Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: navel gazing Page 24 of 29

Failing just a little at everything

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On September 7, 2016

In Uncategorized

Vacation was amazing and awesome and beautiful and typically, there are two ways I come back from a break: refreshed and ready to go, or longing to be there or anywhere else.  Sadly, I’m in the second category.  Spending a week playing outside (ie, not locked in a windowless box 8+ hours a day) made it really really really hard to want to go back to work.  I’m not sure what to do about that besides endure the ride through the harsh comedown and continue to work on my goals without suffering a nervous breakdown from a whole lot of too much and not enough at the same time.  So, that’s where I am.

sept7-1

#bedhairdontcare

It’s not all bad (actually, mostly not-at-all bad), so let’s go over some of the highlights, shall we?

This weekend was brought to you by the word BIKE.

On Saturday, our goal was to log some major miles on the TT bike in Pflugerville.  Because we missed a few running opportunities last week (running is SO HARD in summer because morning or treadmill or heatstroke), we decided to host the first unofficial Labor Day Pflugerville duathlon with a field size of two.  The distances were either 3 or 3.1 mile runs, depending on which gender you were representing sandwiched around a 31 mile bike ride.

Things started out a little hairy.  My plan was to run easy the first loop, and then hit it harder after riding, which I vocalized.  My husband went out like a rocket instead (I only rolled my eyes at him a little – love ya dear!) and I just kept telling myself I was doing me this run, not trying to keep up.

sept7-2

Love this guy, but running with him is a challenge…

After a quick change and two adjustments to my cleats to fix a problem, we were off and riding… and sadly, my love of riding at Lake PF is starting to wane.  It was super traffic-y the way we started, the roads have degraded to such poor conditions you sometimes HAVE to just ride in the middle of the road for your safety (and cars have to deal, no matter how much they want to honk and be impatient).  And then we had a truck blow a stop sign which made me have to slam on brakes coming down a hill (where I had right of way and no stop) and Zliten came inches from wrecking into my tire.  Fucking trucker asshat.

Then we got to the quieter section, and things got better.  By the end of the ride, I was actually having a good time, was in a good mood, and actually excited to run even though it was super hot.  I might actually be able to do 56 miles on this bike in this weird funky aero position at the end of next month (ack) and 112 miles in April (double ack!).

And, I have to brag since it’s been about 6 month since this happened… on the second post-bike lake loop, I had a pretty great run in the heat and beat my pace by over 1 min/mile and also passed Zliten.  He admittedly had died in the heat, but still.  Little victories.

After food and a quick lazy river stop, we hightailed it to a keg and pool party.  Sounds very college, but our host won a contest at one of the local breweries, so it was at least a classy keg party!  We bike commuted there, planning to leave around sunset, and then because beer and friends and safety and stuff, we got a ride home and picked up our bikes the next day.

sept7-3

Bike check in station.  The view sucked.

While I didn’t actually ride bikes Sunday, I volunteered at Tri Rock bike check in on Sunday morning/afternoon.  For 4 hours, I got to help people get to the right place, answer a lot of newbie questions (<3), and generally walk, stand, and sweat a lot because it was feels like 113 when I left.  After that, we took our TT bikes in for a tuneup and they got a quick little spa day.  After a late late lunch, we ran errands and dropped the TT bikes off and picked up our cruiser bikes from the party, and on the way home, we grabbed a beer with friends we haven’t seen in a while.

By 7:30pm Sunday, we had been home a total of 5 minutes the whole weekend, and I’m pretty sure we had been constantly caked with either sweat or chlorine for 2 days.  The shower was magical.  But… then it was Labor Day.  No work, no one out on the roads in the morning… you just HAVE to ride bikes, right?

So, we did just that.  We jumped at the chance to ride the Austin IM 70.3 course during this perfect window of calm.  It was beautiful.  It was hot.  Country roads and streams and greenery!  But… country roads mean chipseal, and some roads were so rough I thought I was going to pop fillings.  There were some awesome roads to just cruise on.  However, most of it was pretty hilly (I think… 2k of climbing in 53 miles seems like a decent amount to me…).  I went back and forth between I LOVE THIS COURSE! and I WANT TO GET AN UBER HOME!  I ate and drank enough, I think, but I forgot my electrolyte tabs until 2 hours in, and on a sweltering day, that was a mistake.

sept7-4

Still in <3 with the course at this point.

Generally the first time I ride a course I suck at it and then next time I’m better.  If nothing else, I got that out of the way before race day.  I want to come back and ride it a few more times so I can anticipate all the crappy parts and enjoy the good ones.  I also want to come back when 53 miles is not a SUPER LONG RIDE.  So I guess I have to ride more bikes.  Oh darn.

