Adjusted Reality

Jack’s Generic Intermediate Distance Tri:

While I’ve loved the TX Tri series the last two years, I think I’m going to have to cut the ties next year.  It was a cool, fun goal to finish 6 triathlons in a season, but I really don’t need the motivation to finish that many (this year, we were/are signed up for TEN).  Also, at first, I thought it pushed me to do some races that are outside my comfort zone, and that’s cool and all, but I’ve decided that there’s outside your comfort zone, and there’s shit you really just don’t want to do.

Racing an Olympic distance tri on August 4th in balls hot weather starting after 8am?  Put this on the latter list after last weekend.  It’s not that it was all bad, but the memory of that run will haunt my dreams for a long, long time.

Pre-race:

• Shakeout bike that AM, easy 35 min spin trying out our new speedfill aero bottles
• Food the day before: pasta w/meat sauce + salad + bread, and a random smattering of snacks like brie and pita later.
• Spent time with my parents, and had a mostly relaxing day and evening
• Got TONS of sleep, at least 7 hours where I didn’t budge.  Felt super rested in the AM
• Thought I was getting sick, but ended up just being allergies from them burning shit in Mexico.  Stupid people burning shit, but thank the dear fluffy lord of triathlon that it wasn’t actual illness!
• Had an oatmega bar, and about half of a starbucks mocha.  Tummy was a little off but settled quickly.
• Got there early-ish (6:15?), but not early enough to get a prime spot (it was totally fine though, Pflug transitions are great).
• Got a warmup run and legs felt decent, hung out with Zliten and B and B’s mom and then got a warmup swim.
• Ate my fruit punch sports beans and then it was time to get this show on the road (I was in wave 4).

Swim:

This was going to be a different experience.  First of all, they started all 89 ladies in one wave, in a tiny narrow corral, and it was a beach run start.  The horn went off, I ended up towards the middle/back and inside, and we ran towards the water and the ladies in front of me kinda stopped and walked.  Fuck this, it’s a race, I thought, and I high-kneed my way around them until I got into deep enough water to dive in and start swimming.  Then, I ran into more ladies swimming slowly, and I shoved and kicked and fought my way to a patch of clear water just to find my goggles weren’t sealed super well and I had a decent amount of water in the left one.

The word on my brain at this point was: SHITSHOW.  I was not happy at the beginning of that swim, it was pretty high-combat.  On the way back to the beach I finally got my stride, but was dreading that stupid beach run.  It was about 100m across a pebbly, rocky beach, and I decided to brave it barefoot (that was me putting on my big girl panties about my princess feet).  I swam until I touched rocks with my hands, got up and out and started the run.  Oddly enough, it wasn’t that bad!  I went fast enough to pass people, but people passed me too.  I ran into the water, stepped on a rock, said “OW FUCK” loud enough I think some people giggled, and I dived in again for lap 2.

This one was great.  I was regularly passing caps in waves before me, the water had thinned out because the sprint waves hadn’t started yet, and I just generally felt calm, peaceful, productive, and fast in the water.  I think I came out wearing some weeds but otherwise emerged pretty happy with my effort.  Definitely better than expected, and ABSOLUTELY better than I expected about 100m in.

Swim Time: 23:47 for 1000m with 100m beach run.

T1:

My sandals were nowhere to be found, so this was another moment of Quix’s big girl panties on display here, as I ran to T1 just fine in bare feet.  Note to self – I’m much less tenderfooted during a race than I expect with the adrenaline going.  All went as expected, and it was REALLY REALLY nice to not have to worry about putting on the camelback.

T1 Time: 2:43 (10 seconds faster than Pflugerville – yay!)

Bike:

Got out on the bike, had troubles clipping in like a noob, and found my bike in trainer gear (all the way hardest big and little) going up an incline.  Ooops.  Noob, noob, noob mistake.  After costing myself about a minute being dumb, I got going and drank and ate.  I looked at time of day and it was two minutes earlier than expected.  Splendid.  Legs felt good, I felt speedy without my camelback and my nice aero bottle, and though the zipp wheelie boys were blowing by me, I was passing people too.

Figured out early on my garmin was off again (it must not like tracking distance at Pflug), and just turned it back to HR and time of day screen and worked on ticking off the miles as quickly as possible.  I stayed in aero a LOT (the bottle helped), and climbed the modest hills pretty well, mostly, and I kept pretty close to my goal of 18mph.  I completed the first lap in about 42-ish mins and figured if I could hold on and do another 42-3 I’d hit an hour 25 which would blow my anticipated pace out of the water, and I usually get better on lap 2 so I started that one really excited.

Everything was going well and then… I hit a wall of wind on the south section of the course (the longest straightaway, of course).  It was BRUTAL.  There was enough wind to notice the first lap and have to fight a little harder, but it REALLY picked up on lap 2.  I kept losing time and losing time and then all of a sudden, I was coming in and it was later than I wanted.  I lost all that time I banked on the swim and more.  I had another noob moment dismounting my bike on the wrong side, but got it together quickly and over the line and into transition.

Bike Time: 1:31:06 (17.0 mph.  Not what I wanted, but pretty decent considering the wind…)

T2:

Went as expected.  Last time it wasn’t hot enough to need a handheld though, and this time it was, so I dealt with that.

T2 time: 1:29 (Pflug was 1:19 – so there’s that 10 seconds I gained not tinkering with the camelback here – tinkering with my handheld.  So, total t1 and t2 time – exactly the same… hah!)

Run:

On the bike, as I kept losing seconds, I reminded myself I still had a shot at a sub-3, but I would have to push the run as hard as I could.  That wind dissapated, the clouds burned off, and it was just me vs THAT RUN.  The feels like was already in the 90s, and this course has ZERO shade.  I had yet to see either Zliten or B, but on the first stretch, Brian blew right past me.  In a different universe, I would have tried to hang on and go with him, but he’s definitely a faster runner than I any day of the week and it was early, so I kept clicking along.

