Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

The Short Version

My brain is already on vacation.  I didn’t race last weekend.  I did some training.  I ate food.  Life is hectic.  There’s my blog.  Have a good week!

*smirk*

Ha, gotcha.  Even though I don’t have huge big adventure stories, it won’t stop me from blathering about mundane life things.  #sorrynotsorry  Best advert for a blog post ever – I have nothing amazing to talk about but here’s 1600 words anyway!

I took a day off after Rookie, and then attempted to get right back on the horse.  It kind of worked.  I have to remember that even though I didn’t get a lot of training hours in the last few weeks, I did get two KILLER speed workouts racing at maximum capacity racing back to back weekend.  I had to pull back my intentions a little and remember that QUALITY really trumps quantity for me unless I’m moving up to a new distance.  And then it still probably does, but I need to push volume for the sake of my confidence.

My two key sessions last week were our team brick and a cycling FTP test.  On the brick, I was happy with my bike (best paces and powers yet on the potato chip speed loops), but my run was a little MEH.  I was not ready to push it 3 days after racing so I backed off and sat on that comfortably uncomfortable perch in the pain cave and coasted in at 9:30s.  Saturday morning, I was super dreading the FTP test and put it off as long as I could… and it wasn’t that bad.  That probably was part of the problem – I’m not sure I nailed the effort, since I had some juice at the end of the 20 minute all out segment, and came up with a slightly disappointing number: 172 (2.16 watts/kg).  I thought I *had* to be at 180 at this point.  Oh well, metrics are metrics and I’ll try this again monthly – it’s a great workout!

The color coordination is strong with this one. #sockdoping #wattagebrigade

Last week’s totals:

  • 1 weights – oops.  I need to ditch the excuses (cranky glute, busy, ran out of time, lazy, etc) and JUST DO THESE!!! Argh.
  • 2 swims – about 2500yd/40 min (1 drills session) – see, now that it’s warm all I want to do is swim, this was no problem to get done
  • 2 bikes – about 30 miles/1h50 min – brick bike + FTP test
  • 2 runs – 6 miles/1h5 min – one miserable heat training lunch hilly run + alightly less miserable brick run

Total – a little under 5 hours.  Less than planned. Oops.  This week’s plans are:

  • 3 weights – poooossssibly two of those kettle bell sessions vs actual lifting because I don’t want to poke my glutes too hard, and one core sesh.
  • 2 runs – brick run and a run that will be an hour long/6 miles/until death (whichever of these seems like a good stopping point)
  • 2 bikes – commute (yay fun bikes) and the brick ride (yay fast bikes)
  • 2 swims – though one is planned to be in a hotel pool which may or may not be successful or long but it’s getting done, darn it!

Looks like about 6 hours give or take.  At some point I’ll need to start ramping up a *little* for Cozumel but for now this volume seems to be working so I’m sticking with it!

Another thing that seems to be working is #projectraceweight.  Trendweight and I are friends again.

And see, my (interim) goal weight (165) is back in the realm of summer 2018, instead of two years from now!

Now that I’m getting the hang of this, I think I’ve noticed the trend that two weeks of the month I’ll make awesome progress and two weeks (that super fun week where Aunt Flo moves into town and the week after) I make little to none.  So, at the very least, I can be less frustrated because it’s a TREND.  Even factoring in weeks where I’m stalled out, I seem to be back on track to maybe actually keep this party train going into 160s-town.  That’s exciting!  And then, since I actually know what I need to do to make it happen, I plan to hop on again next offseason and follow it down a bit more to 150s-ville, for the first time in almost a decade!

For now, I’ll celebrate that I officially have pretty much undone all the damage that crazy high-carb/calorie program the nutritionist suggested (finally, almost 3 years later).  I’ll throw 10 parties for that!

