August Recap, September Goals

August was a rough month mentally and physically, but I’m here at the other end of it and hoping September will treat me a little better.  Let’s get on with this…

1. Jack’s Generic Triathlon – August 4th.  This one, I really want to push into the pain zone.  I want to break 18mph on an Olympic.  I want to break an hour on the run.  I want to sub-3.  I know I have this in my legs (as long as the right legs show up) if my brain will just shut up and let go.  Yeah, it’s going to be hot as balls and I’ll have to triathlon my ass off to get there, but I really want to push myself.

Great swim, great bike, broke on the run due to heat.  3:11.

2. All boxes green, or good reasons why.  I’ve got a great training plan with some pretty epic weeks with some more feats of strength to tackle this month.  This being said, monitor the body for utter and complete burnout and stay attentive as August will be three weeks of peak training unlike what I’ve done yet this year.

Training has been going great, minus last week’s stomach bug issues where I did what I could without risking getting sicker.  Other than that, I’ve been training as expected and doing the work without too many mental breakdown issues.

3. Obviously, I need to eat.  I need to eat more, and I need to eat clean.   The goal this month is a) 100% bite tracking – two m and ms get tracked as 2 m and ms, and count for -2 DQ as a sweet, and b) adhering to the 90/10 rule.  I should have less than 10% of my calories or DQ score as negative foods (booze, sweets, white bread, etc).  This will be calculated by week, so if I want to save it all up and fuck up on Saturday, I have to be an angel all week (my guess is that the total negative per week can be 17-20).

I never made it to 10%, but I stayed between 14-17% (when I wasn’t sick).  I’ll call that a win.  It’s really, really hard to stay at 10% calories from junk, but under 20% is no problem.

4.  Let’s see if this can nip that no-progress-0n-the-scale thing in the bud.  If I truly keep my food choices good, my calories will naturally be lower with more filling-ness, satiety, nutrients, etc.  Since 176-178 is still the norm, let’s keep 172-174 as my goal for end of August.

Thank you stomach flu – I’m hovering around 174-176 (with a low of 173.0) now even after reintroducing real food back to my diet.  Oddly enough though, I’m finding that weight loss has nothing to do with quality of food though – it’s simply the amount of calories.  I feel better and train better when I eat better, but I lose weight when I eat less.  Hrmph.

5.  Minimize spending as much as possible.  We still have some loose ends to tie up with all the crap that went sideways in July, and I haven’t really missed buying somewhat useless crap that I don’t really need.  I do have 75$ in amazon gift cards I saved from my birthday and Christmas to buy myself something over the summer, buy something for myself this month instead of letting them collect dust.

We didn’t do *quite* as good here as previous months, but we’re still trying to be conscious of not buying useless crap.  I did not spend my 75$ in frivoulous money (why is it so hard for me to online shop? :P), but we did order our wetsuits, so that has nothing to do with this goal at all but happy and noteworthy!

6. Now that we’ve got into our goal marathon in Dec by the skin of our teeth (thank you kind race director), we need to book that trip and get that all arranged.  I’m sooooo excited for this one and so is Zliten.

Everything is arranged but our accommodations for after the race in Key Largo.  We’re doing a condo instead of a hotel, so we’ve picked out about 10 that will work in the area we want. I’ve emailed our top choice and we’ll work our way down if it’s not available.

7.  Figure out general plan for next year.  How long is offseason, what is our first race of 2014, what are our goals in 2014, etc.

We’ve briefly discussed our general plan of attack for 2014, but nothing concrete.  This one will go into next month, and probably not make any decisions until Kerrville is done because my mindset right now is not in the right place to think about it (I’m thinking about some drastic changes but it’s probably because August was a rough month).

8.  Buy cabinet.  Finish workout room.  Clean out and organize kitchen.  This one is not going to go away until we do it.

No, no, and sort of (we cleaned out half the pantry).  Next month!

9.  Do some sewing OR gaming OR necklace making.  Up to me, but something hobby-ish or craft-ish must happen this month.  Gold star for 2 things.  Super gold star for all 3.

I gamed a decent amount (my game, Singstar, Disney Infinity, etc).  No sewing or crafting though so no gold stars.

10. Finish book.  Start next one.  Gold star for finishing the next one.

I finished book 4, finished book 5, and almost done with book 6!  Gold star for me!