I stayed on time of day because I knew it was hot enough that pace would piss me off.  My handheld melted, I saw Zliten, I passed Zliten, I hung on, and kept clipping away around 11 min miles.  Something happened though, once I passed the finish line for the second lap, I broke.  It was so FUCKING HOT and I wasn’t quite doing what I needed to do to hit my sub 3 (I needed to be more like 10:20s), and I could barely keep pace, let alone speed it up.  I told myself to get it together, but it didn’t work.  I then decided that if I didn’t feel better by the bridge, I was going to walk.

Dumbest decision ever, because OF COURSE I wasn’t going to feel better, so I “broke the seal”.  I walked.  And from there, all I could manage was powerwalking to a point, then running.  Drinking at aide stations until I felt nauseous, running until I felt overwhelmed and light headed.  Powerwalking, then running.  I couldn’t find a sustainable pace at all.  Zliten passed me again clipping along sloooooowly, and I may have given up and just walked the damn thing in except I decided that he wasn’t going to finish before me.  So I’d run to catch him, then walk.  Run, then walk.

The last aide station had ICE (glorious ice) and I drank a bunch and it lowered my core temp enough to give me some oomph, I walked until my tummy settled, and then I ran the last half-ish mile.  I blew by Zliten, I passed other people, and kept going, and suddenly there was the finish line.

Run: 1:12:20 (12:03 pace – UGH JUST UGH)

Total Time: 3:11:28

Post race:

Once I was through it and they gave me water and I turned around and Zliten was there right behind me and I said “lake” and he said “med tent” (just for ice) and we did those respective things.  We sat in the lake with B and his mom, we ate pizza, and we kinda just ranted about the heat.  I won the swim, Zliten won the bike, B won the run (as normal).  B finished about 6 mins before me, and I finished 6 mins before Zliten.

I wish I had more on that run.  61 mins for the 5.8 miles I tracked is TOTALLY doable for me in a race situation, and that would have gotten me in at 3 hours.  66 mins which should be a WALK IN THE PARK for me would have beat B.  Instead, I just gave up and thank goodness Zliten was there to be my rabbit or I might have done worse.

However, it’s about letting go and moving on.  At Tri Rock in a month, I’ll have lots more experience hanging tough running in the August heat, and there IS actually some shade on that course, so we’ll see.  I have a 3:25 to beat, which shouldn’t be a problem.

Training:

I felt off this week.  Not injured, not sick, but just generally off.  What must be allergies, because it hasn’t gotten better or worse, gave me a scratchy throat, hoarse voice, post nasal drip, and at time general achiness and ickiness to the point I almost went home from work sick on Friday.  I’m still dealing with it, but now that I know its not going to smack me down with the plague hammer, I’m ok with it.  I was TERRIFIED I was going to come down with something that would make me DNS last weekend but I didn’t, so all is well and training can continue as normal.  Hooray!

I skipped Thursday’s run in feels like 100 temps because I didn’t want to exacerbate the issue (if there was an issue), and never made it up so I could rest.  I’m pretty sure that it didn’t hurt me in the grand sceme of things, but man, it sucked turning that box red (workout completely skipped) when I had just put up a post talking about how excited I was that I was turning all the boxes in my spreadsheet green as planned.  Oh well.

The only real highlight of the week was a good hot tempo run on Tuesday, and getting in our 45 miles after work on the trainer on Tuesday watching Green Lantern.  The rest was just time in the pool or saddle.  No breakthroughs (nor should there be the week of a race).

Monday: off
Tuesday: Run: Tempo Lunch Run at the Center… 3.1 mi 00:32 10:24 pace, Bike: Evening Trainer + Green Hornet 45.02 mi 01:51 24.3mph pace
Wednesday: Swim: Laps 1500 m 00:32
Thursday: off (skipped run)
Friday: off
Saturday: Bike: Quick Shakeout 12.31 mi 00:35 21.1mph pace
Sunday: Swim: 1000m Swim w/100m beach run 1000 m 00:24 38:18 pace, Bike: 2 Laps Around Pfluger – (Jack… 25.9 mi 01:31 17.1mph pace, Run: 2 Loops Around Lake PF – Jack… 6 mi 01:12 12:03 pace

Total time: About 6.5 hours total (7 planned)

After last week’s respite, this week goes back up to crazypants hours, and Saturday will cap it off with another “feat of strength”.  Stay tuned for details on that…

Food/Scale:

This week, it really became apparent to me that:

1. Without careful scrutiny – I can really blow it.  Sunday’s 1360 calorie sandwich shows that – I didn’t look at the calorie counts first.  Since I raced an Olympic it wasn’t completely tragic (especially because I had half for lunch and half for dinner), but if I ate that on a normal day, I would have been PISSED at ingesting that much calories and fat, because, while it was good, it wasn’t THAT good.
2. I always say that I eat 90 healthy and 10 other – when I actually quantify that in DQ (diet quality) points… not so much.  Definitely more than 10% “other” lately, and that’s not working for me, so I need to be careful.
3. I’ve also forgotten that some things besides booze, sweets, and refined grains are negative DQ points (fatty meat, high-cal sauces, fried foods, chips, etc).
4. I want to buy a new bike next year and I do not want to be that girl with snazzy new wheels that obviously should have worked on the “engine” first.  Because, yeah, I do not need to spend 2-3k$ when I have TONS of “free speed” from losing fat.

This initiates the new and improved weight loss motivation – called the “buy a bike” clause.  If I say it on the internet, I’ll be accountable, right?  I’m not buying a new bike until I am 150-something lbs.  When people offer me crap, I have a reason to say no, it’s now, “no thanks, I want to buy a bike”.  Over the holidays?  No fruitcake for me, I want to buy a bike.  Now, this doesn’t mean I won’t indulge when I really want to, because I don’t believe in that at all.  However, the random stuff that floats past my nose that I eat just because it’s there or offered to me?  Do I want that more than I want a bike?  Hell no.  So, let’s get on with this buying a bike shit, right?

