January is Gone

Holy crap, January is gone!  Being that it’s my least favorite month of the year, I’m ok with this, but how did that happen so quickly?

Training:

The goal was to take a stepback week the week of 3M Half, and then hit it hard and use the race as a kickoff to a high mileage week.

That is so not what happened.  Monday, and then again Thursday, I had to go to the chiropractor to get my hip adjusted.  She asked me to lay off running for a few days each time, which ended up being the whole week.

I am SUPER torn on how I feel about this.

It’s definitely a setback to have had two low mileage weeks in a row, and seeing the “last year this time” facebook posts about 20 and 21 mile back to back long runs are making me incredibly anxious because I’ve only done a 14 (13.25 of it racing), 15 and 17 mile treadmill run since my last 26.2.

On the other hand – my legs never feel this fresh at this point of training, and my brain doesn’t feel overloaded with miles and I definitely don’t feel unfit.  I just need to go out and rock a 20 mile run either this or next week (with a high double digit run the other weekend day), and then start shutting it down.  This could be just what I need to show up at the race fresh and excited to test myself instead of injured and burned out.

I didn’t completely sit on my ass last week.  I did 3 bike rides, and two swims.  And one of those swims was pretty epic.  I decided to take (most of) the time I was going to dedicate to a long run and swim it out since the chiropractor said easy bikes only but whatever I wanted to do in the pool.  I decided to take that advice to the letter and see how long I could go.

I had no real business doing this because I’ve swam less than 3 miles COLLECTIVELY since Kerrville in September, but I figured I’d give it a go.  I brought all my pool toys, a bunch of snacks and drinks, and set out to bring down the house record of 7k or let my arms fall off trying.  This was set by Zliten last year while he was too injured to run… but he had swam every day leading up to the attempt.

I alternated 1000m freestyle with 1000m of drills (fins, paddles, pull, and kickboards) and got myself to 7300m (7125m adjusted for funky pool size), and claimed the distance PR (in about 10 mins less than Zliten did it as well, natch).  I took liberal breaks and went pretty slow (just over 2:00/100m), but I didn’t find myself getting tired, my arms were just too sore to keep going by the end.  I expected them to not work for days, but beyond the initial ache the afternoon of, it just got better and didn’t even bug me the next day.

What can I say?  I’m a swimmer.  I’d do this stuff all the time if I had all the time in the world.  However, considering my limited total training hours for the week, when I’m not injured the time is better spent on a bike ride or a run.

Anyhoo, last week…

• Make my hip feel better.  Run when I’m ready/when the chiro says its ok.
• Cycle, swim, do weights that don’t make it cranky, and/or stretch every day from now (Thursday) until the end of the week.

Solid.  This week, I’m finding my hip is not yet all the way better but I’m going to work with it the best I can.

• Run 3-4 times this week.  Try to alternate days or give plenty of time in between runs and run as long as possible each time.
• Try to make one of those 18-20 miles if my hip agrees (or if not, as long as possible).
• 15 mins of bike/swim/stretch each day.
• One bodyweight session.

I ran yesterday, and it was glorious, but my hip was definitely cranky to start (but then went away), and then sore later, but not unreasonably so.  I don’t want to tax it too much and start running every day, but I’d like to get some runs in for this little race I’m doing in less than 5 weeks if it would be ok with you, mister hip.  😛

The next two weeks will be peak weeks (i.e. – whatever miles I can get out of my body safely), then we’ll start the taper process.  I may handle my taper a little differently this time since what I’ve been doing lately seems to not really have worked that well, but I have a few weeks to decide.

Food/Scale

• Continue tracking food and trying to hit the -500 calorie mark and keeping an eye on macros.
• Weigh a few times a week
• I am “on notice” with the booze – I went a little crazy early in the week.
• Transition to cooking food rather than relying on takeout so much.

I’m thoroughly frustrated with the scale not moving much but if I focus on hitting goals, I’m doing pretty well.

I have all sorts of home cooked food prepared for the week.  However, I can tell that I haven’t been eating like my normal self for quite a while, because kale chips + broccoli and cauliflower for dinner ended up being a fiber gut bomb.  Six months ago that would just be normal.

I didn’t have drinks until Saturday, and I had a reasonable amount and hit my calories just about exactly, so that was a good thing.

I kind of lost track on Sunday night of my food, I was cleaning out my pantry and freezer and ate so much random stuff.  Pretty sure I was over on my calories by a bit but it’s going to be hard to exactly quantify things, so I’ll make an estimate and enjoy the first full day off both work and training since forever and move on.

This week, I want to just keep on keepin’ on.

• Continue tracking food and trying to hit the -500 calorie mark and keeping an eye on macros.
• Weigh a few times a week
• Happy hour after work Wed or Thurs (not AND), and Saturday evening drinks.  Das all.
• I have plenty of food at home.  Let’s try for THREE or less meals out this week.
• Moar snack veggies.  I’ve been good at keeping my calories under control but I could use an infusion of the good stuff in my life.  I bet I’d feel better.

Life Stuff

It was a pretty mellow week and weekend and seemed to be just what I needed.

• Get 8+ hours sleep every day this week (so far so good minus Tuesday night’s 6 hours).
• Grocery shop and batch cook for next week over the weekend.
• Do something fun over the weekend that isn’t just the G-rated version of Netflix and chill.

I technically only got like 7.5 hours on Saturday night, but that was because I couldn’t fall asleep right away, not because I was being dumb.  Rested, check.

We resumed our Friday night grocery grab, which is GREAT because I actually cook, but not-so-great because we pretty much HAD to go out to dinner or we would have been added about 50$ of groceries and been HANGRY at each other all over the store because swim + groceries + dinner time = no bueno.

We took advantage of beautiful patio weather to hang out with some friends and neighbors Saturday… before we tucked in to watch movies.  Perfect balance.

This week is mellow during the week (so far, with plans at least) but super busy this weekend with a family visit, a movie with friends, and then a superbowl party.  So, the goal is to retreat as much as possible and get good rest in so this weekend won’t throw me for a complete loop.

• 8 hours of sleep every night
• Relax as much as possible.
• Maybe start scoping out things for our potential remodel project?

And, that’s a wrap!