Adjusted Reality

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

Month: June 2015

Off Season Week 1: Absolutely No Training (Except That Once)

Ahhhh, offseason.  This week felt WEIRD but good.  I’m somewhere between not-so-sure I need these next 5 weeks off but know I REALLY need them off to hit this fall and winter HARD.  So, this training block’s goal is REST and FUN and a little dash of building habits.

Pfl2015Hilarious

Also, had to share a Pfluger picture (no way I’m paying 20$ for that, sorry), and they kind of cemented the fact that I was doing all I could on the run.  That. pain. face.

PFhaha

Day 0:

I’m going to go on the record, I liked finishing the last race on a Saturday last year much better, since I had a full weekend to relax.  Sunday just meant I came home, drank beer, ate sandwiches, and didn’t do much since I had to work the next day.  But, don’t get me wrong, it was still glorious.

Day 1:

8 hours of sleep, I probably could have used more.  Still kind of in a head fog.  Nothing feels weird yet since I sometimes take the day off after a race.  Work was busy but then I indulged in:

  • Going to the grocery store without a 100% set plan in mind because it wouldn’t be tragic to forget something and have to go back later in the week
  • Eating foods that probably wouldn’t have been good for training the next day, like tacos with the spicy ass green sauce and a curry naanwhich.
  • Playing video games for 3-4 hours
  • Letting the laundry stay piled up in the garage (it stayed there until Saturday).  I could probably do it every other week if it wasn’t for workout clothes.

Day 2:

June29-4

Slept like the dead and wanted to keep sleeping after 8.5 hours.  Head feels a little clearer, but two days of eating bread and crap is definitely making my stomach feel… bleh.  Back to better food today. My body had gone back and forth from feeling like it’s dragging a big weight, and sometimes sort of… fine.

I’m really busy today, so I’m not yet MISSING a workout, and it feels like a relief not to have to fit one in.  Though the idea of being in a body of water to swim sounds nice, soon.

Today’s fun involves:

  • Jurassic World!  Wow, it’s neat to be able to go to movies during the week.  Normally I’m either a) having to train during the movie time or b) getting out of the movie is too late because I have to get up to train.  A movie after work during offseason is TOTALLY doable and it was SO FUN!
  • Got our new security system installed.  It was a hassle, but it wasn’t NEARLY the hassle it would have been trying to work an install around a 8 hour work day AND 2+ hours of training that is normal on a Tuesday.
  • Not being able to poop but feeling super gassy care of something I ate.  I know, I’m a doll.  You’re welcome.
  • A little bit too much wine. 🙂

Day 3:

June29-3

Today it really feels weird not to be training.  Oddly enough, my first thought about it is I miss chlorine, and I have wistful memories of running (but winter running, not in this humid hot soupy shit).  Work is pretty stressful, so it’s definitely a great week not to have any sort of training stress.

Awesome things about today:

  • Pho for lunch!  I haven’t had it in forever, it is hit or miss whether its fine or wrecks me for 2 days.  So, its definitely something I only eat when I’m sure I won’t be training soon.  I also think I found a new favorite place for it, because besides a little bit of sloshy belly (from many cups of spicy broth), I don’t feel awful!
  • Yelp Event!  Private party to check out a place I probably wouldn’t ever go myself called Pacific Rim.  Everything was adequate in terms of food and house wine, but they definitely did well in the face of a hungry crowd and we’ll definitely come back and give them a chance.  Good to catch up with old and new Yelp Elite friends as well!
  • A bit too much wine and rum, again.  Oops.
  • Getting a random level on my EverQuest character while being a little too tipsy to probably have done that.  I logged in a few days later and found that drunk me had not only gotten a level and managed to not die, but I also went all the way to town, obtained a bunch of spells, and made it back to camp.  Go drunk me!

Day 4:

June29-2

When I was in my 20s, we used to hit up Vegas a lot for vacations.  What do you do in Vegas? Stay up all night, and drink, and gamble, and other debauchery, day after day.  At least that’s what I did.  Somewhere in my early 30s, we shifted away from those types of holidays and elected to spend our time at the beach instead.  Days like today remind me why – staying up and having a little too much booze two days in a row just about SLAYED me.  There’s a reason I don’t do that anymore.  My head was so foggy I walked into the wrong office and started to have a convo with the wrong person at work.

However, it wasn’t all bad.

