Adjusted Reality

The last week has been interesting.  I started with WIDE! EYED! OPTIMISM! ready to change my world ONE MEAL AT A TIME and I was gung ho and dedicated and excited with shiny new guidelines and pen and paper food journaling and no calorie counts.

A week has passed now, and I can report:

-Energy levels – WAY up.  I can chalk it up to the second week on the stupid early morning schedule, or workout fueling, but I am no longer a puddle of worthless after 4-5pm.  I even had a wee bit of trouble sleeping on Monday night for 30-60 mins.  I definitely have a lot more in the tank.  I increased my long run to 7 miles this week and short bike to 45 mins (14 miles) and don’t feel NEARLY as beat as I did last week with less.

-I can get down with this method of snacking, fueling, and breakfasting.  This works in my life.  The lack of GNAWING hunger ever is a pretty good trade off with eating good foods.  Not coming to work and wanting to eat my desk after a run and being able to chew through as many snacks as I want without guilt is just *bliss*.  I slipped up on snacks on these occasions: 4-5 ruffles chips, 1/2 serving of ramen, 2 squares of chocolate, a few pita chips.  All but one chocolate were Zliten handing me food.  I guess I should get better at saying no.  Hmmm…

Now that the wide eyed enthusiasm has worn off, it’s time to HUNKER DOWN.  Three weeks from now, when it’s old news, I need to remember why this all matters.  It’s time to dig in my heels, follow the program, and channel all the patience and power I have to get on the bus and keep it rolling.  It’s that second month of half marathon training when it’s no longer NEW and EXCITING, and not near enough to the race to get excited about that, you just have to get out there, and put in the miles, even if it sounds like the least exciting thing in the world.

This week’s lesson at the nutritionist – controlling blood sugar.

She started with a weight watchers story.  One lady she was seeing had been doing WW and strictly stuck to the program, and was not losing any weight.  When asked what she ate, she said 2 points for breakfast, 2 for lunch, and 28 for dinner.  Elaborating – she ate a 90 calorie lemon cake (with 30 grams of sugar) for breakfast, the same for lunch, and then went WILD at dinner.  Stuck to the point count, but ate no quality food.  Obviously, this is an extreme, but I know I’ve had pretty shitty nutrient weeks but just kept it in calorie range.

She has this cheesy picture of a happy girl surrounded by fruit, veggies, milk, nuts, brown rice, beans, fish, and chicken, and an unhappy girl surrounded by hostess and nestle’s finest. 🙂  The happy girl has blood sugar that is even and her cells are working normally.  The unhappy girl has too much sugar in her blood, which means the cells aren’t taking in enough nutrients, and excess blood sugar leads to bad things like heart disease and diabetes and the world being dominated by small ant creatures – in other words, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together, etc etc.

When you have a lot of blood sugar, your body releases a lot of insulin.  Insulin is the number 1 producing fat hormone because it increases adipose.  So the fatty meats and simple sugars make your blood sugar spike, making the cells not function properly and take in the right things, and they become inflamed and inefficient.  Constant abuse can lead to tumor growth, heart disease, diabetes, and mass hysteria as above.

She is very happy with my breakfast, fueling, and snacking, and that I’ve been so ok with letting go of the calorie counting.  I slip a lot and say calories, but I’m more trying to convey size than value.  And to be honest, if I don’t have a daily goal for calories, 150 calories means nothing to me.  It’s really freeing!

Alternatively, I said that I found my tendency to snack has gone UP.  I recounted one day where I ate like a crap ton of beef jerky because I was just HUNGRY expecting to get the “eh, well, that’s a little much”, and she said “and you ate it, your blood sugar didn’t go up, and you went on with your day.  Awesome.”

I’m not sure I buy in 100% that keeping my blood sugar even will be the silver bullet, but I’ll go with it.  It makes sense that it has a part to it, I just feel odd without a quantity limit, like I can do myself in there.

But, it’s definitely something different.  I need different because obviously nothing “same” is working. 😛

My mission, if I choose to accept it, is to work on these 3 things:

1.  Considering my blood sugar each time I eat.  Is what I’m putting in my mouth going to have no effect (protein, fats), a small, reasonable effect (veggies, fruits, beans), a larger, but still reasonable effect in moderation (potatoes, unprocessed grains like brown rice, barley, quinoa, etc), or will spike it (white bread, pasta, sugar, anything with flour).