Here’s the last two week’s numbers:

Apr 30-May 6

  • Average calories in: 1845
  • Average calories out: 2195
  • Average diet quality score: 21.2
  • Average deficit: -350
  • Average weight: 178.2 (-1.4)

May 7-13

  • Average calories in: 1699
  • Average calories out: 2300
  • Average diet quality score: 23
  • Average deficit: -601
  • Average weight: 176.1 (-2.1)

A few data caveats to fend off any “well, actually…” comments:

  • My average weight here is from my GARMIN scale.  My TRENDWEIGHT above pulls from my FITBIT scale, which weighs on average about 1 lb higher (though it varies day to day, this morning it was 2 lbs higher, the other day it was lower. :P).  And yes, I’m going to keep metrics from the lower one because it helps my self esteem, thankyouverymuch.
  • The calorie burn/deficit is from the GARMIN devices, not FITBIT.  I think the Garmin devices are a little conservative vs the Fitbit WAYYYY overestimating (it makes sense why I couldn’t lose weight for so long, even when using the -1000 per day setting).  For example, Monday May 7th, I did no formal exercise but got about 11k steps.  Fitbit has me burning 3.2k calories that day.  Garmin has me burning 2.1k.  Garmin’s definitely closer but may be sandbagging me a little.

Now, I need to make sure and not fuck it up when I go on vacation.  I keep saying it (mostly to drill it into my own head when I’m presented with all the food I can eat 24/7), but honestly, I think the big thing is to control my QUANTITY first and quality second.  I’ll live for a week if I don’t get my macros correct but I could really make the scale angry by eating too much, even if it’s mostly healthy.  For example – if I’m craving pizza, I’ll get a slice and a salad for lunch.  That’s acceptable.  What is not acceptable is eating a full breakfast, then lunch, then a slice as a snack (and then a salad because I’m feeling guilty and should eat something healthy too), then dinner.

My only goal is not to gain weight.  Wish me luck!

So freaking close to thissssss….

Speaking of vacation, I swear, it takes forever to get ready for it, and then it’s over in the blink of an eye.  But hey, at least I’m almost ready!  Sunday was MY DAY to do all the things to get prepared and I did *most* of them including a self-pedicure, tweezing the face caterpillars over my eyes, grabbing some of my things out of storage that had gotten bigger and longer again (yay!).

I also spent a bunch of hours reading the manual and playing with my new camera.  I was getting really stressed and snippy about it (sorry husband of mine) because I felt intimidated by it.  It’s got so many professional type features and I’m typically a point and shoot type gal.  However, after a few hours, I think I can work the basic operations and know generally what all the modes and settings mean and I’ll get better with it as I have more gorgeous things to put in front of it.  And, if every shot is not the most perfect-est on my first outing, that’s ok, I’ll have more opportunities to get pretty pictures in the future.

So at this point, I still have a few To Dos but I’m feeling less crazy.

Yesterday, I got a massage.  I think it was enough to calm the pain in the ass (literally) and the slight niggle moving around my heel/ankle still, but I’m on watch to see if I need to get into the chiropractor too (I have one real window on Thursday to do it).

I’m debating on a haircut.  I actually am not minding it long in my normal human life.  This actually didn’t take too terribly long to produce (though longer than I will spend on my looks about 355-ish days of the year which is approximately 30 seconds):

But I know I tend to say that until I get it cut and then wonder how I dealt so long.  I also know on vacation my hair is constantly wet and that could get annoying.  I may see if I can find a window of time to hit up the Bird’s to get a real snip snip or I may just have my husband give it a trim, ignoring the layers I usually get, or I may leave it.  My mother reminded me that she travels with scissors (though I certainly don’t trust HER with them as she’ll give me a bowl cut or something like this), and my husband reminded me that they have a (rather pricey) salon on board.  I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seat as to what I do so follow along on Instagram for the final verdict, hehe.

I’m sure I need to pick up a few odds and ends as I pack and find things like I don’t have any travel shaving cream, make sure I have enough books downloaded on my Kindle so I don’t run out of reading material, make sure things like my camera manual and video plan are loaded onto my travel laptop since there’s not going to be much internet around, but I think I’ve done the majority of the things.

So, of course, off to do all the OTHER things.

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4 Comments

  1. ALL THE THINGS
    Zliten recently posted…April Showers make for great runs and ridesMy Profile

  2. You’re doing great! Have a great vacation and good luck for continuing it during your vacay too! I really think short hair would suit you, a long bob would look great on you!
    Love from Nepal xoxo

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