Week 13 – Diving and Digging

Let’s dive in.

Training:

I’m sort of in that “middle of the season, digging in and keeping at it” place, so I’ll try not to repeat everything I’ve been saying the last few weeks

Weights – I’ve moved on to the point where I do strength maintenance 1-2x per week, and not on race weeks.  This week is a race week that I’ve decided is at least a B, so I’m going to skip it and resume next week.  I do the same sets (leg press or squats, rows, incline sit ups with twist, calf raises or hammie curls, and pulldowns) at 60/60/80% of my 1 rep max that I established last month.  For the rest of the year, this is about maintaining the pretty huge gains I made the first 3 months of the year, and the strength work will move into sport specific stuff (hill work, speedwork, force work, drag sets in the pool, etc).

Swim – I’m still kicking my ass in the pool on Wednesdays with speedwork, and feeling strong, but I’ve been finding that it’s hard to get there on the weekend after the increased hours on the bike/run and it’s just a little too early for lake swimming.  Again, I’m thrilled with the gains I’ve made in the first 3 months of this year, and I can take a little stalled progress here if needed.  And right now, it’s just that Sauron’s eye has turned a little more to the other two sports.  Once the lakes are in the 70s and it’s a billion degrees outside I’ll be back at it full force.

Bike – My trainer speeds are off the HOOK (I’m at 3/5 resistance and pulled a 30.5 mph avg at a lower HR than I did 28.9 miles at 2/5 resistance earlier this year).  My outdoor speeds suck.  But my outdoor rides this year have been a) after a 10 mile run w/2 mile tempo b) a metric century (61 miles) c) in traffic d) hilly as balls or e) first ride of the year, trying to remember how to not fall down.   My legs feel pretty strong this year, and my stupid hilly ride this weekend at the roller coaster called Pace Bend was not so, so bad (15.1 mph over 19 miles).  I just need to ride outside more, so we’re planning on doing one supported metric century per month as training.  The love is coming back to me with cycling this week, and that makes me happy.

Run – I feel like I’m just getting off training wheels here.  I spent 3 months running super slow.  I have done my requisite speed work and ran some hills and did some tempo work in the last few weeks, but I am racing 10 miles on Sunday, and I’m gunning for a PR (last year was 1:41-something).  I feel like I have it in me to sub-10 min/mile pace it, but I don’t have much experience at that pace since all my work minus the run tests have been in a lower zone than I plan to run.  I want to put the hurt on this race.  It’s my home turf, I know the elevations and what’s cool and what sucks about it.  It’s about convincing my mind that my body has more when it wants to quit.  That is most of what I want to do.  I want to hurt for about an hour and 40 minutes, give or take.

I hurt pretty bad running the mad hills at Pace Bend last weekend.  I stopped having fun at mile 4 but I finished out the 6 miles complain-y but strong.  I’m going to take the rest of my runs easy this week, and see what my legs have in them.

I’d say I’m loving all 3 sports right now, probably giving running or biking the edge depending on what day it is and what type of workout is planned – and I’m tired of weights but still doing them.

By the days:

Monday: Weights: SM Day 1 of the rest of the year 00:45, Swim: Easy Laps + Drills 1200 m 00:27
Tuesday: Run: Ruuuuuninng in the rain 4.15 mi 00:48, Bike: Trainer + End of Star Trek En… 19.07 mi 00:45
Wednesday: Weights: SM Day 2 00:45, Swim: 3x300m with some farteleks? 1800 m 00:45
Thursday: Bike: Cycling Test 17.78 mi 00:35, Run: Easy After Work Run 3.1 mi 00:37
Friday: rest, relaxing, setting up camp
Saturday: Run: Pace Bend Hill Run 6.03 mi 01:07 Bike: Pace Bend Hill Ride 18.66 mi 01:14 Run: Brick 1 mi 00:10:45
Sunday: rest, taking down camp, 20 mountains of laundry.

Food/Eating:

I’m even less motivated to talk about this, and it’s not because it’s going badly.  Actually, the opposite.  I’ve sustained a weight in the low 180s and my weight has been much more consistant, fluctuating more like 2-3 lbs than the 5-6 it has been.  I sustained TOM week with fairly minimal balloon belly, and if I keep on the straight and narrow, this week could be a decent loss week for me.

Now that I have found something that seems to work – having a few less calories than I think I should/deserve/etc, and not pigging out on weekends, and yes, sometimes having vodka for dinner, but more lately, drinking a little less vodka.  Not none, but less.

It’s just going to be a challenge to not kill all the progress I’ve made in the last 3.5 months while I’m gallivanting on vacation.  I’ll be extremely active, but we all know I can eat that back in the blink of an eye.  This week is a little odd because I didn’t get my batch cook on and am eating leftovers and old frozen meals and some my fit foods/snap kitchens, but it all should be rather healthy and I’ve pre-tracked my food so there’s that.

Here’s the deets, and lets move on:

Monday: 29 DQ, 1702 calories
Tuesday: 26 DQ, 1623 calories
Wednesday: 25 DQs, 1572 calories
Thursday: 23 DQ, 1782 calories
Friday: 26 DQ, 2112 calories
Saturday: 9 DQ, 2471 calories
Sunday: 19 DQ, 1539 calories

Average Diet Quality Score (not Dairy Queen Score – Yum Yucky :D): 22.4

Average Calories: In – 1828, Out (estimated) – 2400.  Deficit – ~600 (loss of just a little over 1 lb)

Weight Fluctuations: low 183.0-high 187.0 (TOM, so there was a reason and it went away super quick which made me happah).

Thoughts and stuff:

-My thought process is way different right now and I like it.  I saw some, shall we say, highly unflattering pictures from the weekend.  At some points in my life, that might send me into a tizzy and bad thought spiral, but it really just gave me a firm reminder to keep at it, because I’m not there yet.  Yeah, I may be feeling a bit more fly because my HR monitor is falling off and my sexy tri legs are coming back, but there is no way to not keep trying to work on the diet quality/food tracking/etc when someone could possibly see me from any angle looking like *THAT* in what I was wearing.  Fuel for the fire of accomplishing shit, not of self destruction and negative self talk.  Hard to be too negative when I pulled that same offending carcass up so many hills on the bike and run that morning, and totally motivating about how much FASTER I’ll be pulling that meatflesh up them thar hills if I keep at it and chip away at this extra poundage.

-We have had our Xterra for 3 weekends, and for all 3 weekends, we have made great use of it (bike transport to Rosedale Ride, hauling around scuba gear, and hauling camping gear this weekend).  Also, Pace Bend was a great place to train hills away from traffic, and since we own all the required equipment, we’ll consider coming out, camping overnight, and then training on those hills at least once or twice again this summer.

-I got to bring the Iguana to work last week, after her vet appointment.  She was only a little bit of a brat that afternoon – she didn’t like being shut in my office for an hour long meeting and pooped once, and she really, really wanted to go explore the rest of the offices, but I’m pretty sure letting a 5 foot long leezard out would have freaked some people out.  Also, she is doing just fine!  Yay!

-I don’t usually partake in April Fools, but we happened to have a company meeting that day, one of the ones where I get to talk on the microphone in front of the whole office, and let’s just say, I surprised some people with the “new direction” our latest update was taking, though I could only get a few sentences into it before I had to break the “April Fools”.   Fun stuff.

I think that about does it.  This week is going to be pretty crazy, so I’m gonna go dig in instead of more yakkity yak.

Question of the week: What is the best April Fool’s Prank you ever pulled?