Tales from last week

Rather than a normal summary, I have a lot of stories.  Let’s just go day by day, shall we?

Before my almost untimely death.

Monday:

• 30 min office bands/bodyweight workout + stretch
• 26 mile Taco Deli Ride with the faster people + commute to and from (1h45).

Today’s story is about asshole drivers.  I was having a fairly nice ride, and about 2 miles from the end, I came to a t-shaped intersection.  Stop signs on all sides, but there was nowhere for a car to turn the way I was going.  I’ve seen these at lights as well where signage tells cyclists to roll on through because nothing intersects your bike lane. My group rolled through, and so did I.

However, up ahead was a convenience store, and this jerk of a truck was really in a hurry to get there.  He pulled out in front of me into the bike lane, and stopped right in front of me, and I had to swerve around him.  I said something like “FUCKING HELL, MAN” and he happened to have his windows open and retorted “THERE’S FUCKING STOP SIGN” to which I retorted “NOT FOR BIKES” and we traded more insults like “FAT BITCH” and “ATTEMPTED CYCLIST MURDERER” and then we both rode on.

Things like this make me laugh when Austin is lauded as a great cycling city.  Sure, there’s a lot of us.  Sure, the infrastructure is getting better.  But until it’s not an accepted thing to almost cause accidents because something a cyclist did randomly pissed you off?  Fucking Texas, man.

It took me a bit to shake it off, but I eventually accepted that I earned a cycling achievement of “Get into an altercation with a bitchy driver” and ate pizza and rode bikes home.

Tuesday:

• Splash and Dash!

I’ll just refer you to the recap.  I don’t have much else to say besides we came home, drank some whiskey, and stayed up too late.  Oopsies.  At least it happened early in the week and not right before the race.

Wednesday:

• Oiselle Dozen strength set + stretching

I was too tired from being dumb the night before to ride bikes, but I did get in a strength set.

Costco ravoili lasagna, you deserve a special sort of fatty pants.

This day was also the day my appetite officially caught up with me.  I’ve been getting away with the -1000 calories-ish per day, and I wondered when that was going to end.  The answer?  September 21.  I have been eating closer to -500 to flush every day since and I’m ok with this.  My weight is still holding steady, and I’m simply thankful my body has tolerated a deficit for as long as it has.  Time to feed the beast.

Thursday:

• Hour easy run (5.11 miles)
• Commute + some – 12 miles (1:07)

After our morning run, we hopped on our cruiser bikes and commuted to work (4 miles).  So thankful for showers at work, I think they’ll be getting more use with our upcoming workout schedules.  At quitting time, we took the long way home (8 miles) and made it home juuuuust as it was getting dark.

You don’t smile like this on a car commute.  Just sayin’.

I think I’ve figured out a creative way to get 3 bike rides (on two different bikes) and two runs in in 3 days and cut out all car commuting on those days, but my office is definitely going to look like I live in it to accomplish that.  I’m sure they’ll deal with it.

Friday:

• Off.

I ended up going to work and getting out earlier than Zliten.  I came home, and the house was at 87 degrees, but the AC was blowing (or so I thought).  I figured that the thermostat just glitched and it was cooling it down.  I packed up some of my stuff, and then went for a walk.  When I got home, it was still 87 degrees.  No bueno.  We blew out the hose with an air compressor, and thought it was fixed.

A perfect place to procrastinate.  And catch pokemans.

To let the house cool down, we went to dinner and randomly decided on Red Lobster.  I ate WAYYYY too much, though it was the night before the night before a long-ish race, so it was the proper day to feast.  I got a shit ton of shrimp, rice, salad, and ate almost THREE cheddar bay biscuits.  That’s more than a whole day’s worth of calories when I was dieting.

And then we came home… and it was still 87 degrees.  FUCK.  After considering just setting up the tent in the yard, we called an AC repair shop and ate the after hours 120$ fee.  Thankfully, it was fixed in no time, and not something we could have done on our own, but it definitely led to a much more stressful evening than you want on the night before the night before a race.

Saturday:

• Shorty swim in the lake: 750m in ~15 mins

Lots of stories today!  Because of said AC issue, I decided I wasn’t setting an alarm and whatever time we woke up was fine.  We slept until about 9:30, and then finished getting our stuff together and headed out.  First stop was Quarry Lake to do a little shake out swim in our wetsuits.  It was still iffy whether it would be wetsuit legal.  It wasn’t, but I didn’t want to have my first wetsuit swim in months be the race.

