We have arrived at the first stop.

Ahhhhh, rest week.

Well, not quite…. because…

This is the week in which I have scheduled EVVVVVRYTHING else in my life that I’ve had to ignore for the last few weeks.  Oops.  Seriously, it’s crazy.  Bike fit for me after work Monday, bike fit for Zliten after work yesterday, ride leader class today, eye doctor appointments Friday, and somewhere in there I need to get across town at lunch to exchange a holiday present.

It’s a good thing I feel pretty good.  I really thought that I would be a little stubby bloody pulp of a human by now with how I was feeling halfway into this block, but I ran a pretty successful half marathon on day #21 and did a lot of good work on days #1-20.  I’ve had zero days off, the lightest day has been JUST a 30 minute trainer and I’ve only had 4 of those so far.

Doesn’t everyone wear makeup when they meet their bike trainer for the first time?  No?

First block stats (Jan 2-22):

Bike:

• Longest bike: 4.5 hour trainer (1/14).
• Long bikes: 2.75 hour trainer, 3.75 hour trainer, 4.5 hour trainer
• Total bike time: 23.25 hours (451 miles, though that doesn’t mean a ton because… trainer)
• Biggest bike accomplishment: getting more comfortable on my TT bike (making it 4.5 hours without having to change bikes).
• Biggest IM fear: I have not yet ridden 100 miles outside or the equivalent on the trainer (6+ hours).  Not even close.  I’ve got a lot of work to do in the next few weeks because I feel like I’m behind the 8 ball here.

Running:

• Longest run: 13.1 miles (3M half, 1/22)
• Long runs: 11 on the treadmill, 6.3 on the treadmill (had to cut it short), 13.1 outside
• Total run miles: 43 (8 hours)
• Biggest running accomplishment: running a pretty solid 2:13 half marathon on super tired legs, and still feeling like I could have gone further.
• Biggest running fear: how the eff am I going to do a 20 mile run in the same week that I’m also doing long bike rides?  (eh, I have a little while to figure that one out…)

Swim:

• Longest swim: 3000m (1/11)
• Long swims: 3000m, 2100m, 1500m
• Total meters: 8575m (8370m adjusting for our funky 24.4m pool) – 2.75 hours swimming
• Biggest swim accomplishment: 3000m in under an hour directly after a 75 minute run.
• Biggest swim fear: this is the sport I’m the least concerned about, but I’m concerned that I will make it TOO background.  I don’t care if it’s not that fast, but I need 3850m to feel EASY and to do that I need to make sure I’m swimming 3k+ per week even if it’s grey and cold out or I don’t want to.

Weights:

• 5 sessions/6 planned
• 1 session heavy weights in the gym
• 4 sessions Oiselle Dozen

Totals:

• Week 1: 11.25 hours
• Week 2: 12 hours
• Week 3: 12.5 hours

All in all, I’m happy with what I accomplished with block #1.  I promised myself I would stop and take stock of where I was at each rest week before I finalized the next segment, and here I am, doing that.

First of all, rest week #1.  I’m still riding 30 minutes daily.  I also am planning to get a really long ride with a short brick run Saturday as my only actual workout.  And then I have a 30 mile social ride I wanted to do on Sunday.  I want to swim once to make sure I remember how and run once because biking every day has made me love running more.  I also need to stay good on my strength training twice a week.

…and then somehow I’m at 12 hours again.  Well, crap.  Back to the drawing board.  I’ll let you know how it goes. 😛

Eat and lift and eat and run and this is life…

Last week:

I feel decent about running last week.  I ran 23 miles total (5.25, 3, 1.75, 13.1) and I actually feel pretty great.  I actually *added* some miles I hadn’t planned to do (3 easy) instead of a swim.  I made the comment on Monday that I don’t hate running, I just hate running inside all the time.  Since the air is only trying to kill me a little lately, I’ll suffer some allergy symptoms so I can not hit the ‘mill for every run.