  • It was my 8-a-versary day at work, and a coworker got me balloons.  Things are going well with our new release.  Life is pretty good.
  • The evening was game day.  We faced some pretty heavy foes and Zliten’s character got CRUSHED by a statue, and our warlock also met the pointy end of the demise stick.  They were both a little bummed, but then got to creating new characters.  Can’t wait to see who we “meet” next time.
  • Our garmin vector 2s came.  I’m pretty excited to start playing with (real) power.
  • I had some REALLY good chicken and veggie tikka masala.  Probably a little too much food/carbs/calories, which I AM kind of trying to watch, but it was so tasty.

Day 5:

So happy for Friday.  This week was so busy, I was so ready to enjoy a weekend of just whatever the hell I wanted.  It ended up being very lazy, which was totally fine.

June29-5

I really missed the water. I spent a whole 5 days since I submerged myself in something deeper than my bathtub, so we headed to the lake after work with my big diving camera rig to go explore.  The visibility was complete shit, but I was able to get some decent pictures because nice camera + BRIIIIIGHT light.  And I swear, time speeds up when I’m in the water, because I SWEAR it had only been 15 mins as we climbed out, and it was an hour later.

We had planned to go on a fun, no drop group ride Saturday morning to test out the Vector 2s, but Zliten’s right pedal was stuck, so we needed bike shop help, so we decided to skip it this week (it didn’t take too much arm twisting), and stay up and play video games and have a few vodkas.

Day 6:

June29-1

Today was about sleeping in and getting greek food for lunch and going shopping (spent WAYYY too much at the bike shop but hey, it was all on sale, right?) and then finally testing out our pedals on the trainer.  I think mine is overestimating power a bit (I wasn’t working very hard to hit my threshold pace but mayyyybe that’s a week of rest for ya?) and seems to not completely be picking up the right pedal (it clocks me at 60/40% balance when I was doing single leg drills that should register 0/100%).  But… I did get some PRs on Zwift and maintained the gal’s polka dot jersey most of the time.

Zliten grilled us some AMAZING fish and some slightly hockey pucked (but still delicious chicken) for dinner.  I gave myself the weekend to continue being unreasonable with the booze and I made it through all of two beers (ok, 4 Miller 64s, but that actually calories and booze content = 2 real beers so henceforth, so it shall be) and decided that I was ready for reading in bed instead.  I have definitely tired out my “get all the drunk” urges this week.  That was kind of a goal.  I’m ready to do stuff besides wanting to sit on my couch and drink beer all day.

Day 7:

Slept in until 10:30 (which never happens unless I stay up super late or am sick, which I did neither), and we grabbed some soup and salad bar from Jason’s Deli before we did a massive grocery and Costco trip.  Our plan was to unload and then get thees to the waterpark, but we both were kind of weirdly exhausted from errands.

I know this part of the cycle.  Part of unloading fatigue is actually FEELING it and trying not to push through, so we succumbed to the couch instead.  It was sad because I have not seen my waterpark in 2 weeks, but there were perfectly good and err… hormonal reasons I was tired, and Zliten’s knee was creaky, so it was for the good.

As was the theme of the weekend, we grilled some more (steak for Zliten, chicken for me and for the week ahead) and played EverQuest and I got down 1.5 beers before I threw in the towel and read in bed again.

….and fin.

Average calories for the week: 1840 per day

Fitbit says deficit is: 445 calories for the week (lol)

Average weight was: 179.9, which is +0.1 lb from last week.  With that data, race inflamation and that darn TOM starting, it seems about accurate.

And, now we’re here at week 2.  It’s time to bring some more regular FUN activity into my life, but still prioritize personhood over any sort of specific training (e.g. was going to go to a rock climbing class Wednesday but a movie invite with friends came up, so definitely doing THAT instead).  I also need to keep myself from trying to do ALL THE THINGS because I can.  I expect my energy to rebound this week and I’m trying to BANK some each week, not spend it all.

It’s also time to make baby steps at establishing some new habits and reaffirming existing ones.

Nutrition Goals:

  • Continue to track calories and weight.
  • Eat mostly healthy food – just because it’s in my calorie range does not necessarily mean I should eat it.
  • Reduce alcohol consumption to a normal amount for me (a few drinks twice a week max, rather than DRINK ALL THE BOOZE).
  • Contact nutritionist to set up an appointment (eeps!)

