it was just stress.  Last night though, I had taken care of all that and my mind was clear.  All the signs pointed to overtraining.  And since it was my highest mileage week ever, there was no question in the diagnosis.

Don’t get me wrong.   I’m proud as hell of what I accomplished between 7-30 and 8-3.  HUGE HUGE miles.  It really proved to me that I have it in my capability to do this 70.3.  That I’m not a wuss on the bike.  That I can run off  it for 13.1 miles on tired legs.  This week had a PURPOSE with a capital P.  I have no sads that I did it.

However, it did not bode well going into a race.  I was not excited at all, as you can clearly see from my pre-race pic.  I was falling asleep on the way there.  I was making a lot of deals with myself about how hard I would go and how long I would take off after.  My final plan by the time I was in the water was to do what I could.  No pressure.  Race what I could, maintain when I could do nothing else.  3, 2, 1 go.

The water was icky.  Tasted funny.  I normally swim with my mouth open (yummy yummy lake water) and tried to not, but I decided I’d rather breath normally so whatever. I started in the back, and couldn’t find any feet to stay on so I just passed people.  I did have a few incidents with people trying to cuddle (I swam BIGGER) and one lady who apparently thought I was in heat and kept trying to mount me from behind (she got a few nudges from the tootsies), but I swam consistently with brass balls and didn’t let anyone fuck with me.  The only error I made was that I stopped too quick and tried to walk up chest deep which cost me about 30 seconds.  I got out and huffed my way (hello elevated heart rate) to transition.

Swim time: 12:12

T1 was uneventful.  I recovered my sandals from the fence edge and ran up the concrete into the maze of bikes.  I fucked around about 30 seconds longer than normal and wasn’t anywhere near bike out due to assigned racking (lame) so I finished up and clompity clomp clomped my way to mount line and got on with it.

T1 time: 2:56.

On the bike, we got wind that the first hill was the worst.  So, I attacked it because I wanted to get that shit over with.  AVG speed after hill: 15mph.  Awesome.  The first half of the course was uneventful and I built from 15 to 15 to 17 to 17.5.  The last half of the course was supposed to be the easiest they said.  The hills on the front half were the hard part they said.  I was feeling pretty badass at my 17.5 avg even though I had nothing in me to power up the hills like normal.  Then, the rollers came.  I sucked wind and didn’t recover like normal.  I went down back through the 17s and 16s and hit 15.8.  Then, thankfully, the nice downhill mile to transition happened and I coasted back to 16.2 (official results said 15.97 but whatevs).  A different day, I could KILL that bike course.  The only complaint was the first hill and the ~5 miles of really uneven cobblestone-like road.  I think I could have pushed harder on that but it was making my hands numb.

Bike: 51:50 (15.97 MPH)

T2 was also a bit of non-normal futzing around, but only marginally.  I was not really ready to run but all I had was a 5k to freedom, so off I went.

T2: 1:37

The run really showed my true colors of exhaustion and overtraining.  I was able to knock out a decent swim and bike without really trying, but there was no hiding on the run.  I got out of transition, hit 10 and tried to make my way down to the 9s and…um… NOPE.  It wasn’t a dastardly hilly course but there were rollers, and it was road with no shade, and I just settled into doing what I could.  Sometimes it was 9s, sometimes it was more, and sadly I didn’t have anyone like the last few races to latch onto and draft off of – either people were passing me going FAR beyond what I could do, or I was passing them.  So it was just me, myself, and my broken will and brain to try and knock out a decent pace.

I saw Zliten just before the 1 mile mark coming back, so he was about 2.25 miles in.  We were right about even splits at that point.  I picked up the pace a wee bit trying to not get my ass beat.  I then saw our friend Brian and said hi.

*interrupt my tri experience for Zlitens – Brian caught up with him, told him to run faster, and he booked the last half mile stupid fast and almost PR’d his 5k.  He also said he went out of transition keeping up and chatting with someone for about half a mile and noticed he was running 8:30s.  He’s a little wonder sometimes…*

It was getting hot and I was BEAT AS FUCK.  I kept thinking “I have nothing left, I have nothing left” and wanted to walk and say screw it, but somehow I convinced myself to say instead “I have more than nothing left, I have more than nothing left” (I know, a FOUNTAIN of positiveness, but that’s what I had in me right then) and decided I could be unhappy with my time, but I would be jazzed as fuck with not giving up on the run.  I did what I could on the road.  Sometimes it was 12s, sometimes it was 9s, I passed everyone I could, I got passed a few times and fought when I had it in me, and then I finally hit the run around the lake.