Beyond the bikes, the rest of the week felt like this.

The best I can do at life right now is to fail a little bit (instead of a lot) at everything so nothing is completely neglected.

sept7-5

A couple more weeks and it will be cooler.  A couple more weeks and it will be cooler.  A couple more weeks and it will be cooler.

Cases in point below:

  • Haven’t seen our families (who would probably love to see us every week) since Aug 5th.  We have one weekend window on the 17th of this month and then maybe one more until Thanksgiving.  I’m sure they think we’re shitty kids, but our retired parents just don’t quite understand how busy everything is and that once a month IS us making shit shift around so we can prioritize them.
  • We prioritized social stuff last week and weekend, and it left me feeling exhausted.  I need to watch out for this, or I get in my “burnt out and hating people” mode and social stuff becomes a chore.  However, if I swing too far the other way, I have major FOMO depression and feel like a terrible friend.  It’s a huge balancing act being just enough of a jerk but not too much.
  • There’s some stuff that needs to be handled differently at work, and I’m yelling my ass off about it, but I have a feeling it will need to fail before it gets attention.  I’m trying to come to terms with it, but it’s hard to have to actually watch something probably go up in flames before it can be fixed.
  • I’m missing about 1-2 workouts a week.  Considering I plan about 10-12 sessions per week, that’s not the end of the world.  It’s just hard to have to just mark out my yahtzee week after week.  Prioritizing weights and cycling, and the fact that it’s summer and I love swimming, has typically meant that running gets the short end of the stick lately.
  • And guess what sport feels the most iffy right now?  Yeah.  I keep telling myself that once it gets a little cooler I can run at lunch, and running at lunch means I can get in a lot more miles more easily… but hopefully it’s not too little too late for Austin 70.3.  I’m 8 weeks out and my weekly mileage is about 10-13 and my long run is 6.  Yeah.  Not ideal.
  • I can’t seem to figure out the waking up before work for workouts either.  I mean, I know what the problem is – I just can’t go to bed on time. I even tried setting myself a bed time daily last week and I’m missing it sometimes by 4 hours when I say “fuck it” and need some extra downtime awake.
  • My house is a flippin’ mess, we haven’t completely unpacked from vacation, there are boxes everywhere now that we’re trying to clean out the office, I can’t seem to get my ass in gear to batch cook right now, and I need to accept this is going to be how life will be until after the IM in April.
  • I took 3 weeks off class as of today and realized that if I just let myself, it would never get done.  So, I made myself a schedule with the max I think I can handle per week without going insane… and it takes me through February.  Sigh.  I was hoping to be done WAYYY quicker than that.
  • While I am happy the scale is continuing to decline, I’m at about 1-2 lbs a month.  This involves actually tracking and TRYING to stay -1000 calories under what fitbit says my burn is (and, like the theme, fail just a little).

So, as you can see, there’s a lot going on in my life to fail at!  I guess you might more positively frame that as progress and not perfection, but I’m feeling salty, so we’re not going there, okay?  This is truly and simply how August and September usually go around here.  Utter chaos.  Every year. I just finally found a way to put the exact feeling into words.

What am I going to do about it?

sept7-6

I’m going to eat all of this in one sitting.  Oops. 

I’m going to attempt to stop worrying about this shit that doesn’t matter.  It does not matter if my house is not in order (except the 1-2 days a month where it does and I’ll deal with that then).  Work is work and it will be what it will be.  I will do what I can to change things while I’m here, but try to keep my mind away from the things I CAN’T.

Think really hard about social invites.  Is it someone special to me I haven’t seen in a while?  Is it going to be super fun?  Is it going to stress me out with my other obligations?  Let that answer be the guide.  If the answer is no, make future (even if it’s a month or two out) plans to try to tell the people I really care about know they are loved but life is just chaos.  For example, I have an opportunity that I REALLY want to jump on next weekend, but I know it will leave me ragged.  So I have to adult and say no to it.

Keep plugging away on the things that need plugging.  Two class modules a week.  Eating good stuff and not too much bad stuff because even if it’s slow, it IS working.  Hitting as much training as my mind and body allows and not sweating missing an easy 3 mile run if life gets in the way.  Go to fucking bed when I’m supposed to sleep.

And the big thing – forgive myself when I fail just a little bit at some of these things, because I know I’m doing the best I can right now.  I’m not lazy or unmotivated, just overwhelmed.  And failing just a little still means progress, so there’s that.

