Adjusted Reality

I figured I’d share some of the details about my Seattle solo adventures, the before, during and after, about how I went from kind of intimidated to prepared to take on a solo adventure (even though this was a solo-lite journey because I was only solo during the day).  I know for some people going it alone for 4 days of sightseeing is no big deal but it’s not something I’ve done before and while I really enjoy doing this with my adventure buddy, it was nice to have a good experience by myself as well in case the opportunity presents itself again.

Planning:

I didn’t just set out on foot in one direction and start walking.  I did a LOT of research to feel comfortable knowing where I was going.  When I was planning for our really quick trip to London in 2023, I noticed that “3 days in x city” was a big thing for travel bloggers, so now I search that for anywhere I’m going.  Obviously, I had more than 3 days, but it’s a great way to find the highlights.  Now, everyone else’s highlights aren’t always my own, so I read a bunch of these blogs, jotted down the things that sounded interesting, and then made a prioritized list.

Then, with my goal to use no private transportation (rental car, uber, etc), I spent quite a bit of time acquainting myself with the map of Seattle neighborhoods, public transportation options, and just generally “is this area safe” (which the answer was generally yes, thankfully).  Knowing my endurance limits, I actually put together a google doc with walking/bus maps of my planned travels each day.  I didn’t follow them exactly, but it was a huge help to know where I was going, what order I was hitting each location, and how I was getting there.  Google has great multi-step direction functionality, here’s an example below of part of the trip I didn’t use (reason being Volunteer Park was closed on Labor Day, I discovered Washington Arboretum was the same place we went last year so I skipped it and just saved the Columbia center for next time).

If this sounds like a lot of planning, I am VERY sure you can get by with much less, but as I am a consummate planner this was fun for me and really helped my confidence. If you like to just wander, great, but if that makes you nervous, I highly suggest selecting your sightseeing and mapping it out ahead of time.

Safety:

Did a lot of internet research and like I said, got the vibe that most of the city was pretty safe in the areas I was traveling, especially since I was only roaming around during daylight hours.  I also made sure that I was barely actually traveling alone.  I had a shared doc with all my maps, and I went over my general plans for the day the night before.  I also put one of our moto tags in my pack so Joel could see where I was all day.  We were also texting back and forth every few hours at least and I was sharing stories on Facebook (friends only, and my friends are people I know, not random internet strangers) and not Instagram (where random internet strangers can see it) until I was done for the day.

While we had a… interesting encounter on the train from the airport (nothing horrible, just someone sitting near us that was very loud and yelly and political), that was it.  I took the bus four times and the ferry twice and had zero uncomfortable issues with the process.  I made a rule whilst walking that if I saw couples or women walking by themselves, I was going in an ok direction.  Literally ONE time I started feeling a little questionable, and I turned down one block, went to the next, and it was fine.  I felt just as comfortable as I do (and maybe even more) walking around my own neighborhoods.

In terms of keeping myself healthy and happy while walking a LOT, I built a lot of knowledge along the way. I am glad that I had the idea in the planning phases to bring my camelback.  If I was just sightseeing in the city I might have talked myself out of using this as space was precious in my carryon, but I figured it would be useful at least for the 2 light trails I was hiking and I am so glad I did it.  No matter where I was, having readily available hydration was wonderful and saved me from buying drinks.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous (60s and 70s), but I still came home sweaty and crusty every day, so having 1.5 liters of water or electrolyte drink on my back was awesome.  Having extra storage was clutch as well. I started only with hydration and my mototag and some cash stowed in there but accumulated more things I wanted with me per day over the four days.  It was also nice for the random fun things I picked up along the way.

Also, in terms of knowing my own limits – I am very comfortable walking 10 miles.  I am ok walking 15.  If I had to, 20 isn’t outside of the realm of reason, but I probably would have opted for a bus before that if possible.  I’m able to do this stuff because I have a lot of time on feet experience (many 6–8-hour walks and that big 13 hour one earlier this year), so adjust your expectations accordingly, this is a marathon, not a sprint (you don’t want to be so tired after one day you just bail).  I think one of my subconscious fears going into this was feeling trapped somewhere, and reminding myself that I am able to walk long distances was a confidence booster.

I’m really good at sharing the awesome on socials, let me share a few of the low points too here after the fact.

Social Media Post Friday:

Impossible to pick just 5 photos from Day 2 when I had so many adventures!!!
-Bagel and coffee and walked @jetsers to the convention
-Walked to the ferry to Bainbridge Island!
-Bus to Blodel Preserve
-Except not exactly, got dropped off on the side of a highway and 1 mile walk there on (gorgeous) neighborhood roads
-A few hours meandering at Blodel. 12/10, do recommend
-Hiked the mile back to the bus stop.
-Was at the wrong stop, walked to the right one
-Waited more for the bus. Regretted my life choices as I had no snacks and my camelback was dry.
-Bus finally came, when they dropped me off at the terminal, I grabbed the nearest bag of chips I could on the way to find lunch.
-Proper Fish indeed. That was obscenely big and I ate every bite.
-Walked around some more and bought @jetsers some chocolates
-Returned to the ferry finding I had 30 mins to kill, so I walked around the waterfront park a bit
-Ferry back to Seattle!
-Walked the waterfront there. Bought a new hat. Got souvenirs for the neighbors
-Cotton Candy ice cream from the same place I had it in 2012!
-Hmart stop for snacks. I will not hike snackless again!
-Hand pulled noodles from Biang Biang
-Now… after 32.5k steps…. ?