I didn’t look at my garmin.  I could have been running 13s, I could have been running 8s, but I let the crowd give my utterly spent self one last little wind and sprinted into the finish.  I almost fell over when they took of my chip, and the first thing I did was collapse under a tree, trying not to puke or pass out (feels like temps around then were about ~93).

Run: 32:28 (I know.  Any other day I’d be PISSED but it’s really all I had today)

I was all incoherent babble.  First, it was about watermelon.  Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon.  I had seen someone with it and I NEEDED.  Then, I found an unused patch of grass and sat.  Because I had to.  Then,  we met up with Brian and they were all making proper sentences and I decided I needed back in the water and then that was nice and I felt good.  We got out and again I felt bad.  I shuffled to transition, put my stuff together, then sat on the ground until Zliten got me and I could not manage all my bags so he took one.  Got to the car and BLASTED the AC and ate cheese from the cooler and soon I felt like a person.  Who could say more than one word. Magic!

He wanted to check results so I sat and he took pics.  I was 1:41:05 and he was 1:38:15.  He smoked my ass by almost 3 minutes.  It was all the run + a bit of my dabbling around on transitions.  He won legit.  I give him props.  It’s the end of an era (but I will get him next time).  He had it in him and I just didn’t.

So why was I Deady McDeaderson?  Besides the two nights of bad sleep due to heart rate issues and crazy stress at work:

MONDAY: 30 mi trainer
TUESDAY: 7 mi run + 30 mi trainer
WEDNESDAY: 1050m swim + weights
THURSDAY: 7 mi run + 27 mi trainer
XFRIDAY: 33 mi traner
XSATURDAY: off (and by off I mean 4000000 hours of errands and getting tri stuff together)
SUNDAY: 500m swim, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run

It was a 12 hour training week (and last week was 11.5, week before than was 9, week before was 7.5 – taper for race week, week before was 12.5, week before was 9, so it’s not a fluke), and while I intended all the trainer rides to be stupid easy activity while watching olympics, that didn’t happen.  Also, last Saturday was our 6 hour, 56 mile trainer + 13 mile run so by Friday our 7 day mileage count was 176.  I KNOW.  Crazy.  I was hoping Saturday completely off would fix me but  Friday’s nights crappy sleep + 5 hours of errands + Saturday night’s 4 hours of sleep didn’t do the trick.  I felt icky on Saturday night like I was getting sick and remarkably today I pulled it together, but I’m not chancing it.  Next week is a major stepback week, coach Quix’s orders.

Original stupid plan was:

MONDAY: 2000yd swim + weights
TUESDAY: 50 mile trainer
WEDNESDAY: double bricks (15 mile bike + 2 mile run) + weights
THURSDAY: 14 mile run
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 2000yd swim + 25 mile bike + 9 mile run
SUNDAY: off

New sane, recovery plan:

MONDAY: off
TUESDAY: 30 min swim, 30 min weights PM
WEDNESDAY: long trainer TBD + weights
THURSDAY: long run TBD
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 2000yd swim + 40-50 mi bike + 3 mile optional run at Lake Pf
SUNDAY: off

In which long trainer is anything beyond 10 miles and long run is anything beyond 5 miles.  Or not.  I’m accepting that it could be a full week of just swims.  Or sitting on my ass.  Sometimes guinea piggin’ means you have to change plans.  I’m accepting that I’m broken, and going to take this week to fix myself in any way necessary.  I value my sleep and my resting HR too much to keep on keepin on.

So, completely unrelated, I’ve been having major issues trying to find dresses for this wedding in Sept, and I, against my better judgement, ordered something online.  Badbadbad.  I should know better.  At least I was only out 10$ shipping, and returned it at Macy’s, and the clerk let me know a bunch of dresses were on major sale.  I spent 30 minutes and fell in love with 3.  The patterned one is not in contention for bridesmaiding, but I loved it too much to let it go.  They cost me about 140$ for the 3 ( I KNOW – love dress sales) and I’m now needing to stop training so much so I have excuses to wear them all out.  Excuse the horrible mirror shots of them all, but please to consider this my peace offering for no pics of the red one last week (Miz :D) – it’s very similar to the purple one.  Yes, I shop for one and come away with 4.  I am a dress whore.

Green bridesmaids (most likely)

Purple backup bridesmaid dress (also, I’ve always wanted a purple dress)

…and this is not in contention because it’s patterned but OMG LOVE

Also please to excuse the bit of belly, it’s actually MUCH better than it was (thank you, maintaining at ~178 and getting strong as fuck instead of losing weight), but nothing that a control top panty hose or a bit o the spanx can’t take care of, so yay!

Questions of the week: which of the dresses is your fave?  Have you ever had over-training issues?  What did you do about it?

 

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