Workout Goals:

  • Hit a couple classes at the gym this week to try something new!
  • Run once, 30mins to an hour.  No electronics.
  • Get back to some light strength.  Do week 1 of the pushup challenge and go back to the dozen (minus the pushups) 2xweek.  I don’t care so much about getting to 100 pushups.  Last time I got to about 50.  It just seems like the kind of thing I could carve out a few minutes before or after work and do without it having to be a THING like going to the gym to lift.

Life Goals:

  • Get my ass to the waterpark once or twice.
  • Get my ass to the lake once or twice.
  • Hang out with friends.
  • Sleep 8 hours a night.  It’s so hard for me to sleep when I’m not training but make it happen.
  • Get up in the hour that starts with 7 a few times this week.

Question: what are you up to this week?

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon Recap

Some days you have that little extra something special, and some days, all you can do is execute on your training and roll with the punches.  I was missing a little bit of fire from the beginning but sometimes that resolves itself. Today, it lingered. But, you play the cards you have on race day, and I didn’t have a bad hand, just not a royal flush.

LakePf

But really, I think the root of my issues were a little more biological.  I spent Friday outside in the lake which was fun, but probably not 100% the best race prep.  I didn’t sleep well the night before.  I have been cutting calories a bit over the last few weeks.  I spent the three days before at a higher calorie count (around 2000 per day), but it might not have been enough.  My husband decided to make our caff drink half strength for some reason because he thought I didn’t want any and I didn’t realize until we were on the road.

And… honestly, after a clearer head today and writing this all up, it’s so clear there wasn’t really something magical that was wrong with me, as I had convinced myself there was during the race.  I ate breakfast at 4:30am (kind bar and coconut water) and my wave didn’t go off until after 8:15, and I consumed approximately 1.25 scoops of heed and one gel until I hit the finish line, around 10am.  That’s just not enough.  When I get on the bike in a sprint feeling hungry, it’s not a good sign.

On the flip side, I’m saying all these things about something that was actually a pretty good breakthrough for me, overall.  And it’s hard to be taken seriously bitching about a PR, which I’m not.

Swim:

I did not get a chance to do a swim warmup due to a long porta potty line, but I was pleasantly surprised it felt slightly crisp (79 degrees w/no wetsuit feels nice to me). It was my first wave start (not TT) in a year, but I felt like I handled it decently and didn’t get stuck behind anyone, and didn’t have to beat anyone up to get in position.

Oh my, the nature, though. The first and last ~100m were to the surface with hydrilla. It was a fight. I figured I was going to end up covered and tangled in it, will be interesting to see the swim out pictures to see if I had any extra… erm… jewelry. The rest of the time I felt like I was swimming strong, I didn’t sit behind anyone going slower, I kept a fairly smooth stroke, I kept the effort honest.

My watch shows about a 1:56/100m pace for .36 miles (580m). That’s pretty good for me in open water.  I’m pretty happy with this. 23 seconds better than last year, which was my previous PR, and there was significantly less nature. Win.

Swim time: 11:10, 8th AG/27, top 3rd overall.

T1:

I feel like I’ve had solid transitions here at Pflugerville the last few years and this was no exception.  I was curious why it took me a little longer and then realized that they expanded the parking lot, so transition was bigger.  It was a difference of 9 seconds, so no worries there.

T1 time: 2:24

Bike:

I got on the bike and got going and could not get the heed in my system soon enough. I tried to find that insane effort I’ve put in the last two races and it didn’t come right away, but I just did my best to get to work, drink my drink, and pass all the people (except the few on super bikes that passed me).

Then, around mile 4… it started to POUR. At that point, my head got all negative.  The roads were in awful conditions in places (good old Pflugerville roads…) and I felt like my biking sucked today and actually had the thought that I was hoping they would pull us from the course because of the weather (what?) and then after the 3 sisters hills I realized I needed some caff and calories, stat. I worked on a salted watermelon gu over the next few miles and eventually things got a little less emo in my head.

It rained on and off, people actually were fairly courteous on the bike and exchanged friendly banter, and I held about 22 mph on the nice long 130 frontage road stretch. Then, as we were turning in, the sun started to come out. No, no, no, no, NO! With the humidity, if it turned sunny, it was going to feel like a billion degrees on the run.  I also had to slow for an ambulance almost fully blocking the street.

I forgot to do the “spin easy” thing into transition but it all worked out since I hadn’t ripped my legs off that ride anyway. Considering the rain, and the fact that I had to bike a little more cautiously than normal, and how I was feeling, and all that, I still pulled out a PR (from 2 years ago, actually, which was before this year, the hardest I had ever ridden my bike in my life) by 25 seconds.

