Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: #projectraceweight Page 9 of 20

November wrap up, December goals

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On December 4, 2017

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Well, it’s now December.  The last month of 2017.  Holy crap, that went FAST!

Fast, unlike the trot of turkeys I did on Thanksgiving.

Let’s talk about what didn’t happen, because it’s kind of a LOT.

  • Swim at least twice.  (I swam ZERO yards.)
  • Ramp up running (at least as much as I had envisioned November 1st)
  • 8 Strength sessions (I think I did… two?)
  • Eating healthy food every day but Thanksgiving
  • Tracking my negative diet quality calories.  I did some days, but fell off after we started remodeling.
  • Finish the Carl Sagan book.  I’m at 70% – I’ve had to do this one in 10% chunks between my other books).
  • Finish 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I’m halfway through and could power through it in a night if I wanted, but I’m actually enjoying reading one section at a time and absorbing it.  So, I’ll try to finish it this week.
  • We did not make it to a comedy show.  So I really need to figure out what to do with my 7 pairs of tickets because that’s a lot to do in one month.

While usually I’d be bummed about admitting all this, not this month.  My body has appreciated the break from formal training and has enjoyed just generally being active a few hours a week.  My give-a-shit is at full capacity with the kitchen remodel and wrapping up work for the year.  Here’s what I have accomplished:

  • I wrote two chapters in my book.  Admittedly enough, I had two random days off, and those were the days I did it, but hey, small victories.  I am now at 8.5 chapters of 15 planned, so I’m over halfway!
  • We went camping and had a lot of fun at the tri series party.
  • I launched one major update at work and am a few days from a smaller one.
  • And, most importantly, we have finished like 95%  of our kitchen remodel.  Which is all the bullet points I need to feel good about what I’ve done or not done this month.  When I wrote my To Dos last month, I seemed really concentrated on the logistics, not realizing EVERYTHING that went into the actual doing.  I basically spent the second half of November painting things while everyone else did the harder stuff.

Holy crap, y’all, it’s a usable kitchen!!! …even if it needs paint and a backsplash and some other stuff…

I’m actually happy to have had the experience.  Would I do it again?  Yes and no.  Doing the cabinets ourselves mostly just took time and having done it once, I would be *ok* trying to do it again if we weren’t under a huge time pressure.  Paint and hardware, no problem.  However, our in-laws replaced all the drywall and did the electrical and the plumbing (changing where the sink and dishwasher were) and I would DEFINITELY not have taken that into our own hands.

I also do not regret paying people to do the counters.  Like, one bit.  They were 3 hours in, out, and on with their lives and apologized to me that it took so long.  No. freaking. problem.

So, while there’s still some minor cosmetic stuff to do, we’ve got a fully functioning kitchen and our house is relatively clean (and will be completely back to normal by the middle of this week).  That’s a huge relief.  I was pretty good about that through most of the process, but when we unpacked the last box yesterday, I felt so much more relaxed, much more than I realized.

So, December.  Last month of the year!  This month is about wrapping all that up and returning to a bit of relaxed normalcy in terms of training, eating, and life.

Let’s talk training. 

My cycling miles have gone from hundreds to tens.  Like last week, I think I literally biked 10 miles.

For sanity’s sake, the OFFICIAL schedule resumes mid-month because, reasons, but from now until then my goals are:

#1 – build up my run miles and start incorporating a little speed 1-2 times a week.  These can be little fartlek sections, track intervals, but I need to start seeing some 9s on my watch in small doses.

#2 – resume strength training – 2x week, even if it’s just a Oiselle dozen or 15 mins of pushups and random stuff, I need this habit back in my life.

Everything else will come later.  I miss the pool.  I miss playing bikes for hours on end.  I miss lifting heavy.  But right now I’ve got a bit of the run love back and I’m excited to nurture that!

Food/Scale

I give myself about a… B- for nutrition last month.  I am so glad I cooked up so much healthy food – we ate almost everything, minus one soup I’ve got thawing for tomorrow.  During the weekdays, we ate reasonably well when we were eating at work.  However, at home, on the weekends, we definitely reverted to pizza (twice) and italian sandwiches on french bread and some other super yummy but admittedly junk foods to keep everyone fed and without prep or cleanup.  I don’t regret it at all, but I remember one Saturday thinking that my intake for the day had been a kolache and four slices of pizza and a small salad.  Not my normal eating patterns for sure.

My official weight average this month is 184.1.  I weighed 24 times so it’s a pretty good average.  That’s -1.2 lbs down.  As frustrating as this slow going progress is, it’s still progress.  And I know because this morning, when I weighed 184.7, I was like, ack, that’s up a bit.  Last month this time I would have been stoked.  I’m really hoping I can see a 170-something number this month, if I made it through Thanksgiving and a remodel with a weight loss, surely I can make it through December with the scale continuing to be my friend, right?