11.  This is the maintenance shout out.  Continue stretching, icing, foam rolling.  Continue batch cooking.  Don’t wear the same shoes every day even if they are the most comfy.

Sort of.  Chiro said I didn’t really need to keep on it, so I’ve been icing and rolling as necessary.  I stretch twice a week so that’s good.  Batch cooking has happened some of the time but some weeks we haven’t done so good.  I’ve been working my way through my shoe closet, so there is that!

12.  Work stuff: log at least 5 hours of my game per week, and at least 2 hours of forum reading per week.  Now that (knock on wood) things seem to be settling into the normal crazy instead of crazy crazy, I want to try to get back into this habit.

I’ve been doing well at this!  I think I need this as a goal for a few months to be a habit though…

13.  Have one desert that is something that is my choice, that I pick out, and I pick when I want to eat it, not just because someone else ordered it or is offering me bites.

I bought it, but I have yet to consume it.  I was just so sugared out after a week of easily digestible foods, I’m waiting til it actually sounds good.

Ok, its September, let’s do this.  Two more weeks of training, two weeks of taper, and the big A race, Kerrville 70.3.  A deadline at work.  Lotsa birthdays.  At least I’m not going on vacation during this time this year!

1. Shake off all the cobwebs in my brain.  Focus on the next two weeks of training, getting solid work done, and then let it go and taper and don’t get tempted to squeeze more in.  As of Sept 14, the hay is in the barn, and wherever I am, I am (and wherever that is, it’s WAY better off than I was going into BSLT in June).

2. Race Kerrville the way it deserves to be raced.  Rock the swim and the bike with the new abilities you have gained this year, and draw strength of will from your running past and the longer runs you have completed in August and will in September.  Find your edge and keep going until you fall off.  Persevere.  Your body can keep going on that run as long as your brain can.  Kerrville is the race where I get comfy in the pain cave and either end up at the finish line or the med tent.

3. Eat good food.  Eat enough to fuel the training, but not any more.  Realize that taper the second two weeks of the month means less calories needed.  Make good choices, but allow some times to go out to eat or eat cake pops and stuff.  Pie in the sky: weigh 169.something before Kerrville.  Realistic: maintain 173-176.  Do something between that.  Also, don’t stress too much about food this month beyond making sure the calories are in line – trying to get bad calories down to 10% made me a bitchy bitch.

4. Buy myself something with those 75$ gift certs so Zliten stops telling me useful things I can use them on.  Try not to buy a bunch of junk otherwise.

5.  Clean out rest of pantry.  Gold star if we go through and reorganize the tupperware section so we can fit all of it into the cabinet instead of it spilling out onto the counter.

6. Continue working on 2014 plan for races.  Nothing needs to be decided this month, but work on getting ideas.

7. Finish book.  Start another.

8.  Make a new music playlist on the zune or 3.  Marathon training is coming up, which means lots of quality hours with the zune, unlike now, when it’s a treat the few hours a week I get to listen to the same playlist I’ve been using for 6 months.  That will get old if I don’t change it up.

9. I’m trying out probiotics and digestive enzymes on the recommendation of some research I’ve been doing.  My most recent “cleanse” (stomach flu) coupled with the fact that it’s one possible reason I might be holding onto some weight, and the fact that the vitamin store had a buy one get one half off sale makes me feel like I don’t have much to lose.  Keep on these for the 15 day supply you have, and if it’s awesome, go get more.  If it makes me ill, stop it.

10.  Lots of sleep.  Lots of relaxing.  If something is stressful, avoid if at all possible. I have no race in October so I can go be a spaz then if I have the energy to do so with marathon training.

11.  Gaming!  Gaming is high quality relaxing feet up type activity.  Let’s make some more progress in my game, play some Disney Infinity, etc etc.

12.  Sometime before the end of the month, pull all the summer shirts/tech tees I haven’t worn lately and box them up or donate them (if I love but they don’t fit, box them up, if I just don’t love, send them onto someone who will love them).  Also, since I’ve lost about 15 lbs this year (yeah yeah yeah YEAH!), try on some of the stuff I have boxed up to see if I have gained more wardrobe!

13.  Find a day that I can justify the calories and eat the damn desert I got in August. 🙂