Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: navel gazing Page 15 of 29

Off with her head.

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On August 30, 2017

In Uncategorized

Some weeks, you just feel… off.   Mentally and physically.

Then again, any week you can feel “off” and still ride 100 miles on Saturday is a win in my book.

Starting last Monday afternoon, I felt… weak.  Tired.  Not sick, not exhausted, not hurt, just not myself and extremely unmotivated.  Definitely the kind of feeling I could push through, but probably not a great idea on race week.  I wanted to make sure I save some give-a-shit for the weekend, because riding 100 miles on an empty motivation tank would have been rough.

I started out the week strong with a swim on Monday morning, and did end up prioritizing my 2 sessions of weights, but all I did besides that was a 20 minute easy spin on the trainer.

Oh, and rode for 100 miles/7 hours over the weekend.  But still, much less than I had planned – 9 hours total instead of the probably-too-much that was scheduled.  Obviously, things worked out the way they were supposed to since I had a pretty great ride.

Onto the next, right?  This week I’m splitting the difference between “I just finished my long race” and “it was just a relaxed pace 100 mile ride”.  I don’t have huge plans to kill it all week, but I’m also not sitting on my ass drinking margaritas.

Here’s what I’ve planned this week but at any point I could just… not…

  • Monday: played DDR for about 30 minutes.  Legs definitely weren’t quite as springy as normal!
  • Tuesday: ~2 mile lake interval run.  Walked to the lake by work and ran around it 6 times, alternating fast and recovery/steady.  Legs still didn’t feel great but maintained low 9s for fast and high 10s/low 11s for recovery.
  • Today: swim and weights
  • Thursday OR Friday: brick session in the pain cave
  • Saturday: riding to the BSS social ride and then home (about 40 miles)
  • Sunday: off
  • Monday: (bonus long weekend) bike and swim adventure (about 40 miles)

The next two weeks I’ll be focusing a little more on FAST (with some long-ish ride miles to stay in shape for Livestrong 100), and then a mini-taper to see what I can do at Kerrville Sprint in about 3.5 weeks.

I have not been able to get enough pizza lately, but with #projectraceweight in full effect, I’m making them on whole wheat/corn tortillas instead.

When you get that icky fatigued feeling, the last thing you want to do is go hungry and maintain huge deficits.  So, that’s what I did NOT do this week.  My numbers are a step back for sure but I will stand by the food I put in my mouth because I shook off the… off… without getting sick or injured and succeeded where it counted.

My body just felt INFLAMED last week and recovered just in time to get another dose of it in the shape of a hot, 7 hour bike ride where I was constantly dehydrating and rehydrating myself.  So, my weight averages are probably going to suck for a little while.  Sigh.  One step forward, two steps back.  We’ll get there someday.

  • Weight: 187.9 (+2.6) lbs (to note, this would be 1.3 lbs down taking out the two days that weirdly swung up 4-5 lbs for no reason).
  • Avg cal per day: 2582(+615) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: 567 (-254) calories/Garmin average deficit: 167 (-371)
  • Macros: 81 (+14)g fat, 244 (+54)g carbs, 109 (+3)g protein, 28(+3)g fiber

At least all the numbers make sense.  I let my fat and my total go up, my deficit go down, and my weight went up.  Everyone has crappy weeks and this was one of them.  How about the quality numbers?

DQ score: Monday: 22.  Tuesday: 16.  Wednesday: 29. Thursday: 14.  Friday: 19. Saturday: 12.  Sunday: 3.  Average comes out to approximately 16 (out of 32).

Obviously the average went way down for the week… but it’s better than when I first started tracking it.  I’m doing much better with eating the right stuff but only moderately better at avoiding the wrong stuff… let’s just say there was a little too much booze and a few more refined grains/sweets/fried food than normal.  So far, so good with eating the right stuff this week, I’m hoping to keep that trend up so the important thing (weight) will start trending down again.

I cannot wait to go see all the fishies and take pictures of all of them and eat yummy food and dive until I’m so exhausted I can’t even with myself anymore!

Getting ready to ride 100 miles and camp kind of took over our lives last week but I was able to get some things accomplished.

I made a valliant effort, if I do say so myself, at finishing my fourth chapter in my book in a short amount of time.  I’m pretty close.  Since I had a goal of four chapters in August, and I still have a little August left, my plan is to finish the last bit of this chapter today and spend some time Sunday working on the next.

I’m over 20k words and counting!  It’s not quite as prolific as when I did NaNoWriMo way back in 2009 (I think I got to something like 30-40k in a month before I quit), but that also kind of burned me out of writing.  This pace is brisk but I’m still feeling stoked to make progress.  So it’s perfect!

I downloaded the preview of the Brene Brown book, but I haven’t had any non-falling-asleep reading time.  This week, for sure.

While it’s not quite a To Do (since it’s a ta-DONE), I’m excited to say that we’ve booked our winter vacation and we’re heading back to Bonaire.  Checking out the prices for everything, and all things being fairly equal, I’d rather spend a week rolling out of bed and diving in the most beautiful place ever from the shore in my backyard than an all you can eat/drink luxury resort or a cruise or something.

So, here’s the non-training highlights for the week and long weekend – it’s a lot but also mostly fun stuff!

