Adjusted Reality

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?

Hooooly crap guys, life is up to 11 lately.  I’d say I’m looking forward to vacation (because I AM SO MUCH), but I think it’s just going to be a lot of EPIC DOINGS there too.  Ahhhhhhh, I love it.  I may have had a major freakout on Friday and hid in bed for a few hours (and in the process missed a lovely day for a bike ride), but I realized a bit later it was just a product of some misunderstood PMS and got over it quickly, and then had a pretty damn cool weekend.

Scuba Certification:

Back for more.  We were sun-happy, washing out our equipment in the driveway, excited to be newly certified, and our neighbor, a seasoned scuba diver, came to talk to us.  He said our noob certification would probably make the divemasters not let us pair up together since we were so inexperienced, and really, what’s fun about not getting to do this new fun thing you spent a lot of money and time training for with your hubbs (it’s like when they made us dance with other people, I came to learn to dance with HIM, not people :P)?  So, we decided to knock out the advanced class before vacation.  This meant another 500$ in fees, and more schoolwork.  At least we got a month to do this instead of 4 days.

This class was so much fun.  There was no classroom – we went over the book work on the boat.  Related, we got to spend the majority of the weekend on a boat, which made my fishie self super happy.

After the book work, we did 5 dives – the first one worked on being better at buoyancy – which I actually kind of sucked at because I wasn’t weighted properly.  And I had a LOT of weight.  Let me tell you, I think I finally succeeded in taking a little bit of poundage off in March after feeling what extra weight felt like.  Sadly though, it wasn’t enough and once my tank got lighter from air use, I just keep bubbling up to the surface.  The instructor thought I wasn’t using my BCD (buoyancy control device) properly, but on the next dive, I was validated because I put in more weight, and I was just fine the rest of the time.

The second one, which I was the most scared of, was the underwater navigator dive.  Me + compass = not friends.  Folks, north is the way I’m facing unless I really really think hard about it.  However, I ROCKED the out and back part, and made a perfect square.  My navigationally inclined Zliten?  Missed it.  He forgot to count and ended up lopsided.  Probably the only time ever I’ll beat him in something involved with a map, but hey, I’ll take it.  I was also taught the “nestea plunge” entry, and if at all possible, it is the only way I’ll get in the water because it’s just so freaking fun.

The last dive Saturday was a boat dive.  Technically, they were all boat dives, but on this one, they let us go out on our own.  We hugged the wall and checked out the little grottos and saw a sleeping (I say sleeping, Zliten said dead – but it was perfectly preserved).  We got down to 60 feet at one point!

Sunday, the storm was rolling in, so we got an early start and got to business.  First up was our deep dive, he took us to 80+ feet at the bottom of the lake, and around 60, light started to get really dim so we switched on our dive lights, and also around there, I started to sink like a rock so I had to put a bunch of air in my BCD (the further you go down, the easier it is to sink, the further up you come, the easier it is to float).  We finally touched bottom and got reoriented – it was super dark.  I thought I might freak out but I just got… calm.  I really enjoyed the peaceful feeling down there.  Life was good.

Our last dive was a wreck dive.  There was a sunken houseboat and a pecan tree that we checked out, and then the instructor left to prep the boat and left us to enjoy the rest of our air tanks/time/etc.  We swam around and checked out each crevice and nook and happened on a bunch of fish and I kinda connected with one (we bonded).  After my air dropped under 900, we went up, boarded our vessel, and got back to shore just as the weather started to turn sour.

So, so, so much fun.  I can’t wait to dive in gorgeous blue ocean this month.

Training:

Hi, my name is Quix, and I am a huge slacker.

Since I rarely am, I decided I was fine with it.   I did Monday and Tuesday’s easy work as planned, but then Wednesday showed up and I was so unmotivated to hit the gym/pool we skipped it.  Then, I had a freakout about life in general and hid in bed and didn’t get out to ride on Friday.  So – I swam once, did weights once, and ran for an hour (and hauled a bunch of scuba shit 3 days and, well, scuba’d).

I was worried when I was still totally unenthused on Monday, but as soon as I hit the gym and got a dose of swim endorphins, I was happy girl again.  So, I’m good. Ready for build month #3.  Pile it on!

