Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: #projectraceweight Page 12 of 20

Too much adulting, running away to the woods…

By

On June 27, 2017

In Uncategorized

This week was *probably* the closest to a normal human adult type week I’ve had in years.  I didn’t like it at all.

Super serious workouts this week when this was the second most intense effort I put out.

Ok, there were some parts that were nice but it felt really weird.  I think I’m going to have to go run away and play in the woods for a while to make up for it.  Good thing I have plans to do just that this weekend.

Normally the workout section of my weekly recaps are big and detailed, but this week can be summarized with one sentence: I rode bikes for about two and a half hours.  Not very far and not very fast.

A few more words: I rode moutain bikes with coworkers and had a blast almost dying 20 thousand times on the beginner trails.  Note to self: ride mountain bikes more to assess whether the threat of death by rock or faceplanting into tree is real or percieved.  The rest of the week was my big red cruiser and bikes on the way to eat fried food and drink beer or bikes around the neighborhood dropping off books that were previously gathering dust to little free libraries to hopefully be enjoyed by someone else.  So, all sorts of super serious training.

I was super busy during the week and I can’t lie, I had thought about killing it with some training over the weekend.  However, my arm REALLY hurt from the tetanus shot and I stubbed my toe REALLY hard on my kettlebell Friday night, to the point where I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t broken and standing sucked.

Ok, ok, universe.  I’ll chill the fuck out.  I hear you.

This week, I’d like to get as many of these tests done as possible:

  • FTP cycling test (DONE)
  • 100m and 300m swim
  • 1 mile run test (max speed)
  • 3 mile MAF test (how long does this take at ~142 bpm HR)

If one or two had to go into early July I’m sure it wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would be nice to get some metrics.  I plan on doing these in controlled environments (trainer, treadmill, pool) to keep variables like elevation, activity pausing, temperature, etc, to a minimum.  I have four days before I go camping and I have four activities.  I think that will probably work out to get at least three of them done.

Then, while camping, the goal is to hike, bike, or run every morning before it gets hot and spend the afternoons playing in the lake.  That’s about as training plan-y I’m willing to get.

My dietary/scale type goals are going well and not so well at the same time.

It’s been a lot like this lately.

In the win column:

  • I saw a 182 on the scale for the first time since October (though it was an anomaly).
  • I’m feeling much happier with the way I look right now than I have at any point this year.
  • I think the new dietary changes I’ve been making have contributed to this and it’s incredibly encouraging to have a direction that actually seems to be working.

In the… not as win column:

  • I’m not all in yet.  I’ve been eating up leftovers which include things that are on the negative diet quality points.  I ate takeout twice on Sunday and both of these had refined grains.  I let my husband talk me into a giant non-whole wheat pasta meal last night (and felt crappy after).
  • Doing all this tracking is tedious.  It’s gotten to the point where tracking my food is pretty rote, but adding up the diet quality and metrics is getting tiresome.
  • I’m not magically 150 lbs yet.

I’m taking the next two weeks off, for the most part.  I’ll track my food while I’m not camping but I doubt I’m going to do it while I’m in the woods.  Thus, I’ll have incomplete diet quality scores for two weeks.  So, I’ll just resume all this silliness on July 10th and really go for it.  After a taste of how I was feeling (and how the weight is actually starting to come off), I’m sure it will be easy to be motivated to get back to it quickly.

However, I have data from last week.  Let’s see the damage.

  • Weight: 186 (-1.9) lbs <- this is GREAT but it also seems to reflect the weeks past rather than this week.
  • Avg cal per day: 1811 (+35) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -682 (-263) calories
  • Macros: 58 (+1)g fat, 170 (-13)g carbs, 90 (-3)g protein, 29 (+2)g fiber

DQ score: Monday: 16.  Tuesday: 9.  Wednesday: 5. Thursday: 26.  Friday: 22. Saturday: 5.  Sunday: 8.  Average comes out to approximately 13 (out of 32).

Yep.  Craptastic.  I did some really good things with incorporating healthy stuff in my day but ruined it with a bunch of fried food, refined grains, and beer.  There will always need to be room in my life for those things, but maybe just a little less while I try to take down these ~20 lbs I’d like to see gone.

And my doctor at my check up reminded me that more than 7 drinks in a week increases the chance for liver issues.  Ughhhhh.  My first thought was “you can pry my whiskey from my cold dead hands, lady!!!”  But, it would be good to figure out how to approach that number a little more closely most weeks without ruining my life (before it pickles my organs, apparently).

These are all things I will take super seriously starting the second week of July.

Last week was a doozy.  We did all the things.  It was exhausting.  We were productive over the weekend, and then we kind of crashed.

Turtle home!  It’s so much bigger on the inside…

Done:

  • Pop up registration
  • Trial run (I did literally neither of these things but took care of other things like groceries and errands and cleaning and getting poked with needles while Zliten was doing them so… win for both of us?)
  • Finished the shredding in the office.  And, as I said, we cleaned out the paperbacks on our bookshelf and donated them.  Baby steps.  The office may indeed get done this year!
  • Pick a weekend for our gameday potluck.  It’s on in about a month!
  • Bonus: measured the cabinets and discussed options for the kitchen with Zliten’s ‘rents.  They are SUPER AWESOME and are helping us with a lot of it and gave us some nifty ideas about moving around the pantry and they even gave us an estimated cost for the cabinets which seem super duper reasonable.  Will the kitchen or the office get done first?  Dum dum dum dumm…

Not done:

  • DDR Pad.  I stubbed my toe so I wasn’t *really* motivated to do this and didn’t get far enough into the office to find all the PS2 stuff anyway.  I *do* want to get this one done so I can have it set up for our next game night.

This week is a little different.  Before Thursday, the To Do list is:

  • Get all the things ready for camping and then get to the campsite and set up before dark and then exhale a sigh of relief because it’s been a lot of work to go on our maiden turtle home voyage!