2.  Reducing the number of grains.  Each meal, I’m supposed to have about half of what I normally would.  If I’d normally have a cup of rice, have half a cup.  If I’d have a sandwich with two slices of bread, eat it open faced.  I am to replace with beans, nuts, or extra veggies/fruit to hunger.

3.  Single Ingredients.  I’m *pretty* decent about this, but I am to focus on putting together meals that either come from single ingredients, or if packaged, have less than 8 (give or take – if it’s got 10 good quality ingredients, then sure, if it has 5 crappy, then no, but as a general rule).  Half my cart is normally produce anyway, but it will be an interesting reality check when I go shopping this week and check out all my normal foodstuffs.

It will be interesting.  A challenge for sure, but I’m up for it.  While it’s not as hard as that cleanse, it’s definitely more challenging than counting calories.  If anyone has some damn fine barley, quinoa, or bean recipes, I’d love to hear ’em!!!

Chugga Chugga Chooo Chooo (Here comes the train-ing):

I’ve also noticed that my training lately befits an Olympic tri (20+ mile rides, 10k+ runs).  I’m extending the run to prep for the See Jane Run half, but also the theory/strategy if I’m used to long runs in the heat, a 5k will be easy peasy (of course, with some major short speedwork closer to the race so I don’t forget how).  I want to get some quality bike miles in while it’s warm enough (last year I pretty much put the bike away Oct – March, cold wind is not my buddy) and we have lofty goals of a century (100 miles) in the first half of next year.  I think getting to 50 before I have to retreat to the stationary for good is a good start.  I have 30 on the plan this weekend.

…but this makes me think.  I can probably PR an Olympic this year with my eyes closed if I continue to heat train.  Mebbe I finds a race and wing it.  If Zliten won’t kill me too much since I said I was staying short this year.

There are two reasons I wanted to stay short – #1 so I can train with Zliten, and #2 because I was afraid of gaining more with distances (since that’s what’s been going down lately).  Well, #2 is out the window since I’m on this new program, and #1?  Getting up in the morning is way less impactful to get in the long runs/bricks, the swim portion is 30-60 mins max and not anything I’m worried about, and he’s down with the long bikes together.

Definitely a consideration… or maybe I just enjoy long runs and bikes for the sake of just base building and actually getting out and enjoying the summer this year for the first time instead of retreating to the gym for 3-4 months.

So, any good recipes? Olympic tri or stick with sprints?  Think my lady person is sane or crazy for trying to make me go low grain?

Mid-first week observations:

-Holy cow, so much more energy with honeymilk pre and post workouts!  I accidentally got the regular, not the light, but I halved my breakfast to compensate.  Still felt WAY full.  This is amazing.  Workout fuel that isn’t breakfast – who knew?

-Stevia drops are THA BOMB. Four in my yogurt and two in my La Croix (it made SODA!!!) this morning and I have no use for honey anymore.

-Made my first protein smoothie ever on Saturday.  1 scoop whey protein (vanilla), 3/4 banana, 1 cup frozen cherries, 1 tbsp better ‘n pb (and ice and a little water).  It took me an HOUR to down my concoction and I was so friggin full.  These will probably make an appearance every once in a while.  I DID miss the mastication – so it won’t be every day, but it was a nice change.

-I like all my snacks, I’ve stuck to them for the most part (minus 5 chips one day, and a 1:30am drinking ramen slipup).  I miss pretzels, but being able to have string cheese, almonds, or jerky any time I want is pretty sweet.

-Interested in what will be on the lunch and dinner good list next week.  If it’s just protein and veggies, I’m going to cry.  I’ve been trying to think of carbs that are not grains and so far I’ve thought of potatoes, beans, and corn tortillas.  I can probably get down with more of that action.  We’ll see what happens.

-Not necessarily related to food, but I’m actually really enjoying the 7am wakeups.  Ok, not the actual wakeups (that sucks) but the rest of the day after.  It’s nice to get the workouts done in the morning, and the earlier, the cooler it is.  75 is much different than 82-85.  I’m going to try to go for the same schedule next week (Mon: 45 mins bike hills and crunchtime – this will be my only PM, Tues: 7 miles AM, Wed: 45 mins full body weights, 30 mins swim, Thurs: off, Fri: 45 mins of sprints at the track, and Sat: 30 mile bike ride).