Other Things Friday:

• Holy crap, the ferry back and forth was COLD!  I mean, 60s and windy on the ocean shouldn’t have been a surprise, but when I pared down my carry on, one of the things I ditched was more pants/long sleeve shirts.  I was in a very thin (and my only) long sleeve shirt and shorts and I was shivering by the end of it.
• My timing was great that day – my walk down to the harbor got me to the ferry right on time and my walk off the ferry got me on a bus right away to the preserve, which meant I skipped getting the snacks I had planned on the way.  And the preserve had no snacks, nor was there anything within miles that did.  I was waiting for the bus at around 130pm out of water, no snacks, and was fading and feeling very despondent.   I had a decent breakfast (bagel with bacon and cream cheese and coffee), but that was 5+ hours previous and I was about 8 miles into the day. 
• The bus was late, which didn’t help.  By the time I got dropped off back at the terminal, I bought the first thing I could find (a bag of chips) and ate them on the walk to lunch.  I also ate a bigger lunch than expected (a giant plate of fish and chips, and the whole darn thing, plus a beer).  Felt better after that but see the note above on feeling trapped – while I could have feasibly walked the 6 miles back to the ferry if I had snacks, I didn’t want to do two more hours of walking on nothing in my stomach.  I thought about it with a clear head and found a gas station 1.6 miles away, a winery with a food menu 2.3 miles away, and I had the number of a service that would come pick you up and take you back to the ferry but figured that would take longer than the bus.  And it arrived, just 30 mins late.
• I stopped at HMart on the way back and grabbed some chips and candy so I wouldn’t get stuck again. And some Powerade. Because my dumb self was out of water at 130pm and never filled up my camelback again.
• ~12 miles total.  I didn’t feel like I couldn’t have gone further, but it took a lot of calories to get me out of the hole I put myself in earlier in the day and I was happy to be done.  So, Friday, we learned that Seattle requires slightly warmer clothing than one would expect in summer, and to always pack snacks.  And bring extra electrolytes.  Beer suffices but other stuff is better.

Social Media Post Saturday:

If I thought it was difficult to just pick a few pics yesterday… oof. What a great day!!! So much of this is just in stories but…
-Being my best basic b$%#@ enjoying a pumpkin spice latte
-Lifted chest and shoulders. 3x week, no excuses!
-Chicago dog for… brunch? Whatever. It was amazing.
-Walked through Pike Place jealous of the gorgeous flowers
-Olympic Sculpture Park. Challenging to find how to get to there but figured it out.
-Pier 70 on request from the neighbor. Was underwhelming.
-Chihuly Glass and Gardens. OMG. They should have sent a poet. I enjoyed this thoroughly.
-Hiked up up up up up to Kerry Park for more city views. This was awesome but didn’t even make the cut for pics.
-Döner Kebap for lunch!
-A lady had all the discarded flowers from the Pike Place shop. I got a gorgeous sunflower bouquet for 1$
-Apertifs
-The Cheese Room for dinner. It was… amazing. Definitely a date night recommend.
Only 27k steps today ? but I have another epic adventure planned tomorrow. Goodnight! ??

Other Stuff Saturday:

• I don’t have a lot of negatives from the day; it was an easier one for sure with many points where I could bail and all city adventures vs being anywhere remote.
• I had a giant Chicago dog for breakfast at 10am, so I don’t think I even dug into my snacks that day even though I ate lunch at almost 3pm.  But they were nice to have.
• I wore the same long sleeve shirt since it was the only one I had.  It was a little stinky.
• I got kinda grumpy at the directions to the Olympic Sculpture park, and had to backtrack a bit and go up a very steep hill to find the entrance, but I also found a cool waterfront trail so it all worked out.
• There was this big festival that was blocking like a mile of street near the Chihuly Glass and Gardens in the direction I wanted to go, and I had to backtrack a few times to figure out how to find a street.
• Kerry Park was a little underwhelming for the elevation I climbed to get there, if I didn’t like doing challenging things for the sake of doing them.  I’d probably skip doing this again unless I was bringing along someone Type B like myself (Joel) and maybe trying to do it closer to sunset to see if the view was worth it then.
• ~9.5 miles total tracked, but I didn’t track the wandering in the gardens so maybe closer to 10+?  Felt great and could have done more no problem.

Social Media Post Sunday:

Too much coffee at a breakfast meeting is the only thing that got me through today. I am absolutely dead tonight but had a fun day! Hike pics only. ?
-Breakfast at Ruth’s Chris
-Bus from Downtown to Magnolia/Discovery Park
-Hike hike hike! The loop was 2.8 miles, but the hike down to South Beach was longer (and very much down-er
-Did not expect to actually end up on a beach, was very pretty. Then up up up up.
-Regretted my life choices the night before dealing with a headache and heartburn the whole time. My kingdom for a Tums the whole hike.
-Got turned around and hiked back out the way I came in.?
-Across the locks and through a park with gorgeous flowers and a band playing
-Club sandwich and a salad at Lockspot Cafe
-Tums!!! Hooray!
-Feeling better and meandered around the Ballard neighborhood
-Apple cider donut ice cream at Salt and Straw
-Walked around little bit towards the hotel but realized it was over 4 miles away so I caught a bus back
-Took a bath and a nap trying to rally
-Did not do so, and just ordered pizza and salad to go
Sleeping early tonight. 28k steps. One more day of adventure tomorrow!

Other Stuff Sunday:

• Today was the day I found out how awful heartburn is when you have no way to counteract it right away!  It’s totally my fault, I had been eating crappy food, and I stayed up late having beverages, and got very little sleep.  I did get myself up and out before gravity set in (this could easily have been a day I stayed in the hotel room if I didn’t summon the force of will to do so), but I was excited for my plans.  As I started hiking the trail in Discovery Park I felt a little heartburn and it just got worse as I hiked.  Snacks helped, but my electrolyte drink kinda aggravated it so I drank lightly, but the ‘burn kept yelling at me.  Note: I get almost never get heartburn, so I definitely wasn’t prepared for this.
• Standing at the bottom of a major hill 5 miles into the day already, I had to remind myself I was NOT indeed trapped, I could easily call an uber here, I was feeling a little blech but I’ve felt 10x worse during races or training days, so up up up I went and everything was totally fine.  Also, for safety’s sake, there were TONS of people on these trails, if something did indeed happen to me someone would have been along within minutes to help.
• A lunch that was a little less extravagant than all the crap I’d been eating (club sandwich and salad), tums from the convenience store, and then of course some ice cream from Salt and Straw made me feel much better. 
• I stored my long sleeve shirt in my pack in case I got really chilly but honestly, it was too stinky to wear, thankfully I didn’t need it, a t-shirt was a little cold to start but not for long.
• ~11 miles.  And lots of elevation.  Would have been 15 not taking the bus back, and I’m happy to have made the choice I did.