Then, when we’re camping, we have all sorts of things we want to do but may or may not do any of them.

  • Every morning before the sun is too evil, we want to mountain bike, hike, or run.
  • Afternoons when it’s so hot we can’t even will be spent in the springs or the pool.
  • Other than that, we have all sorts of arts and crafts and stuff we’re excited to do including…
    • Painting minis
    • Painting our own camping mugs
    • I will for really real spend some solid QT starting my book.
    • Games!  We’ve got a really long game a friend loaned us we’re looking forward to trying and the normal dice games and Oregon Trail and stuff.
    • Get through the Big Yellow Endurance Book and How to Win Friends and Influence People and maybe start the next non-fiction book as well (as well as whatever fiction I decide to read).

Perhaps, if I’m inspired, I’ll write up some business plan stuff and plan out other book ideas and other things I haven’t thought of that will come to me on day 4 in the woods with no work and no internet.  However, I need to carve out some time for sitting in a chair with a beer quietly looking at a campfire or the stars, so I need to manage my own expectations on how many productive things I want to do vs how much time I spend staring off into space.

Pendulum swingin’

By

On June 22, 2017

In Uncategorized

Perspective is such a weird thing.  Three months ago I was training like 12-15 hours a week.  Now, getting in 5 hours is a stretch.

Although, new mountain bikes and pretty trails (not actually pictured because I was too busy trying not to die) help things along a lot.

When you’re in the thick of a big build, you’re like, how on earth will I fill up this time?  If I don’t ride bikes all Saturday, will I be so bored?  Will my butt fuse itself to the couch?  The answer is: not so much.  I ignore so much of life when I’m triathloning a lot, and then when it comes back into focus… I realize how “normal” people feel.  How sometimes it’s challenging to prioritize workouts over real life stuff.  When I’m training, that’s just how it is – it goes work, triathlon, and then EVERYTHING else.

Right now it’s like work, to do list, appointments, social events, fun stuff, playing bikes with people and then the rest of triathlon.  As it should be right now, because #offseason.  However, it’s been two months and I think I’d like to see what a few weeks of focused, specific (while still minimal) training can do.  It will be a balance of still prioritizing other stuff but the time I spend training will be a little less playtime and a little more structured.

The first thing is to get some metrics.  Before the end of this month, my goal is to measure all these things:

  • 100m swim
  • 300m swim
  • 3 mile MAF run test
  • 1 mile all out run test
  • VO2 Max garmin measurement (run and bike)
  • Cycle FTP test

I tried to pick things that seemed doable each month but also usable metrics.  The FTP test is a good hour long cycling workout.  The MAF test is actually a pleasant run pace, not like a 5k race.  The 1 mile run should be short enough to not need a ton of recovery.  I considered a 1000m swim test but I end up putting those off a lot so I picked the shorter distances (since I’m doing sprints anyway it’s more applicable).

I love swimming.  I love swimming fast (not pictured here but whatevs).  But I do not love swimming fast for a long time.

The challenge is that this week and next week are cray-cray (as the kids probably don’t say anymore).  My goal will be to get the FTP and probably one of the run tests done this weekend, and the swims and other run test will be next week.  I’m sure once I start lifting I’ll have other metrics I want to do there, but for now, until my cranky pirformis is 100%, there we are.

Last week:

  • Monday: 5k run in 37 mins
  • Tuesday: 40 min work commute (7.5 miles)
  • Thursday: Double brick at the gym (10 min cycle/1 mile run x2)
  • Friday: 15 min easy trainer spin (3 miles), 20 min swim – 1025m
  • Saturday: 13 min swim – 1 Pflugerville loop
  • Sunday: Lake Pflugerville Tri (500m swim, 13 mile bike, 3 mile run)

So, you see, the frequency is up there, but the duration is not.  It feels good to get a little movement every day, so it works out.  None of this has felt overwhelming, nor should it, at 4.5 hours.

This week is definitely scheduling workouts around life with a lot of ?.

  • Tuesday: mountain bikes with friends at lunch
  • Wednesday: rode bikes to volunteer party.
  • Rest of the week: ???

Since this is the week of social things and appointments and errands, it’s either early morning or late late night some days for stuff and it’s offseason.  So, nope!  I’d love for this to be my return to structured training, life has said NAH.  So, I’ll roll with it as best I can.

I’m really deep down the rabbit hole right now reading about healthy eating for athletes.  I wrote up about 2000 words just on Maffetone’s nutrition theories, but honestly?  No one probably wants to read that but me.  So, I will attempt to be as brief as possible in the summary of how I’m applying it to my life last week and this week.

Right now it’s a balance around here.  Lots of the top right, but some of the bottom right as well.

We always start with the low hanging fruit around here, so here’s what I’ve been trying for:

  • More fruit, smaller pieces of things that are more varied (instead of a pint of blueberries in a day, a small apple, 1/2 cup blueberries, and some grapes).  The variance is so I get more diverse nutrients.  I’m also going to try to vary the fruits I eat per week so I don’t get in the rut of eating blueberries with breakfast and an apple as a snack for 3 months.
  • Nuts and seeds.  I cut these out of my diet to get more of my calories from carbs and/or cut calories, but I definitely miss them.  After reading about ALL the health benefits, they are back.  I’m aiming for a serving or two per day.
  • Honey instead of stevia in my breakfast yogurt.  While Maffetone said the jury is still out on stevia, in general, sports nutrition literature generally poo poos any sort of artificial sweeteners.  It will be a harder fight to completely eliminate them from my life (diet soda as a mixer for booze, light sports drinks for when I want electrolytes without all the calories), but I can start here.
  • Green tea instead of coffee.  I’ve finally increased my caffeine tolerance to the point where this isn’t too much for me and made the switch.  I have had one cup every morning for the last week and haven’t feel jittery, but just felt up, alert, but even all day.  I think I’ve found my morning beverage!
  • A big salad per day with olive oil and vinegar.  What’s a great way to increase my veggie consumption?  Have a giant bowl of them as a snack!  I’m also trying to branch out from my lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion salad and I’ve been also bringing shredded carrots, asparagus, celery, and broccoli for it this week.  I’ll try to change up at least two things in it per week to vary the nutrients.
  • Chewing my food.  This has been an eye opening experience the last week.  Did you know that if you don’t chew your food properly, you get less nutrients out of it?  I guess it makes sense, but it’s never hit me that way.  I’ll chomp down once or twice half-heartedly and then swallow while I’m shoveling the next bite in.  I tried to take the time to chew my food last week and found out a few things.
    • It’s not just bullshit, chewing your food and eating slower actually DOES satiate your hunger quicker.  I was fuller on way less food.
    • It is a habit that needs to be encouraged.  Unfailingly, I will start wolfing my food down and then have to stop myself and remember to chew the rest of the meal.
    • Some foods are delightful to chew – fruits and veggies taste better, imo.  Potatoes fluff up nicely.  However, meat, generally, is NASTY to chew well.  I really am a vegetarian in a carnivore’s disguise because I love the taste of well seasoned meat… but when you chew it well, you actually taste the actual meat flavor.  Except maybe chicken and mild fish… I don’t really like the unseasoned flavor of meat.  At all.
  • Carbs.  Mostly complex ones.  Beans, potatoes, corn (homemade popcorn, corn tortillas, etc), brown rice, whole grain bread, pasta, etc.  I am never ever going to be able to completely avoid refined grains, but they should be a small part of my week.

One big salad a day, just like my iguana…

So, here we go.  How did things go last week?

  • Weight: 187.9 (+0.1) lbs <- it was that time of the month so this is practically a loss.  I’ll take it.
  • Avg cal per day: 1776 (+23) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -925 (-45) calories
  • Macros: 57 (+14)g fat, 183 (+2)g carbs, 93 (-9)g protein, 27 (+0)g fiber

DQ score: Monday: 14.  Tuesday: 9.  Wednesday: 25. Thursday: 22.  Friday: 21. Saturday: 21.  Sunday: -1 (race day).  Average comes out to approximately 16 (out of 32).

I can definitely see what’s up here.  Monday I wasn’t really concentrating on the new rules.  Tuesday I wasn’t either and had some alcohol.  Wednesday – Saturday, I did a pretty good job.  Not perfect, but I’d be happy if I could replicate that most days right now.  Baby steps.  Sunday was race day, which meant junk food and drinks.  I actually think I did decently in terms of not being a complete jerk with the food – for lunch I consumed one slice of pizza and a salad, and for dinner we had a baked rigatoni dish with extra broccoli and chicken, but with the alcohol and lots of refined carbs (and not much else), the score went ker-splat.  That’s fine.

As we get through this week of all the social party type events and eat up our leftovers with refined grains, I think I’ll be able to raise this score a lot in the coming months with a little time and attention.  However, it is a BITCH to sift through your food like this.  Like wayyyy more than counting calories.  I won’t do this forever.  Once I’m reasonably happy with my score (bringing it up to the low to mid 20s on average), I’ll stop counting it every week.

I’ve been excited to let the pendulum swing the other way for a while, concentrating on being a normal human but this week it is really really on the other side.  Social engagements (because this is my SAY YES season) and appointments we’ve been putting off comprise most of the weekdays this week.  So, it’s busy busy busy!

Super excited to actually go use this thing instead of just running errands about it and spending money on it.  Next week…

So, how did I fare last week?

  • Pop up stuff.  Some of it.  I got it insured,  but Zliten tried to do the registration and he was missing a piece.  We tried to get it into the backyard to set it up and the gate was 4 inches too small.  We did get all the accessories we needed (we think) to go with it, so at this point it’s just making it official and making sure everything is ship shape.
  • Finish the shredding in the office.  Nope.  It will go on the list this week too.  This is the curse of the office.  We do a little to the point where it’s not a complete disaster, but it never gets finished.  Hopefully we can break the curse this year.
  • Do more kitchen remodel research.  Well, I definitely confirmed I want two tone cabinets (white on top, dark on the bottom), found replacement glass racks for the wonderfully 70s built ins we have over the bar, and determined kind of hardware I want.  That’s something.  At this point, this is on hold until we decide WHEN we’re doing it (finding two weekends in a row that won’t negatively impact summer racing goals) and then we’ll get into it more seriously.

Instead of things that kept us off our feet on Saturday, we test rode and purchased mountain bikes.  Considering this was on the big to do list as well, I’ll call it a wash.  Also, earlier in the week, we saw a coworker kill it in the Pirates of Penzance opening night.  It was super nice to be able to do stuff like that.  Offseason!

This week, I may have to cheat and put down a few more than three things, but we have a super mellow weekend planned so it should work out.

Pop up registration.  (this is actually done thanks to my awesome husband!)

Trial Run.  We need to set up the pop up, run all the things (water, power, etc) for a little while, and make sure everything is working properly.

Finish the shredding in the office.  This is now becoming the “clean out the car” of the season.  I really just need to do this, if for no other reason than to make some forward momentum progress.

Get the DDR pad set up.  Since I’m not doing a lot of formal training this week, it would be REALLY nice to have this as an option to do whenever at home in the AC.  This is also my present for getting the office done.

Pick a weekend for our next friends game day.  It was super fun and I don’t want the tradition to die.

