Adjusted Reality

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

Month: March 2015

Austin 10/20 – Found It

Sometimes you do everything right before a race.  This was not one of those times.

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Exibit A:

Get good sleep the week of the race, right?  Not staying up until FOUR AM on a Thursday having drinks?  Oops.  Hi Quix, you are not 21 anymore.  This resulted in a whole 4.5 hours sleep and I was just flattened on Friday.

Exhibit B:

Don’t try anything new at the expo, right?  Well, it was the day before the day before so I let things fly fast and loose and tried this nutrition drink.  Holy caffeine rush, batman!  I just got a little nauseous and a headache after twitching and chattering for a few hours, but Zliten got sick off it.  Lesson learned.

Exhibit C:

Make sure to stay off your feet and rest the day before the race, yeah?  Well, unless the weather is just WAY too perfect and you go stand up paddle boarding and take your wetsuit for a swim in the lake instead clocking your fastest OWS pace yet.

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Oh, and not to mention grocery shop, batch cook for the week, do laundry, and clean off the butcher block.  Not much feet up time there.

A and B were mistakes, but I believe C actually made me so full of happy and joy (the lake part, I don’t get that excited about chores, heh) that it helped.

I didn’t fuck everything up.  I ate what I think was perfect pre-race fuel for the distance.  Lunch was a burger no bun and fries.  Dinner was veggie beef soup and salad and ribs.  I snacked on some fruit and sun butter.  I made sure I was full but not stuffed when I went to bed.

This race is one of my favorites because it’s 3 miles from my house.  Which, with an 8am start, meant I didn’t have to set my alarm until 6, and even that was early enough to get a leisurely wake up (quarter scoop purple stuff, coconut water, kind bar, another bottle of water, the ush) and I even got a half mile warmup on my treadmill which I think is happening every home race ever.

We got to the race around 7:30, which was just enough to drop our bags off at work (with potential stuff to shower after if we felt like it), use the bathrooms one more time, jog a bit to the start, and get there just in time for the national anthem.  Perfect.  No standing around getting stiff legs.

As the gun went off, I got a little choked up.  Wha?  No idea where that came from for a race I didn’t really plan to care that much about.  Emotions are weird.

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Trying to take a jumping pic is hard.

The good news is that for me, 10 miles is not long right now.  The question was what pace could I pull out of myself over that 10 miles?  My super A+ goal was 9:30s.  Considering I’ve pulled off maybe 10 miles that pace TOTAL of the 372 miles I’ve ran this year, this was ambitious.  A goal was to beat last year – at 1:37:08, that was still pretty ambitious.  B goal was to sub 1:40.  C goal was to feel like I made a good effort, running with my lungs a little burn-y, no matter what the result.

So, my plan was to run fast but sustainable, and see where that left me.  The first mile was a little crowded to get out and going, but when it ticked over at 9:40, and I was feeling pretty good, I knew it would be a decent day.  I was in “music up, heads down racing Quix” mode.  Happy I was able to get there.

The course was different from the last few years – it was essentially two parts and they switched them.  I liked it.  The killer hill that used to come at mile 8 and change now came at 1 and change.  I was able to give it some juice instead of just try to survive it.

The only bad part of the day was the wind.  It was 15-25 mph that day, which was AWESOME when it was at your back, but NOT awesome pushing into it.  After the 5k mark we found our first “uphill, into the wind” section.  I burned another match there to keep pace.  We finally got to the downhill part, down Burnet Road, and… holy crap, the wind made it still feel uphill.

That part was a little low for me.  However, my brain found a shred of common sense.  If the wind was strong enough to fuck up my downhill, it was TOTALLY going to help on the uphill.  I pounded a salted watermelon GU (caffeinated) around mile 5-ish and burned one more match in my book past the Coke bottling plant uphill and turned back onto Burnet for the uphill… which didn’t feel uphill at all.  Yay wind!  10k came right before my garmin ticked over to 1 hour.  Average pace wavered between about 9:38 and 9:42.