Social Media Post Monday:

Well, Seattle, that’s a wrap!
-Morning hot tub to wake up
-Clam chowder in a breadbowl for breakfast
-3 mile walk up to meet the Freemont Troll
-3 more miles to wander around the Woodland Rose Garden
-Stopped to get a snack and some presents at a store
-Wandered another 3ish miles to Gas Works Park
-Considered public transport but wanted lunch so I just meandered back around Union Lake
-Finally stopped at a Vietnamese place for chicken Vermicelli
-Wobbled the mile home then straight to the bathtub
-Grumbled a little because it was weights day and I’d already walked 14 miles
-Got it done anyway and soaked in the hot tub again
-Team dinner which I crashed (with permission)
-Now…. sleep. Up for the airport in a few hours!
34k steps. Something like 50 miles walked this trip. Looking forward to a day off tomorrow ?

Other Stuff Monday:

• Heartburn reared its ugly head again about 5-6 miles into the day, but I had tums this time and ate a little better (breakfast was clam chowder and some bread, apple as a snack, chicken + veggie vermicelli bowl as lunch) so it wasn’t as bad.  NOTE: I dealt with heartburn for like 3 days after I got home too.  I’ll have to figure this one out – I’ve never had it for more than a few hours and never back-to-back days.
• This was probably the most unpredictable travel day.  Fri/Sat, I followed my plan exactly, Sunday I just ran out of time to get to the Farmer’s Market so I skipped that and the park, but Monday was a holiday so some of my plans were cancelled, what restaurants were open were unpredictable, and I just played it by ear.  I found a cool looking rose garden that was open, so I spent my time there.  I wasn’t feeling any of the restaurants in Freemont or along Union Lake, so I just had some snacks and meandered back to downtown.  I had planned to bus back from Freemont, but since I stopped for late lunch a mile from the hotel, I just walked back.
• ~14 miles that day was about my limit after the last few days of crazy.  I was super jealous of everyone running and thought about trying to do some run/walk intervals to travel faster, but my legs were cooked so I decided slow and steady wins the race.  If I had more time in Seattle, I may have made this (or the next day) a rest day, but since it was the last day, I pushed through.

So, takeaways were:

• I would 100% do this again if I had the chance.  Seeing cool things was worth the effort and getting out of my comfort zone!
• Camelback goes EVERYWHERE with me now that I plan to do this type of sightseeing.  Will always have backup electrolyte drink, snacks, cash, tums, and some other essentials.
• Bring at least TWO long sleeve shirts.  I could have easily washed one out in the sink while I wore the other but not on back-to-back days.  I didn’t even think to buy one, maybe next time.
• Headphones were a nice “no thanks, I’m not here to make friends” signal, though I almost never used them and also maybe it’s less of a thing in Seattle than Texas.
• The positives – going through the day at absolutely 100% my own pace, doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted, eating whatever I felt like, walking as far as I wanted, stopping wherever I felt like…it was nice to only worry about ME.  Also, 6-8 hours of relative quiet, no conversation, just being aware and present in my surroundings was really relaxing for me.  Body, exhausted.  Mind, less frazzled by the end.
• The negatives – I made Joel very jealous with my adventures!  And… honestly, sometimes it’s nice when you’re at the end of your rope to have someone else help fix things or put your situation in context.  It was my job to fix things when they went wrong and get my head on straight and it was honestly just fine.

I don’t have any current plans to do this again yet, but I’m totally open to if I get the opportunity!

September… wooo! It’s been a lot. Lot of fun. Lot of stress.

But, like, overall, a lot. But the good news is that…

#1 The Unwanted Kettlebell

Even with all the crazy, and travel, and such, things are still moving in the right direction. It’s still like a big fight for like 2 lbs a month but if I keep at it, I’ll be a happy camper before I know it. This progress is pretty much motivated by workouts. Yes, I am tracking carefully, but I am eating a lot. Because I’m working out a lot. Which means I eat a lot. Which means I need to work out a lot to keep progressing. It’s a cycle, but I’m enjoying it and not really complaining. Because I love food (healthy or not).

Still, for the month, though, I have tallied my over/under and I am at -3728 calories over my goal. That’s -124 calories per day. Obviously, I am still doing well enough to make progress, but I always seem to be slightly lagged (what I do 2-3 weeks earlier seems to catch up with me) so I shouldn’t be surprised if things slow down and it’s actually pretty justified if they do.

So, October’s goal will be to get back to eating a little less and banking more calories for days I need a little more.

#2 Sporty Spice Stuff

But hey, look at all those garmin entries, lots of workouts to burn the calories!

I skipped strength the week after I got back from Seattle – I was effing zonked. As you may notice by the almost 0 workouts besides walking the first week of September, but somehow still at 12 hours… because 8 of those were from my epic walkabout on Monday. After a light week, I was back to it and feeling great though.

Run: 25.5 miles, 11 runs. I did some shorter runs after my vacation to get back into it, and just now am getting back to not just easy pace.

Bike: 182 miles, 15 bikes. It was just easier to get back on the trainer and pedal out some miles so I did that. Same with the run, I am just really getting back to doing “what the garmin says”, though the problem is that the garmin has a lot of “base 1h30” and “long ride 2h50” which right now is just a NO. So, I’m cherry picking until I have more time. But hey, 2 of these were outside! And the first one shook out some major problems on the bike (my tires were too big and they were rubbing constantly!). I would have been PISSED if I didn’t find that until I raced.