The contrast to that mellow weekend is an insane week.  We’ve had/got:

  • Contractor fixing the fence yesterday morning
  • Yelp Elite event Tuesday evening
  • Cap Tex Volunteer event last night
  • Doctor appointment this morning
  • Gaming tomorrow tonight
  • Doctor for Zliten tomorrow morning

Plus, we’re hitting a big milestone this week at work, so it’s been rather hectic around there as well.  Is it the weekend yet?

Open mouths and open wallets.

By

On June 12, 2017

In Uncategorized

Ah, THIS week.  This one happens every #offseason.

Energy+enthusiasm-a training plan to apply it to = open mouths (and open wallets).

The fatigue from the season is finally gone, and it’s like a curtain being lifted from my eyes and I see ALL THE THINGS I can go do and it’s overwhelming in a good way.   I’ve gone from thinking ALL I wanted to do was jump back into IM training because everything else in life seemed so crazy to hoping I have enough time before I start training seriously again so I can tick all the amazing things I have planned off my list.

This week, I would consider my first one back into being a recreational triathlete.  I did five days of training (4h30m), I followed a loose plan, and I even did a brick workout.  It feels like nothing and everything at the same time.  90 minute bike rides are plenty right now, though I will need to start ramping this up soon through the summer to do a 100.  20 minute swims and 3 mile runs are also plenty, and since I’m *NOT* planning on doing any long races, they can be enough for a while.

Tuesday, I rode bikes on an F1 racetrack with hundreds of my closest friends.  You would think of a racetrack as a flat surface, right?  Nah.  It has a killer hill right off the starting line, and a steeper, longer one just after that.  That day, it was right into the wind.  Lovely.  However, there was a flat back straightaway section that was SUPER fun to cruise at 28 mph. We did six loops (totaling about 22 miles), taking the cheater way to skip the hill every other time, and then headed home.

Saturday, we were going to ride and run at the lake, but poor sleep the night before (and frankly, a lot of the week) made us miss our alarm and snooze.  Instead, we rode the trainer and ran around the neighborhood.  I haven’t been on the trainer since… my birthday, I think, and I forgot how challenging it was.  I couldn’t really handle it for the 4-5 hour rides, but now that I’m doing shorter ones, I think I’ll make some improvements by being able to push myself.  Once I get some aerobic base back.  Let’s not talk about the 2 mile run after at 11:09 min/miles at a heart rate of about 170 bpm.  Sigh.

Last week:

  • Monday – ran 2.68 miles
  • Tuesday – 22 bike miles in about 90 mins
  • Wednesday – 17 bike miles in about 80 mins
  • Thursday – off
  • Friday – off
  • Saturday – 30 mins on the trainer (about 7.5 miles) + 2 mile run
  • Sunday – 1000m swim in about 19 mins.

This week I race… so I’ll probably do approximately the same stuff as last week and then see what there is in this little tank of mine right now.

  • Monday – ran 3.1 miles (37 mins, further and faster than last week)
  • Tuesday – brickie workout ~1 hour (maybe bike 20 mins/run 1 mile/bike 20 min/run 1 mile
  • Wednesday – BSS ride
  • Thursday – off
  • Friday – 20-30 min pool swim
  • Saturday – 15-20 min lake swim
  • Sunday – Pflugerville Tri! (500m swim, 13 mile bike, 3 mile run)

This will be over FIVE hours of training/racing y’all.  I’m not sure if I can handle it. 🙂

I always want to start this food/nutrition weekly update section with, well, last week was a shit show.  And then I add up the numbers and they are not so bad and I’m making progress and it’s just that unrealistically, I did not eat only chicken and celery all week and also unrealistically, I did not lose 10 lbs.

  • Weight: 187.8 (+0.4) lbs
  • Avg cal per day: 1753 (+21) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -970 (+132) calories
  • Macros: 43 (-13)g fat, 181 (+17)g carbs, 102 (+9)g protein, 27 (+4)g fiber

The weight went up a little, but there are two important mitigating factors here.  1. I haven’t seen anything over 187. something for a week now, which means I’m stabilizing, which is a sign that if I don’t fuck it all up, I’ll drop a few lbs soon. 2. It’s that TOM, which also means if I don’t fuck it all up, I will drop a couple lbs once I lose the bloat.  So, if I can manage to eat all the veggies and not all the chips, I might make some progress.

Healthy food!  Yay.  Almost all pre-prepared?  Meh.  Close enough.

Other than that, the numbers look GREAT.  I maintained almost the perfect deficit that’s still within the healthy range.  I’m still in the lower tax bracket with activity, so my appetite is doing just fine.  My fat is down, my protein is back in the normal range, and so is my fiber.

Let’s attempt a diet quality score now, shall we?

Monday: 24.  Then it goes downhill.  Tuesday: 18.  Wednesday and Thursday: 16.  Friday: 13. Saturday: 10.  Sunday: 9.  Average comes out to approximately 15 (out of 32).

I won’t belabor the point (if you want the deets, check the link), but you give yourself points for veggies, fruit, whole grains/complex carbs, dairy, and nuts/seeds.  You subtract points for booze, sweets*, refined carbs, fried food, and fatty meats.

Looking back at previous years when I did this, I actually am doing better on the weekends than I was before (it would go in the negatives sometimes), but I had better quality food during the week when I tracked this previous.  So, why not both?  So, my goals this weeks:

Previous weeks goals: water, tracking, fruits, veggies, maintaining macro balance (protein, fat, fiber).

Incorporate more fruit and nuts into my day.  These are things that were low on my positive points list, but I need to add them slowly to figure out how to do it without increasing my calories much (since I’m not snacking a lot, I don’t have a *lot* of things to replace with them).

Carb conscious.  Be conscious of areas where I’m eating refined carbs and make a plan next week to switch them to whole grain/complex carbs.  I don’t want to go crazy and chuck out things in my pantry, but I will switch over when I need to replace them.

I’ll try the tally next Monday and see how I’ve fared.