So, I’m making the same goals this month as last month.

  • I will track all negative diet quality foods for this month starting today.
  • Exceptions: vacation, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve.  Vacation, I’ll be diving too much to gain weight, and I’ll allow myself those other days to celebrate and not worry about calories or the quality of my food.  Every other day is normal healthy eating because these are the holi-DAYS, not holi-MONTHS.

Life!

Hoping to get back to more of this in December!

December is a good month progress here because I’m off work for most of it so I can actually do stuff but also have time to relax.  Last year I powered through a lot of my triathlon coach training.  This year, I hope to make a bunch of progress on my book in a similar fashion.

I have 7.5 chapters left.  I would like to knock out at least FOUR of them.  I have five days off while Zliten is at work, and I’m giving myself one of those days where I just can’t even and not making any progress between Christmas and New Years.  If I can get more, great.  The overall goal: it would be a nice birthday present to finish the first draft by next March.

Finish all the little kitchen things and get my house back to it’s normal organized chaos.  What’s left:

  • Bolster kick plate on the peninsula so we don’t need extra tile
  • Fix tile spots
  • Backsplash
  • Touch up cabinets
  • Paint walls

I have a little bit of organizing I’d like to do with the spice rack and pantry but that’s all future goals.

Write a personal mission statement.  In reading 7 Habits of Effective People, I see a lot of things I do well and a lot of things I could do better.  Establishing a core set of principles in an easily distilled statement I can refer to when I’m making decisions in all aspects of life sounds like a good idea.  While my husband kindly brought up that I sort of do that on a weekly/monthly/yearly basis, I feel like crystallizing words around who I aim to be is a good exercise.  Of course, this also includes coming up with 2018’s map and plan like normal.

We get to go back to one of my favorite places in the world!!!

Figure out how to travel lightly.  For this vacation, we purchased BCDs and regulators for diving (they cost only double the gear rental fee for just that week and we’ll never have to rent again).  However, that means our scuba gear now takes up most of two large suitcases and the camera equipment takes a small one.  We are going to have to travel REALLY sparsely otherwise.  Good thing four swimsuits, two pairs of shorts, a few t-shirts, two pairs of sandals, and a cover up doesn’t take much room (but I need to limit it to pretty much that).

Take my annual facebook/twitter break.  It was mentally necessary last year.  This year, I’ve found some awesome groups to be a part of, so these sites don’t stress me out as much as they did last year this time with all the political BS, but I still .  It will get logged out on my phone the day I leave for vacation and I’ll limit myself to it when I’m in front of my actual desktop for a while.

Play some GAMES!  This is usually the month I actually get a chance to lose myself in some video games and I really am looking forward to it!

Catch up on my reading.  Finish Carl Sagan, The 7 Habits, and choose at least two more – probably the 4 hour work week and Bedtime Stories for Triathletes, but I also just bought two running books that probably would make sense to read while I’m training for a half marathon, not to mention some new fiction I’m looking forward to… ah, the life of a hangry bookworm.

I’m looking forward to enjoying another month of THIS beauty we put up yesterday…

Relax.  I have 24 days off work starting at 6-ish PM on Friday.  While I’ve made it through a little less haggard than I have in some previous years, I definitely need some time to recharge and become a patient, pleasant, and kind human being again.

Happy December, everyone.  What’s up in your neck of the woods?  Fun holiday plans?  Heading to a tropical destination? Netflix and PJs? Becoming a ski instructor for the winter?

Looking up the hill…

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On November 8, 2017

In Uncategorized

When I first started racing, my year was pretty periodized by default.

In 2009, I ran a half marathon and then after that, shut it down for a few months. Because that’s what normal people do.

I wasn’t a complete nut yet, and I had these natural cycles before I even knew what periodization and offseason and all those other coach-y schedule-y things meant.

Yearly, I would maintain a baseline fitness level (ten years ago, that looked like 4-5 hours a week – 3x weights, 2x running, and either some arc trainer and/or DDR to round out the hours).  I would sign up for a race occasionally, train 2-3 months for it, and then go back to my base fitness level right after.  There was never any compulsion to “keep what I gained” by boosting my training beyond that 4-5 hours unless it was for a reason.