Food:

I did pretty great this week – no crazy high days, appetite in check.  Scuba makes me want SALT and SUGAR.  And usually, I want sugar and fruit does it, and for salt, I’m good with nuts/veggies/etc – but nope, I was craving junk food.  Totally weird.

However, I can’t complain.  I hit a low of 182.2 this week, which is nice, and my normal 2 week spiral of weight gain for TOM and weekend bloat didn’t happen because, well, something is clicking.  It’s sloooooow going, but at least it’s going in the right direction.  While I’d like to be more at about a lb a week, if I can take 2 lbs off per month, I’ll take it.

While I am still eating good food with a pretty high diet quality (in the book, they were saying the 20s is like, great eating and on an average day, that’s where I’m at) – I’ve definitely decided that calories are king.  For some people, they can eat their fill of good, healthy food, and it will automatically adjust their weight to where it naturally should be.  I just need to accept that I am not one of those people.

If you put a bag of carrots in front of me, I might eat the whole thing.  I’ll probably be much more careful if you put junk food there and abide by the servings.  The carrots, to me, are a license to eat as much as I want.  If you put me in a room with only healthy food I liked, and said eat your fill, I would probably still overeat.  The good news is that I love healthy food.  The bad news is that I love healthy food so much, I can’t just improve my diet quality.

So it comes back full circle.  To lose weight, I must count calories.  So now really, to lose weight in a healthy way which doesn’t impact my training, I need to make sure and keep that DQ score high and those calories low.

I’ve also made a decision that while I am loving my trend towards vegan, it’s too much for me to deal with 24/7.  I’m getting sick of beans, and I refuse to make chick’n or soy or tempeh a staple of my diet.  While I will maintain that I believe that I operate best on lotsa fruits and veggies, some grains/starches, and a little meat and dairy and nuts, I think that my body likes some animal/fish protein once a day or so.

Oddly enough, there were some days I was getting more protein as a non-meat eater than when I ate meat.  It’s definitely possible to get adequate protein without meat.  I just don’t think a 100% veggie or vegan life is for me.

This weekend, I’m going to try to keep it under control while camping (though I have planned for some vodka and one key lime smore), and be crazy active (run, bike, swim, hike, kayak, etc) and then eat like an angel in prep for the vacay.

Monday: 28 DQs, 1501 calories
Tuesday: 26 DQs, 1742 calories
Wednesday: 23 DQs, 1627 calories
Thursday: 19 DQs, 2017 calories
Friday: 23 DQs, 1724 calories
Saturday: 14 DQs, 1608 calories
Sunday: 7 DQs, 2023 calories

Average DQs: 20

Average Calories: 1748 calories in, estimating 2142 calories burnt per day, ~400 deficit per day, so about 3/4 lb.

Weight range last week: 182.4 to 186.6 (trending down)

Random things:

-I got a filling done, and have to go back in 2 weeks to get a permanent crown and one more filling.  Boo, teeth.

-Since Zliten was working overtime, he was getting up early to go to work, which got me up early.  Since there was really no point in me getting to work early, and I had to wait for him to be available to train, I ended up having some nice early productive mornings, but felt all weird and out of sorts.  I’m not used to doing anything but getting up and rushing somewhere.

-I like running after work.  Sunset runs are nice.  They are also very rare because it’s either too dark or too hot, you get a month or two in spring and then a month MAYBE in fall.  One last week, one this week.   Love.

-Chocolate muscle milk + frozen cherries/strawberries/raspberries + blender = best healthy desert ever.

-Got to have a game night with an offshoot group of our normal table top roll playing group (dorky stuff here).  We created our characters and sat around and discussed the story to come.  Kinda scary, we’re going to take turns telling the story and I’ve never done that before.

And on that note, now that I’ve recapped, I’ll get on with my week… which has about an hour and a half left until the weekend.  Oops!

Question of the week: What’s the one thing in your diet you’d be most reluctant to give up completely?  Meat? Carbs? Veggies? Sweets? Chocolate?

March was a whirlwind!  Birthdays, fun days, outings, scuba, build month #2 – I’m tired just thinking about it.  How did my goals fare?  Read on, friends, read on…

1.  Stick with my current strategy: approximately 1700 calories (shift up on days that my workout volume reaches the sky).  DQ score: over 20 every day average.  See if this results in any sort of loss.  Low weight of the month: 184.  Let’s get lower.  Accept (and relish) that there will be 3 birthday splurges this month, and just try to mitigate them with good food the rest of the day/week.