  • Today we’re showing a friend around our gym and taking a new class!  She may get a membership! It would be fun to have more gym friends.  Then… attempting to finish up chapter 4.
  • Thursday, we will likely be spending lunch picking out our kitchen cabinets and counters, and then D&D game night.
  • Saturday is Labor Day grilling and (card and board) game night at our house.
  • Sunday’s goals are making progress on a non-fiction book (Daring Greatly or something else) and starting (and attempting to finish) Chapter 5.
  • Monday – we want to do something involving water.  We had originally planned on tubing, but I’m not sure I want to chance it with all the rain.  Instead, I think we have a bike adventure and hit up Barton Springs and Deep Eddy and maybe a few places for snacks along the way.

I’m excited!  Fun stuff is fun!  What amazing things are you doing over your long weekend?

Not-quite-so-hotter’n Hell 100

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On August 29, 2017

In Uncategorized

The heat is my KRYPTONITE.

I tend to die a quick and early death when it’s super hot.  So, it makes sense that my choice for a ride this summer was Hotter’n Hell 100, in late August in Wichita Falls, TX, where the temperatures can climb to 105+, right?  I knew it was a stupid idea, so I did stupid things like ride outside for 3 hours at 5pm on the hottest day of the year in feels-like-110 temps and bike commute two days a week in the heat for the last month to prepare.

Then came hurricane Harvey last week.  The devastation in the Houston/Galveston area is terrible, and I would not have wished that on anyone for any reason.  However, a teeny silver lining, the effects up north made for some really unseasonably cool and still dry temperate weather.

We stayed up too late on Thursday night because we are dumb and I have determined that we need an adult sometimes to tell us to go to bed.  Friday morning, we finished final packing and drove our Turtle Home to work for a half day.  Showing off the trailer to a coworker, we realized that we had a tire about 10 miles away from blowing out (ack!), so we took time to fix that and got on the road later than expected.  We stayed just a little ahead of the storm the entire time and found Wichita Falls a little wet but sunny!

We didn’t get into town until after 6pm, got a little lost trying to find packet pickup (but got to see some awesome fast boys crit racing which was exciting!), and then by the time we got camp set up and cooked a very quick dinner it was after 9pm.  After falling asleep around 10, our propane leak sensor starting wailing at midnight.  We fixed it pretty quickly, but… crap.  Two pre-race nights full of sleep fail.  Not optimal.

Let me step in here and give a shout out to the KOA campgrounds in Burkburnet, TX.  They. were. awesome.  They offered free shuttles to the race… which was 14 miles and a few towns away.  Instead of stressing about parking (and with 12,000 people racing, I’m sure that would have been a NIGHTMARE), they dropped us off at about 6:30 AM (45 mins before the race) a block away from our corral and gave us a number to call to be picked up whatever time we finished, bikes and all.  They were all also super nice and it was family owned and the vibe felt good.  If I do this race again, I would ABSOLUTELY stay there.

12,000 people with bikes looks about what you would expect it to – we swarmed this downtown area.  I have never seen or experienced anything like it.  I was terrified of that many people that close together with bikes, but they know what they’re doing with the start.  I was able to get across the line with minimal space invasion and freaking out.

The first 10 felt easy, but I had to stop at the first aid station.  Normally I would hate to stop so early, but I felt like I couldn’t drink because I had to peeee, and not hydrating could have been a HUGE problem later.  There was a  HUGE porta potty line, but it was necessary, so I waited.  After that, I consumed some redbull and some fruit and then we got back on the road and I could drink again had a gel and life was good.

We met a guy who used to work for REI and we spent about 10 miles talking about Novara bikes and the store and all sorts of other randomness.  The temperatures were cool and apparently I was overhydrating, I had to stop again for the second aid station potties.  I think I waited for about 20 mins that time.  Sigh.  In my face went more redbull, watermelon, and a bunch of cookies.  The bottles were filled, we let the cookie monster jersey people know that this was their aid station because they had cookies, and we rolled out again.

In the 30s, riding started to feel a little tedious.  This is my least favorite part of any long ride – when you have enough miles down where you feel like you’ve ridden bikes (achy arms and hands for me before anything else), but you’re not even halfway yet.  Mentally, I felt like I was starting to slip, and we had turned directly into the wind, so I asked my husband if we could take turns every mile or so pulling.  He agreed that it was a better idea than riding side by side so we did that.

That made all the mental difference for me.  I had something to count down to, and  alternated the effort of pulling (harder) and recovering (easier) was better for me than riding a flat pace.  I felt so (hahaha) pro actually coordinating our efforts to conserve energy vs just riding.  We skipped the next but hit the fourth aid station around 40 miles with a little more of a quickness.  Pee, stuff face with PBJs, fill bottles, and hop back on.

At this point, my pulls started to pull away from my husband.  Something wasn’t completely right but I figured he was just having a moment and he’d be pulling me later.

To do the full hundred miles, you have to get to Hell’s Gate (mile 60) by 12:30pm.  We laughed about this earlier and said no problem.  Well, we started calculating times and it was looking like it was starting to become a potential problem, not because of our riding pace (over 15 mph at that point), but our really long stops.  There was debate at that point whether it was at 60 or 62 or 66, so we picked up the pace a little to make sure we didn’t get diverted.

We passed by the next aid station to stop instead at camp, since our route went DIRECTLY by it.  It was our quickest stop yet, hitting a real bathroom with no line, eating some chips, putting some gatorade in our bottles, grabbing some 303s, and we got in and out and on with our lives in about 7 minutes.