Swim: 1250yd, 2 swims. One in the lake (race prep), one in the pool (instead of racing, more on that below).

Weights: 6 hours, 12 sessions. It’s definitely the vegetables of my fitness regiment but good thing I like vegetables.

Walking: 77 miles, 29h. It’s finally starting to get nice at some points during the day again (dawn, dusk) instead of just being soup so we’re enjoying it a bit more.

Next month, honestly? More of the same. I am enjoying it, feeling strong, and making (some, even though my garmin says I’m unproductive :P) progress. I know I just need to take a day or two here and there if I’m not feeling it and do something lighter for a bit and I do and I’ve been pretty consistent here for 6 months with the run/bike/walk/weights, so I’m just excited for some cooler weather at some point in which to do that.

So, yeah, I was supposed to race this month. Cal Tri Austin. We woke up after a fantastic night of pre-race sleep in our own bed (which was incredibly novel), did our usual morning puttering even got our mile walk in and then when we went to load up Truck Truck? Dead battery.

We had driven it the day before, so no indication anything was wrong. We had parked in the middle of the driveway, so the Pruis was trapped in the garage. Our portable car battery charger was in the truck… but hadn’t been charged for months. We put it in the charger and put in a call to roadside assistance and the wait for both were too long. So, I had my fourth DNS (did not start) since I started racing in 2009.

If this was an A race, I could have found a way. I could have run over some bushes with my car. We could have called two Uber XLs. But this one wasn’t. I was bummed to see I probably could have secured second or third in my age group, because it’s always fun to hear your name called and get a shiny piece of plastic to randomly validate your triathlon worth. But I signed up because it was close, and I wanted some motivation to keep training once Kerrville was canceled. Mission accomplished there, see above.

While we both felt the pull of the couch after 2 hours of waiting for a jump, we took our race day caffeine and headed to lifetime north and did our own little triathlon instead.

Great swim. I usually take this easy in practice but gave it some gas. 2:07/100m is decent for me these days!

I chased the pace too hard on the bike. I really wanted to see 20mph, and I was so close, but I faded from 19.9 to 19.7 in the last 10 mins because I backed off knowing I had to run.

The run sucked. I cooked too hard on the bike, and I paid for it. I just couldn’t accelerate much past 11-minute miles which is fairly easy pace for me these days. It was what it was, and I didn’t quit. Like I wanted to at half a mile in. And a mile in. And a mile and a half in. With one mile to go I was resigned to my fate and even sped up a bit, but I’ve had so many way better runs with less perceived effort. Bleh.

I feel like I pushed myself about 90% (if 100% is a race where you fall down just after the finish line), so a solid effort in spite of the circumstances. No medal or t-shirt but I’ll live to race again. Next month, even, on a race that starts on a waterslide!

After the race, I plan to keep at it. What I’m doing is working, and while I probably can take a week lighter/recovery at some point, I need to make sure I’m ready to ramp down the eating that week as well to not stall THAT progress. And I’m not sure that’s going to happen this month.

#3 Adulting:

I nailed my two softball goals:

• Hang my art in my (at work) office that is sitting in piles.
• Return any of the sports bras I ordered from amazon that don’t work.

This month, I have a few more very easy goals because we are already entirely booked up for the month

• Hair appointment after the race, I’m sick of the grey streaks and forever wearing it in a knot.
• Dr. appt for a check up sometime later this year
• Return any of the second batch of tri kits and sports bras I ordered from amazon that don’t work.

I would say put up Halloween decorations, but they’re already done! One perk about not racing Kerrville is getting a jump on spooky season. We are supposed to get back with the financial planner and have that on the schedule in Nov. Maybe at some point we’ll do big adulty things but for now little adulty things are really all we can manage and that’s ok.

#4 Hobbies:

Seattle Trip was awesome, and I am going to do a whole blog post about solo sightseeing adventures.

Book 3 is in the can! Well, first draft and first edit pass that is. Next step is giving it a little space, and doing a kindle read and making notes. I’d like to finish that in October.

Still picking at the guitar on days I’m at home. I remember most of the chords for most of the songs and can usually play a song or two before my fingers hurt. Baby steps. Hopefully we can restore the electric at some point (just takes time and prioritizing it and haven’t done that) and then I’ll play more.

I took most of the month off photo editing to focus on book editing (and frankly, a lot of reading to disassociate from stress), but back to Bonaire. October goal will be to work on it, I don’t think I’m going to finish the whole trip, but maybe halfway?

Krause Springs painting is done. Next painting (maybe Seattle skyline?) has, uh, white paint on it. Maybe it will even get a second color this month? (or maybe not)

This month has a lot of social events and an unexpected travel to a conference (so TWO trips out of town), and I may need to tolerate a little more staring off into space vs being creative to keep myself sane.

Still haven’t locked in the November camping trip but we have a bunch of places we’re looking at. Hopefully will book that soon!

#5 Work Life Balance

Ehhh. Let’s get the big October projects done and dusted and perhaps I can relax a bit. I am doing a pretty good job at drawing work boundaries when my partner in crime lets me 😀 but occasionally I’ll have some (usually unnecessary) angst the night before something I think is going to be a thing, and very very very occasionally I’ll get the 2am thinkies. I feel like I’m not perfect, and not as detached as I want to be sometimes but compared to the average professional human that deeply cares about their job, I am probably a model student.

Alright, October:

• Eat a little less daily
• Keep doing sporty things and enjoy the race. Next year may be the year to take this ish seriously.
• Hair and Dr Appt
• Return things I don’t want so I don’t get stuck with them
• SPOOOKYWALKS!
• Survive the social craziness
• Book 3, guitar, Bonaire editing
• Did I say SPOOKYWALKS? 🙂

Looking forward to a fun, productive, active, and hopefully COOOLER month!

