Adjusted Reality

I just spent five nights camping and all I got was my patience back. And a little older.

‘Twas a really, really nice time to disconnect. I kind of screwed it up a little by doing a lot of editing of book 2 early on in the trip (but I was enjoying myself! honest!), though I also enjoyed a ton of hiking in the sunshine and a full day of read/napping, so I came back super refreshed. I did jump right back into the frying pan with the roughest 2-day workweek evar, but I digress. I am still not sure how it was Feb 29th and I blinked and now it is March 10. I’m convinced that time is all made up.

Figure I’ll get back to that trip once I sort out the pictures (though, honestly, daily hikes, great food, time to relax was a great TL;DR), let’s do that thing where I do a monthly update on goal progress.

#1 Lose 12 lbs or track 365 days

Check and check for February. I started the month at a trendweight of 186.4 and ended at 184.2. That’s 2.2 lbs lost, much more than the 1 I’m shooting for, so I’ll totally take it! So far, March is very much trending in the right direction as well, however, it is a (delicious and awesome) minefield of birthday celebrations, so I just need to stick to tracking each day, even if I’m over, and stay as active as possible. Knowledge is power. Goal is 183.2 or lower on March 31. My trendweight is actually real close to that already so I just need to not completely screw it up for the next 21 days.

• Jan 29 – Feb 4 calorie deficit: 1191 under
• Feb 5 – Feb 11 calorie deficit: 126 under
• Feb 12 – Feb 18 calorie deficit: 591 over
• Feb 19 – Feb 25 calorie deficit: 1737 over

The race kinda screwed things up but I truly believe that a few hours of racing keeps your metabolism higher for a few days (definitely noted in how hungry I was Sun/Mon/Tues). First month of March while camping is going to be similarly over, but I’m still making progress. *shrug*. I just need to be consistent, not perfect, I guess.

Keeping track from early January, my worst trendweight was 188.0, so at the end of February, I have lost 3.8 lbs. Almost 1/3rd to my goal. Yay, let’s keep it going!

#2 Continue to earn my right to run

I lost it a little bit last month, but I’m back, baby (2 mile run Friday, 4 mile run today)! My hip did the cranky thing in February, which meant I only ran a few times, and then did a half-marathon and went walk-only for the rest of the month. It’s not even worth sharing the normal garmin calendar because it doesn’t show walks and that’s like the majority of my activity this month. So, stats instead.

• Running: 34 miles, including a half marathon at 2:39!
• Cycling: 31 miles. Basically just 4 trainer rides.
• Weights: 11 sessions. This just works out to missing one session on race week. Can’t complain.
• Walking: 36 miles. Most of the second half of the month was just walkies
• Elliptical: 1 hour/3 sessions.

This works out to about 7-9 hours of logged activity per week. Can’t complain even if a lot of it is low intensity!

This month, I’m back to running and prepping to yet again participate/maybe race against a projected time for myself in the Cap10k on April 8. I’d love to let the legs loose on this one a little bit since the distance is comfortable, but the course is super hilly (similar to the half marathon, some of the same streets even), so we’ll see. The goal here is mainly to meet up with some friends and have an excuse to keep running longer than 5k for a bit.

I very much slacked on weights this week, since I was camping, so I’ll just resolve to hit it the rest of the month. A few sessions missed isn’t the end of the world as long as I have overall consistency, and we have appointments next week so we can’t skip it!

Other than that – I need to decide whether I actually want to triathlon this year. The enthusiasm for biking and swimming is at an all-time low. I am guessing when it gets warmer it will come back, but I just don’t know if I feel like racing tris this year, which is a weird thing to say. I’m down for some more running races, but all the bike gear and swim gear and riding the tri bike outside just sounds exhausting and I feel, honestly, kinda burnt out about it. I think I’m going to wait and maybe sign up for things at the last minute instead of committing to see if I even want to swim/bike/run instead of solely focus on running/weights/weight loss. Then again, next month I could be talking about how sick I am of running and how biking is the best and I’m ready to race all the races. We shall see.

So yeah, this month is all about resuming my 3x week runs, hitting the rest of my weights sessions, and getting enough other cardio (walking, elliptical, biking, swimming?) to stay active and offset my noms.

#3 Adulting

I did absolutely nothing here. February was a rough month. The fridge still needs to be cleaned out. With all the work/birthday/social stuff going on, I give it about a 50/50 chance in March. Let’s move on.

#4 Happy Fun Stuff

I’ve picked up my guitar a few times, once my acoustic whilst camping and ow, my fingers. Those strings are tough! I have really, really slacked on photo editing. I would really like to make some progress here. Not sure if it’s simply lack of enthusiasm/overwhelm with the Louvre photos, or just the fact I’ve been super dedicated to finishing my book… which I have! At least, sort of.

I finished all 108k words of the first, crappy draft, complete with THE END and an epilogue. However, I wrote this one in such a different way, I am not sure if it needs more or less editing. Book 1, I read drafts and edited a lot along the way. I also watched sessions, took notes, and then later took those notes to dialogue and prose. Book 2, I barreled through, not reading my draft at all, minus occasionally re-reading part of the previous chapter to get my brain back into the flow. I also wrote much of it while listening. I’d just watch parts of the session, then pause and write it out, then unpause and listen, rinse and repeat. It was more efficient… we’ll see how good it is.

I’ve read the draft through once as more of a “am I enjoying this” pass, and good news, I did. I don’t absolutely hate it. That’s something. I have some passes left to do though:

• Regular old grammar/flow pass. This is my favorite! I love noodling on wording, and I will do it forever if given the chance.
• Tying up loose ends pass. There are a bunch of lanterns. I either need to hang them (and make it clear the loose end is still unraveled by addressing it) or put them out and connect them to something already going on.
• The “make it more about the main character” pass. IRL this part of the campaign was definitely not Fork-centric. For a narrative in the first person, it has to be. I’ve added some things to get some character progression and a moment of change and some incremental steps to some of the character’s long-term goals, but I need to make sure it’s enough and add more bits and pieces through the story beyond the one cool moment at the end.
• Voice pass. Each character has their own voice and I’m not sure I hit that well typing out dialogue very quickly with the first words that came to mind.

There may be more, but this is what occurs to me now. I had a goal to finish editing by camping (didn’t). I’m now trying to get Joel something he can read on his plane flight home from traveling later this month. I don’t think I’ll hit all these things by that time, but loose ends and make it about Fork passes are the most important. The other two I can tweak and play with forever. In fact, I re-read Book 1 recently and GEEZ I want to jump back in and edit that one more now. Nope. Focus ahead. This is why I’m writing all of them before I publish anything.

So, March. What do?

• Track my food daily, do the best I can on birthday celebration days, try to make up for at least some of it with activity and being under calories other days
• Run 3x week, weights 3x week, other activity as I can/need for moar food in my face
• Clean the fridge (?)
• Work on some Paris photos. Really. Even if I post one set a week. Make SOME progress.
• Loose ends and Main Character passes, cut Joel a readable draft, and then grammar/flow/voice passes (maybe into next month)
• Enjoy the beautiful weather!!!