Let me tell you a story about adventure.  On Friday, we realized that we had some unplanned time off because of moving offices and the Independence Day holiday, so for 2 days of PTO, we have a 6 day weekend.  While we have plenty of things at home to keep us occupied, of COURSE we’re going to go out of town.  Then I started looking at options.  We thought maybe we’d try going somewhere super north like Vermont or Boston, but those flights take up most of the travel days.  Then we looked up Boulder to go play bikes and it was just about as expensive (though less travel time).  But… I was really close to pulling the trigger anyway.

Then, I made the comment that camping sounded just as fun but gosh it’s hot in Texas.  Could we rent a camper?  Spoiler alert: it’s stupid expensive.  Like nice hotel expensive.  So no.  Then, I made an offhand comment about wondering how much they cost to purchase.  Fast forward through a weekend of researching everything about them, driving to a RV mall to check out a new one, driving to the middle of nowhere to check out a used one on a super cute farm with chickens and goats….

And as of about 1pm today, we’re the proud owners of a JayCo 2008 pop up trailer with AC.  For about the cost of two modest/average continental USA trips, we’ve now got a mobile hotel room!  And, because of a cancellation, we were able to secure a spot for six days at Krause Springs over that weekend.  I’m SO flippin’ excited, everything (so far) has fallen into place nicely, so I feel like this was meant to be.

So as for the previous goals…

  • Find a doctor and schedule a check up.  I had something written up here about excuses and whining and how I’d found someone but hadn’t called, but while I was writing this, I put on my big girl panties and while that SPECIFIC doctor was leaving, I have an appointment with at least someone that lists running when not injured as one of their hobbies. I felt a connection with that. 🙂
  • DDR Pad.  Nope.  Spent the weekend doing other things.  This didn’t even register on the radar.
  • Office.  Nope.  I technically had the time on Sunday, but we had been running around like crazy all weekend, so we watched a movie and painted minis and read books instead.  No regerts.

What we DID do besides make completely impulsive purchases that will result in awesome adventures:

  • Bought a shed.  CostCo had this roadshow thing with a great looking shed for a great price, and that even included delivery and installation.  At this point, besides being there when they arrive and leave, and painting it within a month or so after they install it, this one is almost off the list.  Yay!
  • Got a hitch installed on the Xterra.  This was on Zliten’s to do list for other reasons, but it’s a thing we have done now (and needed to bring the trailer home).  Check!
  • Started talking in real terms about the kitchen remodel.  We have gone over the list with Zliten’s parents, and we’re looking at scoping things out to do things over two weekends at the end of July or mid-August.
  • Non-fiction.  It’s hard to fall asleep reading non-fiction (or at least these particular ones), so I’m alternating.  I’ve read about 3 more chapters in the big yellow endurance book and I’m about 20% through How to Win Friends and Influence people.

This week will be sort of pop up centric, and we can’t do too much other stuff because of the race, but here’s my list.

Pop up stuff.  We need to get it under the insurance, registered, and get it to at least it’s temporary storage (right now it’s parked on the street which is NOT where it will stay).  Additionally, I’m sure there’s about 1000 other things we’ll discover we need so those To Dos will go under here.

Finish the shredding in the office.  It’s not as much as I intended to do last week (and didn’t), but it’s a step in the right direction.  And if I start, I might do more if I’m not exhausted after the race.

Pick one of these.  #1 – Get the DDR pad set up.  #2 – Do more kitchen remodel research.  Neither of these should involve standing on my feet much, so they can keep me busy on Saturday since I don’t have a packed day.

Between the shed, the pop up, and the kitchen remodel, we REALLY need to stop #projectoffseason because it’s so expensive.  Triathlon is pricey, until you compare super motivated triathletes during #projectoffseason who turn their attention to something else with the passion of 1000 fiery suns. At this point, once the general adulting and renovations are coming to a close, the year should turn more to side hustle and fun stuff, which are a little less WE SPENT HALF OUR MONTHLY SALARY THIS WEEK and a little more adventures and learning.

If not, we’ll just have to put a 70.3 on the plan at some point simply to keep us out of trouble. 😉

 

Save

Losing the blues.

By

On June 5, 2017

In Uncategorized

I’m done with the Ironman blues.  Hello from the other side!

Finally this week I came out of the fog.  I remember what it was like to be doing all that training, but it doesn’t feel wrong to *not* do it.  I still get to ride my bike.  We hit the pool once and that made me a happy fishie.  I laced up my hokas this morning for their intended purpose, and it wasn’t far and it wasn’t fast and it was kinda hot but it felt good.  I’m going to try to keep it to 5 hours a week, give or take, but I think both my body and brain are ready to be a super casual recreational triathlete.

It’s a good thing too, because I signed up for a race!

We do this one every year.  Last year I was about 3 months into offseason, I just bought my new bike that week, and I was just a minute and a half off my PR and my second best showing ever.  This year… I’m going to go in again with no expectations and see what I can do.  Go play triathlon hard that morning.  Maybe not even with a watch. All hippie-like without data (but I like looking at it later so maybe not).

So, this week I start with the swim/bike/run – yes all 3 of them in one week.  Here’s the plan.  It’s super detailed.

  • Monday – ran 2.68 miles
  • Tuesday – ride TT bikes at the Circuit of the Americas track for ~2 hours
  • Wednesday – ride bikes with the BSS crew
  • Thursday – probably be dead from all the exertion plus I have gaming so *priorities*
  • Friday – swimming, maybe in the lake
  • Saturday – short brick at Lake Pflugerville (probably 10-15 miles on the TT bike + once around the lake)
  • Sunday – go die somewhere because obviously I’ll be worn the eff out

After these two weeks I may just hang my TT bike and hokas back up for a while again, or I may continue to play triathlon at this low level for the summer.  I haven’t decided yet.  I should probably lift some heavy things soon (like at least my own bodyweight) so we’ll see how I want to prioritize everything.