Zliten seemed refreshed after the break and feeling better, and we turned away from the wind, so we enjoyed riding side by side a bit again.  Sadly, mile 59 had the aid station I was looking most forward to – bbq sliders (real food!) – but we had 20 minutes to make Hell’s Gate, so we stopped for some cliff blocks instead and put in one more good effort to gain insurance if the gate was more like 66 than 60.

And then, it was indeed mile 60, and we were through with 15 minutes to spare.  My husband let me know that riding that effort definitely burned a match for him and he needed to slow a little.  We started comparing heart rates – he was in the 160s and spiked into 180s and I’d hear him panting and complaining about the heat (it did reach 90 and sunny but still…) while I was leisurely pedaling with a 130-140 heart rate and feeling fine while pulling.  I wasn’t going to leave him, but the slower pace was KILLING ME.

When we got to the 70 mile aid station, I told him that we were stopping, and for a good while, until he felt better.  We sat under mister tents for at least half an hour.  The guy next to us was taking a nap.  I ate probably a jar of pickles and a power bar and some fruit.  Nothing at the aid station was either palatable or wouldn’t cause an allergic reaction for Zliten so I went and grabbed him some blocks out of his bike bento box and gave him some of my gels because he had left his on the table in the camper.

We started out and got a mile before he went to take his turn to pull and just immediately stopped pedaling and started wincing in pain.  I had to block a bunch of cyclists that were drafting off us from running him over as he pulled over to the side.  We waited for the cramp to pass and I said, “look – we’ll go whatever pace we need to finish and if we have to stop and stretch every mile, so be it.”  I don’t know who this person is who was so rational and kind and positive 70 miles into a bike ride, but I’m thankful that was the version of me that showed up that day.

I’m also thankful that we didn’t have to get off the bike that often.  We took turns pulling, me for 2 miles, him for 1 mile, and got to the next aid station.  We almost didn’t stop, but we pulled in to top off the bottles and heard tell of hot dogs, and sure enough… real food he could eat (and FRITOS, which *I* pigged out on).  Later, he said it tasted so good he almost cried while eating it.  We thanked those volunteers profusely and then headed back out fairly quickly.

Another mile out… and another cramp.  Same deal, block my husband from getting run over by wheel suckers, stop, let it pass, and then get going slowly.  I didn’t have one damn person besides Zliten pull for me but I was constantly trailing between 3-7 people who never took a turn at the front.  One mile before the next stop, another really bad cramp hit him in a different spot and he got off the bike and sat down on the side of the road and I had to talk him out of sagging out.  At 89 miles.  With 11 to go.

I convinced him to get to the next aid station, a mile up ahead, and figure it out from there.  There was an ice bath, which may or may not have helped him, but it was something to do.  There was an annoying kid that kept throwing ice at us, but it was late in the day and he was probably super bored so I cut him some slack.  Zliten said he was going to medical but instead he just sat down for a bit until he was prepared to tackle the last few miles.

We took it really slowly the rest of the way.  It wasn’t windy anymore, so I just let him pull so he could pace us to his comfort.  It worked until about mile 99, riding up an overpass, which he ended up doing with one leg while the other was cramping, and we pulled over one more time to wait it out before we made the final descent into the downtown and through the arch at about 4:45pm.  7:16 riding time, 9:20-ish total with ALL the stops.

Here’s probably my second complaint about this ride – at the finish, there was no water, there was one booth handing out cups of coke or sprite but no gatorade, the beer tent was closed, and all the food cost money.  They hyped the finish line village and said it was open until 6pm, but nowhere on the website did it say that there wasn’t any thing freely available for athletes.  We drank our sprites and called the KOA people for the ride, and we were so thankful they were there to shuttle us to Turtle Home instead of driving.

After a shower and getting changed and shoving about half a bag of popcorn and some strawberry cake in my face and using the recovery boots, I felt pretty great!  We grilled up chicken, potatoes, corn, and had some pre-made salads for dinner, which is incredibly healthy compared to the normal gluttony that would ensue after burning about 4000 calories riding bikes.  We sipped our beers (and a flask of fireball) and relaxed and watched a beautiful sunset.

While this is already “longer’n hell”, I liked the race enough that I would consider going back if it fit into my plans (doing a back to back 100 mile ride/13.1 mile trail run would be EXCELLENT Cozumel training next year).  So, here are things I learned and what I’d do differently next time.

  • I’m stingy with my PTO usage but it would have been worth it to take a quarter day Thursday and a full day Friday and stay an extra night.  It would have been amazing to have an extra day Friday to relax, leisurely pick up the packets, hit the pool, watch the crit racing, etc.  Only two days camping made it feel rushed.
  • CHECK YOUR BIKE AT EVERY STOP.  Zliten’s front tire pressure the next day was under 40 PSI (and it’s supposed to be about 100-110).  While I don’t know if it was the entire problem, it can’t have helped to have a under-inflated tire.
  • I would totally stay at this KOA campground next time.  The free shuttle to and from the race was awesome.  It was convenient to have access to it at mile 56 as our own “aid station” and it was wayyyy cheaper than a hotel.
  • I’m usually the one that effs up my nutrition, but I’ve been training myself to be a hoover on the bike and fueling with burgers, fries, pizza, etc.  I can now ride at a sub-maximal effort fueling on damn near anything.  I went back and tracked and I am estimating that I ate/drank over 2000 calories on the ride and had ZERO stomach issues.  I’m going to look into some portable food options that work for both of us that can supplement gels and provide something savory.  And I’m going to start trying to train Zliten to eat pickles on the ride.  I’m pretty convinced the jar or two I ate over the course of the race saved my life.
  • Having a pulling rotation was actually pretty great.  I thought it would feel more like work than a fun bike ride (which, really, was the intention for this one, I had no pace goals).  It helped with the mental management of everything.
  • A pocket sized sunscreen.  Because after the ride, my face matched my drink.