After the swim, we hit up a sandwich shop.  So good.  A little small though, and we figured we’d just need some snacks soon.

We made the two hour drive to Kerrville, indeed stopping for snacks – watermelon, potato chips, and pretzels – at about 1.5 hours in.  We picked up our packets, dropped off the bikes for a night under the stars, dropped off our run bags, and headed to dinner (yes, more food).  I thought I wouldn’t be super hungry, but I tucked into a big plate of chips and salsa, rolls, salad, rice, and a giant chicken breast smothered in bacon and cheddar.  I ate every bite and I just felt satiated.  I was a little horrified to where I was putting all of this, but I trusted my appetite.

Finish line, pool, foods, more foods, goggles and earplugs, and getting bags packed.  My Kerrville Saturday.

We headed back to the hotel to get the rest of our bags together.  Part of the way through the process I realized I was missing things… all the things I used for my swim that morning back in Austin.  After tearing apart the car and the room, I called the gym and sure enough, my little red bag was there.  I could stop looking, but I was without goggles and earplugs and the expo was closed.  These things are kind of necessary for me to triathlon, so the hunt began.

Our first stop was a sporting goods shop.  They ONLY had one pair of goggles, and they were the kind that people that short distance pool swimmers wear.  I bought them just in case I couldn’t find anything else.  We then tried another “sporting goods” shop, but this place was something out of a horror movie.  The lights in there flickered ominously and barely worked.  They had everything from food to toys to (A SHIT TON) of hunting gear to greeting cards in no real discernible order.  We looked through the whole store and sadly, all the summer stuff had been put away.  No goggles.

At this point, I had half the equation, kind of.  We tried CVS, and while they had no goggles, they did have a decent ear plug section.  I grabbed two different waterproof kinds just in case (one regular, one kids size).  We tried one more store but it was the same deal – all the summer stuff had been taken off the shelves already.  Zliten asked if I wanted to drive the hour to San Antonio to get something better.  For this short of a swim, I said I’d make do, so we returned to the hotel.

The goggles came in parts – two eye cups, a band, a piece of string, and a plastic tube.  Zliten and I watched a you tube video on how to build the goggles because at this point, we had no backup, and wanted to get it right.  Once they were good to go, we went down to the pool to test them out.  The earplugs held up like champs, in fact, I like them better than the ones I’m using now.  The goggles… I was SURE on the first lap they were just going to flood, but after a few passes back and forth, and shaking my head vigorously under water, I was sold.  I mean, they were weird and very tight and if I had to do an IM swim with them I might have two black eyes by the end.  But they’d work for 20 minutes.

As we were soaking in the hot tub, we chatted up some ladies that were also doing the race.  After talking over the course, one of them mentioned that she wrecked on the big hill last year after colliding with someone.  I mean, a lot of people do stupid shit on that hill, but I may have run into the gal that took me down last year.  Zliten and I just glanced at each other and just continued the conversation.

Sunday:

• RACE!!!

I went into much detail above.  The rest of the day involved driving home in a torrential downpour where you could barely see the lights in front of you, getting takeout burgers, watching funny horror-ish movies, eating chicken pasta with extra veggies out of a bag, and vodka.  The end.

As for this week, it’s a pretty simple one.

• Complete all training:
  • 2 strength sessions
  • 2 swims (1 done, 1 to go)
  • 2 rides: ~20 miles intervals on the TT bike, 79 mile hilly ride (Rip Roarin’ Ride)
  • 2 runs:  4 mile run (DONE!), 12 mile long run
• Sleeeeeeeep.  There will be times to stay up late like a dumbass.  The next two weeks are NOT those times.  8. hours. or. more.
• Eat.  If I’m hungry, put something in my face.  At least 5 fruits/veggies per day, more as I can tolerate the fiber.  100g protein.  25g fiber. Less than 60g fat.  Lots of carbs.  Track calories for data, but don’t obsess over the numbers.
• Continue to weigh as data points.  If it starts trending up, then I’ll probably compromise a little on the point above but for now? It’s just information.
• Say “fuck it” to all the little things that don’t actually matter and can wait until November.  Or at least later.  Peak week is procrastination week by design.

And with that, I’m off to procrastinate all the things!  Wheee!

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