How I’m going to do this and not crash and burn my training: getting back to really and truly 90/10 eating.  Specifically – track every morsel that goes in my mouth (I’ve gotten lax about, oh, I had two m and ms, that’s not worth tracking).  Add up the DQ score.  The negative points need to be one tenth of the positive points (I know the math isn’t quite exactly 90/10, but it’s close enough to keep track of at a glance).  Starting next week I’ll track positive and negative DQ points instead of just overall.

For example, I’m looking at about 180 DQ points of good food next week.  That means I can have about 18 points of negative stuff.  Considering that’s only 9 drinks or 8 drinks and one desert or 7 drinks, a desert, and some fried food, I had best spend those points wisely and not on crap I don’t want or need.

Here’s last week’s not-s0-90/10-ness:

Monday: 1493 calories, 27 DQ
Tuesday: 1832 calories, 31 DQ
Wednesday: 1493 calories, 27 DQ
Thursday: 1443 calories, 26 DQ
Friday: 1887 calories, 23 DQ
Saturday: 1590 calories, 12 DQ
Sunday: 3246 calories, -6 DQ

Averages: 1854 calories, 20 DQ (for example, this week would have had 164 good DQ points, and 24 bad = 14.6% bad points – and this is only because I counted carb-loading points on Saturday as neither negative nor positive, otherwise it would have been a lot worse).

Weight: Low – 177.2, High – 182.2.  Both up.  No bueno.

All one can do is move forward, with renewed purpose and motivation, and that’s what I’m doing.

Not much else to say this week, it was either resting, racing, or being terrified I was getting sick.

Holy hole in a donut hole, batman, this last month went QUICK.  Let’s get to it.

1. Let’s try again to get to the low 170s.  Right now, 176-178 is the norm.  I’m hoping that it’s more like 172-174 at the end of the month.  I will do this by pre-tracking and logging DQ score all this month.  1500 on lighter training days, 2000 on heavier days, about 1700-1800 average.

Ugh… yeah, no.  I have high hopes for August.  I may need some more heavy handed goals on the QUALITY of food during peak training rather than the quantity.

2. I’ve made a training program through Kerrville.  Give it a second look for sanity to make sure it’s not too ambitious and incorporates in enough recovery, and vet it through the triathlete’s training bible and make sure it has the right dose of speed and force workouts later in the game.  Then, pen it in, strap in, and get ready for some weeks of swim/bike/run/weights (yes, these come back this month!).

Check, check, check.  Now it’s time to turn those boxes green (workout completed as scheduled) and build that fitness and speed.

3. Couples, the goal is to #1 keep my head positive and in the game the entire time #2 get up Carnage without clipping out and walking (should be no problem after last weekend) and #3 run the whole 5k, even that dumb long hill on the back end.  This will probably result in an auto PR, but that is not the primary goal this time, mostly to redeem a really mentally bad race from last year.

Total check – PR, rocked the hill, rocked my headspace, and this was the first race where I felt I was starting to make a real “comeback”, not limping along on minimal training.

4. Be social!  I am intentionally easing up on July’s training a bit so we can do that.  We’re planning on going out, to like, a bar, with friends, twice.  One game night (at least, maybe two).  However, don’t be so social that it gets stressful and we want everyone to go away.  Strike the balance.

Check to all this!  Finally hit that “I’m ready to hole up and not party for a while” just this week, so it’s good timing.

5. Minimize spending as much as possible.  I’m finally able to start putting money into savings again, let’s continue that trend.

It was a financially brutal month until things just turned around YESTERDAY and things weren’t as bad as expected.  Still doing well with the “not spending a lot of money on crap” thing though.

6. Buy cabinet and finish workout room.  This month, it’s gotta be the kitchen.  Clean out the pantry, the fridge, and go through the drawers and do one more pass to see what should go away (we did some for the garage sale, but it was very quick).

Nope.  This one-room-a-month thing is great until race season hits.  The last thing I want to be doing after a long day of weekend training is cleaning shit out.  However, this is a good next goal, so I’ll carry it over until it gets done.

7. I have been eating a lot more desert than I should, I think it’s part of what held back my weight loss this month.  So, starting July 8th, I will be doing ONE, 100-200-ish serving of sweets PER WEEK outside of these things: running/bike fuel, arctic zero, frozen greek yogurt + fruit in food processor, muscle milk + fruit.  Also, perhaps try one of those sunbutter+protein powder cookie recipes floating around the internet.  The idea is to not cut out desert, but move it to healthy, contributing to my DQ score things that taste good too.

I did BETTER at this but I still am having trouble cutting out the bites and “Zliten brought me a few M and Ms” or “I found this random pastry in the fridge and had a few bites” or “someone ordered a cobbler and got lots of spoons to share”.  These things add up.

8.  Back to batch cooking (easy stuff for July 8th week since I’ll be getting a late start, then July 15th on).  Out 3 times a week, max (and 1-2 is preferred).

Check and check.  Been a little less than creative on food lately, but it’s been all good.

9.  Having a sewing project evening/day.  On the docket: mend the stuff that has holes (also iron on the patches for my poor holey pants), make one size small guys shirt into a girl shirt (shorten the waist and the sleeves), make one of the dresses I bought into a skirt, and start the second set of pillowcases.  Not all of this needs to get done, but I need to at least do *something*.

Ugh… no, not at all.  The day I had to do nothing all day at home, I just played video games, which was awesome, but I did not sew.  Maybe next month.

10. Back to body maintenance, since I’ve been really bad about it this week.  At least 3 times a week: foam roll, shockies, stretch my whole body, stretches for my knee.  At least 2x day – ice my knee/butt (until my butt pain goes away).  Heat on knee before morning workouts if needed.