Overall, I’m really thrilled with this ride.  My legs seem to handle about 80 miles before they start to complain, and I would put their decibel level at the end of the race as politely protesting instead of screaming bloody murder.  I’m excited to see what potentially cooler weather and two more months of riding will do, especially because we need to be faster than this (our riding time is fine, just less than the ridiculous 2+ hours of stops) to make the 8h30m cutoff for Livestrong 100.

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Coming ’round the bend

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On August 21, 2017

In Uncategorized

It’s the little things and a few moments in time and measurements in fractions of inches that are going the right way that give me hope that maybe my crazy plans are actually working.

It’s exhausting work chasing this guy down….

Saturday, we did a slightly longer version of our Pain Cave brick workout from last week.  20 mins warmup, 6x 5 mins steady on the trainer/.25 mile on the treadmill at somewhere around 5k speed, 15 mins cooldown.

I can tell you how things didn’t go as planned that day.  I was tired and didn’t set an alarm and woke up after TEN AM.  The treadmill crashed down off the two by four it was propped on and scared the ever living crap out of me on the second interval. I’m still getting used to my husband on the treadmill about four inches from my face when I’m on the bike.

However, I can tell you sometime about interval four I felt my legs start to do the sling shot thing.  Instead of taking effort to move my gams from being extended behind my body to bent in front, at that particular pace and time, it was happening via momentum.  Not every time, and especially when I was just trying not to fly off the treadmill into all the hazards elsewhere in the room, but one part of fixing my stride clicked for the first time… at least in years, before I knew what good or bad running stride was, and maybe ever.

I logged 3.5 miles last week at an average pace of about 9:20/mile.  I’m starting to see dividends in my stride and hopefully this continues.

Also, I lived one of my worst biking fears on Wednesday and it wasn’t that bad.  I totally misinterpreted the world and instead of staying put when an ambulance was coming through a busy intersection, I clipped in and started to go.  Once I realized what was going on, I fumbled and didn’t get unclipped in time and went down RIGHT into the righthand turn lane from the lane heading straight.   It was not the nicest commute in the world but my big girl pants were firmly on, so I got up, rode to work the rest of the way, and rode home.  I’ll probably be a little more cautious on the bike for a bit because I am skittish, but I think I will survive.

Other than that, it was a great week, I hit everything I planned to do.

  • 2 swims
  • 2 bike commutes
  • 1 run off the bike
  • 1 brick workout
  • 2 weights

7.25 hours total.  One key was that I hit the swims in the morning.  We’ll see about changing that up once my schedule clears up a little, but once I’m heading home, it’s REALLY hard to motivate myself to take that detour to the pool.

This week is pretty mellow until Saturday, the ride I have been training for, Hotter’n’Hell 100.

  • 1 swim (DONE)
  • 2 weights (with my NEW PLAN)
  • 1 run off the bike
  • 2 bike commutes OR one bike commute and one morning ride (depending on how time crunched/tired we are).

…and obviously riding bikes for 100 miles on Saturday.  I expect it will take us somewhere between 6-7 hours of riding time, and we’ll have 4-5 hours of training on Mon-Tues-Wed and then two days off to rest up.

It’s weird to have a goal “race” that’s not really a race, but just sort of a morning/afternoon party on bikes, but after all the super serious Ironman prep earlier this year, I’m so so so so so good for it!

The iguana and I had very similar dinners that day… we’re both on #teamlotsofveggies

Here we go.  Numbers and stuff…

  • Weight: 185.3 (-2.1) lbs
  • Avg cal per day: 1967(-191) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -821 (+102) calories/Garmin (538)
  • Macros: 67 (-13)g fat, 190 (-29)g carbs, 106 (-1)g protein, 25(-7)g fiber

Alright, alright, alright.  Finally some progress.  It’s always darkest before the dawn, I guess.  Obviously, there’s still room to be better, I actually overate on Saturday, not just my -1000 calories in fitbit, but my actual calorie burn +200 or so, but throughout the week it evened out.

Just for funsies, I’m going to put the garmin stats on here as well.  As you can see, it’s a difference of about 300 each day, so while on Fitbit, it looks like I should be losing almost 2 lbs per week, on Garmin, it’s got me right around the 1 lb mark.  Hopefully averaging these out over the next month paired with my average weight loss, I can decide which one seems more accurate in the long term.

So, how about quality?

DQ score: Monday: 28.  Tuesday: 25.  Wednesday: 18. Thursday: 30.  Friday: 27. Saturday: 6.  Sunday: 20.  Average comes out to approximately 22 (out of 32).

I’m going to guess that this, the low 20s, is the approximate DQ threshold where I start to lose weight (as long as my calories are in line as well).  I’ve cut out a lot of the negatives (switching refined grains for whole the majority of the time, eating fruits and nuts instead of other snacks, really thinking about sweets or fried food) and working on adding the positives (getting my required 4 servings of veg per day).

I suppose the despair last week and the relief this week is finding something that works that I can also live with.  Yes, I’m pretty certain that giving up all “negative points” foods and alcohol and I would lose weight.  I could probably do that for a couple weeks (while being a shut in) before I rebelled and went on the biggest battered-fried-dipped-in-ranch-frosted food bender with a bottle of whiskey.  I do moderation much better than abstinence.