Last week I was about 2 for 3.  I actually did 4 things (3 bikes, 1 swim).  I got 10k steps on my fitbit every day (technically minus Saturday, because it counted steps for a 2 hour bike ride, and I only really *walked* 7k but details…).  I did not wake up and do stuff because a) my back really wasn’t ready and b) I realized waking up in the morning and going cold to do some stretching without a warmup was probably not the finest idea ever.

I assure you that the second panel did not turn into the third, although I have threatened before.

My adventures in nutrition can be summarized thusly – I did really well all week.  Then I went and rode bikes for 2 hours kinda hard on Saturday and hosted a party with lots of food so I ate and drank a lot.  Then I resumed normality on Sunday and here we are.

This week’s tally:

  • Weight: 187.4 (-1.6) lbs
  • Avg cal per day: 1732 (+17) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -838 (+35) calories
  • Macros: 56 (+2)g fat, 164 (-12)g carbs, 93 (+3)g protein, 23 (+1)g fiber

So, besides a little extra fat (still within the acceptable range), everything is going the right way regardless.

Last week’s goals:

Continue with Week one goals.  Track and maintain a deficit.  Water.  Try to keep the alcohol consumption to reasonable levels. – Check.  Saturday was a little out of hand but in the grand scheme of the week it all normalized.

Fruits and veggies. – Check.  I went back and could count at least 5 fruits and veggies every day.  Thursday was pushing it a *little* bit including celery from the wings we split but if you’re counting 5 average per day over the whole week?  Nailed it.

Protein.  – Better, but not quite 100g.  I went up to 93g from 90.  When I eat more, this is effortless.  With smaller calorie counts, this takes some planning and perhaps a snack with protein because I’m just not making it some days.

This week’s goals:

Continue with previous goals.  Track and maintain a deficit.  Water.  Try to keep the alcohol consumption to reasonable levels.  Five fruits and veggies per day.  This is a reminder to not regress.

Protein.  I need to watch this carefully.  On nights where I’m having some adult beverages I should skew towards things that are carb-light, and have quality protein and fiber instead to make my macros.

The tally.  Now that my appetite is back to mortal levels and I’m used to not having a food orgy every day, it’s time to START working on my diet quality (the word of this season is baby steps).  Not doing anything this week, except trying to make good choices.  Next Monday, I’ll add up my DQ score and see where it’s at in comparison to where I was a few years ago.

I did some things besides swim/bike/run/eat!  #offseason is glorious.

It’s so weird.  During periods of heavy training, I’m like, what the heck do I fill my life with on the weekends if it’s not either riding bikes for 6 hours or running 20 miles and then laying exhausted on the couch watching Netflix?  Just laying on the couch watching Netflix sounds rather dull without the bikes to tire me out first.

Then, I remember how awesome it is to have some spare mental and physical energy on the weekends.  It’s the worst when you’re recovering because you feel tired without the fun and endorphins, but then once that breaks… HALLELUJAH!

Here are the things I did this weekend:

  • Had two glasses of wine on Friday because I had calories left and I could.
  • Rode my bike with friends for 2 hours.
  • Went out to lunch.
  • Actually died on the couch for a while watching all the 2017 IMTexas videos to try to catch ourselves in them.
  • Picked up the house and prepped for the party.
  • Hosted 11 people and had a fantastic time.
  • Read a few chapters in the Big Yellow Book and finish section 1/3 (and some in my fiction book as well).
  • Did laundry and actually put it away the same day.
  • Cooked a BUNCH of batch meals – curry turkey with brown basamati rice and veggies, shepard’s pie, chili.
  • Went for a walk.
  • Watched a movie.
  • Painted some minis.

…and I was still in bed early enough Sunday night to wake up and run this morning and I feel refreshed and happy instead of overwhelmed.  Glorious!

My goals were:

Find a non-fiction book. – Check.  However, I had just started the new Argonauts book and I’m into it so I’m waiting until I finish it (certainly this week) to start reading How to Win Friends and Influence People (in the Digital Age) – figured I’d start with a(n updated version of a) classic.

Find office chairs.  Check.  600 bucks later, we both have seats we’re happy with that we can sit in for a while.  They’re worth it.  I sat in it to paint for about 2 hours and I didn’t want to die like I do in any other non-couch chair in the house.

Host people without stressing out. Check.  We spent maybe 2 hours cleaning and prepping simply because we effed up with the timing and didn’t schedule this on a cleaning service week, so next time should be even simpler.  There was plenty of food and drink without me going overboard.  We all had a blast playing games.  This will happen again soon.

Life goals, super check.  This week has a few more extra curricular activities, so I am picking one thing that will be a time commitment (Sunday), and the rest should be low hanging fruit.

Find a doctor and schedule a check up.  I have no idea why I’m putting this off.  Actually, yes I do.  This is definitely the year to get my blood drawn and I probably need to recover my account info for the login and the UHC website is confusing and blah blah blah.  Get over yourself and DO EITTT, woman.

Dance dance.  While the next two weeks I’ll probably err on the side of spending my energy doing triathlon stuff, I purchased a DDR pad a few weeks ago and I’d like to get it set up and working BEFORE I really want to use it (and get frustrated that I’m spending my play time getting it set up).

The Office, round 2.  Zliten thinks we can get at least through Step 3 this coming weekend in a few hours.  I’m cautiously optimistic.

And on that note, off to do all the things I can do with a brand new week!

 

Save

Save

#projectoffseason (2017)

By

On June 1, 2017

In Uncategorized

I meant to do one of these posts immediately after the Ironman, but it just sounded WAYYY too exhausting and overwhelming to even think about most of this stuff until about two days ago.

At least SOMEONE is using the tri bike!