Check.  I lost weight!  Just a little but… low of 182.2.  Yay!

2.  Get the leezard to the vet for a checkup.  She’s overdue.  We’re bad leezard parents.

Check.  Got her in today.

3. Bike outside once a week.  Even if you have to do some rides outside after work in the ‘hood with stoplights.  Ride Rosedale on March 23.  Do it in way less than the 5+ hours it took last year.

Check – except for this week.  Rosedale Ride – 4:29, over 45 min PR!  Wheee!

4.  Fix up a March training plan.  Nail it.  Start working in zone 3 more, doing cruise intervals.  Start doing some short all out force efforts.  Get to recovery week uninjured and happy.

Check.  Yes indeed.  Lovin’ the tempos and hills.  Body feels pretty great!

5.  Make pillows for the couch.  This involves: going to the store, picking out fabric, sewing, and stuffing them.  Complete at least one.  Complete four for the gold star.

Check!  Gold Star Accomplished – totally made four awesome pillows!

6. Finish organizing the DVDs and complete the next zone in the house, the rest of the bedroom/master bath/vanity area.  We’ve already half completed it with the new bedroom furniture, but this involves cleaning out and organizing the vanity area, linen closet area, and stuff in the master bath.  Extra credit: replacing the bunk fixures and faucet.

Big Fail.  DVDs done, but haven’t touched the bedroom.  Wah-wah.

7. Finish the sewing book, start a fiction book, for reals.

Fail.  Another dive book inserted.  Also, I realized that I need to have a project to get through to really understand it.  I think I’ll just move onto fiction next month.

8. This one is for the habits again.  No cigs (will have to dispose the Commercial Humidor), no sweets (minus planned splurges, no more than once a week), HR train, batch cook, have a game night.

Check!  Habits are becoming habits, fancy that.

9.  Find my zen in this month in small chunks.  I do not have a weekend that I know of from now until vacation that’s not booked up with at least one event, most have several.  Find some time to relax and veg out.  Carve out a weekday night where all we do after work is go home and relax and say fuck responsibility instead of doing stuff.  At least do what I did on Wednesday and say “though I have things to do, I am sitting on the couch and watching TV for an hour”.

Did my best.  Had some nice mellow mornings, and took some time to relax even when I had other things to do.

10. Take care of my appearance a bit.  Self manicure, pedicure, and eyebrow unfluff.  Get a haircut (or schedule a time before the cruise).  I want about 4-6 inches cut off soon – short hair deals with being soggy from training much better than long hair.  Penalty for not completing: I am required to book this  (mani/pedi/brows) at a salon which actually terrifies me.

Half check – manicure/pedicure done.  Brows not done.  Hair – I tried, but they wouldn’t book an appointment on a weekend and then since I didn’t have an appointment, I decided to eat lunch and drink beer instead.  New mandate – hair and brows must be done by cruise or I have to book some REALLY expensive spa appointments.

11.  Play some damn vidjya games.  I have Monkey Island on the PS3, I keep meaning to log in and play Everquest, I need Zliten to educate me in the ways of Bloodbowl (orcs + football) so I can decide whether I want to join the league at work, I have a tablet builder game I’ve been working through…

Errr… I played bloodbowl once.  So technically yes, but I could have done better.  Bronze star.

12.  Figure out this mojo thing.  I am operating my the numbers and schedules and performing, but my spirit is lacking.  My heart just isn’t in it lately.  Analyze the issue and take steps to fix it.

Felt better this month.  A little weight progress, permission to tempo and do some harder stuff, and starting to get excited for race season.  I’m not sure the legs and lungs are there yet, but the fire in the belly is there and the mental game feels more on.

13.  Drink more water.  I’d like to get down 3 bottles before I leave work each day, and one more at home.

Meh.  It’s not warm enough to really want to drink enough water and I’m just OVER water.  I’m generally drinking the generally accepted 64 oz, but as I like to do sporty endeavours, I should drink more.  Some days I do, some I don’t.