Bike time: 46:03, 6/27 AG, top half overall.

T2:

Since I had to hold back a bit on the bike, I was a lot less spent than expected, so I made my way through this quickly.  Even with a bigger parking lot, and a completely SOAKED transition, I took 3 seconds off last year.  Win.

T2 time: 1:30

Run:

This is where the wheels fell off, kind of. The steep hill out of transition was so muddy I slipped down it a few times. That didn’t help me mentally to start off.  I got out on the run, and I couldn’t get my legs to turn over.   There was no reason.  It had stayed cloudy, so it actually wasn’t too hot (though humid as fuck).  The rain had actually made the trail feel LESS slippy to me.  I just could not will my legs to go any faster.  I tried not to panic, and just to roll with it and work into the effort gradually, because sometimes my first mile just sucks.

I tried to consider another gel in the first mile but it sounded revolting, and for some reason in my head I was worried about wasting it if I couldn’t get it down? (more race brain) so I just tried to get through my bottle of heed as quickly as I could, though more of it probably went on me than in my mouth. I just wanted it to be effing over. That’s all that was through my head. Get to that finish so I don’t have to be running anymore.  One more tiny little loop around Lake Pflugerville until I can get with the offseason.

I tried to pick it up a little in the second half, especially when I realized that a 1:30 was still in reach if I put on some gas.  I succeeded, a little, because I negative split each mile, but it was… lacking. I gave all my oomph on the home stretch and cramped on both sides of my ribs. That was new. Joel said I looked REALLY rough running it in (I can’t wait to see those pictures if they caught my face), but I was soooo close to that 1:30. It ticked over before I crossed, sadly, but it definitely helped me not to quit fighting along the way.

Run time: 29:21 – 15th/27 AG (bleh), middle 3rd (but bottom half) overall.  My second worst run at Pflugerville (my PR is 28:07, which was from 2012).

Total time: 1:30:30 total, PR by 1 min 39 sec from last year’s 1:32:09.  Zliten still holds the Lake Pflugerville Tri course record at 1:30:08 from last year, but I got close!

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This was me jumping for joy here 3 years ago, and yesterday, I did over 2 minutes better.  I’ve been consistently 1:32-something the last few years so while I could have had a better day, this still is progress. 9th/27 AG, 89/290 gender, top half overall. While none of my performances were great in and of themselves, really, I was able to put together a fairly solid race to show that I’m a few feet ahead of where I have been the last few years, which have been feeling like a game of inches, especially with this race.

Now, 5 weeks of offseason. I am so ready.  Physically, I feel like I could get back to training tomorrow, and mentally, it’s kind of hard to accept that I don’t have to put together a workout schedule until the last week of July, but I know it’s for the best and once a few days go by, it’ll totally be the new normal not to be swimming, biking, or running all the time.

Pflugerville Goals and Race Weight Update

One more shakeout trainer ride and it’s go time.  How did this happen so fast?

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Because it’s been fun in the past, let’s math this one up a bit, just for fun, shall we?

My best times at Lake Pflugerville Triathlon:

  • Swim (2014): 11:33
  • Bike (2013): 46:27
  • Run (2012): 27:08
  • Overall (2014) 1:32:09

My multipliers from Rookie:

  • Swim: 5.8%
  • Bike: 6.25%
  • Run: 9%
  • Overall: 7.6%

This means I can reasonably expect:

  • Swim: 10:50 (swim has a run in and out so this is not all paddle time)
  • Bike: 43:45
  • Run: 24:45
  • With the 2:15 and 1:30 transitions I did last year, this works out to 1:23 and small change overall.

…well then.  That would be a 9 minute PR.  I will try to open my mind to the fact that this is POSSIBLE, but WOW.

Let’s just try this again from my best result overall, last year.

  • Swim: 10:50
  • Bike: 45:10
  • Run: 26:20
  • Overall: with same transitions as above… 1:26 and small change

…a little more believable, but still wow.  That would be a 6 minute PR.  Considering the last 3 years I’ve finished within 45 seconds of each time, that’s still a huge change.

I’m going to have to lean on a little bit of unicorn and rainbow magic here.  The forecast is obviously a little far out, but it’s not kind (low 75, high 90, and INSANELY humid), and that works against me like WOAH.

