Detox

In the middle of peak training, when I get frustrated that all I do is swim/bike/run/eat/sleep/work/do laundry/repeat, I sometimes longed for the days when my hardest workouts were playing Dance Dance Revolution for 30 mins.  Or when I was not doing anything active.  How nice would that be for just a week and see how the other half lives again?

Well, I spent the week doing a lot of this…

and none of this…

…and I lived to tell the tale.  Barely.

Here is a day by day of how last week went…

Monday:

Mental – Wheeee!  I just ran a marathon and life is great and I’m so happy and I’m kinda tired in that “I ran a marathon yesterday” way which feels awesome.

Physical – Let’s just say I was “ambling slowly”.  Toilet sore (phrase shamelessly stolen from Charlotte – meaning it hurts to sit down and stand up from the toilet – aka OUCHY QUADS).  Still incredibly rungry.

Drink of the day – Margarita at dinner out with Zliten.  Very happy to be able to go out to eat and enjoy my Monday night instead of being in the gym swimming and doing weights or on the trainer.

Tuesday:

Mental: Still a bunch of yay happy lala rainbows and unicorns.

Physical: Ambling quicker.  Threw my back out a bit but it only lasted a few hours.

Drink of the day – A lot of vodka.  Out of Austin Half Marathon pint glasses.  Wearing my freaking marathon medal.  It was almost like training, with 100% more drunk tweeting than my normal Tuesday run (don’t have me on twitter? I’m @quixotique).

Wednesday:

Mental: Eh.  I’ve hit the “ok, time to be doing something” day and I am not.  Just kinda looking forward to getting through the week now.

Physical: Not sore anymore, but body feels kinda sluggish.  I could run now, but I really don’t feel like it.

Drink of the day: One cactus lime beer.  Halfheartedly.  I didn’t really want it, but I committed to one full week of being a lush, so who am I to break my streak?

Thursday:

Mental: Blaaaaargh.  All I want is my bed.  And I slept 10 hours last night.

Physical: Hhhhhuuurrrruuuunmmmmmpppphhhh.  Basically, I have no real appetite, I feel kinda run down and achey (like I have during major peak training weeks but since I’ve done jack and shit this week, it feel more like bed sores) and sort of yucky from indian buffet at lunch (which I ate much less than normal because the rungries are subsiding).

My conversation with Zliten about how I feel today:
(6:46:18 PM) Quix: i dont have much of an appetite but carrots are helping
(6:46:24 PM) Zliten: well good
(6:46:29 PM) Zliten: thats better than worse
(6:46:51 PM) Quix: i do feel kinda run down and achey, but no more than i have after some brutal training weeks
(6:47:05 PM) Quix: i think my body is just not quite sure what to do with running so hard on Sunday and then nothing
(6:47:07 PM) Zliten: oh see thats how I felt a few days ago
(6:47:23 PM) Quix: see before today I felt like I could go back out and run another marathon
(6:47:48 PM) Quix: today i think the “ok it’s time to actually recover” is kicking in and all i want is my bed
(6:47:56 PM) Zliten: ahh yeah
(6:47:56 PM) Zliten: ok
(6:48:01 PM) Quix: i’ve come down off the drugs as to say
(6:48:10 PM) Quix: gone through the withdrawals
(6:48:14 PM) Quix: and now just sort of exhausted
(6:48:18 PM) Zliten: that makes sense
(6:48:37 PM) Quix: a lot of things in me are saying “YOU COULD CURE THIS WITH A RUN!!!!”
(6:48:46 PM) Quix: but that’s not the point
(6:48:54 PM) Quix: the point is to heal and rest and recover
(6:50:09 PM) Quix: until today i was convinced i was ready to just hop back on everything next week, i was INVINCIBLE!
(6:50:17 PM) Quix: but today, I realize that I’m a looney. 🙂

Drink of the day: beer.  Lots of beer at beer night (which I haven’t gotten to go to for 5 months because I was training or tapering – YAY!).  I actually didn’t eat dinner (minus sharing some fries) because I was so full from the BEER.  This was also the only day I got any miles – a mile walk to, and a mile walk back from the bar, which actually felt pretty good and probably contributed to my better mood on Friday.

Friday:

Mental: A little more centered.  Because I knew I just had the weekend to go, and sort of making peace with my slothiness.

Physical: Legs feeling like coiled springs.  I can’t remember the last time I got out of bed and nothing hurts.  However, body is a little stiff from all that dang SITTING.