I was going to title this “I guess it’s better than gaining III” but I didn’t need to troll myself and the three bots that frequent this site, so… good news!

We all know that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is madness, but sometimes you can fool yourself. For 10 months. The last time my trendweight looked anything like this was Nov 2024.

#1 The Unwanted Kettlebell

I have been trying to do two things:

1. Track more exactly. I’m not perfect, but I realized I was undertracking my breakfast daily, forgetting to track coffee creamer, not tracking snacks sometimes, and not always tracking my bedtime square of dark chocolate. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but that could add up to ~300 calories per day sometimes I was just forgetting to put down.
2. If I am not super hungry (like at a 5-7 on the fullness scale) after dinner and still have lots of calories for the day, I’m just banking them. There are days I need every single calorie I burn and sometime more. Some days I’m perfectly fine eating less, so I’m not trying to balance it on a daily basis. This has helped me eat less overall.

From Aug 4 until today, I’m about 3600 calories under the 1200+ activity calories, and this has gotten me about a 2-3 lb loss from the start of the month. I’m pretty happy right now, I feel like I have to watch myself for pure and utter nonsense, but I’m not having to confine myself to tiny meals and celery for snacks. I have to give credit to the “moving more” part of the equation – I burned ~820 calories per day so far this month (I didn’t take out maintenance calories – that is part of my negotiation with myself. If I track super carefully, I don’t have to do as much math!). I’m eating about 1850/day which would be maintenance for me if I was pretty sedentary, but the exercise is doing the work this month.

#2 Sporty Spice Stuff

I’m having so much fun with this stuff lately! I love that, it’s nice to be excited to bike and run again (and sometimes even swimming). I’m not quite back to form (I need to shed a little weight to get there plus some other things I’m sure) but I’m getting after it again. And it feels really good. Garmin has been putting up challenges, the same challenges I’ve been seeing since the pandemic, and a lot of them felt way out of scope for me. I’m looking to hit some running and biking ones this month for the first time in forever.

I’ve also been racking up miles and successful workouts and playing with finding the edge. A sports psychologist I follow on Insta posted about how progress isn’t always made on the days you’re feeling great, and frankly, some breakthrough moments happen when you aren’t at your best. Casting my memory back, I knocked down a longstanding half marathon PR on a day where less than 48 hours after I got rear ended, and the night before the race I fell asleep on an ice pack because my back was seizing up. And then I, out of nowhere, busted out a 9:15/mile pace to do 5 minutes better than I had done over a decade before.

Back to the present, I had a few drinks on Wednesday night. And then a few more. I woke up feeling okay but was pretty tired by the time I finished work. Joel wanted to hit the gym anyway, so I figured I could go do something easy. We swam first because the stupid #*%$ing swim team takes the whole indoor pool 5-7pm every weekday and then spent a moment trying to figure out my life. It was anaerobic interval day for running and I convinced myself worst case I’d start and bail out. And whatdya know? I was just fine. Was it the strongest I’ve felt? No. But I got it done.

But, sometimes you have to know when to hold em and know when to fold em. Last Saturday, I did a spin class, a new one I hadn’t taken before and it. wrecked. me. It was a lovely reminder not to blow myself up on the bike during a race, because I done went and pushed so hard I bonked 40 minutes into the ride. I figured a quick reset and hitting the treadmill would take care of it, and NOPE! My toast was BURNT. I was a little cranky about it but then remembered how many solid workouts I had over the last few months. Consistency is more important than perfection. It was a little blip on the radar and a little sleep and destressing and I was back at it.

So far in August:

• 4000m swim. 1.25 hours. Tee hee. I expect this will be the most for a bit, unless I make swimming my focus for a race or a goal soon.
• 249 miles of cycling, or 15.5 hours. Currently at 39 VO2 max and 182W (estimated) FTP. Progress!
• 34 miles of running, or 6.25 hours. Currently at 40 VO2 max. Paces are a little stagnant the last few weeks but I made some major progress before that. And also, running sucks right now, it’s either boring inside or stupid hot outside.
• 6 hours of lifting, and maintaining my 3x week lifting. Between this and recovery stuff like boots, ice, rolling, and stretching, this is what lets me do all the rest of the stupid stuff.
• 43.5 miles walking (17 hours), or about 1.6 miles/day. We have tried to make it a habit to do this in the morning most days, sometimes with coffee, and it’s been lovely. Less lovely when it’s feels like 100+, but we’ve done what we needed to do to keep up the streak. Sept 9, it will have been 1 full year of 1 mile a day or more! Don’t plan on quitting then, but maybe we can take a day off now and then (or maybe not, it’s a nice habit)

For Sept, I have very few tweaks, I just need to do some of the things in different places:

• I got one open water swim earlier in the summer, and was super excited to start the trend. SPOILER ALERT: the trend never started. I would like to get to the lake twice in Sept before the race.
• We rode the road bikes outside once earlier in the summer, and then again whilst camping, and I was super excited to start the trend. SPOILER ALERT: the trend never started. I need to get two outdoor rides on the tri bike before the race since it’s been inside since last Sept’s race.

Other’n that, it’s just second month, same as the first. Up the miles, down the recovery drinks, and do what feels right.

#3 Adulting:

I said we probably wouldn’t do any adulting in August, we didn’t do any adulting in August, next month we have an appointment with someone to look at some investments, and we made it to all the previously scheduled appointments. Oh, we got the spray in bed liner for the truck, finally. I participated in that I drove Joel back and forth. I helped!

Next month, here’s a softball goal or 2:

• Hang my art in my (at work) office that is sitting in piles.
• Return any of the sports bras I ordered from amazon that don’t work.

There are still some great cleanouts we want to do but goldang, summer just isn’t the right time to do anything at home besides just die on the couch and bedrot with books. Training and even just existing in the heat is no joke.