Swim:

The lake’s condition will definitely influence this, but if I was able to pull 30 seconds off a 300m swim, I can probably do better than that unless the lake is SUPAH CHOPPY.  I just need to keep the effort ON, which I’ve gotten much better at this year.  I’ll be trying for a watch pace of around 1:42/100y (around 1:50/100m, but my OWS settings only display in yards).  And hey, I’ll finally get a chance to see if the race course here is long like I suspect!

T1:

Same deal as all the other races.  Every second here is another second I have to take off on that run.  Run as fast as I can to transition.  Sock, shoe, sock, shoe, helmet, sunglasses and go.

Bike:

This will be interesting.  I ride here a lot, but I rarely get the chance to fly down the blocked off roads without worrying about traffic or keeping Zliten/friends in my sights.  Here I get to just RIDE.  18-19.something mph sounds crazypants to me, but I did just ride this under the above conditions not giving anything close to 100% at 17.4 mph, so I guess it’s reasonable.  Again, just hard to open my mind to the fact that 19 mph is a pace I can keep outdoor riding since that’s new.

If I can feel the same riding as I did at Cap Tex, I’ll be thrilled.  Riding aggressive without being aggressive, consistently keeping a comfortably high cadence, pushing up hills and recovering on the downs once I’m back up to speed, staying honest and working to gain speed on the flats, and just rock my home course advantage.

Just a note to myself: sub-42 is over 20 mph.  I’ll go on the record right now that if I can ride that speed, I almost don’t care what my run is like (within reason).  And also, if I’m close, I may just go for it.

T2:

The run starts as soon as my feet touch the ground on the bike.  I’m not using bike gloves this time, so I won’t fumble with them.  I’m debaaaaaaating using a throwaway frozen handheld bottle, but I need to decide whether the extra happy of having a frozen bottle will outweigh the “i have to carry a bottle” annoyance.  The temps will decide.  Shoe off, shoe on, shoe off, shoe on, step into race belt, grab visor (and maybe handheld) and GTFO.

Run:

I predict my run will be in feels like mid-to-upper 80s. A little better than two weekends ago starting my run around 11am in the feels like upper-80s to mid-90s, but I was only able to muster 10 minute miles going probably only one gear under race effort.  The run is a little short at something like 2.85 or 2.9 miles typically on my garmin, which makes these silly run times possible.  On a cool day.  Not on gravel.  Not off a hard bike.  With a healthy dose of pixie dust.

I need to channel my inner badass here and just FUCKING RUN MY ASS OFF.  Remembering that this is the last 3 miles of season.  For the next 5 weeks, I can run 13 minute miles on the treadmill inside in the AC if I feel like it.  These three need to be aiming somewhere around the low 9s/upper 8s if I can summon the sheer amount of will, guts, gumption, suck it up buttercup, caffeine, sugar, and unicorn dust to do so.

I’ve spent a lot of time running on kitty litter and while it hasn’t stopped sucking, I’m probably more used to it.  Dreaming about dunking myself back in the lake helped me on previous runs.  That and freezy pops may singlehandedly get me to the finish line.

No matter how things go, I’m looking forward to one more go-crazy-as-hard-as-I-can race before it’s time to change things up a bit.  Let’s go with… 1:23 is my A+ goal, 1:25 is my A, sub 1:30 is my B, and a PR is also perfectly acceptable to me if the day does not go as planned.

june19-2

…y’all just come here for the selfies, right?

Project Race Weight:

I’ve learned some things.

It is indeed possible for me to eat like a normal human, where a large restaurant meal is actually the majority of TWO meals, not something to be consumed also with an appetizer and a snack later.  It’s super nice to buy a big sandwich and have it last for two meals.  Less training hours helps this but also not letting myself get to the point of being famished is key.

Eating less food definitely means I have a little less to give while training.  It wasn’t that I was lacking the ability to get through any one session, but I couldn’t string as many together as I could two weeks ago when I was shoving food in my cakehole like crazy.  As long as I’m careful, workouts don’t suffer, but some days where I’ve lived on vegetables and fat and protein, I’m definitely feeling lethargic… until I eat my before workout snack of fruit and yogurt, and then I perk right up.

This is just how the calorie defect game goes.  I won’t have to worry about training until August so after Sunday, things will get less complicated.  However, this week’s plan was to be careful about workout fueling Mon-Wed and try to maintain a smaller amount of calories, and then Thurs-Sat, no less than 2000 GOOD FOOD calories per day.  Kind of like carb loading, but calorie loading.  I thought this would be hard, but yesterday I went over by like 500.  Oops.

Just for kicks, since we’re talking numbers, I ate an average of 1864 calories per day last week, and burned an average of 2315, resulting in an average calorie deficit of 451 per day.  If math worked out properly, I’d be just a little under 1 lb down.

So, let’s take my average weight over the week, throwing out my high and low.  I think that’s one thing that gets me needlessly frustrated.  One weird low swing and I get excited.  When it doesn’t happen again for a while, I get down and think I’m not making progress when I am.  My average weight June 1-7 was 182.6.  My average weight June 8-14 was 180.7.  I would say a little water weight played into the extra loss but… progress.  I expect to make a little less this week because of the race, but we’ll see.

Less than 48 hours until offseason, so I’m off to make it happen!

 

This is how it is

I’ve got a couple other posts I’m working on, but here’s an update and stuff and things.  This is how it is around here.

Food Thoughts:

June8-2

Working on nutrition is so much harder than training.  You can’t just go get motivated for an hour or four and knock it out and then relax.  It’s not an offensive action.  It’s that quiet, persistent task that never ends as life throws curveballs and challenges at you.  It’s a constant defensive you have to have at the ready.  Which makes it SO HARD to work on this stuff when you’re not 100% motivated.  It’s easy to poke a hole in a weak defense… one moment of relaxation and you fall face down on a cake, it seems like.  I gotta stay strong on this stuff.

However, it’s really cool how shining a flashlight on things can (at least start to) fix it.

Tracking my food daily made me realize how bad I was eating, even though I was mostly sticking to my bread/rice/pasta free diet, so I had convinced myself I was doing ok.  Once I realized that, it wasn’t too hard to go back to a more balanced NORMAL.  I’ve also thrown the RULES out the window and am back to guidelines and a little experimentation.

I’m finding that if I trust myself to eat more in the first half of the day, and make sure I treat myself right before, during, and after workouts, I don’t need a 1000 calorie dinner + snack and life is better overall most days.

I’m finding that maybe I’m going to vary up the things I’m eating and loosen up the embargo on some things I gave up last August.  Yogurt has come back.  I don’t know why I stopped eating it, but a little plain or greek yogurt mixed with PB powder and apples is a pretty awesome snack.  Much more satisfying than just the apple.  Same with dips.  Hummus and tzatziki sauce rock my world with veggies.

Also, things I eliminated because of bloat and trying to limit carbs.  Beans.  Whole wheat tortillas/bread.  Rice and rice products.  I do know I feel better not loading up with the stuff, but I’m shoving a lot of nuts and cheese and meat in my diet to fill those holes and that’s a LOT of calories (and it’s not that satisfying).  I think a limited amount of these things back in my life will help the cause.

I’ve decided to bring back the possibility of these things in my day, but in smaller quantities.  The back half of my week, I ate rice, bread, or wheat tortilla once a day.  My stomach didn’t revolt, I didn’t feel super bloated, I felt fuller on less calories, and I didn’t die.  I think LIMITING this stuff is better than trying to remove it completely (otherwise I do things like eat a double lettuce wrap cheese burger and french fries for a meal and feel virtuous that I didn’t eat grains).

A ~150 calorie snack IMMEDIATELY after killer endurance spin class helped me only eat a ~550 calorie dinner and be satisfied.  Normally, I was going for a GIANT, 1000+ calorie plate of mostly junk food since I was so hungry.

Either way, I’m happy to say that I had a good, solid week last week where I:

1. Tracked everything that went into my mouth.  This actually definitely helped me make better choices some days knowing I had to own up to the total at the end of the day.

2. Drank more water.  I didn’t do as well at tracking it, but I found myself most days on bottle 4 or 5 at the end of the day and that’s pretty good.

3. Weighed and logged it daily.

4. Did better at identifying workouts where I needed to eat something right away instead of just trying to hang on for dinner.  Even if my very next stop was food, that’s a delay of workout ending, stretching, showering, changing, transporting, and waiting for someone to either prepare my food or doing it myself, even if it’s just 5 mins on the microwave.  So a small snack is useful even though I’m going “right” to a meal, it’s still usually on the order of 30+ minutes unless that workout ends at a location where my meal is waiting for me.

5. I got close a few times but didn’t go off the rails.  Counting calories really helps.  It kept me from an extra slice of pizza, heck, and extra meal one day.  Sometimes I just don’t know when to be done eating.  I was able to keep the counts between about 1700-2200, while enduring just a LITTLE bit of hunger some days, nothing unmanageable.

