Adjusted Reality

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

Week 38 and 39: Leezard Enemas and Beer Thirty

Who says that just because you’re not training, you’re not busy?  I am sooooo behind on the bloggage, but let me catch you up on the happs on Quixytown.

NOTE: I did change the blog around a bit because my old template broke.  Expect things to be a little topsy turvy changey until I really get some time to sit down and play with it but for now, it doesn’t offend me so it will stay.

Week 38: Taper Week + Kerrville

Monday, I was getting extremely psyched and ready for the race.  My body was feeling good for, like, the first time ever in a taper period.  I felt confident.  The dry run brick on Saturday went awesome.

Then, Tuesday morning, I went out for a 3 mile run in my new (same as I had been wearing, just without 450+ miles on them) shoes and LIMPED home after 1.7 that I had to intermittently walk/run due to my ankle flipping out.

It hurt up until Sunday morning so I shut down all running until the race.  I guess I am just not equipped to deal with myself fully healthy in taper.  Total ghost pain, no reason for it to be there, and ABSOLUTELY not reason for it to stick around and not get much better for FIVE DAYS and then magically disappear on race day.  And, I’m running just fine in my new shoes, no issues since.  *boggle*

I wetsuit swam one more time on Wednesday and things felt good.  I still have no reference on how much difference it made for me and not sure I will – I cut 10 mins off my swim time from last year, but most of that was probably me being better at swimming.  Oh well, I’m happy with purchasing it and definitely not going to miss out on any opportunity to wear it racing going forward!

I put in about 40 fast trainer miles in on Tuesday and Thursday with some (1/3 to 1/2) resistance to keep the legs loose.

By Friday, I was convinced I was dying because I was extremely tired, my aforementioned ankle pain, my throat was a little scratchy, and I had a toenail that was chipping.  It seemed to work out by Sunday though (silly taper madness).

Food:

I ate about 1700 – 1900 calories of good quality food Monday – Thursday, a little less on  Friday (1400 – didn’t really have much of an appetite), and did my normal pre race thing Saturday (sprouted grain english muffin, cream cheese, veggie sausage for breakfast, club sandwich, salad, and some fries for lunch, and mac and cheese and some carby snacks and fruit for dinner).  On Sunday, I was able to wake up and get a LOT of breakfast in my belly before the race (a starbucks mocha, two energy bars, and half a pack of chomps), and had an appetite really soon after the race, I ate a HUGE dinner and had some beers, unlike last time, where I just felt sick and could barely eat back any of the 5000 calories I had burnt.

Other stuff:

Had to take the other leezard (Lump, our schneider skink) to the vets because he was really lethargic and not eating.  Apparently, he was just stopped up, so we’ve had to give him special food and daily enemas (yep, leezard enimas) and laxatives.  He’s doing better now, and we see the vet for a follow up soon to make sure his belly is clear.  By doing an xray.  Which costs like 100 bucks per… good thing we love him.

I really pretty much spent the week in as much of a bubble, mentally and physically, as possible. It ended up working out well, so yay!

Week 39: The Aftermath and the Week of Yes

Let’s just get this out of the way: I didn’t train and I didn’t track.  I sat on my ass, drank every day, ate a lot of fried food and sweets, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Aftermath:

I haven’t been this wasted after a race in a long time, but the good news is that it was all just major soreness, not injury pain.  Sunday, after the race, I felt pretty ok.  Monday, I was pretty sore.  Only after a significant dose of vodka did I ever believe my body wouldn’t hurt forever and ever.  Tuesday, my glute muscle decided to act up, so to the chiro I went.  She said it wasn’t that out of line, but it had probably happened on the bike and I had probably been carrying it for the whole 13.1 miles and that’s why it was super ouchy.  It took most of the week, but it got better.  Besides the glute issue, I probably would have been down to start training about Wednesday, but was happy to have the week off.

The Week of Yes:

Some magical fairy of scheduling decided to make a bunch of social events fall on this week, and after having to skip so many things, or leave early, or just drop by, I was like a kid in a candy store saying YES to things.  It was pretty much beer thirty whenever I wanted, so I indulged!

Monday, we ate burgers and drank champagne and really didn’t leave our house much or do much of anything once we got home from Kerrville.  It was lovely.

First up on Tuesday was a Yelp Elite party at Outback.  They were showing off a new bar menu (food and drinks), so they were bringing out healthy offerings such as rum punch, brisket bacon potato nachos, chicken and spinach flatbreads, and the like.  We ended up seeing some old friends that we hadn’t seen in a while, and making a few new ones.  It’s fun to talk to someone who wasn’t either wasn’t related to me or has known me for 5+ years, and isn’t a triathlete/runner/etc.  That doesn’t happen all that often in social situations nowadays and it was refreshing.