I’m aware that I can’t indulge every time there is a reason to indulge and get to race weight.  I’ve passed up work pizza and cake this month.  I’ve stuck… reasonably well to the alcohol in moderation thing.  I’ve gotten comfortable with my weaknesses and starting purchasing pre-made salads to bolster my weekend veg content, making healthy deserts that include sunbutter to get some nut action (heh, heh), and keeping more accessible fruits around so it’s just grab, wash, and go.  The sugar cravings are MOSTLY held at bay with energy balls and some dark chocolate on occasion.  Oven fries, garlic pistachios, and popcorn are almost as good as fried fries and chips.

So, let’s say I find the balance and it’s indeed that 1 lb per week.  That’s about 30 weeks until I hit my goal.  Give or take a few weeks for holidays/vacations where maintaining is just fine, thanks, and I’ll be at my raceweight for my 39th birthday.  That would be a heck of a gift to myself, especially if I can do it while still stopping for a beer on the way home from bike commuting on Wednesdays as long as I also don’t eat the fried pepperoni pizza eggrolls from the food truck outside.

Yes, I used this picture before.  Imagine it just as dusty, but the bookshelf organized and the rest of the room you can’t see in serviceable shape!

THE OFFICE IS DONE, Y’ALL!

I didn’t actually take a picture of it because, honestly, it doesn’t look impressive.  When I gave up perfect for good enough, it meant there’s still crap on the shelves in the corner and there’s still a table with stuff on it and four monitors underneath and I still need to hang some degrees and certificates.  But, it meets all the criteria.  Everything has a place and the things that were elsewhere in the house that were supposed to go there are in there.  The closets close.  The floors are clear.  Most importantly, the desks are clear and we have workspace.

I am proclaiming it done, and for the first time in many, many years (maybe since we moved in), we have four usable rooms with a purpose.  This means, as I have promised my husband, that we are taking the entirety of September off house projects (while we gear up for the kitchen remodel).

I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve been able to sit down, write, and have it flow.  I’ve got the rough draft of three chapters written.  About 16k words.  I’m not so naive that I think it will continue like this forever, and I’m not entirely sure what I’ll think of it once it is done, but I’m writing a book.  I’m about a quarter done.  Even if it’s a big pile of dog mess at the end, I’ll have done it.  And I’ll know what to do better next time.  If I can write a crappy book in three months I can write a not-as-crappy book in another three months and then maybe a decent book in three MORE months and by the time a year is up, I have a shit ton of words and maybe something worth publicizing.

Other stuff I did or didn’t do:

  • Put together my weights plan – YEP!
  • Go shopping – NOPE!  I planned to ride my bike but it was literally feels like 110 when I was set to ride up so I took a nap (heat is EXHAUSTING) and we took an Uber instead.
  • Download a new non-fiction book – KINDA.  I’ve got the preview.  I’m going to decide whether it’s worth 15 bucks to me, but if it is I’m going to do it.  It’s just a little more than a movie ticket and will occupy my time longer.  I want people to pay me as an author, so I shouldn’t flinch about the price of a book I actually want to read, right?

And now, it’s a new week.  What’s up?

  • Racing HHH100 and camping this weekend.  Do all the things to prepare, and go have fun!
  • Finish chapter four of my book.  This is potentially dicey due to it being a short week filled with out-of-town prep, but I’m going to go for it.  Hopefully, it flows and I can at least make some progress.
  • Decide on the book and either download it or pick something else off my list (and read, obvs).

And, on that note, off to do the things that make the stuff go!

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Jack’s Generic Sprint Tri – All I do is pass pass pass no matter what…

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On August 8, 2017

In Uncategorized

Three and a half months after IM day, my body is finally starting to feel like it’s ready to do just a *little* more than play triathlon.

But just a little.

At first I had no expectations, and figured it would just be a repeat of the lack-of-fitness-show in June.  Then, this week, I was able to hold some 8s on my garmin for just a little while on a run, and my brain clicked over to perhaps believing that there was maybe possibly something in there.  But still, no expectations.  Because half a mile at 8:24 and 3 miles on gravel after killing it for 40 minutes on the bike are definitely different animals.

I pretty much did the normal stuff the day before.  Panera for lunch, a movie (Valerian – it’s super fun – go!), a pre-race swim, packet pickup, and then we picked up meats from Stubbs for dinner to go with mashed potatoes and veggies. We also received a couple of packages from some custom hat manufacturers that we’d bought some hats from. We were on our feet a *little* more than we would for a B or A race and finished up some chores so we could completely relax after the race.

Saturday was an awesome day and also it enabled us to completely slack on Sunday after the race without feeling guilty about it.  Win!

I didn’t sleep amazingly – fell asleep around 10-10:30, and woke up from about 12:30-1:30 for absolutely no reason.  5am came pretty early but after some green tea and peppy music, I felt pretty great.

We got to the venue a little later than expected and ended up parking at the end of Egypt, but luckily we had our handy dandy cart to haul our gear and BSS had a team tent at which to drop off our non-transition stuff.  We did the quick version of setting up transitions, skipped the warmup run due to time (would have had plenty of time if I had a second pair of shoes, which would have been NO problem with the team tent, I’ll remember that next time).  We hit the porta potties and missed the 3 minute window for the warmup swim.  0 for 2 on warmups.  Oh well.  I probably walked a few miles that morning, and that’s plenty fine for me.