Let’s end this with a few short goals for this week.  They’ll look familiar if you’ve been around here much.

sept7-7

One goal – trust that my body knew exactly what it wanted the day we got back from vacation and eat lots more of this stuff.

  • Hit my training the rest of the week as much as possible.
    • Running: 8-10 mile long run, relay race (short fast run)
    • Swimming: 4500m distance challenge lake swim
    • Weights – 2 sessions.  One gym, one home (less intense).
    • Biking – recovery ride tonight, more miles this weekend if possible.
  • Try to stay at -1000 calories per day according to fitbit (which I’m going to actually guess is more like -500 calories for me), eat 5 fruits/veggies per day.
  • Go to sleep when my schedule says go to sleep. 9-10pm is the goal most nights.
  • Read all my Sports Nutrition course material this week (it’s only ~55 pages).
  • Don’t sweat the small stuff.

NOTE: it’s all small stuff. 🙂

The magical growing shirts from last August

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On August 18, 2016

In Uncategorized

Last August, I went thrift store shopping and bought a bunch of shirts.  Like, a metric boatload.  It’s REALLY fun to do that when they all cost, like, 3 bucks.  I was super excited to be able to refresh my closet.  Some of the shirts went beyond the typical ironic or triathlon related t-shirts I typically wear, and made me look a little more (just a little bit) like a grown up.  Not that I need that on a daily basis, but it’s kind of nice to be able to wake up and decide if I want to look 12 or more than 12.

Aug18-1

One of said new-not-new shirts.

Sadly, due to the great nutrition experiment failure of 2015, most of those shirts had shrank so much that I couldn’t comfortably wear them by mid-September.  It was pretty crazy depressing to have gained that much in a month.  So, for almost a whole year, I have been staring at a bunch of shirts that didn’t quite fit that I’ve never worn.

Zliten, who has also lost a bunch of weight, decided to start wearing his size Large shirts after I continued to tease him about how his XL shirts were looking like tents.  Or mumus.  Or mumu printed tents.  Now, he is at the point where he’s just a few lbs away from his goal.  I am… somewhere in the middle of this process.  I’ve got a long way to go to get to the same point.  However, I figured I owed it to myself to try the same.

Oddly enough, those shirts have sat there long enough that they have grown again to their previous size.  Who knew that 5 months of working on weight loss would have that effect?

I still am cranky that it has taken me 5 months to undo this.  I still am cranky that the numbers say I should be losing about 8 lbs a month and I’m losing 2-3.  However, seeing the pictures I don’t hate, seeing myself in the mirror with a smile and not a grimace, seeing the progress even if it’s slow?  It’s worth it.

Mar7-3

Feeling a lot different than this girl from March even if it’s only ~15 lbs or so difference.

I’ve accepted a lot of things in this process.

For some reason, I’m always going to need to stick to the -1000 calories to make any sort of progress.  My body just seems to process calories differently than the fitbit thinks, the nutritionist thinks, that logic dictates.  I’ve read some studies about losing a bunch of weight, and how your body actually burns less calories overall.  While my nutritionist told me that was bull honkey, I think that math seems to back it up in my case.

I’ve accepted that I will probably be at this for a long time, and I should just stay the course because it takes so long to get rolling once I stop.  While I’d love to have been able to diet for 4 months of offseason and have gotten to race weight, it’s just not how it goes for me.  I have to track my food.  I have to maintain a deficit that is small enough to still train but large enough to make a difference.  I have to be patient, persistent, and relentless.

I’m going to probably not be able to come up to 100% form this year.  Last year, I felt a big change between maintaining a deficit and eating enough, or more calories than I needed.  I don’t feel very different right now, but that’s because I’ve been doing this for months.  I *know* that once I’m done with the weight loss, and I bring my calories up, my performance will increase a bit automatically.  I have to be kind to myself when I fail to hit run paces I think should be easy, because they will come easier when it’s time.

I need to remember that the time to skimp on food is NOT before, during, or after a workout.  Yeah, it’s more fun to eat pizza than it is to eat cyborg boob milk gels, but unless I can either eat the pizza as pre- or mid-ride fuel, or consume that pizza within an hour of my workouts, it’s not doing me much good.  My workout sucks, and instead of being able to use that fuel to power a workout, it powers it’s way to my adipose.

Aug2-3

This would have gone straight to the thighs… except it was at hour 2 of a 5 hour bike ride.  So it actually went straight to the quads (in a good way).

I also need to realize that I’m in the danger zone right about now.  This is what always happens.  I make some progress, I’m feeling good about myself.  I want to lose more weight, but I no longer hate the mirror, some of my clothes fit… and I loosen up on tracking.  I can see it starting already.  I haven’t tracked since yesterday afternoon.  I’ve totally been busy, but obviously not so busy as I’m writing this blog.  This is the way that progress ends.  Not with a bang, but a whimper.

