A little sunshine…

Now that I’ve spent some time pouring out some of the negative, let me put a more positive spin on things.

Y’know what doesn’t suck?  My commute is now an excuse to ride bikes for 1.5-2 hours instead of drive for 40-50 mins. 

I always forget what it’s like to be a person and not just an athlete training for an event after months and months of doing that.  While it’s a lot of work, it’s also very simple.  Checking off the training schedule, eating every five minutes, and maintaining the rest of my life to the point where my friends and family don’t feel completely abandoned and my job doesn’t fire me.  There is a zen in ignoring every ‘effing thing else in the world.

One thing I need to face is that I’m kind of sort of training again even though I don’t feel like it.  Doing workouts to just survive a century ride and sprint triathlons don’t feel like much in comparison to earlier this year, but when I add everything up, two out of the last three weeks have been approaching double digits and this week will likely be the same. 9-10 hours a week is actually equivalent to the beginning of 70.3 training (this is just much less intense).

So, here’s some sunshine.  My legs are starting to come back, y’all.  Definitely on the bike.  I’m generally stuck to my husband’s wheel again like glue and urging him to go faster if I don’t pass him (except on steep hills where I’m convinced he has a hidden motor somewhere).  The swim and the run are just showing inklings of improvement from rock bottom, but it makes sense because I’m mostly abandoned them to bike and work on strength.  We cannot be good at everything all the time.  I’m looking forward to retraining my legs for speed but first I had to recover, and now I need to build my endurance back.  Working on it!

I race this weekend, and I’m not even going to bother with a long, drawn out anything.  My goal is to have fun with my friends and teammates and enjoy maxing out my heart rate as much as I can for about 90 minutes, because I haven’t had that luxury in a while trying to stick close-ish to MAF heart rate.  We’ll see!  I have no expectations because I’m not really swimming, running, and I haven’t spent much time on my tri bike.

Last week:

• Running – 8 miles, all approximately 12 min/miles at MAF HR
• Bike – 100 miles on the dot – one work commute of about 24 miles, and one hot hilly long ride of 76 miles.
• Swim – 1600yd around the lake in about 34 minutes.
• Weights – 1 double dozen (2xall the other exercises except the 55 pushups), 1 DDR session

Seriously, I’m listing this out and can’t believe it’s over 10.5 hours, but it is.

This week:

• Two bike commutes
• One double brick workout (10/1/10/1)
• One pool swim, one lake pre-race swim
• 2xweights
• 1xDDR
• Race!

This is looking like about 9 hours.  One of those swims is in jeopardy if it keeps with the raining tonight, but I’m good with it either way.

The rule is: anything eaten while working out does not count negatively against diet quality.  I’m not sure Matt Fitzgerald anticipated athletes biking for 5.5 hours fueling only by fast food and pizza. (by the way, that temp wasn’t even the hottest part of the ride – which was 106 feels like 110)

Let’s start with the nubmers and go from there…

• Weight: 188.7 (+0.6) lbs
• Avg cal per day: 2091 (+91) calories
• Avg deficit per day: -1014 (+142) calories
• Macros: 78 (+16)g fat, 202 (-1)g carbs, 106 (+5)g protein, 32 (+8)g fiber

Besides the weight going up and the fat bomb over the weekend, the other numbers look ok.  The deficit is definitely harder to manage when you’re doing stupid things like 5.5 hour long rides.  I was 2000 in the hole on Saturday and then 2000 over on Sunday.  It actually worked out pretty well overall though it made me reaaaaaal cranky about my weight Monday and Tuesday.

DQ score: Monday: 26.  Tuesday: 25.  Wednesday: 24. Thursday: 20.  Friday: 26. Saturday: 10.  Sunday: 13.  Average comes out to approximately 20.5 (out of 32).

Hey, look at this, this is WAYYYY better than what I was doing.  What I need to do now is to bump up those weekend numbers a little more with good nutrition before I subtract the points for the inevitable alcohol and junk food splurges, but this is a good start.