After cheering EVERYONE ELSE into the water, I lined up with the caps that were my color.  I thought I was in the first third, but after people filtered in from the sides, I was probably bringing up the last third.  D’oh.  Also, as it was my turn to go, I realized I didn’t have my watch set for multisport, so I ducked behind a few more people and got it set up and then I was running into the water like I was on the set of Baywatch and my race started!

Swim:

My lack of paying attention screwed me here.  I ended up running into the water and passing people before I even started swimming.  Then, it was just like body body body bodies everywhere.  And a lot of them were either not swimming even remotely fast or breast stroking or side crawling.  Yes, it was totally my fault for not having confidence in my swimming abilities and also not paying enough attention to the lineup, but it sucked to be dodging people doing the backstroke before the first orange buoy.

Once things cleared up a bit, I felt like I was doing alright, just about like I had at Lake Pflugerville, but I looked at my watch about 2/3 through and it was 8 minutes in.  Not great, but I was finally going with the current so I didn’t worry about it.  Then, I got caught behind a gaggle of really slow swimmers near the exit chute and I was actually literally stopped for a while waiting for people to move.  That sucked, but there was no way around except REALLY wide or over people, and I’m just not that much of an asshole.  I took it as some time to breathe and rest, but it really did tank my swim time/pace.

Not my absolute worst here but definitely sucks that I was a full TWO MINUTES slower than last year.  For the record, my garmin registered almost 600 yards, which is 2:15/100m which is more like what I felt like I was swimming.  Seeing how much I had to dodge people, I’m really going to blame my positioning for most of it but some of it admittedly was fitness.

In summary, I need to have confidence that my swim is better than I think it is relative to other people and also it’s time start doing sets and drills in the pool again.  For realsies.

Swim – 12:34 for 500m – 2:31/100m (17/39 AG place)

T1:

Because I was so… rested coming out of the swim, I actually PR’d my T1 at this race.  At this point I really think the only way I could get much faster here is to improve either my actual running speed or the speed I’m comfortable running barefoot.

T1 – 2:42 (15/39 AG place)

The aftermath.  Barely got down any liquid, but that’s probably ok on a ~40 minute bike.

Bike:

And then I got to the mount line.  And there were literally 20 people crowded there trying to clip in.  My sub-par swim, starting so far back, and being in the last wave had messed up my positioning here too.  I’m not the best clipper-inner, but I’ve been getting better so I confidently walked one step over the mount line on the LEFT side away from everyone, clipped in easily, and then went about dodging everyone else wobbling away down the street.

After the swim, I was not about to get stuck behind people.  I tried not to be a jerk about things, but I had this song in my head by mile .5 (with the lyrics “all I do is PASS PASS PASS no matter what”).  The great thing is that it’s a huge confidence boost to zoom past hundreds of people in the first few miles and get passed maybe 3 times by dudes on the Olympic with 7% body fat on bikes that cost twice what mine does.  The not-so-great thing is that it was due to my placement, not my awesomeness.  The worst is that I spent probably half the first five miles over the double yellow line.  Sorry, but I’m not sorry.  I wasn’t the only one doing it and there was no way around it.

After fighting the wind and crowds, there was a nice tailwind section where my speed climbed and climbed and I saw 20 mph average right as we turned back into the wind up a hill.  I decided I my goal was to keep from losing more than 2 mph as long as I could without spiking my heart rate too much.  We got one more nice tailwind down a hill (wheeee!) and then turned into a wall of wind (ooof).

I got down into aero as teeny tiny as possible, and then found the BIGGEST guy going right about my speed.  I did my best to stay legal on the crowded course, but I’m convinced I still got some drafting benefit even the required 5 lengths behind with his size.  I wasn’t keeping the 19-20 mph I was before but I was holding 16-17, and slightly uphill and into the wind?  I’m happy with that.

My garmin read 18.5 mph average on the actual moving parts once I unclipped and rolled into transition, and I will absolutely take it.  I felt very confident and capable on the bike, even though I’ve only ridden it twice inside since the last race.  Not my best on the course but I think my second best.  One of these days I’ll crack that 20 mph average, but maybe not at Lake Pflugerville for a while with the hills and the wind.

Bike: 42:45 –  18.1 mph (7/39 AG place)

T2:

Luckily, it was not as crowded on the way back into T2.  I did my thing with the quickness and was out on the run with no fumbles.  Best here by 6 seconds!

T2: 1:30 – 14/39

Run:

I got out and running and… while it felt terrible it didn’t quite feel as terrible as last time.  I didn’t want to concentrate on pace, I just wanted to concentrate on quick feet, like my really great run on Friday, so I switched my watch to my cadence and heart rate screen.  It stayed at 176 (88 cadence) and 172 HR and I just could not shove it up any more. So that’s where we lived.

The first mile ticked off at 10:53, and while that in and of itself was not terribly impressive, it was about a minute faster than the first mile six weeks ago and my legs felt significantly less like lead bricks.  Someone in my age group passed me and I considered trying to go with her, but she was moving VERY quickly and I just didn’t see it happening.  Yet.  Maybe by Kerrville I’ll have the mojo to run someone down again.