On that note, off to track, off to be persistent, patient, and relentless, and maybe I’ll be able to find that the next size down shirts have also magically grown again.

The mystery of the quickly evaporating weekend.

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On August 2, 2016

In Uncategorized

It’s really time for vacation, folks.  My last one got a little interrupted and the last half was kinda ruined with crappy work news, so I just decided that I’m going to remove facebook (and maybe twitter) from my phone during our Colorado trip.  I don’t even want the temptation.  I’m pretty sure I’ll have more interesting things to look at than the millionth political update about Bill Clinton’s love of balloons while hanging out in pretty places.

I’ll still have my Instagram and Pokemon GO.  I’m not going 1991 or anything, just wanting to keep my reality in a bubble for a while.

Aug2-1

Wandering to pretty places on the bike helps. 

But yes, it’s time.  I’m feeling that sweet, sweet burnout with a huge side of wanderlust.  I may have stayed up a little a lot too late Sunday because I needed another weekend day.  It couldn’t possibly have been time to start another one of these week things when I’d just barely finished my to do list around 10:30pm.  I need another weekend day now that I’ve started training, or a little less ambition on the life front.  One of the two.  Sadly, I foresee neither.

Dissecting the issue of the quickly evaporating weekend is tough, because it actually was a pretty perfect one from start to *almost* finish.  Saturday morning, we woke up, and joined about 100 of our closest friends at Bicycle Sport Shop to ride 60+ miles around Austin and collect cards from every BSS store to form a poker hand.

The ride was absolutely the most fun on a bike I’ve had in a while until about mile 55 with the heat and the tireds.  The thing I wanted to do most with every little beat of my heart is just get to the fucking finish already, but with a group, it’s about pacing, patience, and a dash of not falling off your bike into traffic.  Considering my previous longest outdoor ride in nine months since Kerrville was 22 miles a few weeks ago (and my two longest indoor rides were 3 hours and 1.5 hours), I’m going to call finishing 64 miles in under 5 hours and feeling pretty much *just fine* for most of it a huge win.

Aug2-2

From our first stop at the new store, 13 miles into the day.

The best part?  I’ve been dreaming of the next time I get to take a long ride like that, and what routes I can go play bikes on for 60, 70, 100 miles.  I also know that given another month and a half, it won’t be so deathly hot (one of our temperature readings was 112 at some point – probably a little inflated, like a car sitting in the sun reads a little hot, but not too far off from the feels like at the end…), and I can go ride my bike all day and it will be awesome.  This is a good place to be.

After the ride, we pretty much just vegged on the couch and ate all the food.  I did laundry and stretched a little, but I forgot the rule about long workout Saturdays – they take up the whole day.  Not due to the actual workouts, but the fact that you’re so incredibly zonked after.

Then, Sunday.  It started so promising.  I went to bed early (for a Saturday) and my eyes just opened at 9am feeling rested.  I finished my book, painted my toenails, plucked my brows, started with finally processing and editing the fish pictures from vacation.  Then, once Zliten got up, it became a day of happy things for me, as we ate mongolian grill for lunch, hit the wah pah lazy river for an hour, and then rode bikes all over our hood to do errands and go terrorize some pokemans.

May31-5

My summer happy place.

Then somehow it was 6pm.  And I hadn’t batch cooked yet.  And I had a LOT of batch cooking to do.  Fuuuuuu!  I like cooking and all, but it took about 4 hours total of prep and cooking and cooling to make ham, cheddar, and broccoli breakfast oatmeal muffins (yes, they are as weird and amazing as they sound), a giant pan of meat and veggie lasagna, and a slightly less giant but still large pan of lightened up chicken cordon bleu rice casserole (which is also as weird and wonderful as it sounds).  I didn’t even get to the potato leek soup but I did get to real life leekspin, and sing the song, so it wasn’t a total loss.

I was able to get my vacation photos done and uploaded during the cooking process too, but once I finished, it was 10pm, I felt like I didn’t get any time to relax, so I poured a glass of wine.

Unfortunately, somehow this lead to us talking work, business, our future, and watching weight loss stories on You Tube at 3am instead of sleeping like we should have.    This is a good lesson for me.  I may be megamaniacal and can get through the to do list no matter what if that’s what it takes, but fucked if I’m not going to rebel after it’s done and self destruct, ruining the next day.