They added a new out and back right around 7 and the gel had fully kicked in, so I pushed pretty hard down and back up that hill and… for the first time in the race, the miles started to go slow.  I’m pretty sure that between 7 and 8 there was at least 2 miles, maybe 3.

At 8 I perked up for 2 reasons.  2 miles to go seemed short enough to celebrate the fact that I was in the running for at least a small PR, maybe something in the 1:36s, and MAYYYYBE even in the 1:35s.  Also, it went back to downhill against the wind, so the paces started creeping into the 8s and I was feeling fine (well, like someone was leaning against my lungs a bit, but SUSTAINABLY so).  Mile 9 was my fastest at 9:08.

Then, mile 10 hit.  The whole damn thing was uphill, and the way they changed the course, it was uphill into the wind.  The good thing was it was mostly a straight shot, you could see the finish for the last .75 mile so it was calling you home.  I started burning matches like crazy to get up that hill, to stay in the 9s.  I found some pain face (my pictures are hilarious, yeah, no links :D), I growled a bit, but I saw the official gun time clocking me at a small PR, so I knew my chip time would be a bigger one!

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I recovered, got a water, and then went to go cheer Zliten in… who came a lot quicker than I expected!  He’s just coming back from an injury, and while he didn’t beat last year’s screaming pace, we both would have been mad at him if he did.  We both decided that we’d rather drink better beer at home than wait for the super long beer tent line for miller 64, so we grabbed our bags and headed home.

Stats:

  • 1:36:04 for 10 miles
  • 9:36 average pace
  • 9:43 average pace for the first 6 miles (58:15)
  • 9:27 average pace for the last 4 miles (37:48) <- look at that awesome negative split!!!
  • 69/370 Age Group – top 20% (18.6)
  • 384/2012 Gender – also top 20% (19.0%)
  • 836/3094 Overall – top third, almost top quarter (27.0%)
  • My Overall rank for first 6 miles: 864.  Overall rank for the last 4 miles: 789.

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Thoughts:

Considering how I felt after (day of and the day after), I do think I actually might have had more in me.  Which is weird, because I ran faster than I expected to.  I’ve run a whole lot of base miles over the last 6 months, but very little speedwork (beyond one run every week or two *faster*, which usually just flirted on the high 9s/low 10s).  I missed some training because of a stomach bug and took a week off on vacation and really haven’t done a whole lot of anything this month but apparently that’s just what I needed to do.

It’s probably time to see what I have in me in April, and push the paces a bit.  Slow on easy days still, but FASTER on hard days.  None of these fake tempos where I’m just running comfortably hard, I need to get out and do some real speedwork!  I can’t wait, I love the stuff. Remind me of that later this month, please.

This pace would have gotten me a REALLY NICE half marathon PR (right around 2:06) and I really do think I had another 3 miles in me without slowing down much.  I may have to see if there’s anything in the area in April or May and test my legs there.

Overall, I’m really pleased.  This race is one of my benchmarks since I do it every year, and every year I have improved.  Some years, like this year, it’s a little unexpectedly great.  Some years, it’s just a good representative of my training.  I had been a little down after my two marathons this year had produced… interesting results.  I guess I’m just better at the shorter stuff.

That just means it’s going to take more practice at the long distance stuff to crack that nut.  Since Zliten wants redemption at both Space Coast and Woodlands we’re in for 2 again next year, so I’ll get the chance at marathon #5 and #6.

For now, though, I’m going to enjoy the start of tri season.  5 weeks until Rookie.  Let’s get on the short and fast speed train!

Spring Clean(Eat)ing

It’s time.  I’m about 9 lbs up from the weight where I raced Kerrville last year in September and was feeling pretty good about myself.  I got down ALMOST that low for the Space Coast marathon (more like 175) and then post-marathon and the holidays got me and I’ve never recovered since.  I feel a lot like this right guy right now that we found at the pet store.

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Nothing really fits right at the moment, and I got some press pictures taken at work that I’m really not thrilled with (amazing how someone with a good camera that’s not taking pics at selfie angle can reveal all the flaws), and I just don’t feel good.  Last week’s stomach bug, while incredibly awful and inconvenient, actually did me a service of resetting my appetite to real normal human levels from my super insane marathon runger I’ve been rocking lately.  Which is good, because I raced three weeks ago and haven’t strung together more than 20 miles in a week since.