Friday, I switched to a new bike trainer and instead of crazy high mileage, it’s crazy low.  So instead of spinning easy at 20 mph, I’m spinning easy at 8mph.  I mean, bike trainer miles mean nothing anyway, and it’s stupid, but it’s an ego hit and disheartening watching the miles accumulate sooooooo slowly at a much higher power reading.  I know it will make me stronger but blehhhh.

Scheduling commitments and exhaustion meant I cut my long ride to 2h45 hours Friday night, went directly to bed for 8 hours, and then woke up immediately and rode 45 minutes + 20 minute brick run.  I had hoped to do 5 hours total, not 3.5.  Missing this ride really hurt, but I had ZERO way to make this up and I just had to make the best of it.  70% is better than nothing if those are the two options.

Swimming last week was a fail.  I swam once at lunch, but just couldn’t drag myself to the pool for my long session later in the week.  If nothing else, I need to long swim earlier in the week so I don’t skip it.  Swimming in the winter is the worst, at least motivation-wise (once I’m at the pool, it’s great, but getting there is hard), but it needs to be done.

I went to the gym on Monday all excited about doing heavy weights and actually approaching things sanely with lighter heavy weights… and I still was sore for days.  Oddly enough, you lose specific strength if you only push around your bodyweight.  I still got my 2 sessions in (one more dozen later in the week), but I’ll be sticking to the lighter heavy stuff until I’m not limping two days later.

Why am I not losing weight… what could the answer be? BUSTED.

Other stuff:

Last week I did Chapter 12 of my triathlon class.  This week is Chapter 13.  Only 3 more to go after this!!!

I spent some more time connecting to people on social medias – my twitter feed is 10x more awesome now, my instagram remains awesome, I’m still ignoring personal facebook for the most part, except I posted that I had a new page… and I got 5 likes.  LOL.  Apparently no one I know IRL cares about triathlon stuff.  Oh well, no worries. 🙂  This week, I’ll do more stuff like this and try to learn more stuff.

Last week I tracked my calories for 2100 average each day with -990 deficit.  My ratios were 102g protein, 67g fat, 34g fiber, and 241g carbs per day.  While I’d like to bring those carbs up and fat down, I’m pretty impressed with my deficit (and doing it while still feeling fueled and not hungry).

Last week, my average weight was 189.0, which is a gain of 1 lb.  I’m totally bumming about this, but I know it’s because a) that TOM, b) 3 weeks of training inflammation c) the allergies and the occasional bad sleep isn’t helping.  Ah well. All I can do is keep at it (and SPOILER: I’m already down a bit from here so it’s not all a crap sandwich).  I know changes take a few weeks to hit my body and hitting my deficit like that above will make some changes eventually. 9lbs to go back to 70.3 race weight!

Last week I also drank 13 beers.  I appreciate what beer only has done for me, but I’m DEFINITELY ready to go back to wine/liquor now that my imbibing habits are back to normal person from holiday/frat boy status.  Beer has so many caaaaaaaaaaaalories.  Even IM training doesn’t make up for it.  One more week from today.

My sleep was much better last week.  I mean, I would love to be getting 10 hours a night with all this training, but I’m pretty sure I clocked at least 8 on average and I wasn’t waking up in the middle of the night, which is helpful.  I’m hoping if I make good on this whole “rest week” thing, I can really bank some sleep for the next block.

Last week’s to do was clean out the cars.  We didn’t do that.  BUT, we did donate all the bags of clothes from our closet clean out to Goodwill.  So that’s something.  This week, we’ll aim for the car cleanout thing yet again and follow through with our bike fits (done!) and our eye appointments (Friday).  I have no idea why we’re procrastinating the car thing.  It will take like 30 minutes.  Sigh.

I’m hoping this week is all it’s cracked up to be, and I don’t do stupid shit like train for 12 hours, because I’m tired, y’all!  Someone be my conscience and tell me to rest even though I’m super nervous about this race in approximately 88 days or 2112 hours or 126,720 minutes.  Yipes!

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