Now, the haze is clearing and I’m adjusting to the fact that no, I don’t in fact have to train 15 hours a week and yes, that’s actually a good thing.  I have some energy back that doesn’t need to be carefully allocated to run/bike/swim/lift/recover/find food/work/minimal adulting.  I really enjoyed laying it all out there last year publicly (read: accountability) with #projectspring in 2016, and seeing what I could accomplish.  Without further ado, I give you – #projectoffseason (2017).

#1 – #projectraceweight is back.

Plates like this will probably NOT be happening very often for the next few months.

It’s one of my least enjoyable to-dos, but it’s necessary.  I was lucky to not gain anything after IM Texas, but I also didn’t LOSE anything during the training cycle (after gaining ~5 lbs over the holidays/mid-season break).  So, for the foreseeable future, the goal is to make the number on the scale go down in healthy ways.  I will track this weekly, and probably do a whole post on this in more depth at some point, but the main focuses are:

  • Find the point of activity where I can eat a sustainable amount of calories without bumping up my appetite to the next tax bracket.  This will take some experimentation, but it seems to be around 4-5 hours per week (depending on the intensity) + 10k steps per day.
  • Clean up my diet quality.  Last time I focused primarily on calories in vs calories out, and I will still do that, but I think I felt better (and kept a lower weight) when I dialed back the refined grains, fried shit, sweets, and (just a little bit) booze that went in my cakehole.  I’m not going crazy but I would like to make some strategic reductions on this stuff.

I’m not putting any numbers on anything just yet.  I’d just like to be a moderately active individual that eats mostly plants in recognizable form and animals not swimming in fat that sometimes eats fried cheese or too much whiskey or chocolate cake but not that often that weighs less than I do now.

#2 – House Projects

I expect more scenes like this.

With all this time and energy not used on running 20 miles or biking in circles for 6 hours, we can finally make some progress on the projects we keep putting off.

Office Space.  This is our big first focus and already in progress.

  • Step 1: clear out the junk actually IN the office.  That’s mostly complete, we need a few more hours max to fully check this off.
  • Step 2: Get the office set up as an office – two computers fully hooked up, get a bookshelf that doesn’t need to be propped up, moving the furniture where it’s supposed to be, proper chairs, move the sewing machine in, etc.  This is getting pretty close as well.
  • Step 3: clear out the closets and shelves so that we have storage space for things we need in there (and get rid of the rest/put things in the attic).
  • Step 4: decorate.  It would be awesome to put up a shelf and display game boxes for everything we’ve worked on instead of having them stuck in the closet.
  • Step 5 (ongoing): now that this room is fully set up, it can no longer be used as a junk room!  We will have to figure out where to put our crap immediately instead of just throwing it on the floor.

Kitchen Remodel.  Zliten’s parents have kindly offered to help us redo cabinets and some other stuff at some point.  We’re hoping to pick a few weekends in a row over the summer/fall if our schedules align that we can dedicate to this because it would save us a WHOLE lot of money instead of just crying “Ikea do it for meeee!”. I don’t expect to finish all this, but here’s the wishlist:

  • Fronts of the cabinets (if not the whole thing) and hardware and fixing the ones that don’t close properly.
  • Add storage where there’s this awkward butcher block and cabinet situation.
  • Change the color of the countertop (we have a kit we found on the side of the road for free!).   Maybe we’ll go marble/granite/whatevs someday but for now I just want it to not be ugly white formica that stains instantly.
  • Add a microwave over the oven instead of awkwardly in the corner that opens the wrong way (and that’s not dying).
  • Get those nifty rolling drawers for our lower cabinets so things don’t get lost in the back/corners.
  • Paint.  I like our kitchen wall color (green) but I might consider a lighter color for the cabinets than dark purple-y grey we have now.  Maybe light grey, maybe even white, maybe cherry stained wood to match the color of the floor… or maybe we’ll go black on the bottom and white on the top to match the counter.  We’ll consider our options.
  • To do all this we will have to completely clean out our kitchen drawers and cupboards, and we can work on paring down on what we have so it stores nicely instead of *just barely*.
  • Bonus round – build out a bar area by the beer fridge instead of our cheapie wire shelves that barely kind of work.

Shed.  We have a rule of no more new bikes until we get a new shed, and we really want mountain bikes so we can go play in the dirt with our team this year. 🙂  Also, getting our camping gear out of the workout room would really be able to make that room more useable.  We’re obtaining the pallets for the base soon, then we just have to spend the money and time assembling it (hey, we can save money AND get a good workout).  Looking at it, people who know what they’re doing take about 4 hours to assemble, so we’re probably looking at 8-12, heh.

Pain Cave.  It’s much better than it was as the junk room last year, but it’s been acting as bike storage with a treadmill that can be used if you shift stuff around and make room vs an actual workout room.  Once we get the shed, we can dedicate this room to have usable space to use the trainer, the treadmill, and maybe even an area to stretch/yoga.

Back Patio Remodel.  I highly doubt we’ll get this far this year, but next on the list would be looking into making our back patio a place we want to spend time again.  Also, once we place some teak memorial benches, we’ve said we’ll consider a hot tub which is some motivation to chew through this list!

#3- Side Hustle Stuff

Just need to remember this one when I’m faced with challenges…

I made some big pushes this year in learning new things and growing as a person, and now it’s time to take it to the next level and look at how I might turn this knowledge into practical things I can do to benefit others and put green pieces of paper in my pocket.  In no particular order:

Books. I have at least 3 book ideas knocking around.  Since one ended with “Ironman”, I have been kind of putting it off until I crossed the finish line.  No more.  Time to work on this. I set a very ambitious goal of having at least one self published book out by the end of the year, so here are my focuses:

  • Outline the book or books (try to focus on one to completion but I have a feeling I’ll end up at least starting all of them so I can jot down notes as I’m inspired).
  • Actually WRITE – I can crank out blog posts all the time but writing a story is like a scary monster to me right now.  Those muscles are a little weak.  Time to fix that!
  • Look into publishing options so I know what to do when the time comes.