It’s time to do some Spring Clean(eat)ing and go back to what felt good before.  I’ll be quite honest, I tried with a few fits and starts earlier in the year to track my food and clean up what went in my mouth, and failed miserably each time.  Well, if that’s not going to happen with a vague intent, then I need some stricter rules to live by.

So, the next month, I’m going to stick with this and weighing daily.  I’ll let the calories land where they may.  Here’s what’s on tap.

Unlimited servings per day:

  • Vegetables (minus corn and non-sweet potatoes)
  • Fruits (I know blah blah blah lots of sugar but if I you want to insinuate I’m going to get fat from a bunch of apples you can fuck off and die, I self limit here actually pretty well)
  • Meat/protein powder (to a point… if I start having like 200g+ protein per day, I may have to bump this to the category below, but for now…)

2-3 servings each per day (~100 calories each thing per serving):

  • Cheese/Dairy
  • Nuts
  • Olives/olive oil/butter/dressing/high calorie sauce

1 serving per day (150-200 cal):

  • Non-sweet potato, corn, corn tortilla thing.  Y’know.  Carby things.  Aiming to put these down the pie hole within an hour or two after my workout (if I run in the AM, for breakfast, after work, for dinner, etc).
  • One additional if it’s a double/long/especially difficult training day.

1 per week max (~500-700 calories):

  • Junk food/bread/pasta/rice/etc.  Hallo cheat meal.  The goal is to try to not go too crazy and eat a whole large pizza or anything, but a girl needs a burger or sandwich or mexican combo plate every once in a while.

10 per week (~1000-1500 calories per week):

  • Alcoholic drinks (1 beer, 1/4th of a wine bottle, 1 booze).  This is where my splurges lie.
  • Desert can factor in here, but will take away from my alcoholic bevvies (100-150 calories desert = 1 less drink).

As needed for workouts more than 1 hour:

  • Gatorade, gels, chews.  NO subbing in candy for training fuel right now.  This results in me eating 1 serving of jelly beans before I get on the bike for an easy 30 spin sometimes.  Bad, bad, bad.
  • If I need a pick me up for a shorter workout – fruit is awesome and unlimited and I hear it also has sugar.

Today, day 1, is shaping up thusly:

  • Breakfast: Protein smoothie with tropical fruit, yogurt, protein powder, and water (1 serving dairy)
  • Snack: Handful of almonds (1 serving nuts)
  • Lunch: Lettuce wrap sandwich bites with turkey, bacon, cheese, tomato, pickle, and onion (1 serving dairy)
  • Afternoon snacks: apple, plum, carrots
  • Pre-workout fuel: tbsp of sun butter (1 serving nuts)
  • PM Workout: 1 hour decent effort trainer ride (so, no workout aides needed)
  • Dinner: Greek chicken salad, baked potato (2 servings dressing/oil/olives, 1 serving dairy, 1 serving starch)

Just a quick calorie estimate clocks this in at about 1600 calories, which seems sufficient for maintaining my energy throughout the day and also a decent deficit with what I’m burning.  While I’m not tracking calories, I know I can eat myself into a surplus with a large enough bag of carrots and nothing else, so it’s a good double check that the ratios are pretty solid.

Tomorrow, I’m planning on a two-a-day (run AM, endurance spin PM, which should be about 2 hours total), so I’ll probably have some sort of AM starch as well to back that up and bring a gel/gatorade for the spin class, but continue on this same plan for the food stuff.

I know I owe you a more fun vacation recap post, but I just had to get this one up and out there so I could stay accountable.

What’s your spring clean(eat)ing plan?

The Woodlands Marathon – Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (Except for That)

Foreword:

I’m not entirely sure why I’m not ready to let this one go, but it’s been three weeks, so it’s time to post it.  I’m still not sure whether I’m extremely happy or disappointed with this effort.  It feels as if I now have a tool in my arsensal I didn’t before (running a marathon without stopping).  However, the sacrifice there was time, it was a lot slower than I expected, especially without walk breaks.