I have been much better about this, and oddly enough, my body is feeling better!  I need to remember HOW much better when I forget to take the 15-20 mins to get a good stretch in and 5-10 mins to get a good foam rolling.  (Full disclosure – I have been icing twice a day, and foam rolling/stretching/leg stretches 2-3x per week.  I have not heated before workouts or used shockies regularly because I haven’t needed to with the other stuff)

11.  Yet again, finish book.  Start next one.

So close!  I’m pretty far through my book but I haven’t had a chance to completely finish it.

12. Change up my shoes at least a few times a week.  The sandals I’ve been wearing constantly for the last two months are starting to have an odor.

Check.  Now that my knee is feeling better, I’ve explored wearing a few different shoes.  I keep looking at my higher heeled wedges and chickening out though. 

13. Quarterly beauty maintenance – pluck brows, do nails, do toenails a different color than turquoise.

Mostly check.  Didn’t polish my nails, but they don’t look unkempt.  Toes are purple and done, and brows are no longer caterpillars.

Let’s move onto August!  Basically, this is the month of hunkering down and going to work.  Race this weekend and then FOUR WEEKS until the next one (so a nice long training block), no trips planned, no real plans, just time to settle in and get ‘er done.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Let’s see how many of these I can hit!  Wish me luck!  What’s your goal for August?

No race for a few weekends means I can actually do a weekly post.  Woohoo!  It was the week of good, bad, and ugly.  Let’s start on the positives and work our way down from there.

The Good – Training

I really nailed this week.  My body took everything I threw at it last week, with my highest volume week yet this year, and was ready for more.  I was really happy with that after dragging it kicking and screaming through the minimal amount of training that seemed halfway reasonable to prepare for BSLT, I’m ready to handle things much better this time.  Instead of the mental fuck which is putting out a training plan, knowing that it is both too little to prepare you for your race and too much for your body to handle, and just trying to hit as much as you can, it’s nice to turn all the boxes green, not have to put in caveats, and say, yep, went as planned.

I had a few days last week where I either mixed up which knee was hurt or realized it was the end of the day and I hadn’t thought about my knee at all.  It’s not 100% twinge free all the time, but this is probably the next step in healing, where it’s just not a factor.  I’m continuing the icing and stretching and all that, but it’s now just as preventative medicine.  I’m really glad about that.

Swim:

While I don’t expect to see much more in the way of gains in the pool this year, I’m really enjoying that I’m cruising in at about 30-33 mins, depending on the day, for 1500m.  In January, it was taking me 30 mins to swim less than 1100.  I’m definitely considering doing a couple weeks of swim focus in the early season next year, because it just seems like when I put myself in the water more and start getting towards that 6-7km per week, my times just drop.

Bike:

Epic biking week over here.  First of all, I did the same volume of training I did last year this week (~135 miles) and instead of crashing and burning, I came out feeling awesome.  I did two long rides – one 50 miler on the trainer, and a 64 miler outside.  The trainer one was just fine, but the outdoor one was GLORIOUS.  I felt amazing through the whole thing, I kept increasing speed (from 15 mph at the beginning to over 16.5 mph at the end), I never got down or felt bad or got too delirious, and for the first time ever, I could fathom going 100 miles.  Piling on the bike miles this month seems to be a good decision.  Also, I’m definitely enjoying doing double bricks and pushing myself fast on the trainer as well.

Run:

Running MILES are taking a backseat this month, but I’m working on intensity.  Another great double brick, where both miles were sub-9s (8:55 and 8:36).  Nice, easy 9 miler, where my HR is finally cooperating.  Not that 11:30s are anything to throw a party over, but the effort in which those 9 miles were done is (decent HR, felt like I could go on forever, even on tired legs).  The mile off the bike on Saturday was great too – 10:30s felt like conversational pace (spent the time yacking with our friend B) and I could have easily run more but B had to go, and then by the time we could have got going again, I was cooled down and we figured we should call it.

Weights:

Back to them.  I’m about at my maintenance weights for the program, not counting the last, heavier set I should be doing.  I’ll probably just stay here for a while – my knee feels stronger because of the lifting, but I don’t want to push it.

By the days…

Monday: Weights: Getting Better + Stretch 01:00, Swim: 50 Laps 1500 m 00:33
Tuesday: Bike: Trainer + Star Wars Ep. VI an… 50 mi 02:16 – 22.1mph pace
Wednesday: Bike: Double Brick: Trainer + Music… 20 mi 00:42 – 28.3mph pace, Run: Double Brick: 1 Mile Loop 2 mi 00:18 08:45 pace, Weights: Samesies 01:00, Swim: Little Sprints 1500 m 00:30
Thursday: Run: Normal Loops + 2222 and Back 9.12 mi 01:45 11:30 pace
Friday: off
Saturday: Bike: Magical Unicorn Ride at the V… 63.77 mi 03:51 16.6mph pace, Run: Little brick 1.02 mi 00:10:42 10:29 pace
Sunday: off

12 hours total.  3000m swim, 134 miles bike, 12 miles run, 2 weights sessions.

This week is taper + Jack’s Generic Olympic, so it will be nice to get some rest and recovery, with only 5 hours of training planned (plus the race).  My goals for this race are:

Swim + transition in under 30.  I hope I will WELL surpass that but the beach run in between the loops is definitely making me nervous (long, rocky, ouchie beach).

Bike – beat 18 mph.  I did 18.1 here for the sprint on a hillier course, I just did 16.6 mph on a much. much longer ride, the course is pretty pancake flat minus about ~5 short hills, so I feel like 18 is in my grasp.  I want to really push this and test my bike legs.  18mph is 1:26 for this 25.8 mile course, so I’d like to beat that.

Run – they advertise 6 miles, but I know the course is a few tenths of a mile short.  I want to do this in under an hour.  I want to just make sure to stay with it and try to push as hard as I can off the bike.  However, this race, since I’m definitely more bike focused this month, I think I would rather burn a little more on the bike this race and if it costs me a few seconds on the run, so be it.  I know I can slog around this perfectly flat trail pretty well even on tired legs.