My goal this week is to just do more of the same, and probably will be the week after too.  My weight has stabilized around 180.x most days, and I’m hoping that the trend will continue downward, though I know it generally takes me 3 weeks to really respond to anything, so I won’t get too frustrated for a bit if nothing changes.

 

Training Thoughts:

June8-1

I definitely have some senioritis here.  It definitely feels like the last few weeks of classes until I get summer vacation.  I’m generally hitting the paces and efforts just fine, it was just a little hard to WANT it.  If that makes any sense at all.  It’s about 10000% better than I was last year at this time, but it’s definitely reinforcing the fact that I need a break so I don’t spiral into the land of burnout, especially now that the HEAT IS ON.

Doing only short races this spring has been so so so so good.  While I had planned on trying to maintain my marathon run base, throwing that out the window has been a good (at least short term) decision.  It’s been just so fun to go out and put the gas on over a few miles and not worry about it.  I definitely feel like a half marathon right now would be a bit of a stretch – doable but would feel long.  I also feel like on the right day, I’d have a chance to crack open my 5k PR (8:30 pace) which I was nowhere close to earlier this year (you mean I have to run under 10 minute mile pace? that’s too faaaaaaaaaast…).  It all goes in cycles.  You can’t have it all at once.

I’m now at the point where it’s one week down, one to go (and then race week).  Science says that you absolutely positively cannot absorb any endurance gains this close to racing, and since this is my last triathlon before summer vacation, everything goes into the “sharpening the stick” basket – bringing out the fitness I already have and readying myself for sprint race pace.  Short fast sets in the water.  Attacking it on the bike.  All the run miles are either surrounding or are fast miles.  The volume is pretty meager at 7 hours per week, but it ALLL counts, which is just as hard as 10-12 mostly easy.  I like the spring being about getting faster.

And… just as good cycles go, I’m dreaming of the other thing.  This weekend, I was lamenting that instead of a 90 minute ass kicking brick, I’d rather be doing something easy and longer.  Just like the kind of efforts that I was getting super tired of doing in January and February and wanted to go faster.  Just like the kind of efforts I will get back to in August.

Either way, I’ve still managed to maintain race enthusiasm this year, which is great.  I’m excited for one last party at Pflugerville on June 21st, and then shutting it down for a while.

 

Life thoughts:

June8-3

I had to be two people at work (sort of working against each other) for a while, and it was weird and uncomfortable and scary but also very challenging and exciting and stretched me in different ways.  That’s over temporarily, but will return again later this summer.  I feel some amazing stress relief right now to get back to my normal for a while and I think this may help with some of the eating and drinking in the short term.

The waterpark opened and we’ve been a few times for a few hours.  It’s my happy place.  I can’t wait to totally abuse it during off season.

We went scuba diving in Lake Travis weekend before last.  This will be part of a larger post later but holy wow – I got some really surreal pictures, here’s one of my favorites.

June8-4

I’ve been doing things!  Training less on the weekends gives me a little more RL oomph.  Last weekend, we walked to check out a new bar in the ‘hood.  In the rain even.  It was the scene of the infamous wing and fried pickles, but it was really nice to go out and hang out on someone else’s patio.  This weekend, we went to go see Mad Max in theaters.  The movie was a smashy good time and made me watch all the rest of them.  I feel educated in post apocalyptic wasteland now!

Anddd…. I’m back to playing EverQuest.  They opened up a new progression server (everyone starts at level 1, in the old world, playing like it’s 1999) and I’ve been having fun with the nostalgia element.

This is how it is, and it is pretty darn good.  Time to get on with my Monday!

Nutrition 101

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s finally, finally, finally time to work with a nutritionist again.  I’ve been at this for years.  Obviously I’m not where I want to be.  I NEED HELP.

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I’ve talked to a few candidates – the one at my gym, some other local folks, and someone in blogland who I respect.  I’m narrowing down who I want to work with by the scientific process of putting it in the back of my mind and seeing what feels right vs the cost.

There are the 2 parts of me debating the approach.

Quix #1: FUCK IT LETS DO THIS RIGHT NOW I WANNA MAKE PROGRESSSSS!!!!

Quix #2: Ok, let’s finish out season and not try anything drastic to upset the part of my life that’s actually been working out quite well, thanks!

However, I knew that one thing for sure – any nutritionist/RD was definitely going to have me log my food.  That was a good start, getting back to that. Oddly enough, I made this choice on a Thursday.  Usually I would wait until Monday to do something like that, but I decided that there is no time like the present.  And after four days of logging, one thing smacked me in the face.