If I go into business with myself as the boss someday, I will need to set up some strict rules with myself.  Not about being productive, though I’m sure I’ll have to monitor that too.  I’ll also have to keep myself from being TOO productive.  I know there would be a huge temptation to work 24/7 when I have the freedom, the flexibility, and my livelihood on the line solely based on how much I hustle.  I’ll need weekly to do lists not just to be productive but to save me from myself.

It’s probably a good lesson to learn about myself when the only thing I’ve sacrificed a little sleep and will have to scramble to reswizzle this week’s workouts while still keeping the rest element to the latter part of the week.  Duly noted, subconscious.

And, since you’ve made it this far into my tale of woe and enlightenment, I’ll try wrap up the details quickly and move on.

Training:

Aug2-4

If I didn’t take a bike selfie, training didn’t actually occur.  This is my theory.

Last week was week 2 of the second training block.  Focus was mostly pushing that 10+ hours per week volume, lots of bike volume specifically, and figuring out where my edges are.  I broke on Wednesday (my legs were not my own after two hard workouts) and had to lighten up the mid-week a little, I ditched a 4 mile run and took my weekday brick easy instead of speedy.  However, I got a lot of butt-in-saddle time, I even rode all 3 of my bikes, and there’s plenty of time to get that run fitness back, right?

  • Monday: weights + 1 hour trainer workout (40 mins of alternating huge resistance and high cadence, oof)
  • Tuesday: 1500m pool swim (just continuous), 6 mile treadmill long run (which I actually cooked pretty hard)
  • Wednesday: 1500m pool swim with toys (pull, kick, paddles, fins, fulcrum), home weights
  • Thursday: easy 30 min trainer on TT, easy 2 mile run
  • Friday: off
  • Saturday: El Diablo Poker Ride – 64 miles in about 4:45 on Evilbike.
  • Sunday: 5.5 mile recovery ride on the cruisers.

This week is one of those split recovery weeks, so somewhere about Wednesday afternoon things will start to get pretty chill around here resting up for the race this weekend.

  • Monday: off
  • Tuesday: 5 mile run, endurance cycle
  • Wednesday: weights, and either the recovery ride, brick taken a little easier than normal, or some other non-killer riding
  • Thursday: off
  • Friday: 3 mile run, home weights
  • Saturday: 3750m swim (the swim challenge… not necessarily my normal race prep)
  • Sunday: RACE! 500m swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run.

Food:

Aug2-3

Normally, this is junk food.  On the bike, it’s wonderful energy that got me through the middle miles of my 5 hour ride without being cyborg boob milk.

I tracked well, I ate well, I maintained -1000 calorie balance for 6 days out of the week (Mon-Sat).  Then Sunday happened and I totally failed to track and drank too much booze.  I completely erased my debt of -1000 that day.  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that even with that failure, I had a weekly debt of -5800.  That doesn’t suck.

I did much better with my 5 fruit and veggies goal, I hit it all the weekdays (and even ate more than normal during the weekend, baby steps).  At this point, I think these are pretty good weekly goals, so I’ll stick with them. Five fruits and veggies a day.  As close to -1000 deficit as I can stand while training.  Eat mostly home food, since I stressed myself out cooking all the foods, I may as well benefit from it.

Next week, I will have a lot of leftovers and I hopefully should not have to cook at all.  I’m going to have to pull out the easier recipes for a while after this week.  I’m thinking one thing from scratch as a more interesting meal per week instead of a bunch of things.

My weight has been holding at 183 (on mean white scale) average for 2 weeks, but I still think it’s progress.  Two weeks ago I skipped a few days of weighing because I felt like my weight was up.  Last week I hit every day between 181-184.  My body fat has also come down about 1% in the last week.  This feels like that period of time where I stabilize and then drop a little more soon (after this week, because TOM).  I’m ready for the 170s, bring ’em on!  I start feeling like I’m looking good and then I’ll see myself in a non-flattering photo or video and go, YEP, I look better but there’s still some work to do.  That’s ok.  I’m doing the work.  The payoff will come.

Life:

Aug2-5

Just, y’know, hanging out with a giant watermelon popsicle.  As you do.

Let’s just say it was the best of times, and the worst of times.  I also noticed I didn’t make a goals list last week, so I just tried to do errrrrrrrything.  Also noted.  I’ll try not to do that again.