There’s a least a little sunshine here.  I’m frustrated with how I look and feel and the number output on the scale, but I do know that last year I needed like a month of true consistency before I saw any results, so I will stay at it and be patient.  My goals this month:

• Eat a giant rainbow salad every day (even weekends) to get my four servings of fruit and vegetables easily.
• Eat fruit and nuts as snacks instead of crap (and on weekends, BEFORE I reach for anything that’s crap).
• Aim to get my diet score over 20 every day (even on the weekends).
• Measure out my drinks BEFORE I drink them at home.  It honestly worked SUPER well when I did it.  I just got lazy and didn’t do it on the weekend and then had more than I expected.
• PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I PUT IN MY MOUTH ON THE WEEKENDS.  Sigh.  This is my downfall.  I can be perfect all week and once I’m not on a routine schedule, it all goes to hell in a handbasket.  There’s obviously some wiggle room for fun food and drinks on days where I burn 5000 calories like Saturday but also that means I have more than enough calories to get in all the good stuff before I spend the remainder on booze and junk food.

Are you sensing that weekends are my downfall?  Now that my weekdays are pretty rockin’ with the fruit and veggies and whole grains and nuts, I just need to bring the plan to Saturday and Sunday too.

This has to has to has to has to has to work.  I can’t even figure out how if I ate this well consistently and minded my calories to keep a deficit like this through August, that I could not start taking off weight unless the universe is absolutely and truly against me.

I call this one “Works in Progress (and a cat)”.

Dear me.  You have five months until the end of the year.  Stop stressing about the to do list so much.  Love, me.

That week where I wake up and realize I should be a well rounded person is always fun.  Especially when I’m trying to do it while work is being extra demanding and I’m in denial that I’m actually training again for just a little 100 mile ride (yes, I know I’m ridiculous).  So, while I want everything to be just done already I’m trying to take a step back, look at the big picture, and chill the eff out.  It may only last a few days, but I’m feeling better about things right now so we’ll go with that.

Let’s talk about the start of last week though.  We purchased a shed from a road show in Costco.  It was an amazing deal, the lady who took our order was super nice, and assured us they installed on weekends and it would be about a week or two.  When the company called to schedule, they absolutely DID NOT work weekends, and it would be almost two months.

THEN the morning of the shed install, they were supposed to be there at nine.  9:20 rolls around, and my husband calls and the guy hasn’t even shown up to work yet to pick up the materials to build the shed.  And they are in San Antonio, over an hour away.  When work was a 10 minute trip this would be no big deal, but now that it’s 25, we could not just run home to let them in.  Instead, we arranged with work that we would come in later and spent the morning cleaning out the office and the office closet.  It actually worked out fine, but it was quite stressful at first.  I just don’t understand how someone would think it was appropriate to be 2.5 hours late and not call.  Sigh.

Last week’s goals:

• Caulking the shed (DONE).
• Painting the shed (first coat, still need to do the second and trim).
• Transport all the things into the shed that are supposed to be in the shed (in process but not done).
• Getting my online stuff set up with my doctor (in process, I’ve sent the fax twice with no response, so I suppose the next step is to call).
• Finish the second half of the chapter I started (didn’t even touch it).
• Bonus points: office work (YES! due to that impromptu morning at home care of tardy shed installers, we actually got two hours of work done on this)

So, since last week was obviously too ambitious, my goal is to finish that before I move onto more goals.

• Second coat of paint and trim on the shed.
• Put all the things in the shed that need to go in the shed.
• Clean up the workout room now that the only thing left in there is workout things.  Doesn’t have to be perfect, but the floor should be clean and there should be room for the treadmill and two trainers.
• If I have not heard back from the doctor by Friday, actually use the phone and call and find out what’s up.  If I have to use the phone, also inquire about my ears and when I might be able to get in one morning.
• This is already in progress, but my goal is to spend at least 5 hours focused on my book this week.  1h45 down!  Then, I can sort of plan how long it should take me based on what I get done vs my plan.  Specifics should help me stay motivated versus just the general “I should work on my book at some point for some random amount of time”.

Notice the office is not even on this list.  I think if I can knock the workout room and the shed off my To Do list in one fell swoop this weekend (which is absolutely reasonable), I will feel much better about life and the office work can resume next week.

The next few days are filled with fun stuff too – tomorrow our game night resumes for the next chapter after some downtime, and Friday we have tickets for one of the last showings of Wonder Woman (yay, finally!).

What’s the most awesome thing you did in the last week?  Tell me your accomplishments and cast some more sunshine on my day!