Either way, I think I need more of my racing year to play out before I judge what was going on here, so, um, here you go – marathon #4 recap.

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***

On February 28th, I ran my first marathon.

I’ve toed the line of 3 others.  I’ve attempted 2 other failed training cycles before that.  However, this is the first time I’ve ran every single fucking step.  It was my second slowest, but I mostly don’t give a shit about that (edit: apparently I do a little more as time goes on).

Since then, I’ve thought a lot about fear.  Being around various women on the cruise, I’ve found that so many of us let ourselves be held back by being scared of things.  “Oh, I’m scared of the ocean, I could never scuba.” “Oh, I’m scared of swimming in open water or riding bikes, I could never do triathlon.”  I am not a completely fearless person.  Frankly, riding bikes in traffic scares the shit out of me.  Getting in open water at the beginning of the year is usually a little squiggly (nature!).  I was also really scared that maybe, for some reason, I’d never be able to actually run a full marathon.  Maybe I just sucked at the distance.

But I do these things because conquering them makes me truly feel alive.  And I prefer to be terrified than bored any day.

Let’s start a little further back than the end of the race though, even though I’ve spoiled the story.  After my 10 miler 7 days out, I stuck to short runs with pickups on the treadmill because the weather sucked.  I did an idiot thing and got drunk and stayed up real late on Wednesday night (intending to only have a few glasses of wine and then get good sleep), and I’m not sure why, maybe nerves, maybe my constant subconscious sandbagging attempts, but it was what it was.  I didn’t get great day before-day before sleep since I was up late packing, but I had been REALLY rested so I wasn’t in bad shape.

Night before night before I did my normal big meal of seafood and salad and veggies.  I did eat two rolls, which I’ll probably try to skip next time, and do more potato type things.  The day before, I had soup for breakfast because it sounded good, we hit the road around noon and stopped for bbq for lunch (turkey, brisket, potato salad, creamed corn), and after arriving and getting packets, chicken, mashed potatoes, and veggies with a wedge salad for dinner.  Early to bed around 9pm with sleepy juice, and fell asleep reading and slept pretty soundly.  All in all, about a B for pre-race care.

Oh, maybe a B-.  I totally forgot my garmin.  Zliten was freaking the fuck out about it.  I was really calm and at first was going to run with just my analog watch as I’d really sparingly used my garmin during training, but I realized I’d be sad not to be able to look at my splits later.  So I borrowed his and he ran his 5k with the phone to track stuff.

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Something wasn’t 100% right with my digestive system that morning, but you work with what you have, so I coconut watered, and ate a kind bar and a small lara bar, and drank purple stuff and tried to be as empty as possible.  Oddly enough, I just kept having to empty.  And empty.  And empty.  Not in any urgent problematic way, but it’s not a feeling you want to go into a long race with.

However, the weather was freakin’ perfect for marathon running.  Finally!  Upper 30s at race start and it wasn’t to get much hotter, cloudy, with very little chance for rain.  I rolled with a very light long sleeve shirt, tights, coeur visor, and throwaway gloves and an old thermal to ditch along the way.

I finally said my farewells to Zliten who was running the 5k (his first outdoor run since November!!!) and got into the corral way in the back, behind all the pacers.  I wanted NO pressure to start quickly.  Between lining up and the gun going off, I acquired the need to pee REALLY bad.  That was weird, because of all the emptying, but I hoped it would go away once I started running.

Not so much.  Once I crossed the start line, I kept my eye out for a bathroom or porta, running easy 11-ish miles, whatever came naturally, and saw all the dudes swing into the woods to pee and cursed them.  I passed mile 1, mile 2, and finally the aid station came up… and they had ONE porta with a huge line.  They said there was more at the next at mile 4.

Well, I was not having that.  I ran up a bit, ducked into a particularly dense part of the woods, and peed.  Peeing in the woods during a road marathon – achievement unlocked.  Mile 3 was just over 12 minutes so it was an incredibly quick stop.  I ditched my throwaway stuff soon after that and settled in.