Things I accomplished last week of note:

  • Took two practice tests for the Personal Trainer stuff.  Found out I remember everything else besides the actual anatomy part (shoulder and hips are HARD, yo).
  • Finally gave myself a pedicure and painted my toenails.  Fun fact: I’ve never had one in a salon.  For some reason, feels like a weird thing to pay for.  I haven’t touched them since May, so it was totally time.
  • Did more girly stuff and plucked my brows.  After seeing this picture from last week, it needed to happen.
  • Yet MORE girly stuff – bought some new jeans for Colorado (I won’t be wearing jeans here until October/November, probably…).  Ladies, can we just agree that low rise skinny jeans are the worst and boycott them?  They just don’t look good on anyone except models.  Boot cut mid rise for life.
  • Like I mentioned… finally uploaded my diving and snorkeling pictures.  Had some flashbacks about how horribly hung over and angry I was that day (snorkeling was one day after we found out about the layoffs).  However, I got some really nice shots both days, so it was worth it!
  • Bought my new Hoka Cliftons.  Come on 3s, you have to be so much better than the 2s.  I’m excited to get some miles in them on the treadmill to see if I need to return them or not.
  • Gaming!  We said bon voyage to a friend that’s moving and welcomed another person into our little group.  Sunrise, sunset.

This week, here’s my list:

  • More practice tests and scheduling our actual exam sometime before vacation.
  • Booking December vacation.  I don’t want to lose the perfect condo on the right day…
  • Progress on my super secret plan long term plan for world domination through exploring basic marketing principles.
  • Clean out the leezard’s cage area and get her a new light.
  • Get good sleep and prioritize recovery chill vibes to inspire excellent racing on Sunday!

And on that last kinda sounds-like-Bill-and-Ted’s-excellent-adventure bullet point?  I’m out.  Be excellent to each other.

Podium Dreamin’ and Fixing My Running Form

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On June 29, 2016

In Uncategorized

If you take a look at me, especially in wet spandex, in high resolution, at some particularly unflattering angles, I’m not exactly the person you would size up and think about being on the podium.  That’s for skinny, fit people with 8% bodyfat wearing extra small tri kits, right?

Pfluger05

Which, let’s face it, I am not.

Well, I’ve proved that theory wrong a few times with some podium action, but it’s the exception and definitely not the rule.  And because I keep improving just a little bit at the short, local stuff each year, it’s starting to be in my grasp to be fighting for the top few spots in my AG if things go really well.  It’s another avenue for motivation during a race besides just hitting HR/pace/power numbers, which is fun.

Pfluger03

I didn’t know it then, but 15 of the other 21 pink caps were behind me.

Size is barely a limiter at all in the swim.  Frankly, most triathletes that enter the local sprint tri not great swimmers.  Because I have pretty good form and practice swimming (both open water and speedwork in the pool) a few times a week, I usually come out pretty close to the front of the pack for my age group.

Cycling, I’ve clawed my way up the power to watt ratio with lots of specific work on how to hurt myself and like it over 1, 2, 5, 20+ minutes.  It’s changed from my worst sport to generally the one I place the highest, even with my old, entry level road bike.  This year, once I get the hang of my new Death Star, I have a feeling that I’ll be hanging on with the top ladies in my age group for said reasonably local-ish, smaller (and flatter) races.

Pfluger07

Thumbs up for doing all the passing and not much of the falling back.

My transitions could use a little work sometimes, but I rarely get hit by gravity anymore.  As the season goes on, I get more efficient, and I believe I’ve pared down to only things I really need.  I could do the shoes on the bike trick and go without socks, but I’m not quite there yet.

The run is where it all falls apart.  I’m generally hanging on in a good spot after the bike, if things went well.  I was fourth last race.  If I had a good run, I could have tried to hunt down third place and voila! Podium!  However, the ladies that are swimming and biking like me run 1-2 minutes faster per mile than I do.  What happened instead – I was in fourth, I got passed once putting me in fifth, and I’m actually really surprised that I finished in fifth because my run was only ninth best.  I just beat sixth, seventh, and eighth by enough on the swim, bike, and transitions, they ran out of room to catch me.

Pfluger15

Horns up because I earned my freezy pop!

There are two paths to get my 5 seconds of fame at an awards ceremony.

  1. Get so good at the swim and the bike that I’m coming off in first place, and hope I don’t get caught by more than 2 people in my age group on the run.
  2. Try to improve my run so I could possibly, potentially, maybe actually run someone down off the bike instead of getting passed passed passed passed passed all the time.

While the first would be really cool in and of itself, I think that I need to find the missing link for the second and it’s not the obvious things.  I’ve thrown volume at it, I’ve trained fast miles off the bike consistently, I’ve trained in the heat, there’s just something that’s not clicking on with my run in races.  So it’s time to do some things that I haven’t done before in pursuit of a better run leg.