#4 Hobbies

• Book – I have edited 8 chapters (of 30). It’s a start. I also hopefully will have some time while traveling to do this next week. It feels really dumb to be going so slow but, see above with heat sapping my will to live and training like a madwoman.
• Have continued with my 1-2 songs a few times a week with the guitar. It feels like the muscle memory is mostly coming back to me. I want to keep this up! It’s a nice quick break between meetings or stuff during the day.
• I have finished Vermont, and have started sorting the Bonaire pictures. When I get back from Seattle, I’ll be four trips backlogged. Ah well, it’s either stop traveling places or just live with it (and you know I’m not doing the former).
• Still need to decide whether the Krause Springs painting is done. I’ve had multiple people tell me to maybe just hang it up on the wall but it still feels unfinished. I guess I need to stare at it a little more with a paintbrush in my hand to decide. Winter project here is creating some random modern art (no reference, so I don’t get paralyzed) for above the TV which has been barren for 18 years!!!
• Still deciding on the late November camping trip, but everything else is locked and loaded! I have a solo Seattle itinerary while Joel works at the convention, and I’m very excited to meander around the city. We’ll be doing a short cruise with the family in September, I’ll get a quick diving trip in and get to spend some time with them eating all the foods and playing cards.

#5 Work/Life

Couple things had been weighing heavy on me that didn’t quite fit in the box I leave work in when I leave, but hopefully this is the week all that gets resolved one way or another. I don’t have a huge answer for coping besides just ride the storm and be happy when it’s clear, but it’s nowhere near how it used to be when I’d spend full evenings having conversations with myself about things I needed to tackle. My brain HAS been a little bit of a PITA waking me up in the middle of the night, but generally if I pick up my book, I can get over it quickly. This is always a work in progress, but still, progress.

So, Sept. I’ll race for the first time in forever and need to prioritize some time for race prep stuff like riding and swimming outside. I want to keep up doing what I’m doing with tracking and eating, because I will take a 2 lb loss a month over the alternative. I’ll have a fun trip in Seattle being as reasonable as possible while being super active, and whatever it is, just get back to all the things when I’m back. Let’s do this thing!

Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse?

No matter how much I think the numbers should be lining up, the proof is in the pudding. Or the weights on the scale.

Week 1 – June 30 – July 6 – average 1987 calories consumed – 447 calories burned = net average 1540 calories per day

This is obviously over my goal but it was a vacation week. I tried to frontload the week with all the workouts (hit everything by Thursday!) and eating well (did okay) because I knew I’d go over in my calories whilst camping for the 4th of July. I expected to burn a little more since we had planned to hike, but instead just walked a few miles per day in the very few breaks in the rain.

Week 2 – July 7 – July 13 – average 1779 calories consumed – 500 calories burned = net average 1279 calories per day

This is more like it, you know it’s a better week when the average calories consumed were not a year in which I have lived. I took Monday super chill after returning home from working and hit the rest of the week with good workouts and didn’t screw up my eating too, too much.

Week 3 – July 14 – July 20 – average 1787 calories consumed – 517 calories burned = net average 1270 calories per day

Another pretty solid week in terms of calories in, calories out.

Week 4 – July 21 – July 27 – average 1811 calories consumed – 526 calories burned = net average 1285 calories per day

And, again. Solid. So why does my trendweight look like this?

There’s two possible answers.

1. This is still too many calories. It’s possible. I’ve eaten lower (averaging more like 1500 calories per day) while doing triathlete stuff.
2. I am doing a shite job at actually tracking my food. This is also possible. I’m estimating a lot of things and tracking hours/a day later sometimes. I don’t feel like I’m too far off but it’s possible every day being “not too far off” is just enough to make no progress.

So, I need to decide for next month – do I try to aim for a lower count (shooting for the moon, ending up among the stars and all that) or just aim to be accurate AF with everything I track. Both should accomplish the same goal, but the question is which one will drive me less insane? On one hand, I will probably reduce my calories if I have to legit log every effing pretzel I put in my mouth and measure out the damn cream cheese I put on them (yep, that’s my lazy guilty pleasure “I need some quick salty carbs” snack). On the other, I could just set the bar lower and be okay with a little inaccuracy. I’m aiming for a 500 calorie deficit and coming up with 0. I could aim for more like 750-800 (that 1500 average vs the 1800) and maybe I’ll lose half a lb per week (seriously, I would take it rn).

I think I’m going to try accuracy and see how that goes.

#2 Sporty Spice Stuff

As I alluded to, I’m very happy here even if the fluff ain’t going anywhere. I do also accept and appreciate that I have built a lot of muscle over the last few years and not everything I’ve put on since my low in 2018-2019 is fat now… but I’m still definitely carrying more fat than I was back then. But, we’re working on it.

Garmin calendar sez I’ve had a pretty productive July.

• 13 runs this month, 8.5 hours or 46 miles. My paces are getting faster, and I’m feeling stronger. My garmin 5k prediction is down to 28:40, and I was able to actually run under 30 last weekend. I’m actually having… fun… doing the garmin speed workouts and feel awesome when I can actually hit the paces. Who knew having a watch yell at you would be enjoyable?
• 11 bikes this month, 10 hours, or 155.7 miles. After Joel fixed my trainer, my power got WAYYYY better. I don’t suck so badly anymore, haha! After my new tires, it was bad, I was rolling at like 105 watts feeling like I was climbing hills. I think it may be a little EASIER than outside now, but I’ll have to ride outside (August and September) to calibrate. I also have been feeling stronger doing the garmin workouts vs just pedaling for 30-45 mins with no goal watching Bloodbowl games. I’m still watching Bloodbowl but my bike computer yells at me and tells me to speed up or slow down now. It’s definitely some solid type B fun but it does make the time go faster (I’m now regularly up to 1h+ workouts).
• I swam, uh 3 times. For a total of 33 minutes. Or 1 mile. Moving on.
• Lifting – 15 sessions. 6.25 hours. I hit all 3 sessions each week, I think on one or two weeks I combined the two upper body workouts into one because I was out of time.
• Walking – 48.5 miles, 19 hours. That’s only an average of 1.5 miles a day but it’s definitely 1.5 miles a day I wouldn’t be walking otherwise in the summer.