6 checks, 4 sortas, and 3 fails ain’t too bad.  Let’s move on…

April is the month of being on vacation a lot.  So, these goals will mostly be centered around not fucking up while not on normal routine:

1.  While not on vacation, eat like an ANGEL.  Keep with the  Quixitarian diet (mostly vegan, with greek yogurt, fish, and muscle milk, with some meat whenever I’m supercraving it).  At the end of the month, I want to weight less than 182.2.  I would love to break 180 before I go on vacation.  Continue tracking daily weight and stats in Training Peaks, oddly enough, I have had WAY less freakouts about weight when it’s a number I measure and record daily.  Continue to pre-track weekly, that shit helps!

2.  While on vacation, I will be trying to enjoy in moderation.  Lots of strategies in my head, some include taking a travel scale (that’s a good check if I’m really being obnoxious with my consumption), having a one-desert-per-day maximum, trying to make a one-plate-per-meal maximum, tracking diet quality, and/or trying to figure out some way to not gain 10 lbs right before my next two months of big races (like I did last vacay).  Let me assure you – I would not take these steps if it was an offseason trip, but I was very much in shape a month before last year’s A race, and I ruined it with a 10 day vacation of pigging out.  I don’t want to do that again.  This vacation is about spending time with family and scuba and hitting every beach for as many hours as I can.  I’m going to try to make it not about stuffing my face.

3.  April’s plan is made – I need to focus on getting in the hours.  A few workouts got cut short or skipped in March due to various reasons, and while it’s not to the level that I think my overall race prep suffered, we are doing the last build month.  On vacation, I’ll be flexible with the composition and type of workouts, but I want to match the hours.  Also, run in a different country!

4. For sewing, I just want to mend everything that has holes in it on the pile of things that I want to bring on vacation.  Amazingly enough, staying about the same size for 2-3 years means clothing gets holes in it before I can ship it back to the thrift store.

5. Read some books on vacation.  Not textbooks.  Not triathlon books.  Relax-y sci fi space fun books.

6. Catching up: cut my hair, do my brows, and refresh mani/pedi before vacation.  Put the “organize the house” initiative on pause, but any steps that can be taken to finish the bedroom would rock.  I’m going to drop the no cigs, HR train, batch cook, have a game night, etc, because they are just happening now.

7. Relax on vacation.  Don’t come home feeling like it was 10 days of crazy gogogogo and now you’re back to life which is the same.  Conversely, try to relax enough before vacation that you don’t feel like you just want to shut down and not do the cool things you have planned.

8. Bathe the ‘guana every day possible (at least every other) and get her a humidifier.  She’s doing great, but she is a little dehydrated because she’s not very smart and forgets she has water.

9. Use these two races this month – the 10 mile running race and the second century as good (head and body) training.  For the 10/20, I want to dig deep.  I want to find that place where it hurts, but my heart rate says I’m handling it physically, and just claw my way through the end and not relent.  Also, I’d really like to sub-10 min/mile it.  Because I have a really stupid dumb secret goal this year that is probably unobtainable, but still fun to entertain, and this would be good progress to check how that’s going.  Also, there is no reason that I should finish century ride #2 slower than #1 unless the weather sucks, but either way, its 60+ miles of outdoor riding, and motivation not to make an ass of myself on vacation (since it’s the day after I get back).

10. Buy some fun t-shirts from the ports.  Since I love wearing my Alaska cycle shirt, I need at least one with a diver.  Bring back some souvenirs for my leads and something that makes noise for my sound guys.

11.  Keep a journal of vacation – even though it can be a pain to write every day, I love rereading these and it helps me remember all the fun timez had.

12.  Not buy a whole mess of random things for vacation because we might need it (I guarantee I have everything I need right now to go, and whatever I don’t have I probably don’t need).  Exception is I’m out of travel deodorant (which will immediately go into my gym bag after) and I want a damn necklace charm to go with these gorgeous earrings I got that don’t match a fucking thing I own.

13.  Not spend a billion dollars on vacation.  I’m sure there will be a day or two we have some drinks, but try to limit it to just a few because we can get drunk at home (way cheaper), and getting drunk with access to free food equals getting faaaaaaat quick.  Don’t buy 20 billion pictures because the ones from the last two cruises have never been scanned and are just sitting somewhere in the office.  Spend on experiences (scuba, transport around areas, entry fees, etc) and not on stupid stuff that doesn’t matter.

And on that note, I’m going to try to not already be on vacation…. normal weekly wrapup coming up soon!

Holy crap, January is over.  We’re 1/12th done with 2013, can you believe it?  Last year this time I had already raced twice, now I’m looking at 4 weeks until my first little race – call it mostly a second monthly threshold test – and I’m just getting my feet under me training again.  What a difference a year makes.

I still feel very confident in the direction this year is taking.  Daily preparedness.  Weekly accomplishments.  Monthly goals.  These things are helping.  Consistency.  Focus.  Determination.  This is how I’ll get there.  Long term results are what I’m seeking, for I have patience.

January Goal Progress:

1. Eat mostly fruits and vegetables….Do things to get to the goal of 175 by the end of the month. ~1500 calories of good quality food should do the trick.

I happened upon Racing Weight and decided to follow that instead rather than a calorie restrictive diet.  Life changing.  The weight loss is going slower, but it is WORKING in a way which is absolutely sustainable all season/life.

2. Batch cook each weekend to have most of my meals for the week ready.

Check!  It was awesome, except when we tried to cook too much and it took 5 hours and was frustrating.  3 meals per week, so we get a few times we can go out and a few times we can make fish/something non batch cook-y.  This is going to be our ace in the hole for the year.

3. One day of drinking per week max.  Attempt for that to not be a marathon 8 hour session to cram all the fun in.

Not check.  It’s been a weird month, and while some of you may come to enlightenment through meditation or whatnot, I get to clarity at the bottom of a bottle of wine.  However, I can report that I did not drink so MUCH at each instance, and I did not forget to eat dinner and get myself into trouble.  Baby steps.

4. Schedule at least one game night at the house with friends.  Do at least one “out of the house” activity that doesn’t involve drinking.

Check! Game night was so much fun!  We want to do this once per month or so.  We also did dinner and a movie with friends as well which was nice.

5. ZERO cigarettes.  Use my little happy puffer thing.  Try to stick to the 0 nicotine one as much as possible.

Check!  OMG!  I am so thrilled about this.  I have not been one month cig free since I was in my teens.  I’m to the point where I cannot ever ever imagine having another smoke.  I’m still getting some nicotine, but that’s it.  I’ve read some articles that nicotine and caffeine aren’t that dissimilar (when delivered without all the extra chemicals) and that in small doses, it’s not so horrible for you.  I still would love to completely leave it be someday, but this is the next step.  I can DEFINITELY feel it in the pool, I used to have a PULL in my lungs when I got going, now I don’t.

6. ZERO sweet treats this month.  If I want desert, it can be fruit, yogurt, or arctic zero.  Das it.  I need one of these type of months to get off the “white pony” and back to the point where I can consume it responsibly.

Check!  I think I’m going to stick with this.  It’s negative points anyway and since I do get some sugar immediately before/during/after some workouts, I don’t miss sweets that much (though you can’t really chow down a piece of key lime pie on the bike).  I may allow ONE treat each week if I can justify it with my diet score, or super duper special occasions.

7. Train with my heart rate monitor every time.  I need to get in this habit.

Check!  It’s been somewhere between useful and frustrating to have this data staring me in the face, but I am waiting for the dark magic to happen and it’s not going to unless I keep at it.

8. Consistency.  My brain is REALLY raring to get back to those 3-5 hour training days, which is a great sign that offseason did exactly what it was supposed to do, but my body is NOT.  Do the workouts on my schedule as prescribed, and don’t add because it’s scary to only be training 6.5 hours (including 1.5 hours of weights) this month as prep.

Check!  After we got going, the hours were enough.  Killing myself in the weight room also helped.There may have been some sessions we wanted to extend (especially bikes) but overall I feel like I’m training just fine for 3 months outside tri season with the first up being a super sprint.  Next month changes a bit so that will be fun!

9. Get my sewing machine set up and at least put some stitches into something

Check!  Just barely though… I am now at least intrigued though still intimidated, but I can touch it without feeling like I’m unworthy of it… 🙂

10. Clean out our closet and get a bunch of stuff donated.

Check! We cleaned out the closet, and it’s all organized!  Wheee! We have things bagged up at my ‘rents house for my mom to go through before we visit the Will of Good.  I’m counting it though!

11. Investigate Scuba Certification and set a time to get it done.

Check!  Targeting Feb 11-14 for the course and then Feb 23+24 to do the dive cert parts.  Zliten just needs a doctors note since he has mild allergy induced athsma and that comes next week.