Website. I feel like I did a pretty decent job fixing this one up as a personal site, but I still have some learning to do (or probably to outsource to my more technically minded Zliten so WE have some learning to do).

  • My goal with a business website would be to sell something where someone could purchase and pay for something securely without my input.
  • I need a way to allow people to subscribe to newsletters and updates and super cool free content and stuff.
  • And the biggie – I need to come up with a site plan, build the site, and generate the content.  But I know how to do that (it’s just actually doing it).

Business Plan. If I was going to ask people for green paper in exchange for services I can provide, how would I envision scaling it out to make an acceptable wage if it was my only source of income sometime in the future?  I don’t know much detail here yet but I know I have a lot to figure out.  Basically, what services would I like to offer directly to a finite amount of people at a premium (300$x10), and what can I do once and sell at a lower cost to an infinite amount of people at once (30$x100 or 3$x1000).

Marketing/PR/Social Media.  This is the part that scares me the most.  I have faith I can figure out everything above this line item.  My fear is I will build something I think is amazing and no one will come.  I feel like once I get more into this, I’ll have better goals but my initial ones are:

  • Step 1:  I know people get full degrees in this stuff and I don’t expect to be that awesome immediately, but I feel like some instruction that’s not tacked on as the last chapter of a sporty class might help me feel less clueless.
  • Step 2: Figure out what I need to know more about.  I’m hoping that once I am a little more informed on marketing as a whole, I can figure out what areas I need to study further.  If facebook followers and ads are very important, I want to learn everything I can about that.
  • Step 3: Put together a rough draft on what I would do to promote these services if it were time to pull the trigger.

Other related things.

  • I think it would be fun to do spin classes someday.  I’d like to look into what it takes to get certified to do that.
  • I am a wanna-be coach who has never been coached since age 18.  I think it’s important that I change that.  I want to look into picking up a coach for the next season and/or potentially doing some group workouts with coaches (like through Rogue Running) to experience the other side.
  • Continue to learn.  Read one non-fiction book per month about nutrition, triathlon, business, or marketing.

Sometimes cat has become more-often-than-not cat which means he needs his balls cut off.

#4 – General Adulting To Do List (or all the things I’ve put off while training for the Ironman).  I am actually pretty impressed at all the adulting I’ve already done this year because this list was a lot longer in January.

  • Fixing Wookie Cat.  Another feral seems to have adopted us.  He’s around enough that we can’t just ignore him.  It’s time for snip snip snip.  Luckily it just costs 20 bucks through the humane society and just takes a little time.
  • Wills.  At 38, I still think I’m immortal, but it’s a good idea that I plan for the impossibility that I’m not.
  • Doctor.  My doctor left our insurance plan and I’ve put off getting a new one because I want to find one I la-la-la-love (who understands athletes).  I’ve put it off for a year and a half.  I need to quit that.
  • Financial Planner.  I’d like someone to give us some expert advice into: a) where I should invest my money instead of a savings account? b) how I should invest this if I’m thinking of starting a business sometime in the future? c) am I ever going to be able to retire?

Of course #goplayoutside is on this list, for sure!

#4 – Fun/Random Stuff:

I want to train myself to be ambidextrous on the bike.  I’ve gotten so used to unclipping and putting my left foot down that I can barely do it on my right even WITHOUT clips now.  I’ve gotten much more comfortable with bike handling but this is definitely still my dirty little secret.

iFly.  We have passes from the last time we went many years ago we should use up.  It was SO FUN we bought discount passes for another two flights each but haven’t been back since.

Comedy tickets.  We have a bunch of them that expire at the end of the year.  It’s walking distance and they play every night of the week.  There’s no excuses here.

#goplayoutside – kayaking, swimming (the kind without a garmin), camping when we can find a little temperate weather, fishing, hiking, and all the other types of outdoor fun.  There are some very #austin places I haven’t been and I’ve been here a decade – Hamilton Pool, Enchanted Rock, Mount Bonnell, and Deep Eddy to name a few, and I’m sure I’ve got more to go if I made a proper list.

Domesticity.  Let’s not get crazy, but I’ve got a few clothing projects I’d like to do.  First, I have a few pairs of pants I’d like to hem/fix.  They are perilously close to getting donated instead so if I screw them up, oh well.  Second, I have some less-than comfortable boots and shoes and a TON of Hoka spare insoles.  I want to make them be friends.  I’m aiming low with this one.

Hosting people more often without it being a THING.  We used to have friends over all the time but for some reason now it’s become an ordeal and something we do about twice a year.  Similar to the crappy dinner party, I want to have a monthly game night potluck.  The house will be reasonably clean but not perfect.  We’ll make something easy for part of dinner but other people will contribute and there will be no pintrest-worthy spreads like we do for New Years.  We’ll sit around and play games and talk and enjoy having friends around and if you miss this month’s, no worries, there will be another.

Vidja games.  Now that I’m not so brain dead and have free time, I’d like to play more games instead of zoning out watching Netflix.  Having the office set up might help with that, but there’s also all sorts of PS4 adventure games and I bought a DDR pad and have unearthed my PS2 and that means super fun plyometric workouts as well.  Games!

I’m fully aware that this is a LOT OF STUFF and I don’t expect to check everything off this list if I want to keep my sanity and my job, but I felt like #projectspring was SO ambitious and I did a vast majority of it, so I figured, let’s do it again!  Cheers to aiming high and let’s see what amazing things I can tackle and how my life will change in the next few months as I really settle into being a semi-normal human being.

What’s at the top of YOUR to do list right now?

Save

Page 12 of 20

← Previous

Next →

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...

Search

Pages

Archives

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Login

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén