I’m super de duper excited to shift my focus away from serious endurance sports training and towards tackling some other stuff I want to accomplish in my life that don’t involve running, biking, and swimming really fast or far. I’m dubbing it – #projectspring. At first I was super bummed about missing my favorite time of the year to train and race, but realizing that I can do so many other awesome things outside (and inside) helped a lot!
Step one, be able to produce this level of excitement for ANYTHING.
My first order of business is to get my energy and enthusiasm back. This starts immediately. My goal is to get to the point where I’m waking up before my alarm or at the very least up and at ’em the minute it goes off most mornings. Monday night I fell asleep for over 10 hours, and I still snoozed for 40 mins before I dragged myself out of bed. I just feel kind of beat up. My goal in March is to sleep until I can’t sleep no mo’. I miss having energy.
Missing THESE days where my clothes fit.
After finishing birthdaymas celebrations, March 15th, I start #projectraceweight. Yes, it’s a Tuesday, Zliten’s birthday is on that Monday. No judgies.
This is the ultimate goal of these next 4 months and the reason I decided to take the spring completely off. I’m not trying to eliminate food groups or demonize junk food or eliminate gluten or white colored food or whatever from my diet. But I’m going to lose some fucking weight. There is no “try my best if I can” here, it’s time to DO IT. The specific goal is to make the number on the scale go down as quickly as possible/reasonable while not sabotaging my health (or fall season).
I know how to do this. I lost 5 lbs in July without losing my mind. Sadly, I put that and more back on with the failed fueling experiment, but it is proof that I know how to do this.
The plan is:
- 1200-1500 calories 5 days a week. 1200 is HARD but will get me results quicker. 1500 is much more doable but will take longer. I’m hoping to hit somewhere in this zone, as low as possible, without eating inanimate objects.
- 1500-2000 calories 2 days a week. I’m hoping to time this with slightly higher activity days, but either way, I know myself and I have to allow a few indulgences or I will go fucking crazy.
- Attempting to hit my macros (100g protein, 40-60g fat, 25g fiber). On 1200 days it will be challenging but that will keep me eating mostly good food and not junk.
- Detraining but not completely. I’ll introduce these things once I’m fully and completely healed from the marathon. I know that the best ways for me to not be 100% complete jello when I return to being an endurance athlete in July are:
- Short HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts a few times a week – I’m thinking 20 mins max. One minute sprint, one minute easy type things.
- Weights/conditioning – while I know it’s hard to lose weight while building muscle, I don’t want to lose what I’ve got. The goal is more maintenance than killing myself in the gym lifting heavy here.
- 10k steps per day goal – it’s actually pretty easy to hit this with just a few walks per day at work even on days off training. This is just a constant reminder to stay active.
The mindset:
When I was first on my way down weight-wise, I definitely had some negative type reinforcement with myself and mental issues to work through. Not to say that I don’t have separate shit to work through (hello, disappointment in my fall 2015 winter 2016 season), but I understand the process a little better and hopefully I can be a little more gentle on my psyche. Though the action still is the same, the message is different.
2007 me: You don’t deserve that piece of cake because you’re a worthless fat piece of shit. Eat celery forever and cry, fucker.
2016 me: You don’t deserve that piece of cake because you’re choosing to invest your time and effort into #projectspring. You deserve better than to sabotage your hard work. Cake will still exist in 4 months.
And this is the truth. If it’s hard – that’s fine. Because this is my project. I am training to not fall face down on a bag of chips or a pie or a bottle of vodka. This is the hard I am choosing to tackle right now and I can deal with it.
I suppose if I had to put a number on it, I’d like to weigh no more than 160-something (169.9 is acceptable) come July 1st. My wildest dreams would be seeing 150 lbs. Either way, I’ll feel so much better than I do now not carrying around a bunch of extra sacks of flour on my body.
This is a before shot of our workout room. Just enough space had been cleared to make the treadmill usable.
Let’s call this a progress picture from the same angle – after 2 hours of work, it’s not yet the pain cave we want it to be, but it is an organized and usable room! Wheee!
I want to make some progress on house projects. This involves two categories:
Cleaning and organizing (need only time)
- Vanity area in the bathroom
- Office
Workout room (DONE!)- Guest room closet
Bigger projects (need time and money):
- Kitchen remodel – new cabinets, new counters, potentially a new floor, paint, and backsplash
- Back patio remodel – repouring the concrete, maybe sprucing it up a little, possibly adding a cover to the patio and also a space for a future hot tub.
- Replacing the shed we had torn down with one that closes and locks to store bikes (increasing the potential for more bikes down the road :D), camping equipment, kayak stuff, etc.
- Workout room as a pain cave set up – we need one cheapo computer to be a Zwift machine, one TV on swiveling mount, some inspirational decorations, and probably a better ceiling fan (the organization is done, now we just need to buy all the stuff).
I talked about it in depth here but this spring is when I become a biker chick. I want to become less of a scaredy biker and bike with groups more. I really want to start using my cruiser bike (and feet) to commute and transport myself whenever possible. I rarely venture more than a few miles from where I live and it’s ridiculous to drive everywhere.
I want to get a for real triathlon bike, with the right tri bike geometry. I need to do all my research so I spend money on what matters and not just because it’s 2 grams lighter and 3 grand more.
I’d really like to do something with this site. After I decompress enough to get a little bored in the evenings, I want to make this site into something a little less… eclectic. Something more intentional than a hodgepodge of my attempt at a artsy web design job application in 2004 and a very haphazard theme and awkward set up with a blog jammed into the middle of it. It still works as a place to vomit my thoughts every once in a while, but I’d like to actually give this place a makeover. Y’know, make her fit into 2016… either under my own power or spend a little $$$ to get someone to do it for me if I give up.
It may have been cute to wait a little while to process my Bonaire pics because I didn’t want the vacation to end, but it’s been months. It’s time to dig through the 800 or so I have left and then count the days until I can go back.
I want to go camping once a month. It soothes my soul even if my body gets tired from roughing it. Potential targets include:
-March, Sherwood Forest
-April, enchanted rock
-May/June, Inks Lake? Pace Bend?
While I doubt I’ll keep this up during the heat of summer, I’d like to remember it’s an option even during training season, because it’s an AWESOME way to go run and ride in new and interesting places. We just get lazy about it.
I may not want to be IN the water just yet but it’s getting close to time to be ON the water, which means I’ll be sup’ing and kayaking as much as I can once the lake is closer to 70 degrees and not 60. And, of course, this will transition into waterpark and snorkeling in the lake as it becomes warmer.
I want to go do things! There are so many things in Austin to do. They all sound fun! The kite festival! The weiner dog races! Eeyore’s birthday! Some random band is playing somewhere! I mean, maybe not THOSE SPECIFIC THINGS, but THINGS! They sound much less desirable after beating the hell out of myself on the road all morning/afternoon/week. I’m looking forward to combining this with locomotion without cars (cruiser bikes + walking + train) and doing more fun things around town. I’m also looking forward to having the spontaneity, energy, and flexibility to go do random shit that comes up instead of choosing my couch.
I miss being crafty and creative in my spare time. Coloring has filled the void in a nicely mindless way right now, but I miss stuff like making jewelry. I would like to refresh my memory at the piano, it’s been years, and it’s sitting there staring at me, taunting me. I would like to make some progress with sewing, another inanimate object that mocks me constantly. I have a book idea that woke me up in the middle of the night last week and I’d like to make some progress with it. I am actually a creative person when I don’t beat all the enthusiasm out of myself.
I’m so excited to start on all these things right away, which is a good sign that #projectspring step 1 (get my mojo back) is already in the works.
Question: what’s your biggest goal this spring?
I'm a video game producer and a lover of anything game related by trade. I'm a triathlete by hobby. I live for being on or in the water as much as I can - scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, water slides... you name it. The dichotomy between my outdoor and indoor realities are interesting, but they're all mine! Longer version