Folks, that makes about 3 hours allowing for a few mins at T2, so I’m gunning to be at the finish no later than 11:08am.  Also, I start 6 mins after Zliten, so it’s a toss up whether I’ll catch him in the water depending on the day I have, so I may be the rabbit or I may be the chaser on this one.

The bad – Food/Scale

Going from 9 to 12 hours of training on the same amount of food probably wasn’t realistic, but it was worth a try.  I’m ok with being a little hungry (ok, I’m not, but I can at least pretend), but forces within me actually dragged my butt to the kitchen at time to binge on things that could have been better.  Huge, huge hunger crashes.  Next peak week, I just need to prepare for that and plan lots of better good-for-me food (2000 calories is probably the lowest I should go on training days where I do 2+ hours).

I am making zero progress.  The scale is stuck at 177-179.  I’ve not been diligent about food tracking during peak training, like, ever, so I’m not sure whether it’s that I keep fucking up, or whether my body is just totally being resistant, or what, but it’s frustrating.  July had a lot of social stuff, and that always throws me for a loop nutrition-wise, but August so far just looks like a nice solid block of training and being hermit-like.  And I’m very ok with that.

Best (worst) thing I ate this week: a club sandwich on a fried donut, with homemade potato chips and fried brussel sprouts.

I’d say that could potentially be a reason I’m not making progress, but I feel like one meal like that on a week where I did over 12 hours of training is justified.  The rest of the week was my normal 90/10, but just more calories of it.  All I can do is keep plugging along.  This week’s goal is good food, back to normal levels since I’m training less, and no junk.

Monday: 1448 calories, 27 DQ
Tuesday: 1947 calories, 28 DQ
Wednesday: 2164 calories, 27 DQ
Thursday: 2732 calories, 23 DQ
Friday: 1679 calories, 22 DQ
Saturday: 2729 calories, -2 DQ
Sunday: 2163 calories, 5 DQ

Averages: 2123 calories, 18.5 DQ (wow, that’s really, really terrible for me)

Weight: Low – 176.0, High – 179.6

The quality of the weekend was bad, but if you keep in mind that on Tuesday, I rode 50 miles, Wednesday, I rode 20, ran 2, swam a mile, and did weights, Thursday I ran 9 miles, and Saturday, I rode my bike for 4 hours and then ran, these calorie counts are probably not the end of the world.  I just need to detox from eating 3 different fried foods yesterday, and hopefully I’ll make some progress this week.

The Ugly – EVERYTHING IS BREAKING

While my body is holding together, my things are falling apart.  Here are my tales of woe from the last few weeks:

• Someone backed into my car and left a number.  Too bad it was a fake number – so guess who’s left paying 600$ to fix my bumper.  Yep, it’s this gal.
• My laptop’s broken and we’re waiting on the part.  At least this one is covered by warranty.
• Zliten’s tablet randomly stopped working.  It just won’t charge.
• Zliten’s root canal also is costing about an arm and a leg because of insurance maximums being hit already this year.
• The tree in our neighbor’s yard got hit by lightning.  While this one could have been WAY WAY WAY worse, it knocked out power for 15 hours because it broke the converter (we had porcelain and tree refuse all over our front and back yard), and when the power came back on, we found that the TV in the bedroom was fried.  We just got a new one yesterday, and the 32 inchers looked so tiny, we got a 39 inch, and now it’s like our own movie theatre in the bedroom!
• I would insert bitching about the smartest mouse in the world living in our house that we just can’t catch, but we totally nabbed him at lunch yesterday.  Fucker.  Score one for team human!

I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting things, but it’s been a rough July.  Hopefully August will be better.  I have things I want to buy that are NOT replacing broken stuff and dental work, thank you very much.

The Else – Time to Go Into A Hole

I spent July being pretty social and doing stuff with lots of different people.  For example, last weekend, we hung out with 4 different sets of friends in 2 days.  We got to catch up with a few more the weekend before. It was great, but I’m exhauuuuusted.  Drinking that much beer and eating donut sandwiches is hard work!

I feel pretty fulfilled socially and frankly, I’m ready to go into a little training hole.  If y’all want to hang out, let’s do it on a run, bike, or swim, mmmkay?  Or food after, where I stuff my face with at least twice what’s appropriate in polite company and then go to sleep.  I need to just really focus on getting good rest and recovery because I’m going to be putting myself through a lot in August.  I’m sure in a few weeks, I’ll be wanting to see people again, but for now, I’m really cool with doing stuff around the house for a bit and keeping up with people’s lives through facebook and such.

August is going to be about training and sleeping a lot and eating all the good things.  So much of this.

Question of the week: what’s the best thing you ate last week (best is subjective)?

Not having a working laptop is both terrible and wonderful.  Terrible, because I am going to type up a really quick post here and not spend much time on it because I can’t do it at home, and I really wanted to play my game this weekend (probably ONLY because I couldn’t, but still).  Wonderful, because I have unplugged a little bit since it’s annoying to do all that much from my tablet internet-wise, and I played a lot of other people’s games this weekend.

However, I’ve got two weeks to recap, so let’s git.

Training:

Week 27 was the pre-week kick off for training block #2 this year.  It was more of a gentle return to routine – I didn’t want to hit it 100% hard after the two extremes of BSLT racing, and then a full week completely off, doing no more cardio than thrift shopping.  I did a little bit of biking on the trainer, which felt good, especially because we have our new resistance controls that make adjustment ON THE BIKE possible (I know, should have spent that money 2 years ago, but better late than never).  I did (really light – less than half of 1 rep max) weights once.  I ran a pretty solid 5 mile run in clouds and drizzles that felt magical.  I swam really fast.  It’s amazing what happens when your body is completely rested.

I even think being that rested helped me race better at Couples.  I was able to keep my brain positive, and it wasn’t worn out from suffering through a lot of hard workouts, it was like, ok, we can do this.  My FITNESS was pretty low but my brain was into it.

Monday: off
Tuesday: Bike: Trainer Hill Workout + Starga… 22 mi 01:00
Wednesday: Weights: gym weights + stretching 00:45, Swim: Pool laps 1650 m 00:33
Thursday: Run: Neighborhood Loops 5 mi 00:56
Friday: off
Saturday: Bike: easy spin + quicksilver 16 mi 00:45
Sunday: Swim: Couples Tri Swim 800 m 00:19, Bike: Couples Tri Bike 11.2 mi 00:42, Couples Tri Run 3.1 mi 00:34

5.5 hours total, 49 miles biked, 8 miles ran, 2450m swam, 1 weights session

Week 28 was about 80% of insan-o levels.  Two weights sessions, slowly working my way back from barbie weights to real heavy things.  On the bike, we did a 45 miler trainer (aiming to start the process of a long bike ride most weeks so a 56 mile tour de Kerrville is not such a shock to the system), and two short, speedy 10 milers for double bricks the next day (followed by a 1 mile run).  Looking at last year’s bike mileage, I did not ride nearly enough, inside or outside, so I’m hoping to change that with quite a few 100 mile+ weeks and lots of 45+ days.

I got a little bit of my run mojo back.  The double brick 1 milers conjured up some speed I didn’t know I had – the first was 9 minutes flat, the second was 8:40.  I’m not entirely sure I’ve run an 8:40 mile at any time this year, but certainly not after 20 miles of hard riding and a pretty fast first mile.  The next day, I ran 7 – it was hot, my legs were tired, and I had to run slower than I wanted to keep my heart rate from blowing up, but I got through it, and it was a good easy run, staying in zone 2.  After the epic swim on Saturday, I did a 5k in the 90 degree mid-day heat in no shade, and while I didn’t track HR, I felt pretty strong even in the heat and on tired legs.

Swam twice this week, meant to swim 3 times but this was the one session I missed.  Oh well.  The weekday swim was uneventful, but the weekend swim at Pflugerville was definitely of note – it was my first Iron distance swim (2.45 miles to be exact – so .05 more) and I did it in under 2 hours!  This was 10 laps around the Lake Pflugerville buoys.  The first four laps were uneventful.  Lap 5 and 6 were a little soul sucking, because it was that no mans land where I’m swimming further than normal, but I still have a lot to go.  I got a little brain foggy then, lost my form, got sloooow, and got a little down.

Then, lap 7, I picked it up because “I only had an Olympic swim to go”.  I build speed again, had better form, and rounded the last buoy of lap 9 and headed out to shore.  I waited a bit for Zliten, I chilled, and then when I saw him go for another lap, I got my garmin out of my waterproof safe swimmer – I still had .3 of a mile to go!  D’oh!  I made quick work of that one and ended up with 2.45 miles in 1:58.  While I still certainly need to get better at that, pretty impressed that I’m 22 mins under the Ironman cutoff (you have to complete your swim in 2 hours and 20 mins) without any training!

Monday: Weights: Weights + Stretch 00:45
Tuesday: Bike: Trainer + Star Wars Episode V… 45 mi 02:01
Wednesday: Bike: Double Brick: Bike 19.18 mi 40min, Run: Double Brick: Run 2 mi 17:40min, Weights: The ush… 01:00, Swim: Gym laps 1080 m 00:22
Thursday: Slow + Steady + Strong 7 mi 01:22
Friday: off
Saturday: Swim: Iron Distance at Lake Pf 3950 m 01:58, Sweaty 5k at Lake Pf 3.1 mi 36min
Sunday: off

9 hours total, 65 miles biked, 12 miles ran, 5000m swam, 2 weights sessions

Food/Scale:

July is frustrating, but I did it to myself.  June’s 3 races of carb-loading (and probably subsequent body abuse) and a little less attention to detail in this area, and then a week off + less quality food while family was in town = back to what seems to be a setpoint for me at 177-178.  See, I now KNOW that it takes my body 3-4 weeks to respond to what I’m doing to it once it gets in a state of confusion (read: hungry ALL THE TIME), and it just takes patience.  Still doesn’t make it any better when I’m going to bed hungry and the scale doesn’t change.

Again, disclaimer for the people who may be happening upon this without a lot of background – don’t try this at home.  My body is not your body.  For most people, 90% healthy food consumed to their appetite works to effortlessly bring them down to a healthy, optimal weight.  Not me.  Once I get the weight loss going, it seems to be that way, but once I get stuck, I really, really have to get to the point where I’m angry-hungry for a few weeks until the lbs start rolling off, and then I can resume being a human for a while.

I tried giving up grains, I tried low carb, I tried low salt (probably the worst I’ve felt in a long time), I’ve tried super protein… all these things make me feel is heavy and gross and weak and angry and tired.  I worked with a nutritionist for a year who I love for introducing me to the concept of quality food (organics, etc), but she cycled through all these types of things and I ended up putting weight ON.  My body seems to thrive on a super healthy vegetarian’s diet who eats meat once a day (or twice in smaller quantities).  Chicken and a salad shuts my brain off and my tummy feels heavy all day.  A salad with a small bit of chicken, beans, cheese, and veggies rolled up in a whole grain wrap with more veggies on the side?  Brain up, awake, and body feels light and happy.

Even with this diatribe, my calorie counts are not super low for the amount of activity.  This week though, I’ll be training full capacity and attempting to not increase calories at all (of course, there is a level of hunger that is stupid, and I’ll go eat something healthy to shut my stomach up, and I will not be skimping on calories before, during, and after workouts), and keep that DQ score through the roof.  Hopefully this is the jump start needed to get on with my 15 lbs to Kerrville initiative.