Right around mile 5 I had been pingponging with an older gentleman for miles and he was weaving all around.  He started chatting with me and telling me about his injured leg, and this was probably his last marathon but he wanted to do it anyway, and all these marathon stories from the 80s about the Houston Marathon.

My first instinct was to freak out a little and try and speed up.  He was going a touch slower than my easy pace (more like 11:40 than 11:20), and I had no experience of actually chatting with someone during a race, because usually I’m either hiding in my headphones or grunting antisocially due to my pace.  However, it was kinda nice to have someone distract me for about 4 miles with stories.  He decided to take a quick stretch break around mile 9 so I said I hoped to see him at the finish line (never saw him again though).

Also, the second thing I realized about that time was this course was NOT FLAT.  The elevation profile and course preview really hid the fact that while there were no steep climbs, damned if we didn’t start going either up or down the whole time pretty early in the single digits, and didn’t really stop until late in the race.

All in all, I felt pretty great, the best I’ve felt in early a marathon.  I tried never to focus on how far there was to go total, but break it into chunks.  The first half, I was just going for a 2.5 hour jog, and it was x-miles until I could put on my headphones and listen to music.  That was a nice carrot early in the race to keep my focus, but it was also lovely running the first half without anything blaring in my ears.  I put down a gel about an hour and two hours in.

Zliten had promised me he’d try to see me at about the 30k mark, so I kept counting down the miles until that after the half.  Marathon brain was starting to get me, so I kept mixing up 17.8 and 18.7, and feeling a little disappointed when I got the math straightened out.  I put down a third gel around mile 15, and felt my first low.  It was an out and back section, and my legs finally started to talk to me, and seeing everyone running at me for some reason made me just…ugh.  I knew I had work to do to beat the 5 hour mark and I needed to pick it up soon and I just wasn’t feeling it.

Soon after we got out on the road, my stomach gurgled and I knew it was going to be bad juju if I didn’t stop.  Shortly therafter, there was a water stop with one porta and no line.  Score.  I ducked in, took care of business, and was on my way quickly.  Another 12 minute mile, but with 10 miles to go, it was totally worth it.  I found the 303s (herbal muscle relaxers) in my handheld and popped them because my legs were starting to talk to me a bit and, well, why not?

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At some point, it sprinkled for a while.  Then, at another point, it dumped rain for another while.  Neither bothered me in the slightest, especially after my 20 miler in the pouring rain.  It was actually a nice change to have something different happening.

I tried to pick it up real hard after the potty break, but my legs just couldn’t find a faster pace than 11s.  I tried a few times and my legs would just start to feel… unstable, so I backed off.  The good news is… I kept running.  11:30s, 11:40s, maybe, but I wasn’t walking.  I took down a fourth gel.  I made a resolution that I wouldn’t walk at the very least until I saw Zliten.  That would be a PR for me in the sense that I’ve never not walked before 30k in a race.

I saw him just after I hit the 30k split mat and I told him I hadn’t walked yet but I was going slower than expected.  He tried to offer me his jacket and gloves but I was totally fine temp-wise.  I handed off my handheld since I had the last one stored in my pocket, and the water stops every 1.5-2 miles were sufficient on a cold day.  I was so done with carrying things.  It felt like a great relief.

Those next miles were kind of a blur.  I kept looking at my watch, thinking this was a running PR for the race, and then after we ticked over to 21.3, that it was just a running PR period.  At that point, I was like, no fucking way am I walking.  I have so little left.  I can do anything for 5 miles.  I never slowed way down, but I never could get that *kick* going on that I wanted.

I saw Zliten again at around 23 and told him that I hadn’t walked yet and he cheered me on and said that I might beat him to the finish with traffic.  I told him that was my goal, I wasn’t planning on slowing down.  Or maybe it was more like “murrf mahf argh google blap”, but that’s what I was thinking at least.

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Pretty much from 16, I knew that 5 hours was going to be really tough that day.  I wasn’t quite sure WHY it was so tough, but I knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t keep trying, so I slammed my last gel and tried to kick one more time.  It actually worked, I found some 10-minute mile pace for a while, but then my legs would feel like they wanted to come out from under me, and I’d ease up a bit.