Since I don’t have all that much to talk about right now, and this weekend was pretty much blissfully boring (read: relaxing), let me share some pictures of weekends past that I’ve been meaning to share.

Keep Austin Weird 5k (6/25):

Pretty sweet shirt… did the kids L trick, it’s a *wee* bit small.  Hoping it’s comfy soon.  Go go new nutrition plan!

We biked down (10 miles, added to the 10 miles that morning), and then walked around the festival.  This puppy was definitely weird and awesome!

This is about the weirdest we could get upon short notice.  And getting there in 95 degree weather on a bike.

Zliten is pretty weird to begin with, so he didn’t have far to go! 🙂

About half a mile in, there was a wine stop.  I got chardonnay.  It seemed to pair well with walking on a 95 and humid day better than red.

Then vodka and lemonade stop.  Who needs sport-aid type stuff?  There was also an ice cream stop, and a pizza stop, but they ran out of pizza by the time we got there.  Bummer!  We were pretty starving by then!

In just under 1 hour, we crossed the finish.  I think we jogged about .05 of a mile just to do it and then stopped.  SLOWEST 5k EVAR!!! 🙂  We then grabbed our bikes, left, tried to catch the bus (we do not yet have the proper night lights), bus didn’t come for over an hour, called a cab, bus FINALLY came but we were half a block down from the stop, cab never came, so we walked our bikes to a bar a few blocks away and grabbed dinner.  We finally ended up calling a friend who went to our house, grabbed our bike rack, drove down, got us and our bikes, and brought us home around 2am.  Sigh.  Transportation fail, but a fun adventure!  The only two bus fails we’ve had have both been at THAT corner, so I think next time we’ll just try to hop the bus elsewhere even if it’s a little further.  Or… just get the night lights.

The next day, after doing a small amount of work and recovering from a bit of a hangover, we headed to the Dell Diamond and took in a Round Rock Express game!  Here’s me sporting the hat we got for a dollar last year from spinning the wheel 0 prizes.  It was good fun, and lots of yummy munching on ballgame food (chili cheese fries and chicken strips were dinner, oops).  The Express won 14-2, so it was honestly kind of a boring game, but it was good times anyway.

Fast forward two weekends, and we went to see Judah Friedlander (from 30 Rock) at Cap City.  Man oh man, he was funny.  I had no idea what to expect, I figured self depricating geek humor, but no… just the opposite.  He is the World Champion (of what?  uh… of the World, hello…) and just played off the audience.  You ride a bicycle?  I rode one AROUND THE WORLD.  In 5 hours.  Yeah.  Good times!  Here is where he was knocking Zliten out.

He, however, did not beat me up.  Which was nice.

This week, Zliten worked a lot of hours.  The leezard missed him.  Here is some cuddle time!

And this is where I’ve been spending my Friday mornings.

That’s all.  I’ll check in later this week!

So, my first appointment was today.

I was NERVOUS.  Weird, right?  I figured she was either going to tell me I was eating perfect and I should be losing weight OR that everything I ate was wrong and I need to eat everything different.  Or that she was going to tell me to eat babies.  Just playing out the worst case scenarios in my head.  The game of “what if”, so to speak.

It was neither, of course.  I’m a little nervous about what the plan is, but actually excited, and the most important thing is it makes sense.

The first thing we went over is the drinking and smoking.  I talked about how I only smoke socially with a drink, and that the idea of smokes when I’m sober is revolting, but I also very much freak out at the idea of never smoking again.  I also made sure that she knew I was willing to give up some things, but my once a week night out/in having drinks was not one of them.  She understood.

Then, we discussed my workout schedule.  She was happy with the amount and quality of them (especially when I mentioned that this is kinda base and it gets crazy from here), and she simply asked that I try to stay consistent and do my workouts in the mornings for the time being while we play with my dietary intake.  It’s what I’ve generally been doing, so no biggie.

We discussed calories in, calories out.  She said that sure, it had worked for me before because it was such a drastic shift to the healthy (eating less amounts of crap is better than eating more amounts of crap), but when you get to a point where you’re trying to take off very little weight like I am, it just doesn’t hold true any more.  She said calories are not even anything for me to think about.  Freeeeeedom!  She said later, we’d discuss where to splurge and where to hold firm after we’ve established what I *should* be doing, so I’m interested.

We discussed this week’s dietary changes.

#1 Pre-post workout fuel.  I MUST eat or drink one of these things immediately before and after my workout (half before, half after): 16 oz milk, 1 bottle of honeymilk light, or 1 cup of yogurt.

#2 Breakfast.  Continue with what I’m doing with some small changes. (Always be at or over 12-15g protein)

a) Stick with my fage, fruit, oats, and honey concoction, but switch to liquid stevia from a dropper.  She swore up and down that this sort of stevia is basically just a plant oil, and wouldn’t go against my “no artificial sweetner” rule.

b) To change it up occasionally, I can have my turkey sausage, cheese, and sprouted grain english muffin, but only have half the muffin and extra turkey sausage to make sure I’m at least at 15g.

c) Try a whey protein smoothie – whey protien, a banana, some extra fruit, and some pb.

d) Protein bars as a major major last minute backup (e.g. this would be better than no breakfast within 45 mins)

Also, for now, make sure to ALWAYS eat breakfast like this, even on the weekend.  No “saving calories” for a bigger lunch.  Because… I’m no longer counting calories.

#3 Snacks

She mostly liked what I was doing but told me to cut out the pretzel/chip crap and use this handy/dandy list of things that I have already been eating most of the time anyway:

veggies+hummus (or tzatziki)
string cheese
almonds
whole fruit
veggies
beef jerky
turkey pepperoni
edamame + sea salt* (not something I’ve been eating but a new suggestion)

Again, with the permission to eat any of these in any amounts that I want, I don’t see a problem.  Yeah, I pretty much did a happy dance here too.  The only thing that she asked was to watch the nuts and stick to one serving.

So yeah, snack when I’m hungry, more fuel in the morning.  I’m pretty happy with this.

However, she warned me.  She wanted to SEVERELY reduce my grains.  I kinda felt like this…

I protested, and she said that she wasn’t going to eliminate CARBS, but grains.  I still protested (I seriously think that I will DRAG ASS all day and feel awful), but then she taunted me with this:

If I can stick with the plan, she thinks I can probably take the weight off within 3 months, and by then it will feel normal.  She said 8 weeks, but I’m going to say 3 months and be pleasantly surprised.  Hell, if I’m making decent progress in 3 months, I’ll be happy.  She also promised me that my times will improve.  If I feel weak and it sucks for my workouts, we’ll switch stuff around.  She said feeling stronger was the goal – not eating so little that it makes me weak.

The thing that makes me feel good about it is it seems to be the way SHE eats, and it obviously works because she is fit and healthy (and also a runner, teaches classes, etc, so she knows what I’m up against, she’s not a little waif that does nothing active and eats 1200 calories).  I know that everyone is different, but it’s a good start trying something that is OBVIOUSLY working for someone.  It was always suggesting “this is one thing *I* like to do”, so it’s not that she’s suggesting lots of crazy things she wouldn’t do.  And… no calorie restrictions.  Just good, well timed food. Just… eep… less grains.

To which I thought about on the drive back to work, and y’know, there are a lot of things I thought I couldn’t do.  Four years ago, the way I eat now would have been such a shock to the system, I would have probably told future Quix to stuff it, if being healthy is that much work I’ll be fat, thxuverymuch (but now – live it. love it.)  Three months ago, I never thought I could give up diet soda, but I don’t drink it or rarely have the desire to do so.  Maybe three months from now, I’ll be laughing about how freaked out lessening grains is making me.

But hey, I don’t even have to face it for another week.  Just consistency in workout times, working fueling, breakfast, and snacks.  And good old fashioned pen and paper food journaling (no portion control, no calories, just writing down what/when I eat/exercise/sleep).

So, here is taxicab (taxiblog?) confessions time peeps.  Somehow in this weird existence of denial I have, I started this “ritual” where I would stand on the scale a few different ways and take the lowest.  Then, my subconscious decided that she would just weigh the way that gave the lowest weight.  For some reason, past Quix thought this was an acceptable way to weigh herself.  That’s been many months in the making, and this week, I decided that I was going to weigh myself on the scale like a normal human (feet normally, not off to the side).  I’m sad to say that it’s a bit more than I thought it would be.  So resetting, I will post my low weight of the past week which is…

173.8.  Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.  Seriously, how did I think that standing on a certain part of the scale would change what is going on in my body, but I guess I still have those “hide my head in the sand” urges that I did when I just bought XXL stretchy band skirts instead of facing my real size.

Oh well.  No mas.  I’m staring down that 173.8, eye to eye, armed with a plan, and ready to take that bitch down.  Even if that bitch is part of me.

Otherwise known as 2011 is half over.  Argh!  It has certainly flown.  So, as we’re at a halfway point in the year (again, how did that happen so fast?), let’s evaulate our progress on 2011 goals, shall we?

1.  First and foremost, I need to get a handle on my free time.  I spend most of my weeknights just dorking on social media because it’s easy, I haven’t had a chance to look at it all day – and then all of a sudden it’s bedtime and I’ve done nothing.  I’d like to start with a goal to not have my nose in my lappy all the time.  I’d like to make one weeknight per week a reading night (no laptop after dinner), and 1 day per week gaming (again, no laptop after dinner).  I need to accept that I don’t need to read EVERY tweet or facebook update if I don’t have time.  I love keeping in touch with people, but if they care that much, they can @ me or tag me.

I’ve done better.  I spend a lot of time dorking online, and I haven’t been the best game player.  However, I have definitely taken down more books this year than I have since I was in college, and if you only count “for fun” reading, probably since I was a young teen.  I’ve sort of cut time by no longer reading blogs through my reader, but just waiting for the links to appear on twitter.  If you have a blog that is awesome and stuff, add me on twitter – @quixotique.  Also, I like to say random stupid stuff sometimes…

2.  Race goals –

-I’d like a new half marathon PR (goal – 2:05).  I’d love a sub 2 hour, but improvement is all I care about
I haven’t done a half this year.  Planning on a half in October and one in January so we’ll see.

-I’d also like to feel that I could run 10 miles at any time (do at least 1 double digit run per month)
Decided to back off on this, to test the theory about my appetite being very very connected (also, having a back injury for about 2 months on and off didn’t help).  I get a lot less RUNGRY, but I don’t think I’ll ever be one of those “pick at my food” types.  Picking the distances back up now for a fall half though, so I may just finish the year this way…

-Do another sprint and olympic triathlon, PR at least 1
Decided to not do an olympic this year, and I’ve already SMASHED my sprint paces, with one more chance later this year to obliterate it even more.

-I’d like to attack my 5k, 5 mile, and/or 10k PR
This did not go so well.  No 10k or 5 mile yet, and the only 2 5ks have been slow.  If I can FIND a 10k, I’ll PR the shit out of it, but haven’t raced one in over 2 years (not since my 3rd race ever)

-Do a trail half marathon/duathalon in one weekend
This would be not smart to do with a road bike.  Instead, I’m doing a sprint tri and half marathon within 8 days.  I believe this sufficiently proves my badassness for the year.

-Do each workout in the new tri training book at least once
I’ve been training shorter, so I’ve been slacking on this book.  However, it might be worth picking it back up once a week or so.  I’ve gotten through just about all of the off season workouts, but haven’t done many of the tempo/speed ones.

-Do a destination race outside Texas (any distance)
Probably not going to happen now.  We had picked Portland, but due to time constraints, we’d barely have enough time to spend 2 days in the city, which is not worth the plane ride/fare.  There is a small chance we *might* be able to do one in NOLA, but we’ll see.

-Adapt these as I see fit next year… the goal is mainly to get better at the distances I’ve do
I’ve done a billion races this year.  It’s been fun, but when you’re racing once every few weeks at the minimum, it’s hard to get good quality training in.  The latter half of the year, I’m spending being more choosy.  One tri, one half, a 5 miler, and MAYBE a 5 or 10k that I’ll take seriously, but that’s it!!!

3.  Weight Loss/Maintenance goals – get down to and maintain 150 by summer. Once i get down to 15o, never go above 155… that will allow me to fit in all my clothes, still have flexibility to gain a little during race training that I can easily lose after, and once I get there, feel super fit, awesome, and hot while not being a weight I have to only eat celery to maintain.

Yep, I’ve been stuck here too.  This is why I’m seeing the nutritionist this week.  I’m kinda pissed at myself that I’ve made literally ZERO progress in 6 months, but it’s a huge sign that I NEED HELP. Hopefully when I look back at the end of the year this will be a big check mark.

3b.  Continue with strength training, yoga, and things that don’t immediately contribute to torching tons of calories or race training but definitely helps build definition, makes me look thinner, and most importantly, helps me improve my race times.

Doing well with strength lately…although I always and still feel like it cuts into my valuable cardio time.  I’d love some advice from the peanut gallery – what do you feel is the minimum time commitment to strength training to keep an endurance athlete going? Don’t care so much about being ripped or visible muscles or upping weights – just to keep myself strong and fit and injury free.  1 hour per week? 2?  I’ve been averaging somewhere between the 2, focusing on 1-2 body parts per day for about 30 mins, cramming as many reps and exercises as I can in as fast as possible. 🙂  Have not wanted to go back to Yoga or weights class since I hurt myself in both.  Call me gun shy.

4.  Continue with my job in the same position at the same company continuing to improve, grow, and become a better producer capable of handling more things with more ease.  I have much more specific goals here but that’s about all I’ll say publicly.

Keeping my head above water here even with things being crazy busy, and learning the ins and outs of being a good boss, manager, and balancing the creative with the logical.  I’m not going to be perfect in a year, but it’s a process.

5.  More one liners:

-Smoke less.  Continue to allow smokes only with alcohol, and I’d like to get to the point where I can take it or leave it.
Getting there.  I can do a beer or a few glasses of wine, or 1-2 drinks, but not all night.  Someday.

-Less hangovers.  I hate getting one of my weekend days eaten being laid out on the couch.  I just need to quit just BEFORE that switch flips where it’s on like donkey kong and all of a sudden it’s 10am and I feel like death warmed over.
Giving up diet soda REALLY helped here lately, vodka with soda water makes me rarely have issues the next morning.  Sometimes when I *really* try it does though.

-Pay off the car (January), pay off Zliten’s college loan (August), and continue to meet our savings goal of 1k per month.
Car is now my own.  We may not have the loan paid off by August, but definitely by the end of the year.  We’ve actually just about already hit our savings goal, and have actually rolled some of it into higher interest investments.  Doing great here.

-Visit one new city I’ve never seen before.  Denver? NYC? Seattle? Portland?
While Portland isn’t panning out, I guess I can say I’ve visited Roatan, Honduras and Belize City, Belize, as well as Houston (not exotic, but still new to me).  In December, we’ll hit Montego Bay, Jamaica.  These are all new!

-Begin one new major house renovation.  Failing that, start planning and budgeting for it and establish a timeline (windows, bathrooms, counters, etc).
We are totally pricing out windows right now.  We’re considering options – aka replacement (cheaper) or new (more expensive, but don’t screw up our full wall view that made us fall in love with the house…)

-Find something that makes me happy that is not goal oriented.  Some people knit.  Not to be the best knitter and to make x scarves per week and improve by March to be onto stripes instead of solids, but simply because they enjoy the act of it.  Same with Zliten and reading.  I’d like to find mine.
Hmmm.  Right now, life is making me happy.  I’m not sure exactly what I was aiming for here, but I think the thing that makes me most happy is having awesome adventures with my Zliten.

-Continue to do things that frighten/excite/challenge me (like trapeze lessons or flight lessons) and continue to pick out of the hat – the whole life goal of one truly memorable thing per month.
Flight lessons next month. 🙂  No hat picking, but definitely don’t feel like I’m lacking here.

So in summary, doing a great job with a lot, but still have major progress to make in some areas.  I’m pretty sure these things start with making #3 a priority.  So, time to really do that.

How are your resolutions/goals for 2011 going?  What do YOU need to focus on in the next 6 months?

Happiness, or at least trying not to threaten folks with too much bodily harm at work.  Seriously, I’ve threatened stabbing someone’s eye out, choking, brandished a knife at someone, and promised beatings.  And that’s just today.  No, I’m not a prison guard or FBI agent, but I AM a Producer… I guess it’s just a day in the life.

So yes.  Busy.  Out living, not writing about it.  Here is a quick and dirty of my happs:

Foodie food food food:

Made myself track the last two weeks.  Realized that DUH, I’m not losing because I’m eating like an asshole again.  Working on rectifying that.  Last two days have been pretty good, working on continuing that trend.  Still going to see the nutritionist sometime next week, have to convince her that I don’t normally consume about a bag of chips over a weekend and enough alcohol to inebriate an army.  Well, at least the first one… more on this of course as I meet and greet with the lady who will attempt to relive me of a major burden for the last two years and hopefully remove my head from the wall which I have been banging it upon.

Wake Up Sleepyhead!:

Have been attempting the morning workout thang.  It’s being a little challenging, as now work is starting to encroach on the mornings some days (really?  do you HAVE to schedule me a 9 am interview?  my schedule is not THAT booked…), but I’m determined to make it work.  While I REALLY hate getting up in the morning, it is REALLY nice to get it over with before work (though admittedly right now they’re both about the same amount of capital REALLY) and it gives me more time at night.   Not sure how exactly that works but I like it.  Also, it eliminates the uncertainty.  No matter what happens during the day to make me stay late at work or I have ninja-insert-into-schedule-right-after-work plans, I can get down with it, since my workout is diggity done.  Tomorrow is really a test, because I’ve got to be up and out by like, 7:30.  This may sound late to some of you, but it’s the middle of the night to me.  I have a feeling it’s fucking with my mood a bit (negatively, see stabby comments above and eeyore like facebooks and tweets), but hopefully that will subside soon.

Also, along with this, is more outside time.  I was really beating myself up on my sad, sad paces on runs, but I found lots of evidence to support that you need to lower your expectations.  They said in the temps I was running in – to add about 20%.  Guess what, it was just about exactly 20% more than a really fast paced 5-6 miler would be for me.  My two summer mantras will be “Base is more important than pace” and “It IS that hot and you ARE running that slow.  It’s ok.”

Mostly, uh, because I’m a dumbass and signed up for THIS half marathon and am also targeting THIS sprint tri.  As an A race.  8 days apart.  Either training the long runs with everything else for the swim and bike will be AMAZING for my endurance and I’ll PR like crazy, or I’ll crash and burn.  I had success last year training up my run to almost half marathon lengths during tri season, but that was for an olympic.  I’ll be running a 12 one weekend, a sprint tri the next, and then a half, so no real taper time.  While the sprint is an A race, the half is ABSOLUTELY not.  I’d just like to finish at a respectable pace.  If I’m feeling great on race day, maybe I’ll race it, but for this one, I am really doing it for the t-shirt.  I mean, it says that I run for champagne (and chocolate).  Um, hello, race tradition!

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted:

Vacations are falling into place.  While I keep threatening to hop a plane to a desert island this week, we will be doing just that in December to Jamaica (Montego Bay).  5 days of all-inclusive resort with food, drinks, water sports, land sports, white sandy beaches, and most importantly, just me and my Zliten.  We were going to do Portland in Sept., but after researching, we just don’t have enough time to really do it justice (flights there and back would take up the majority of a day, and I want more than 2.5 days in a new city for the price we’d pay).  Likely, we’ll do NOLA again as we HAVE been there, it’s driving distance (or if we can get a really good deal, a VERY short flight), and will be a good long weekend away.

2012 is actually now settled too.  Cruise with my parents early in the year (either back to the same ports we went to last time, or more Jamaica), and we just found out our friends are getting married ON A FRIKKIN CRUISE TO ALASKA in Sept – we’re so in.  So 3 trips out of the country!  Woohoo!  2013 is tentatively some sort of really long cruise with my rents for my dad’s 80th, so we’re thinking that we may actually do our planned honeymoon in Italy and Greece for our 5th anniversary. =) When you have the money you don’t have the time, when you have the time you don’t have the money, indeed.

It’s Friiiiiiiday, Friiiiday:

Well, almost.  Plans this weekend include Judah Frelander at the comedy club, a bike ride, and that’s about it for now.  What’s on your agenda?