Drink of the day: Sonic diet cherry limeade margaritas.  Story behind this: intended to go out to a new bar near my house that just opened.  We got there and it was SO crowded, we weren’t into it.  Instead, since I was craving margaritas, I grabbed a big diet cherry limeade from Sonic and we mixed that with some tequila and orange liquor and a little extra lime juice, and it made 3 pitchers of pretty fantastic skinny margs.  They may have also been from my Austin Half Marathon pint and wearing my medal :).

Saturday:

Mental: Enjoyed the “stay in my PJs and read” part of skipping morning training, but then I got dragged out into the real world and, let me tell ya, I’ll take 4-5 hours at Lake Pf ANY DAY over doing bullshit like spending 2.5 hours at the car wash.  Or shopping for a kitchen organizer.  Or hitting costco.  I asked Joel “Is this what normal people do with their weekends” and he said “Yep, I think so”, to which I said “Well, I don’t really care for this” and he agreed.

Physical: I’m just starting to feel run down from not doing anything.  Usually, I get a bit of it after 2-3 days of nothing, and here I was at 6 being slothy.  Oh yeah, and the drinking.  I am definitely not in college any more.  The “just a beer” days really didn’t affect me, but getting buzzed 3 nights already in a week and it was only Saturday is not something I should make into a habit.

Drink of the day: Lotsa wine and champagne at our friends’ pre-Thanksgiving party.  Lotsa rum and diet cokes when we got home.  Pretty sure the end of the night got sucked into a black hole as I remember vaguely seeing 4am and then waking up at 11:30am.

Sunday:

Mental/Physical: I sat on the couch and played video games for 9 hours and pretty much ignored the world.  I realized that since I had drank Sunday after the marathon, so I thankfully didn’t have to have anything to drink today. =)

Summing it up: it was harder, and less enjoyable than I thought.  Last week, I won an contest for a shirt (thanks Tricia!), and after the trials of the week, I picked this one (It’s all good.  I ran today.)  Torture is when you know a run would solve your mental and physical issues, and you physically have nothing to stop you from running, but you’re not doing it for your own good.  I thought this week would be much easier.  I mean, I RAN A FREAKING MARATHON for godsakes, you think I’d be ready to hang up the shooz for a bit.  Silly Quix.  I’m excited for some more balanced weeks though.  Just a quick hit of the endorphins for the next few weeks more days than not.  Still getting to spend some more time with friends and family.  And definitely, less of the “getting drunk 3 days in a row” thing.

And, now, it’s Monday.  I’m back at it, at least half-assedly (on purpose).  I expected to bound out of bed and go want to run like 20 miles, but I actually had to drag myself out – I decided to do a circuit training class with the blue hairs over lunch and it was definitely something different and I haven’t done strength in weeks.  I was going to also run and swim today, but I’m trying to reign myself in, so I’ll do one or the other, and very slowly.  The goal this week is very general: do something.  5 days.  No more than 1 hour per unless it’s super low intensity.  No setting any PRs no matter HOW rested you feel.  The exception to this is my 5 mile turkey trot on Thursday.  I am fully accepting that it MAY be my worst turkey trot pace ever, but I’m ok to give the legs one last speedy hoorah if they have it in them to cruise.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what’s next, but I’ve also made myself not do any concrete planning, signing up for races, training schedules, etc.  I’m now allowing myself in the coming weeks to re-read the Triathlete’s Training Bible, and start setting out a 2013 plan for us.

Also, it’s that time.  Today I’ve started tracking my food and working on eating like a normal, healthy human not an endurance athlete burning through calories like a furnace in Alaska.  The pants are definitely tighter from vacation, then 2 tapers, then a week off.  It’s time to work on shedding that plus some over this winter (I have not yet gotten on the scale – I feel like I want to give myself a week of being good FIRST so I don’t see a sad scary number and freak).  FASTER in 2013 part 1 is shedding some weight, in a healthy way, and maintaining my muscle.  I’m sort of not sure what a reasonable calorie goal (while pushing quality food, of course) is for me, so this week, the goal is to track, and end each day with a 1 in the front (under 2000).  Next week, we’ll see from there.

With that, I’m going to take my week off and try to get some stuff accomplished I’ve been putting off (but not so much stuff that I can’t enjoy some more slacker time).  We finally got our windows replaced last week – going from original 1960s single pane windows with cracked and degrading seals to new, energy efficient double pane pretty windows is amazing – plus we now have screens!  So I’m going to open up the house (something I’ve never been able to do), put on some groovy music, make healthy lunch, and rip my credit card a new one doing some online shopping buying some Christmas pressies.

Question of the day: what would you do with a week off and nowhere to go?