We came back from the woods into the mall area.  It’s sadly deceptive because you see the start line, which looks like it just maybe could be the finish line, but you still have like .75 of a mile to go.  That just about broke me last year, but I was ready for it.  I saw Zliten running around there, saying he would try to catch me at the finish but it was unlikely.  My garmin was quite off the whole race (clocked almost 26.6), but right as I hit 26.2 and I knew I had a lot more course left, it ticked over to 5 hours exactly.

C’est la vie.  I had run the whole fucking thing in 5:04:29 with almost completely even splits.  However I feel about the race in time gone by, I KNOW there is a victory there.

I crossed the line, got my water and my medal, and at first I thought I was in really good shape… but then after a few more steps I had to stop and stretch, and then again, and then standing got hard, and I found myself sitting my ass on the grass in the beer tent because there was a place to sit, and then after that tiny little beer all I wanted was to gooooo, I was cold, so we did.

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I’m still trying to wrap my head around how running a whole marathon in perfect conditions equals my second slowest time.  Sure, this was definitely the hilliest one I’ve run.  Maybe my capacity right now is actually better doing run/walk intervals.

However, there is one thing I know.  Yeah, sub-5 may have eluded me this year on two attempts where both times I thought it was a no-brainer to achieve.  However, my ultimate goal is not just sub-5.  I also want sub 4:30.  Then sub-4.  Then maybe a BQ someday.  I just want to keep getting better and better at this distance. And it’s pretty clear that I’m not going to BQ, like EVER, if I have to run/walk the last 10 miles.

It’s been a tough nut to crack, just like the half ironman.  However, the fourth effort at each, I definitely feel like I made SIGNIFICANT progress towards future improvement.  I was definitely feeling down about SpaceCoast 2014, and I think it’s because I made the same damn mistakes I did in 2013.  I went out at a certain pace, let my head get the best of me around 15-16 miles in, and had severe low points in the last half.

This time, I made different mistakes.  Maybe I went out too slow.  Maybe I shouldn’t have run with that guy for 4 miles and let it drag my pace down a bit.  Maybe I should have upped the pace at 10 miles.  Maybe I should have tried a little harder to kick later, but I can tell you my knees still even feel a little unstable 10 days out (edit: better 3 weeks out though!), so it probably was for the best.  I definitely wasted a few minutes on potty stops, but that was literally unavoidable unless I wanted to be in a very messy situation re: my tights.  I know I fueled and hydrated better than I ever have in a race.  I just didn’t have the speed I hoped I would.

However, speed is something I can build with work.  I believe that getting over the hump of having the endurance to run a full marathon without stopping was a huge physical (and mental) barrier for me, and now I’ve got that feather in my cap.  The ability to run for 5 hours without really slowing down at all is pretty key, and I did that.  For someone 6 weeks out from the race who was considering dropping to the half, I will mother fucking take it.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

…just barely.  But alive, yes.

Since we last chatted…

I ran a marathon.

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I have this big long post written up but I just can’t bring myself to edit it for some reason.

The high points: I made a huge breakthrough and ran the whole fucking thing start to finish.

The low points: Even with a perfect weather day and running the whole thing, I clocked my second slowest time with a 5:04:29.

There’s a lot I’m still untangling emotionally that I’m not sure what it means, but at some point I need to just get it out and move forward.  I’m just not there yet.  And I don’t want to post 2000+ words of just drivel.  So, I need to sort that out.  I’m still not sure if I’m thrilled or disappointed and I really like to figure that one out before I immortalize it to look back on.

We went on vacation.

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So many fun times, and several hundreds of pictures to comb through and edit.  However, I got back on Sunday afternoon fucking exhausted, went back to work on Monday morning (big mistake), and haven’t had any downtime yet besides being sick in bed, so I haven’t edited those.  So the vacation blog is also coming soon ™.

We celebrated my birthday (on vacation).