Wednesday, we stayed in.  We had to get the house clean for the cleaning people, which meant unpacking Kerrville.  I wanted to whine about it, but realized that no one would make pouty lips for me.  Woe is me, I have to unpack from the awesome weekend trip I went on because people are going to clean my house.  Yeah, I can’t really get a tear in my eye about it either.  I did have some wine though (hey, it was open from cooking), so it wasn’t all bad.

Thursday, we hosted game night.  Beer and snacks and friends and fun.  Giant robots, portals, and almost getting killed but being dragged to safety was the highlight of the evening.

Friday was our anniversary.  We did the iFly thing – indoor skydiving!  We got there early and got to watch everything from first timer little kids to a choreographed group of people doing tricks and flips (that’s THEM above, not us).  When it was our turn, I think we did pretty well.  I had one good stretch where I held position for a while and flew up and down by myself, but the instructor did have to catch me and right me a few times each session.  They offered more time for a pretty cheap price right then, but we were starving so we declined, but bought more time for later. If you want to see our sessions, here’s the video they took of us!

Then, adrenaline works up an appetite, so we had a HUGE anniversary dinner – beer, wings, salad, fish, and a to go pizookie at BJ’s Brewhouse.  We’ve spent a lot of money lately, so we did it on the cheap – we had giftcards for both.  I got Zliten a dehydrator and a red and green stuffed dragon, and he got me a cool owl duvet cover, a cushy red blanky for the couch, and a really nice new sheet set for us.

Saturday, I didn’t quite know what was going on with the whole no training thing, but I adjusted by sleeping in, eating a leisurely lunch out, grocery shopping, and cooking up some batch stuff for next week.

Homemade, healthy, organic “hamburger helper” cheesy mac… (corn/quinoa pasta, grass fed beef, organic beans, organic cheese, about the worst thing in here is 1 tsp of organic sugar, have to give props to the recipe I used to base it on here)

Meatball-ganoff.  Decently healthy chicken meatballs over ancient grain pasta and greens and made with lowfat organic sour cream, but I did just use the stroganoff sauce packet, which I’m sure was packed with MSG and other crap.  I’ll have to learn how to do that on my own, because that shit was awesome.

Then, we went to a friend’s birthday party at the bar.  We ended up sitting outside (they have a small inside and a HUGE patio), and it was the first cold night in a while (read: 60s and a little wind), and we were all freaking out over the temps.  I had a sweater and a jacket and everyone else was bundled up too.  Oh Austin, you make us such wusses in the cold.  It was fun to have a few pumpkin beers and catch up with people.  I had an AMAZING pumpkin mini-cupcake that was just to die for.  I did eat decently though and only had a veggie burger on a wheat bun and a side salad for dinner.

In the AM on Sunday, we got up and out to the IBM Classic Uptown 10k, as this was my friend M’s first 10k, and I’ve been branching out my newbie coaching skills from torturing just myself and my husband to torturing her as well!  She did great and hit her training solidly, so it was no surprise she smashed her goal of under 1 hour by 2.5 minutes.  So proud! We stomped around in silly hats and running tights with cowbells and cheered everyone on and had a great morning.

She even decided she liked it enough to sign up for a half marathon next year, so I didn’t even make her hate running!

That evening, we had our last hurrah, celebrating another friend’s birthday.  It was a beautiful sunset on the patio in perfect weather.  More beers, the BEST jalapeno poppers and fried pickles I’ve ever had (at least I just had a salad for dinner), and three hours of hanging with a lot of really great friends.

And then, just like that, Monday, my facebook and twitter feeds went from posts about all the crazy fun I was having and what sort of beer and food was in my face to dailymile workout crossposts.  And I’m ready for it.  A week off was what I needed, but all I needed.  This week will be Intro to Marathon Training 101 to get myself back into it, and the advanced course will start up the week after.  I am waiting to get a week of running and clean eating under me before I see what the scale says, but I can’t imagine I did SUCH damage in a week that another week or two won’t fix it.

I keep having a little bit of letdown about tri season being over, but marathon training is helping me get over it, and I may even have some super secret plans after that depending on where my head is at in a month or so and how much I hate running.

Question of the week: Do you miss the old layout or hated it and like the new one better?

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1 Comment

  1. wow. what a reacap. I’m exhausted now!!

    you are truly amazing. and your friend too, with the 10K? Jesus I can only hope to get to 1 hour let alone under. and the lizard. I’m stumped for words on that one! lizard enemas! who knew!!!

    I like this layout. it’s nice and bright. I liked the old one too, but there’s nothing wrong with this one 🙂

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