It feels like a really nice accomplishment to say the only thing I would like to change is swimming more regularly and getting outside on my bike more often (once in July, more in August). While I haven’t done a triathlon in almost a year, I almost feel like a triathlete again, no cap (as the kids maybe say?).

Speaking of, the one I was signed up for got cancelled (for absolutely good reason, Kerrville got absolutely demolished by the floods and I hope they can donate my race entry to the city that wasn’t already used to set up the race!) so I’m looking for alternatives. Thinking:

• Cal Tri Austin, Sept 21. I don’t love love love the course but I am familiar with it, so might as well go give it a go since it’s local. I wouldn’t normally race the weekend before Kerrville but the logistics make it almost impossible to pass up.
• Wurst Tri Ever, Oct 12. Never done this, usually “done” with tri season after Kerrville, but since I haven’t raced at all this year and kinda have some fitness going on… this seems like a fun one (it starts on a water slide!)

And then… what next? Half marathon? Trail racing? Go crazy and start training for a 10k swim or something? Take a break and then think about an early season 70.3? Actually commit to being speedy and work on my 5k times and chase my watts on FTP tests?

I have a bit to consider it, but again, really happy with how I’m training, feeling absolutely very little burnout in my training, and enjoying the garmin dictator immensely. I will ride this feeling (with some down weeks, of course) as long as I can!

#3 Adulting

• Tri bikes got serviced
• Met with tax people and they told us what we needed to do to pay less money on our taxes and we even followed through and did it.
• Uh, we, like flushed the hot water heater because the company that installed it told us to and scheduled an appointment
• I think that’s about it and also about it on the goals besides don’t flake on doctor or chiropractor appointments. We will save any of the great cleanouts for when it’s not a million degrees

#4 Hobbies

• Book – tee hee. I haven’t touched it for the whole month. And I’m totally procrastinating it by writing this. Bad me. Idk what my mental block is but I know I need like a solid, undisturbed hour where I have quiet and brain cells and spoons left for the day and that has not happened yet in July. I know once I get ONE chapter under my belt I’ll get rolling, but right now there’s a little pebble in my path that feels like a boulder. I shall aim low make the goal to edit one chapter in August, and get started, and hopefully surpass that.
• I’ve got the guitar habit forming again! Just 1-2 songs a day when I’m at home, but it’s a few times a week instead “oops, I forgot all month”. Just in time too, because I really have almost forgotten some of the songs I memorized. It took 3 days to lock back in “Don’t Fear the Reaper”. I’m still working through some of my set list and the muscle memory is coming back. But, seems like about 6 months is the limit.
• Photos – I’ve been rocking and rolling on Vermont (only a year later!) and will finish those in August. Then, I guess it’s a toss-up between fish pictures and flower gardens. Goal will be to at least start sorting either Bonaire or Krause Springs before I leave for my next trip.
• I started a painting at Krause Springs, OMG! I haven’t touched it since then, but I shall celebrate the starting of it, at least. I think a good August goal is to put some more paint on the canvas.
• Travel:
  • Seattle in about a month. I’m excited for a semi-solo tourist experience (since Joel is working) and I’m looking forward to taking the ferry to Bainbridge Island, Chihuly Glass Garden, Museum of Pop Culture, all the Parks with all the views, and eating all the seafoods.
  • Short Cruise with my parents in November. Just a long weekend but enough time to eat, drink, scuba once, and play a bunch of card games with them.
  • Fall trip – we wanted to do fall foliage but the timing isn’t going to work out, and since we’re planning 2 epic trips next year, considering just a nice 5-6 day camping trip right before Thanksgiving to relax and enjoy the fall weather.
  • Next year we are looking at potentially Peru (play) and the Philippines (work/play), and it’s always possible we need to go to Germany (work) which would mean at least a long weekend somewhere in EU. But, my travel plans for the next year always look grander than they end up being. However, the first one is non-negotiable and our big adventure trip for the year that is just for US (not connected to a work destination).

#5 Work Life Balance

Some stuff has come up, but I think I’ve rolled with the punches well. I don’t feel overworked, occasionally overwhelmed because I’ll get “behind” (my terms, no one else’s) on things and feel like I’m the bottleneck, and then have one productive day and rock almost everything out of my backlog. Do I think about work in off hours? Occasionally. Does it invade my free time and raise my blood pressure like it used to? Definitely not. I’ll take the win.

So, August. I gotta pick accuracy or raising (lowering?) the bar for the stuff going in my cakehole, I need to get outside on the bike and get to the pool a little more often if I can, and getting effing restarted on my book and painting. Otherwise, August is third verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit… better, hopefully.

So, I got all silly excited last month about trying something new with the diet and exercise, because new is exciting.

I’ve been banging my head against things for a while, with a strategy that worked, slowly, until it didn’t. The science of why that changed totally makes sense once I got the hang of it – when most of your exercise calories are walking and weights, the amount of RMR calories counted in exercise is a LOT more than when you’re running/biking/swimming. So, 1200 + activity becomes a little less accurate when 25% or more of those calories are ones I’d be burning anyway.

So, I was going to try to eat less. Working up my normal activity levels, I needed to eat about 1600-ish calories per day on average to lose 1 lb per week. It sounded totally reasonable.

As you can see, this is not what happened.

What does my dumb@%$ do? I get a wild hair and decide it sounds like fun to work out more instead. On one hand, it’s good because for some reason I CANNOT figure out how to eat in ways that don’t resemble a human dumpster at least a few times a week. I seriously do not know what is wrong with me right now. On the other hand, perhaps it’s part in parcel with doing more intense activity – both being hungrier and also justifying eating more.

By the details…

Week 1: 1805 calories consumed daily on average, 529 calories burned daily on average = 1276. More than I planned to eat, but considering my goal was 1300 calories or less, I thought I nailed it. Week one down, 19 more to go!

Week 2: About the same burn, but a little bit less on the intake. 1726 calories on average eaten per day, 545 burned, so I’m well below my goals. I’m a little upset because I have made exactly zero progress on the scale, but I warn myself to be patient.

Week 3: Stepped up pretty majorly with both. 1965 average food calories per day, which is a lot, but my calorie burn was up to 676 calories per day. So, still under that 1300 goal (just by a nudge). Growing more frustrated the scale isn’t moving.

Week 4: Back down a little. 1876 avg food cals, but I was down to 552 calories burned per day on average. This pushed me slightly over the 1300 goal, but only by 24 per day. Should be insignificant. Still should see some progress. When I started penning this blog was during this week, and the graph above was entirely flat.

Week 5: Worst week so far, I’m pissed at the scale and had a WEEK. I topped out at 2003 average calories per day, 512 average burned per day, so I was almost 200 calories over per day. Which… 1500 calories should not be “I gain weight” territory, but obviously, that’s how it be.

While the last week makes sense that I had zero progress, and maybe the week before, I should be seeing SOMETHING by now, right? I also know in my heart of hearts that I was eating less, or at least BETTER QUALITY (and yeah, probably less) than I am now before the pandemic. And while I’m working out more than I was, it’s definitely not at half ironman levels. And I kinda feel like that’s how I’m eating.

Social situations screw me up. When I’m at home, I can deal with the hungries better. When I’m out and there’s pizza or chips and dip or whatever just sitting out waiting for me to eat it, it’s just… torture when I’m just always hungry and I usually give in. I’ve had a 2500+ calorie day every day this month that has been influenced by being around other humans for foods and drinks. It’s funny, before this I was too burnt out for a while to really enjoy social situations. Now, I’m recovering a bit from that and I’m like YAY let’s try to see more people but BOO seeing people means I’m probably going to break my plan. To be honest, it’s also when it’s just us two (letting myself order in or stop for crap instead of sticking to a calorie plan), so I can’t totally use this as an excuse, but the highest calorie days are social things.

Either way, what I’m doing is a) obviously not quite enough to move the needle or b) I’m not tracking well. Not that I plan to be a complete moron over 4th of July and I will be tracking, ofc, but when I’m back I’m definitely going to put some effort into pre-tracking, planning what I’m going to eat better, enjoy ONE food splurge per week, not multiple, and sticking closer to that 1600-ish goal per day. If I coulda done that, I’d potentially be 5 lbs down and really happy with myself instead of just stupid frustrated.

#2 Sporty Spice Things

Where things have been going really really really well and I am really happy and proud of myself is doing actual workouts again.

Let me completely shift my tone here and talk about all the good things I’ve done in the last 5 weeks:

• I swam once a week. Holy crap! This is major for me!
• Full gold stars (3x week) for strength. I did cheat one week and had to do two workouts on the same day but otherwise I did everything as planned.
• I’ve started to do the workouts the garmin is telling me to do. Maybe not exactly on the days they’re on, but doing an average of about 3 efforts that are above base/recovery/shuffle. And I’m seeing some progress. My VO2 max is coming up, my garmin is giving me more difficult paces to hit, and I’m generally crushing them.
• 15 bikes, 13.5h total for the month. That’s almost 30 mins average per day. And 7 of those were difficult efforts.
• 10 runs. 5.7h total for the month. I backed off the last week since I had a knee twinge, but it let me bike more and my knee is feeling better. And just like the bike, 7 of those were difficult efforts (just less base miles/time).

So, yeah. I’d like another workout month like this. One swim a week. 2-3 days of doing one of the non-base or recovery workouts on the garmin. Weekend bricks. Just. like. June.

The only change is I plan to start riding a bit outside. I need to remember how to do that. But… not every weekend. It’s really hot. I have really loved our gym bricks because I don’t have to choose between getting up at 6am OR die of heatstroke.

#3 As for adulting, we…

• Met with the financial advisor. We are on track for retirement, and she had very few suggestions for us to do anything better. Yay!
• Road bikes went into the shop and are home. We take the tri bikes in this week.
• Murphy bed is installed! July goals are to keep working on the stuff in here so things are set up nicely for Joel. Once that’s better, I will probably start working on mine too.
• For July: take the truck in to get its spray liner. From January. Oops.

I think that’s probably good for goals here with everything else going on.

#4 Hobbies

• Book – I have typed THE END. At about 115k words. I was trying to race to get a first edit pass before 4th of July camping but decided that I’d rather not rush it and read it casually on the kindle when I’m happy with it. Funny, I typed THE END on book two on the same camping trip last year. This one took a little longer than expected but I’m excited the crappy first draft is out there now. Goal for next month is first edit pass and then a read + notes.
• Photos – got my mouse sorted, and I’ve finished Houston trips and I’m almost done with San Francisco. For July, I’d like to sort Vermont and get started on it. It’s definitely more than a month project.
• Guitar – I’ve started playing a few times in the last week after tuning my acoustic up, and goal will be play at least one song (more once my fingers are more calloused again) on WFH days.
• Travel –
  • I get to go to Seattle as a tourist this time (not working the convention, but I have a free hotel room to share so I’m booking my flight and going to enjoy things like taking the ferry and leisurely checking out Pike’s Place Market and maybe a museum or garden or two.
  • Arranging a short cruise with my parents in early October (they want to go on a 4 day)
  • I think our fall vacation will be Colorado camping in November. Need to figure out the logistics of this and if we are ok with the colder weather (right now, yes please, sick of melting…)

#5 And work life balance, while I can’t say things are completely low stress right now, I seem to be keeping it in check decently well. I’m not working when I’m not working and am finding myself decently capable to relax.

And, on the last possible day with like 3 hours to go, you have a June update. 🙂 Wish me luck, willpower, and some magic dust on the calories IN part of things next month!