I am making no progress right now because I eat like utter crap about half the week.  I’m completely failing Nutrition 101 right now.

It’s a lot less apparent when you look at it at the start of a week, because I’m usually pretty good then, but looking at the back half isolated… yeah.  It’s not befitting of an endurance athlete doing any sort of proper fueling, and I’m pretty surprised everything is going as well as it is right now.  Hello, wakeup call.

I cannot justify spending money to go to a nutritionist with my diet this way.  I need to get rid of the obvious stuff first.  Things like wings and fried pickles and vodka are not appropriate for your main calorie intake on Saturday.  Also – 1200 calories of dinner on a day off workouts is inappropriate.  What’s worse is where it came from: 600 calories for the healthy meal I meant to eat, and then 600 calories of bread and butter, eating leftovers from my husband’s wedge salad, and then over half of the dessert he ordered because it was there and I was hungry.

So, I’m going to take the “let’s wait until after season” approach, which actually gives me a chance to get things under control myself and let the nutritionist fine tune.  Even if I do lose a little weight in the next few weeks, I actually still want to work with a professional to see what I can do better.  I think it will help me stick with it longer than making a little progress, then backpeddaling, then getting depressed that I have to lose the same damn 20-30 lbs again like I have been the last 5 years.  But, I don’t want to pay someone to tell me that I should probably cut out the fried food and simple carbs.  I know that.  I need help with the harder stuff that you get degrees for.

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Paying attention to both my intake and how I felt physically and emotionally over the last 4 days, I think I’ve realized a few things.

  • I suspect that I’m not drinking enough water.  It’s easy to overlook something so simple, but very often I’m finding myself only on bottle 2 at the end of the workday, when I’ve worked out at lunch or in the AM.  My lips have been chapped a lot lately, and I’m pretty sure that’s why.
  • Eating shit I don’t need because it’s there is a HUGE issue for me.  I have to get better at this.  My husband is NOT on board with making significant diet changes right now, so crap is going to be around.  I need to remember he’s actually trying to be nice when he offers me stuff and not trying to be super mean and completely sabotage my efforts.  Also, I work at an office where people leave cupcakes and chips and candy and junk around.  I go to a game night where everyone brings snacks to share.  I just have to figure out strategies on how to not eat food that’s *right there* without it becoming a huge stressor and obsession.  Hell, right now, I’ll take the ability to endure it while being miserable about it and giving in.  Baby steps.  Someday I’ll be able to not give the bowl of chips at a party a second thought, but for now, I’d take winning the war over it in my head after a hard battle instead of giving in.
  • I think one of my problems is being so goddamn hungry all the time.  I brought a healthy dinner to game night, but it wasn’t filling, so I ate 5000 calories of chips and cheese too.  Same with Friday’s dinner – it was healthy but not 100% filling, so all the other stuff I ate added up to another dinner.  Why am I so hungry?  Why am I crashing into 6pm wanting to eat a whole cow covered in cheese?  What needs to change about my eating habits so I can be reasonably comfortable and not obsessed with where I’m getting my next fix?
  • Chips/fried food need to be dialed back like whoa.  I counted SEVEN different instances of eating them in four days.  This is madness.
  • Justifying rewards – just because I crushed a long/hard workout does not mean I automatically deserve junk food and booze, and my body would probably appreciate that I didn’t, thank you.  Not to say that can’t happen sometimes, but as my training has gotten a little more intense (instead of just easy and long most of the time) this spring, I’ve been definitely making this happen more often.  Not every workout needs to end in this…

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So my goals for this week are:

  1. Track all my food.  Every bite.  On the same day in which I eat it.
  2. Track water and make sure I’m getting 64+ oz INDEPENDENT of workouts.
  3. Weighing daily and logging it.  Lets get it back to metrics land instead of emotional make-my-day-crappy-ville when I can force myself to get on the scale.  It is what it is, and ignoring it doesn’t make it go down.
  4. Make it a goal to not go into a meal RAVENOUS.  Bring adequate pre- and post- workout snacks with me.
  5. Identify any time I am either about to or have gone off the rails and analyze why and what I can do better.  No judgies, just figuring out strategies not to have it happen again.

Next week this time, I’d like to have a good, solid, 7 days of normal healthy eating under my belt and then see what I can continue to improve.  After that, I can start tackling the harder stuff and perhaps graduate to Nutrition 102.

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