First…nail down a nutrition plan AND FOLLOW IT.  I am NOTORIOUSLY horrible at this.  I went into the run at Pflugerville on ~40 calories in the hatch (from the half bottle of Scratch I sucked down on the bike).  I forgot how to eat on the bike and I am SO lucky I put an emergency gel in my handheld (who needs a gel on the run for 3 miles?  …that would be me).  The ONLY reason I did so well before that is I had remembered to eat some highly caffeinated chews about 1 hour before the race, and they were OBVIOUSLY wearing off the first half mile of the run.

Here are things I’m going to do:

  • Carby snacks.  I’m already working towards making sure I don’t overdo the protein and fat (while still hitting my daily recommendations) so I can dedciate every other calorie possible to CARBS (more carbs while taking care of the other stuff = better fueled workouts).
  • Fueling more workouts in better ways.  This is pretty much sports nutrition 101, but in practice, I think I’m a special snowflake who doesn’t need the calories to perform.  Yes, this takes away some of my french fry calories.  Suck it up, buttercup.  This will make me a better runner and probably more likely able to hunt someone down…. 😛
    • AM workout (less than an hour) – gatorade, coconut water, or other carby snack before I leave for work unless I’m eating breakfast right away.
    • AM workout (more than an hour) – one gel or equivalent every 45 mins, carby snack either before the workout, before I leave for work, or split between both (ideal).
    • Lunch workout – carby snack if I’m not immediately eating lunch (which is rare, but happens).
    • PM workout (less than an hour) – carby snack before (I should not be super hungry starting a PM workout), carby snack after or dinner within 30 minutes.
    • PM workout (more than an hour) – carby snack before, one gel or equivalent for every 45 minutes, and a carby snack or dinner within 30 minutes.
    • Any workout that goes beyond 2 hours – must have carbs before, every 45 mins, and immediately after.

Second…work on my running FORM.  Now that I’ve studied up on biomechanics and optimal running form, it’s pretty clear to me I’m doing it wayyyy wrong.  Apparently, I’ve been JOGGING and not RUNNING (running means both feet off the ground at the same time and according to race pics – I don’t do that).  We need to fix that, because my pride says that I am NOT a jogger.

Here’s some pictures from the race to illustrate my point.  Learn with me while I analyze my race photos.  This is what running is supposed to look like:

Posefallpull

My running “pose” position sucks.  I should look more like this guy above.  Instead this is what I look like:

Pfluger11

With my leg so low, I’m not getting any momentum as it swings through, so my stride length is super short and shuffly.  I am bent at the hips, I should be leaning with my whole body and my ankle should be dorsiflexed instead of straight up and down.

Pfluger14

With my pose lacking, it means the rest doesn’t go very well.  My leg doesn’t swing out very far because it has very little momentum, and I don’t have far to fall, so I’m not getting that good lean going on.  And that’s not good because that means my stride is short and lacking power.  Look – I’m jogging.  My feet are not both off the ground at the same time.  I’m a jogger.  Ugh.

Pfluger12

Because I’m not leaning (or falling) enough, I’m heel striking.  If I could get my body over my leg a little more I’d be hitting the ground on my midfoot, touching just a little heel (and also a little toe).  But I’m not.

This essentially puts the brakes on.  I’m giving up energy I worked really hard to create!  That sucks!  Why would I want to do that unless I was running down a steep hill?  If I can move my strike more forward, I can keep more momentum going, which means less energy needs to be created by ME per stride.

So, how do I do this?

Concentrate on my form every run.  I need to work on improving my pose, I need to learn how to fall correctly, and I need to strike in the correct spot on my feet.  Like riding a bike (or at least, riding a bike in traffic with clips), I need to concentrate on this all the time until it’s totally natural… and then probably some more.

Photographic proof of progress.  I need to have Zliten and I play paparazzi with each other more often to snag pictures and video of our running form to see how it’s developing.  Either set up a camera outside the house and do loops of our block or go to the track or something.

Drills.  I always say “yep, I should be doing drills” and what do I never do?  Drills.  I found a pretty comprehensive list of things to do here and I’m doing to make sure I do them at the very least once a week during an easy run.

Monitor my cadence.  Oddly enough, when I trend towards a 90+ cadence, I feel better, expend less energy, and I bet I’d be running instead of jogging.  This means smaller strides, but much quicker ones if I’m doing it right, which is not a bad thing.

Strength Training.  I’m already doing this, but I need to pay attention once I am running with good (better) form to see if it reveals any weaknesses.  Who knows, maybe this will solve the glute/hammie cramping thing I get during long runs?  That would be rad!

And, hey – if nothing else – it will be nice to do something on the run this summer instead of think about how hot it is!