Week 27:

Monday: 1887 calories, 16 DQ
Tuesday: 1654 calories, 29 DQ
Wednesday: 1442 calories, 26 DQ
Thursday: 2107 calories, 26 DQ
Friday: 1622 calories, 25 DQ
Saturday: oops.  Guessing about 1700 calories, ~15 DQ
Sunday: oops.  Guessing about 2500 calories, ~3 DQ

Averages: 1844 calories, 20 DQ

Weight: Low – 177.4, High – 179.4

Week 28:

Monday: 1685 calories, 28 DQ
Tuesday: 1781 calories, 28 DQ
Wednesday: 1890 calories, 25 DQ
Thursday: 2281 calories, 18 DQ
Friday: 1724 calories, 22 DQ
Saturday: 2336 calories, 4 DQ
Sunday: 1440 calories, 25 DQ

Averages: 1876 calories, 21.5 DQ

Weight: Low – 175.8, High – 179.2

The low weight is moving, but the bounce back is about the same.  Bugger.  This week, I’ll add 2 more hours of training, and attempt to keep the calories around 1800 average.  Stay tuned!

Other stuff:

We went out, with people, to a brew pub and had dinner and beers.  I wore clothes – a dress even – and makeup and such.  It was a lot of fun to catch up with some of our friends.  I need to remember that we need some outside social interaction and not just drink on the patio (or at the very least, invite friends over to drink on the patio) and wear real clothes on a Saturday night (not pajamas or spandex) every once in a while.

As I eluded to above, my laptop keyboard is toast.  The shift key on the left won’t unstick, so it’s stuck on.  This sounds less tragic than it is, as I can’t make numbers, periods, or anything, so I’ve just been using my tablet while it gets fixed.  It IS under warranty through American Express (yay), so it shouldn’t cost anything, but I’m waiting right now for the approval and the parts to come in.  We took it first to Best Buy as we weren’t sure if we got the insurance on it (we didn’t), and they said they’d charge a 35$ non refundable fee before it even gets looked at, and they had to ship it off to another state, and it would be minimum 2-3 weeks.  We then went to the shop down the street, they said it would be ~50$ in labor, part at cost, and it would take an hour or two once they had the part.  We will be going with the local shop. 🙂

If you are into that type of thing (big giant robot smash crazy alien monsters) – GO SEE PACIFIC RIM.  It was a lot of fun, thoroughly mesmerizing, and made me smile on the edge of my seat the whole time.  First movie in a long long long time I’ve seen on opening weekend and it was totally worth it.

We did get to game not last Thursday, but the one before.  We took over a pirate ship and found ourselves 400+years in the past and snuck past creepy fish monsters chanting in an uber creepy basement. There was one super spooky part where our GM reached out and touched my arm to demonstrate something and it made me shriek and jump.  Fun stuff.

Other gaming related stuff – I’m really making progress getting further along in my own game.  I also spent a lot of the weekend playing Secret of Monkey Island (the Telltale Adventure Game).  It’s cute, it’s fun, it takes no reflexes, and it’s my kind of game right now.  I got through episode 2, 3, and most (I think) of 4 until I started getting crabby and realized I had played for 9 hours already.  Next on the docket is the Telltale Walking Dead games, which are supposed to be AWESOME but much less fun and cute.  We’ll see when I feel like I’m ready for those.  This gaming was at the cost of getting any sewing done, but I’m going to haul out my table to the front room this week so I can sew and TV (at least listen) at the same time.

I’m pretty sure everyone has seen this, but if you haven’t… well… lots of this.  The Oatmeal – Why I Run.

And with that, I’m out.

Question: what’s the last movie you saw in the theatre?

Holy crap, it feels like it’s been FOREVER since BSLT, but a week and 3 days ago I was laying in bed with a beer and mac and cheese, celebrating finishing the toughest day of triathlon yet.  The pain (both the muscle soreness and the mental pain of that sloggy run) has faded and now I’m ready to kick off the second half of the season!  And, oh yeah, I have a race this weekend that I keep forgetting about.

However, let’s recap the last two weeks first, shall we? (I’ll just leave this one right here from Independence day.  I’m totally festive, but what is with that pose and OMG THE TRI TAN).

Training:

This one will be pretty easy – besides the race, which I’ve covered in about 5 billion words here, was a lot of jack and shit.

Monday before the race, I swam about a mile in a little over 30 mins.

Tuesday and Thursday before the race, I did a quick 10 mile trainer in 30 mins in the morning, and at lunch, I ran 5k outdoors in ~95 degree temps in approximately 35 mins each time.

That’s it, that’s all, unless you count shopping as cardio (which I totally do when it’s 4 hours in the thrift store, Macklemore would be proud…).  I felt as prepared as possible for the race, the extra little bit of rest that week (skipped a swim) didn’t do me badly, and while I would have loved to not have been starting from zero run fitness and zero point five percent bike fitness 6 weeks out of my first big race of the year, I could have accomplished nothing by jam packing that six weeks any fuller than I did.  Also, the week off hasn’t taken away all my creakies, but I’m in much better condition than I was, and I think a gradual reintroduction to miles will help shake some of that rust off.

I’ve got a good idea of what needs to change the second half of this season.  Goal #1 is to get 100% absolutely comfortable in the saddle knocking out 50-60 mile bike rides (both trainer and outdoor).  Running 10-13 miles is not a thing to me, generally (right now my run fitness is more on the 10 miles is the edge of my comfort zone, but that should resolve itself soon).  Riding 50 miles is something I have done not that many times.  Once I get better at that long bike ride, I’ll get off the bike less wasted.  I’m good at running on tired legs, but it’s been an incredible shock to my system how long 56 miles on race day really is for me.

Food:

I have eaten a lot of not-so-normal things over the last few weeks.  Some have been intentional, some haven’t.  I’ll divide this into 3 categories:

6/24-6/27 – ate like a normal, healthy Quix.

6/28-7/1 – ate more refined carbs, less fruits/veggies/etc to prepare for the race, or refeed after the race

7/2 – 7/7 – did what I could to eat healthy, but we had family staying with us and the biggest compromise we could do to satisfy all eaters was to go out every meal.  Calorie counts were totally fine.  Diet quality was not so great, but it is what it is.

By the numbers…

6/24 – 6/30

Monday: 26 DQ, 1351 calories
Tuesday: 25 DQ, 1705 calories
Wednesday: 26 DQ, 1590 calories
Thursday: 29 DQ, 1606 calories
Friday: 16 DQ, 1750 calories
Saturday: did not track (mac and cheese and club sandwiches, oh my)
Sunday: did not track (about ~1000 calories of cliff blox and bars, and then whatever I felt like shoving in my face including a sonic burger and tots and more mac and cheese)

7/1 – 7/7

Monday: did not track (bbq and beer and random foods)
Tuesday:  1219 calories, 18 DQ
Wednesday: 1526 calories, 22 DQ
Thursday: 1795 calories, 9 DQ
Friday: 1560 calories, 21 DQ
Saturday: 1896 calories, 18 DQ
Sunday: 1515 calories, 11 DQ

I’m not certain it’s really worth it to do an average on week 1, but for week 2:

1585 calories average (this looks awesome, but keep in mind I had zerrrrooooo training… my appetite was just about nil all week)

16.5 DQ average

Weight range week 1:  176.0 (low) – 179.0 (high) (riding that crazy crimson rollercoaster or this might be lower)

Weight range week 2: 176.4 (low) – 183.4 (high) (hey look at all that water weight I put on racing and lost real quick but haven’t made any progress because of all those chips and ice cream and stuff)

Three races in 30 days wreaked havoc on any sort of progress in June (two of them travel trips and carb loading), and I’m very excited that all I have to contend with in July is one measly little sprint tri this weekend which just means not cutting calories the day before, and only an hour and a half of racing to eat and beer back after.  Right now, I am, as they say, full of shit.  Literally.  My body got used to the crappy food last week.  Healthy food goes in, nothing comes out this week.  I’m hoping it resolves itself soon or I’ll have to take little chocolate steps to do it myself.

After the crazy-fest which was racing every 5 seconds, traveling, and family events, I’m ready to just go to work on eating good food and just enough of it to sustain training.  I’m done with deserts and fried food and crappy bread.  I have a few social occasions planned this month but outside of those 2-3 specific meals, I’m all over getting back to my Quix-itarian diet, y’know, the one that seemed to be working at taking off the coveted “elle bees” this spring.

Couples Tri:

This one is cool because you get to start in the same wave as your partner (hi Zliten!).  Last year, we stuck together.  It was AWFUL.  We train well together, but we drag each other down in races.  We will start together, and if we end up together, awesome, but we’re not waiting for each other at any point during the race.

I’m at such a different point in the season than I was last year.  In 2012, I had just begun to really load myself up with training volume and was at the beginning of being really burnt out.  This year, I’m coming off a week of rest, just starting the second half of this cycle, so I’m totally rarin’ to go, if not just a little rusty.  I’ll take head on straight and rested any day of the year though…

My goals for Couples:

• Swim in the same zone where I felt at Pfluger.  It’s my last sprint swim, let’s go hard!
• Bike fast, and with the confidence I felt at BSLT.  Carnage is not a thing compared to that switchback at mile 35, but just to state the obvious, not getting off the bike and walking up that stupid hill.
• Run smart.  Keep as fast a pace as possible while keeping my knee happy.  Run up that dumb ass hill instead of getting all pissy and walking up it like last year.
• Keep my head in the game at all moments.
• Beat Zliten – if I can.  We will be racing head to head this time…
• A Couples PR would be nice, but if I put together all the other goals and it doesn’t result in a PR, that’s ok too.
• Stick around for awards.  Hey, you never know!
• We’re planning on hitting a brunch buffet after.  Last goal is to not completely pig the hell out…

(This is how we do the 4th of July in Texas, y’all)

Other Stuff:

We helped catch a shoplifter coming out of Nordstrom’s Rack as we were coming out of Whole Food.  This girl screamed at someone to “Leave her the fuck alone” and ran away, so we told the police officer in WF that something was going on.  By the time we got to the car, we saw her hiding in a car and the guy that she ran away from had a badge.  We pulled out and actually blocked her in so they caught her.  Brings new meaning to “It’s getting real in the Whole Foods parking lot“.

We had a work event at a place called Top Golf, and I’m dying to go back.  It’s essentially set up like bowling lanes.  You get up to the tee, a ball comes out, you hit it out onto the grass, which is set up with a bunch of targets, and each ball has a chip in it, so it tallies up your score.  We only got to do it once (because we’re nerds and also played a board game), but I totally TROUNCED Zliten 70 points to 29 (just in case I don’t win this weekend, I can throw this one in his face :D).

Lots of family time last week.  We got to be real people!  We played cards many, many times.  We saw Monsters University.  We walked around Georgetown’s cute little downtown area.  We went thrift shopping and I got a billion new things!  They asked, and I contemplated, if it felt weird not training.  It sorta did, but in that way where it sorta feels weird to be on vacation on a work day.  Knowing that it was an intentional choice (not forced because of an injury) and that I’d be back to it next week made it incredibly pleasant, and I’m totally ready to attack the summer of training because of it.

If you see Halo Top Creamery’s ice cream (70 calories a serving), it’s actually just frickin amazing.  Whereas Arctic Zero is good for something completely healthy to kill that “i want something frozen” itch for almost no calories, it is not super sweet and it is not creamy.  This stuff just tastes like ice cream, and has milk and sugar, but it’s all organic and quite a few less calories than even the light ice creams you see (120 calories for Slow Churned, etc).  The lemon cake flavor is to die for, and the chocolate is nothing to sneeze at either!

That’s about it for the 2 week wrap up.  I’ll be back to recap Couples soon!  Like, in 3.5 days when I race it.  Still hasn’t set in that I race this weekend, but off to see if I remember how to swim (likely) and lift weights (unlikely).

Question of the week: what did you do for 4th of July OR what was the most exciting thing that happened to you last week?