12. Get my damn eye exam.  It’s been way too long.  Had it scheduled for over the break, but my back being fucked made me have to cancel.

Check (scheduled)!  I go tomorrow.  Good adult me.  I just realized this week, my glasses are scratched so it’s really time for me to get off my ass and do this.

13. Cheer for runners at 3M on 1/13.

Check!  We went and cowbelled the fuck out of our corner, however, the “feels like 30” temps made us pack up and go home before the whole crowd passed us.  But, we tried!

13 seems like a good number, so let’s do this again for February!

1. Maximize diet score, minimize calories when possible.  Get there by pre-planning your day of eating.  It looks as if a 30+ score (top is around 33) is achievable with around 1800-1900 cal when all the food is good food.  That should maintain a bit of a deficit (and grow a little this month with some extra hours).  I’ll try to stick there.  Weigh less than 183.2 (yesterday’s weight) by the end of February.

2. Volunteer at Austin Marathon (t-shirt exchange) Feb 16, cheer Feb 17.

3. Have two days in Feb where I just veg most or all of the day.  Quix-y needs some downtime!

4. Get scuba licensed!

5. Mend something on the sewing machine or make something simple.

6. Finish the sewing book, start a fiction book.

7. Get living room set up with new furniture, organize DVDs and area around the TV, and the mantle (Feb’s “zone”).  Determine whether painting and/or rugs are necessary.

8. Keep up the things I did in Jan that I want to maintain, have a game night, no sweet treats (minus once a week), no cigs, HR train, batch cook.  They are habits now, just dedicating this goal to keeping them up.

9. Make a training plan for Feb and nail each workout.  Incorporate running and biking drills in this month.  Incorporate a little gentle speed work in this month.  Enjoy the hell out of my recovery week in 4 weeks.

10. Race the Indoor Tri 2/24 and DO NOT GET DEPRESSED ABOUT THE RESULTS.  I’m talking to you – self!  Last year, you were trained up for a half marathon+ and never lost fitness from the tri season.  This year, you are just coming off two months of pure base building after a wonderful offseason.  DO NOT GET PISSED BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T BEAT EACH DISCIPLINE FROM LAST YEAR.  Compare the results to last month’s threshold tests rather than 2012.  And if you beat last year’s times, then fuck yeah!  Either way, no tears and enjoy the first bottle of race champagne this year.

11. Sign up for half of all the triathlons.  Rookie, Pfluger, PlayTri, Couples, and Jack’s.  Next month we can drop a few more benjamins on the rest.

12. Keep doing that confidence and forthcoming about what I want thing at work.  Don’t get devastated if it doesn’t result in unicorns and rainbows right away.

13. Walk up and down the stairs every day with Zliten at break.  It’s good for me to get away from my desk.

That should do it!  I’m really tired today because I’ve had crappy sleep for the last few days, so I’ll get on all these tomorrow, kthx. Just kidding – I’ve got my food planned out for the day and my training plan done, so there’s that.

Question of the day:  What’s your February goal?

Since I started this round of training, I haven’t had a day to just relax.  It’s been either train, work, batch cook, work on January goals, socialize, etc.  It’s been an awesome month, but my soul is starting to feel a little thin.  I wanted today to be that day, and it was cool to sleep in and watch a movie this morning, but since then it’s been DO DO DO DO SHIT.  I really really need a day off and some major vegging soon.  Maybe next Sunday?  Please please please?  I’ll muscle it away from ya…

Week four is the last one where the training schedule is the same.  The eating goals are the same.  I’m in a little bit of that third week motivation slump – like the third lap of a four lap course.  It’s no longer new and exciting, and it’s not yet “the last one”.  So, without much ado, let me talk you through my week.

Workouts:

My heel has gotten less creaky, I got to run outside 3 times and I’m not limping and feels better than it has for a while.  That’s a happy for sure!

I did a 1050m test (70 laps) and hit 23 mins.  That’s a ~35 minute mile.  Faster times than I’ve posted for a while/ever (for a while I had the pool measurements wrong so I thought I was faster than I was)?  It felt great to push myself in the pool and I am HUNGRY for some hard pool workouts that are going to come starting March.

Cycling has just been more of the same good.  I’m craving some outdoor riding, but I want to push myself to see what I have outside at a closed road course (Veloway).  I may have to break my zone 1/2 rule just once soon.  For now, loving the trainer movie rides.

Running – meh.  My HR finally came down a bit this week for the lunch runs, but Saturday’s run was just shit.  Allergies, lack of motivation, no music because I’m a dummy and didn’t charge my mp3 player, and just plain tireds made my heart rate go sky high after about mile 1.5 and I was either trotting or walking so I bagged it a little early (with the warmup and cooldown I got my intended 45 mins in, because I ran so frigging slow, but it’s not what I set out to do).  I’ll keep at it, but right now, runs are, pun intended, my Achilles heel.

Weights are good.  Raised everything to 22 reps, and I even upped some weights.  I’m getting stronger.  Let me tell you a story… I went about my normal weights workout on Wednesday…and Zliten and I were staggered so he was on the exercise before me. I get to the squat bar, put my weight on, and go at it. The first set went OK, but the second set was just WAY hard. I started thinking about how the day really drained me. Finishing his last set of the previous exercise, Zliten comes over and points to my bar and gives me a thumbs up. I’m like, what? I then realized I had put two 35s and two 10s on each side instead of 25s and two 10s. Holy crap, I squatted 125 lbs which is 20 more lbs than I was struggling with last week! I almost took the weight off, but figured if I could do two sets I could do three. It did make my hips (of all places) REALLY tender for about 12 hours after but I survived.  I’ll scale back a bit next week (115 maybe?) but that was awesome!

One more week of this schedule and then we start Base 1.  I’ll talk about that more next week when I have a training plan done.

Day by day (this should look familiar!):

Monday: Weights: 3×22… 190 lb* leg press, 40 lb pulldowns, 105 lb squats, 20 lb* dumbell chest press, 60 lb row, 80 lb* calf raises, 10 lb plate situps with twist. Swim: 1290m in 30 mins.
Tuesday: Bike: 11.37 miles in 30 mins.  Run: 3 miles in 36:30.
Wednesday: Weights: 3×22… 190 lb leg press, 50 lb* pulldowns, 125 lb* squats, 20 lb dumbells chest press, 60 lb rows, 55 lb* hammie curls, situps w/twist w/10 lb plate.  Swim: 1350m in 32 mins.
Thursday: Bike: 10 miles in 32 mins (hurty hip).  Run: 3.1 miles in 38 mins.
Friday: off
Saturday: Swim: 1050m test (in 23 mins).  Bike: 20 miles in 52:28.  Run: 3.1 in 40:30.
Sunday: off

Foods Stuffs:

Batch cooking is really awesome, but we found our limit last week.  We decided to cook 4 meals (so we’d have every meal spoken for) and while most were quick and easy, I decided to undertake making two indian dishes with homemade sauces.  If that was all we were cooking, it wouldn’t have been too bad, but after putting together 3 other things, it made the day DRAG and we were just grumpy by the end.

It also resulted in me not putting in the recipes in spark since I was so behind with everything, so I just guesstimated calories, so I was less motivated to track right away, so my food intake was more.  It also gave us some food fatigue – yes, it’s nice having food ready, but I missed my fish.  And Zliten pretty much needs a hamburger every week.  So it was just a little too much.

So, this weekend, we’re already done – it took us about 1/3 the time since we picked easy stuff and as such had time yesterday to squeeze it in.  I already have the recipies in and can now plan out my days ahead of time to maximize my scores!  Lesson learned, just like everything else, if some is good, more isn’t always better.

I’m actually seeming to do well with the no sweet treats.  It may be worth keeping up for February, minus one exception for the damn rum ball I have saved all month in my fridge, and I’ll allow one desert for v-day.  All other sweets need to be consumed right before or during workouts.

Only having one splurge meal per week is working out too.  This week I did really damn well, my “splurge” was a whole wheat thin crust all organic mini-pizza, and the same day but at a different meal, one olive garden breadstick and some croutons.  I did drink 3 times (weird week), so there is that.

Diet Quality Check:

Monday: 26
Tuesday: 18 (had a few drinks)
Wednesday: 20
Thursday: 15 (also had a few drinks)
Friday: 14 (oops :P)
Saturday: 1 (double oops – drinks and snacks at party)
Sunday: 14

Average DQ Score: 15.48 (down about 2 from last week)

Average Cal/Day: 2109 (almost 200 UP from last week)

High Weight 187.2, Low Weight 184.4

So, as you can see, I start out the week well and then all goes to hell.  I had a better diet quality on weekday nights where I had to subtract quite a few points for drinking than Friday and Sunday when I just didn’t eat the right food.

Piss poor planning prevents proper procedure.  This week was piss poorly planned.  Not making that mistake again next week.

Next week, my goals are to:

• Keep the food calories lower, but diet quality the same or higher.
• Plan out what I’m eating before I’m forced to just grab shit and hope it’s not too many calories/the right things.
• Eat my damn rum ball on Feb 2 after training.
• Try to make sure I eat my max fruits and veggies – nuts I’ll add once I have more workout hours, but 4 of each freggies per day shouldn’t raise my calories too much. Remember that avocado is a fruit.

The good news is that I’m back to what I was weighing before this weird spike last week for no reason, and down another 0.2% (4% overall) body fat and up 0.1% (2.4% overall) muscle in one week.  I’ll take it.  Diet score and calories be damned.

Other Stuff:

Things this week have been interesting at work.  A little bit weird, but also a little bit of possibilities opening up for me.  Totally specific I know.  If any of you follow me on twitter, please do excuse the vague messages.  Sometimes I just need to say things.  And since I can’t really say things, I just need to say vague things.  The thing that I am most impressed with is the fact that this time around, I’ve realized that one does not get where they want to be by not stating one’s intentions and hoping for the best.  If you want to get somewhere, the first step is making sure anyone that can help you knows what you want.  Even if it doesn’t work out, I can be proud I’ve done that.

I put a stitch in something!!! OMG.  The sewing machine was super intimidating, but I realized that today had to be the day, and Zliten was super nice and helped me get it set up and once I figured it out the first time, it really wasn’t so bad.  Now I’m kinda inspired to actually do something with it, but since my previous experience ended so horribly (with my first and only C grade in a class… the terror!!!), I’m going to take it slow.  Next month, I’ll mend something.  If I do more, cool.  If not, baby steps.

We had friends over for a game night and it was a total blast!  We played Mario Yahtzee, Apples to Apples, and Drunk Jenga.  Then, we had deep and meaningful conversations until 4 am and I had 3 overnight guests. 🙂  It was way fun and much less stressful than hosting a big party.  I think we’re going to try to do one a month (maybe let other people host if they want but I’m happy only having to navigate from the living room to the bedroom once we’re done).

Zliten has been uber-complaining about the couch lately, and when I mentioned I really, really need a lay-on-the-couch day soon (was hoping for today but… it ’twasn’t to be) and he pretty much refused until we got a new couch.  To be fair, his side is REALLY saggy and uncomfortable and hurts his back so I don’t begrudge him, but then all of a sudden, it went from a “nice to have” to a MUST BUY NOW (I love me some ass to couch time).  The store down the street was doing a sale on room groups + two flat screen tvs for free, so we went, we purchased, and when we found out it was 36 months no interest, and we had already maxed out the shipping cost, we went ahead and got some bedroom furniture we’ve been wanting as well.  So, coming in the next few days will be a reclining sofa, a loveseat, a coffee table, two end tables, three dressers, and we took home two nightstands and have them set up.

There was a rug that I was eyeing that will “tie the room together” (the couch is sort of a red/chocolate brown and we have a black entertainment center, grey walls, and navy blue trim 😛 so the couch DOESN’T GO AT ALL).  We’ll need to eventually (or sooner, dependng on how much I hate the brown/grey combo) have to repaint our living room a warmer cream/beige/something color.  But, we finally have adult furniture and can ditch the coffee table with one broken section spraypainted red and blue.

I got a fitbit, so now I’m part of the fitbit gang of our friends.  I swear, Zliten and M will both be constantly walking around the block by the end of this feud… let the competition begin!

…And last but not least, I finally did the last step to clean out the closet by getting enough storage to get all my “not-right-now” clothes stored away on the shelf.  January organization zone done!

And with that, I’m out party people.  Question of the week: how are your goals going for January?  Conquer something intimidating?

…and hey, if you like all this, come check out our family blog at adventuresintriathlon.com!