 

Becoming the storm

By

On June 9, 2016

In Uncategorized

Monday, something clicked about one mile into the Monterrey Bay (treadmill course) run.  Studying the bio-mechanics of the body for Personal Training class made me think about extending my hips.  I found that by throwing my legs backward with a little more force to force more extension, I was able to go from 11 minute miles to 9 minute miles with very little extra effort.  It was harder on the hills, and I really had to concentrate on it so I didn’t just dangle my legs like I usually do, but it felt good.  Powerful.  Like the limiter is I need to work on my hamstring strength (totally doable) vs somehow make my lungs not gasp for air sub-10 minute miles with my current form (a lot harder to imagine).

June9-1

If you ride your bike and don’t take a selfie, did you actually ride your bike?

Also, this week, I just feel like I’m ready to fly a little faster.  Tuesday, I had some thinking to do and my bike to ride on country roads.  Let me tell you – after riding in town for months, being able to ride for 10 miles with two stops was BLISS.  I also found an effort, a zenned out thinking pace with legs pumping and breath just on the edge of aerobic, where I was able to generate some decent power and a speed that is decent, dare I say, not completely laughable for a short trip that included the three bitches sisters hills twice.

I’ve seen this quote appearing in my social media feeds a lot lately (I remember it coming from THIS LADY but I’m sure I’ve seen it a few times elsewhere).  Sometimes the universe puts in front of you exactly what you need rolling around in your brain.

Storm

I also love this one as grammar… enthusiast?

Your

But that’s not here nor they’re their there.

I’m at that weird place where I’m no longer hiding inside from the rain.  I’m not yet one with it, but I’m feeling the rain on my skin and thinking… yeah… I want to go there.

So far, the first quarter of thirty seven is either doing or setting myself up to do things that range from slightly intimidating me to holy-shit-this-is-terrifying stuff.  I mean, some of them are little in the grand scheme of things, like riding a bike in traffic or actually digging under the hood and fixing my website without throwing a bunch of money at it, but these are still things I was not willing to tackle even a few months ago because they sounded… hard.

However, there’s bigger stuff.  Some things are uncomfortable, like returning to taking classes while being fully employed and also training for races.  Some things are scary, like actually taking the time off to heal my body and mind this spring and losing ALL THE FITNESS and then plunking down the money to race 140.6 miles next year.  Some things are utterly terrifying, life direction changing, true ventures into the unknown, the kind of thing where even the beginning acts of planning cause both extreme fear and excitement at what could be.

They say every 7 years or so, you go through a big change.  I’d say I was a completely different person on my 30th birthday than I was on my 28th.  New town, 100+ lbs lighter, new job, new priorities.  Unless my crystal ball is completely wrong, I think at age 39, I’ll look back at 37 and go… huh, that was me?  Crazy!

I do well with inertia.  Once I get the ball rolling, I am pretty great at keeping it in motion.  However, I resist change, the start of motion, by digging in my heels and hunkering down where I’m at no matter how bad it is. It can be a boon in endurance sports, but sometimes it’s not so good in life.

fine

For example, the haircut.  I knew it was looking really raggedy.  My long hair was up in a messy bun about 80% of the time.  But it was what I was used to, even if it was ratty and gross, so it stayed until I was practically dragged into the salon chair.

At first the shock of losing about 50% of what was on my head was terrifying.  Within a few days though, I loved it and I had no idea why it had taken me so long to take the plunge.  It’s different, for sure.  It’s harder to put up for workouts, and I cannot go more than two days without washing it or it’s greeeeeasy.  However, I can roll directly from wet to looking really good by the time I get my coffee in the morning without doing anything and that is EVERYTHING to me right now.

Such is life.  Generally, once I make the leap, I’m so happy I did, but getting myself there is such mental gymnastics.  Sometimes it takes the universe (or someone else) smacking you on the head saying “this isn’t fine, as much as you want it to be” and “to resist change and growth means the slow death of your soul”.

A storm is approaching.  The air pressure is just different these days.  Even if I just try to hunker down, I don’t think I can avoid it, I don’t think you can tell the weather to cease to exist.  I can go inside, I can put on a raincoat, I can tolerate the raindrops, but I think the way I really succeed is just to BECOME THE FUCKING STORM.  Embrace the things that are terrifying.  Hold them tight until we know each others innermost fears and desires.  Right now, I need the crazy eyes and the bezerker battle cry.  I need to channel all the volatile, relentless, and brutal energy of the tempest to not only allow the crazy into my life, but chase it down and pin it to the ground.

So, watch out sunshine – this storm is coming.

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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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