The second mile was about the same as the first and then all of a sudden we hit the wall of wind.  Again, just like the last race, I felt I was running standing still, but with signficiantly better stride.  I knew the wind was rough when my last mile was the slowest paced.  My garmin showed the course SIGNIFICANTLY short, but my Garmin also has a habit of sandbagging me, so I’ll say while this definitely was slower than 9:58/mile pace, it probably wasn’t the 10:56/mile my watch showed.

Run – 29:55 – 9:58/mile (20/39 AG placement)

One day we’ll get a full team picture.  This was not that day.  Photo care of team captian Claudia!

Total time: 1:29:29.  (10/39 AG placement)

Here’s the skinny.  If you want to bump up your placement, get better at the bike.  The average of 20+15+7 is certainly not 10 but since I did well on the bike, that’s where I placed.

Also, there was some majorly stiff competition.  I would have needed to place 10th OVERALL of 186 women to snag third in my age group.  I placed 43rd, so top quarter, at least!   I was in the top half overall both genders.  Oddly enough, if I would have stepped up and did the Olympic, I’m pretty sure I would have snagged 3rd out of 5th in my age group, from times that I’ve posted recently.  Ah well.  No regerts, right?

I’m definitely not back at peak form but I’m showing improvement.  And that’s what’s important.  I’m going to stick with my bike focus, because it seems to be both improving my bike and also improving my overall endurance without all the pounding of running.  I’m also sticking with playing Dance Dance Revolution plyometrics because it seems to be helping my running form.

Obvs, these guys do not need the plyometrics because they have the HOPS and also they both had pretty great days!

While I’d like to actually run more, I think it may actually be helpful to run less and let my legs forget the marathon shuffle.   I have run almost nothing (about 22 miles) in the last six weeks, but I improved my run by over 2.5 minutes on the same course.  And, swimming.  I have no idea why I’m not into it right now, but one sport has to be the red headed stepchild, and I’m sorry, swimming, you’re it.  I really do need to focus a bit better when I do get to the pool, but at this point, I’m going to ride bikes and hope for the best.

Super thanks to all my Bicycle Sport Shop teammates, it’s always a blast to race with you!  I mostly signed up for this race because FOMO, and had a pretty solid day.

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A little sunshine…

By

On August 2, 2017

In Uncategorized

Now that I’ve spent some time pouring out some of the negative, let me put a more positive spin on things.

Y’know what doesn’t suck?  My commute is now an excuse to ride bikes for 1.5-2 hours instead of drive for 40-50 mins. 

I always forget what it’s like to be a person and not just an athlete training for an event after months and months of doing that.  While it’s a lot of work, it’s also very simple.  Checking off the training schedule, eating every five minutes, and maintaining the rest of my life to the point where my friends and family don’t feel completely abandoned and my job doesn’t fire me.  There is a zen in ignoring every ‘effing thing else in the world.

One thing I need to face is that I’m kind of sort of training again even though I don’t feel like it.  Doing workouts to just survive a century ride and sprint triathlons don’t feel like much in comparison to earlier this year, but when I add everything up, two out of the last three weeks have been approaching double digits and this week will likely be the same. 9-10 hours a week is actually equivalent to the beginning of 70.3 training (this is just much less intense).

So, here’s some sunshine.  My legs are starting to come back, y’all.  Definitely on the bike.  I’m generally stuck to my husband’s wheel again like glue and urging him to go faster if I don’t pass him (except on steep hills where I’m convinced he has a hidden motor somewhere).  The swim and the run are just showing inklings of improvement from rock bottom, but it makes sense because I’m mostly abandoned them to bike and work on strength.  We cannot be good at everything all the time.  I’m looking forward to retraining my legs for speed but first I had to recover, and now I need to build my endurance back.  Working on it!

I race this weekend, and I’m not even going to bother with a long, drawn out anything.  My goal is to have fun with my friends and teammates and enjoy maxing out my heart rate as much as I can for about 90 minutes, because I haven’t had that luxury in a while trying to stick close-ish to MAF heart rate.  We’ll see!  I have no expectations because I’m not really swimming, running, and I haven’t spent much time on my tri bike.

Last week:

  • Running – 8 miles, all approximately 12 min/miles at MAF HR
  • Bike – 100 miles on the dot – one work commute of about 24 miles, and one hot hilly long ride of 76 miles.
  • Swim – 1600yd around the lake in about 34 minutes.
  • Weights – 1 double dozen (2xall the other exercises except the 55 pushups), 1 DDR session

Seriously, I’m listing this out and can’t believe it’s over 10.5 hours, but it is.

This week:

  • Two bike commutes
  • One double brick workout (10/1/10/1)
  • One pool swim, one lake pre-race swim
  • 2xweights
  • 1xDDR
  • Race!

This is looking like about 9 hours.  One of those swims is in jeopardy if it keeps with the raining tonight, but I’m good with it either way.

The rule is: anything eaten while working out does not count negatively against diet quality.  I’m not sure Matt Fitzgerald anticipated athletes biking for 5.5 hours fueling only by fast food and pizza. (by the way, that temp wasn’t even the hottest part of the ride – which was 106 feels like 110)

Let’s start with the nubmers and go from there…

  • Weight: 188.7 (+0.6) lbs
  • Avg cal per day: 2091 (+91) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -1014 (+142) calories
  • Macros: 78 (+16)g fat, 202 (-1)g carbs, 106 (+5)g protein, 32 (+8)g fiber

Besides the weight going up and the fat bomb over the weekend, the other numbers look ok.  The deficit is definitely harder to manage when you’re doing stupid things like 5.5 hour long rides.  I was 2000 in the hole on Saturday and then 2000 over on Sunday.  It actually worked out pretty well overall though it made me reaaaaaal cranky about my weight Monday and Tuesday.

DQ score: Monday: 26.  Tuesday: 25.  Wednesday: 24. Thursday: 20.  Friday: 26. Saturday: 10.  Sunday: 13.  Average comes out to approximately 20.5 (out of 32).

Hey, look at this, this is WAYYYY better than what I was doing.  What I need to do now is to bump up those weekend numbers a little more with good nutrition before I subtract the points for the inevitable alcohol and junk food splurges, but this is a good start.

There’s a least a little sunshine here.  I’m frustrated with how I look and feel and the number output on the scale, but I do know that last year I needed like a month of true consistency before I saw any results, so I will stay at it and be patient.  My goals this month:

  • Eat a giant rainbow salad every day (even weekends) to get my four servings of fruit and vegetables easily.
  • Eat fruit and nuts as snacks instead of crap (and on weekends, BEFORE I reach for anything that’s crap).
  • Aim to get my diet score over 20 every day (even on the weekends).
  • Measure out my drinks BEFORE I drink them at home.  It honestly worked SUPER well when I did it.  I just got lazy and didn’t do it on the weekend and then had more than I expected.
  • PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I PUT IN MY MOUTH ON THE WEEKENDS.  Sigh.  This is my downfall.  I can be perfect all week and once I’m not on a routine schedule, it all goes to hell in a handbasket.  There’s obviously some wiggle room for fun food and drinks on days where I burn 5000 calories like Saturday but also that means I have more than enough calories to get in all the good stuff before I spend the remainder on booze and junk food.

Are you sensing that weekends are my downfall?  Now that my weekdays are pretty rockin’ with the fruit and veggies and whole grains and nuts, I just need to bring the plan to Saturday and Sunday too.

This has to has to has to has to has to work.  I can’t even figure out how if I ate this well consistently and minded my calories to keep a deficit like this through August, that I could not start taking off weight unless the universe is absolutely and truly against me.

I call this one “Works in Progress (and a cat)”.

Dear me.  You have five months until the end of the year.  Stop stressing about the to do list so much.  Love, me.

That week where I wake up and realize I should be a well rounded person is always fun.  Especially when I’m trying to do it while work is being extra demanding and I’m in denial that I’m actually training again for just a little 100 mile ride (yes, I know I’m ridiculous).  So, while I want everything to be just done already I’m trying to take a step back, look at the big picture, and chill the eff out.  It may only last a few days, but I’m feeling better about things right now so we’ll go with that.

Let’s talk about the start of last week though.  We purchased a shed from a road show in Costco.  It was an amazing deal, the lady who took our order was super nice, and assured us they installed on weekends and it would be about a week or two.  When the company called to schedule, they absolutely DID NOT work weekends, and it would be almost two months.

THEN the morning of the shed install, they were supposed to be there at nine.  9:20 rolls around, and my husband calls and the guy hasn’t even shown up to work yet to pick up the materials to build the shed.  And they are in San Antonio, over an hour away.  When work was a 10 minute trip this would be no big deal, but now that it’s 25, we could not just run home to let them in.  Instead, we arranged with work that we would come in later and spent the morning cleaning out the office and the office closet.  It actually worked out fine, but it was quite stressful at first.  I just don’t understand how someone would think it was appropriate to be 2.5 hours late and not call.  Sigh.

Last week’s goals:

  • Caulking the shed (DONE).
  • Painting the shed (first coat, still need to do the second and trim).
  • Transport all the things into the shed that are supposed to be in the shed (in process but not done).
  • Getting my online stuff set up with my doctor (in process, I’ve sent the fax twice with no response, so I suppose the next step is to call).
  • Finish the second half of the chapter I started (didn’t even touch it).
  • Bonus points: office work (YES! due to that impromptu morning at home care of tardy shed installers, we actually got two hours of work done on this)

So, since last week was obviously too ambitious, my goal is to finish that before I move onto more goals.

  • Second coat of paint and trim on the shed.
  • Put all the things in the shed that need to go in the shed.
  • Clean up the workout room now that the only thing left in there is workout things.  Doesn’t have to be perfect, but the floor should be clean and there should be room for the treadmill and two trainers.
  • If I have not heard back from the doctor by Friday, actually use the phone and call and find out what’s up.  If I have to use the phone, also inquire about my ears and when I might be able to get in one morning.
  • This is already in progress, but my goal is to spend at least 5 hours focused on my book this week.  1h45 down!  Then, I can sort of plan how long it should take me based on what I get done vs my plan.  Specifics should help me stay motivated versus just the general “I should work on my book at some point for some random amount of time”.

Notice the office is not even on this list.  I think if I can knock the workout room and the shed off my To Do list in one fell swoop this weekend (which is absolutely reasonable), I will feel much better about life and the office work can resume next week.

The next few days are filled with fun stuff too – tomorrow our game night resumes for the next chapter after some downtime, and Friday we have tickets for one of the last showings of Wonder Woman (yay, finally!).

What’s the most awesome thing you did in the last week?  Tell me your accomplishments and cast some more sunshine on my day!

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About Me

I'm a video game producer and a lover of anything game related by trade.  I'm a triathlete by hobby.  I live for being on or in the water as much as I can - scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, water slides... you name it.  The dichotomy between my outdoor and indoor realities are interesting, but they're all mine!  Longer version here...

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