The drama involved security getting called on some feisty sandal-throwing granny in a bikini t-shirt and some drunk girl getting electrocuted 5 feet away from me, but luckily, I am in one piece, as 36 is old enough to know better than to touch live wires but too young to not give a fuck and be get-off-my-lawn cranky.

I’ll definitely elaborate in my vacation post.  Fun stuff.

We celebrated Zliten’s birthday.

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The day involved getting up to get him flowers and a PlayStation4 (which of course I didn’t get a picture of, like a good wife, instead I took a sweaty sunny selfie… priorities?). We frolicked together on a long run outside in the glorious sunshine, ate BBQ salads, played video games for a bit, and had some beers and sweet and savory pies for PI day with friends.

Then, my excuse for being unproductive…

I caught a really raunchy stomach bug.  (no pictures, you’ll be thankful for that)

Sunday evening, I started feeling icky, and then late that night, started feeling awwwwful, like I had a knot in my stomach that was twisting like a knife.  For me, barfing is a traumatic event, so I was pretty pitiful for a short while when I was down with the sickness.  I took my first sick day in probably 2 years yesterday because I couldn’t get out of bed for more than 15 mins without feeling woozy.  I feel like I’m on the mend but the house is a mess, there are a lot of things undone, and I’m way behind on errrrrrrything.  Such is life.  Recovery first.  If you need to spend the day napping like a cat, nap like a cat.

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My role model this month…

I had some February goals.

Training/racing: A-.  I tapered like a champ.  I felt ready going in.  I actually executed pretty darn well on race day, but I wasn’t able to pull it into 4 hours-something.  Besides the time goal, really, everything went as planned.

Eating/scale: eh…. C. I tracked some but not all of it.  I definitely could do better.  Working on it this month after vacation.  The nice thing is my husband is actually on board because the scale is pissing HIM off, so that helps.

Work goals: B.  I largely ignored one task because I was scared of it, but then once I got going, it wasn’t so bad.  I didn’t feel as overwhelmed as I expected, so there’s that.  I actually got quite a few levels in one game so I’ll focus on the other game this month.

Life stuff: A.  I got the stuff I wanted to get in my kitchen stashed.  I didn’t do the extra credit stuff but that’s ok.  Another month.

I have very few March goals but let’s document them here:

Training:

  1. Priority one: recover.  Back off any session that feels bad.  This month is for undertraining if I need to do so.
  2. Run speed work.  Shorter runs, but adding more pops of speed and tempo sessions over lots of volume.
  3. Slight bike and swim ramp up as appropriate.  Focus on speed over distance.

Racing:

Go for a 10 mile PR at Austin 10/20 (sub-1:37).  This may be a little reaching right now, but I’ll go in trying to run about 9:30s and stick with it as long as I can.  I’ve not gone into this race so soon after a goal race, so we’ll see how this one unfolds.

Food/Scale:

Survive.  Also, track everything that’s not on this list:

  • Meat
  • Veggies/Fruits
  • Healthy plant fats (nuts/olives)

This will give me a good idea of how many additional carbs I’m eating (potatoes, corn products, etc), how much additional fats I’m using (dressing, sauces, etc), and how much junk food I’m eating.  Also, since I seem to be annoyed tracking my food, it may make me make better choices.

Unfortunately, this all went to hell on Zliten’s birthday (planned) and then since I got the stomach bug I’ve been living on junk food because it’s all I can digest (unplanned), but once I can ingest real healthy stuff again, I’m back to it.

Work:

Get at least one level in game 2.  There’s a lot going on.  Make sure it all stays on the rails.  Survive is also a good goal here.

Life:

Priority one: recover (from the marathon and stomach bug and life).  Don’t get swept up into March having to be too crazy.  Say no to things that are too much even if you don’t get to do all the cool things or you have to not be as productive as you want to be.  Recovery is key.

Priority two: total baby steps here – I want to clean off the butcher block in the kitchen.  Zliten wants to clean off his desk in the office.  Do this small thing and we’ll get back to slightly bigger goals in April.

And with that, I’ll get back to keepin’ on keepin’ on and hopefully there will be some less “sorry for abandoning the blog” posts soon.

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