Then I started racing more.  Since I was racing more than a few times a year (with smaller races to support the bigger ones), and I feel like 2-3 months is the absolutely minimum amount of time I feel like I need to be prepared for a race, I was pretty much constantly training.  It was new and fun and exciting and it made me toy with the fact that I might actually be an athlete!  I remember at one point, I decided to take 5 weeks off because I had been on for something like 17 months.  My body pretty much collapsed that entire offseason – I couldn’t run the whole time because as soon as the heel I injured the last race of the season felt better, my back went out for the entire Christmas break.  The universe was yelling “STAAAHHHHHPPPPP!!!!”.

I’ve learned that for my mental and physical well being, I need to pretend to be a normal mortal human for extended periods of time or I break down.  The length of time I need is predicated by: a) what I have just done to my body and b) the length of time I’ve been “on” and also c) how I feel about life right then/stress levels/etc.

I also have learned that offseason racing is tricky to navigate.  When you sign up for something simply because you do it every year, or because your friends are doing it and you have major FOMO, or because you have a husband that would rather race every weekend vs train, you have to watch your expectations.  For me, FUN racing is when I PR, when I leave it all out there, when I’m a ball of sweat and snot and making the pain face at the end.  Everything else is just paying money to go for a jog with friends.

And sometimes paying money to go for a jog is ok, especially if you get to look like a rainbow threw up everywhere while doing it.

There’s a time and a place for that, for example, the Turkey Trot this year.  I know I’m not going to PR (though I’m pretty sure I’ll beat last year no matter what…), but it’s an excuse to get up, ride my bike ~20 miles and go run 5 before I gorge myself on turkey.  I absolutely and positively plunked down my 25$ registration fee solely to motivate myself to get my ass of the couch that morning.  However, I’m usually not a huge fan of jumping into a race untrained.  Results may vary, but for me, they’re usually not positive.

So, right now I’m mentally and physically stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

Crazy Athlete Me says:

  • I’m mad at my mojo for being absent and I should be making time for more than a few hours a week and maybe 2-3 of the sports instead of just one of them.
  • What I did over the summer is not worthy of an offseason.  Three sprint races, one slow century and one century that got cut short is just maintaining fitness, right?
  • I’ve not run in so long I’ve forgotten what running feels like (it’s been 2 weeks) and I’ll never be able to get back up to 13 miles in time, let alone get faster.
  • All of a sudden I’m going to gain back all the weight I’ve ever lost in my life because I’m only training a few hours a week and I’m not starving myself.

Crazy athlete me likes to go out and try to ride 100 miles on her bike, unready for such a thing, for absolutely no reason.

Coach me knows:

  • I am an athlete that needs time off right now.  Work is crazy and stressful.  We’re starting a kitchen remodel that will upheave our lives for 2+ weeks.  I am working through some rotating pain between my knee and heel which is starting to be on the mend because I’ve resisted being a dumbass and rested it.
  • I should not discount the amount of work I did over the summer on the bike and in triathlon.  Even if Ironman warped me to think so, training an average of 7-8 hours a week is not insignificant and still warrants a break after.
  • I have plenty of time to build towards a good half marathon at the end of January.  I will not lose every morsel of fitness I have earned by taking a few weeks to do whatever.
  • My body is actually responding positively in terms of weight loss over the last month or so… perhaps because I’m listening to it and giving it what it needs?  I *know* it’s not because I’m maintaining more of a deficit (probably less because I’m training less and mostly just trying to eat less crap but not less food).
  • And the biggie I say to everyone else but it’s hard to say to yourself – it is always better to show up uninjured and undertrained vs properly trained and limping.

So, here I am.  I have new running shoes I’ve had for over a week that I haven’t even worn yet.  I haven’t ridden my bike on roads since October 22nd.  I haven’t done weights in over two weeks even though they’ve been on the schedule.  I haven’t swam in almost a month and with the cold snap today… not sure it’s going to happen this week.  My mind is reeling with insecurities about my muscles and endurance shriveling up into nothingness, as well as wasting beautiful days and my gym membership funds not training like crazy this season like I typically do.

I miss dis place – literally the gym and also the figurative place of being so smashed (and accomplished) after a really long hard workout.

However, my mind is also thanking me PROFUSELY that I’m not trying to maintain any sense of a training schedule while shipping an update at work.  I have been much less of a basket case and handling things much better than normal.  I usually have some major breakdowns this time of year when I am in training mode and I’m thankful that hasn’t happened (yet).  My body is LOVING this break.  The weight is falling off (knock on wood, let’s not jinx this) and when I actually do something like the bike intervals I did this morning, I feel GREAT, not tired, not stale, but like my parts are all starting to work in harmony again.  When I DO get back to training, it will be nice to start from a rested, recovered body and see how that feels for once!

As long as my heel continues to cooperate, I have my first run back scheduled for next Monday, but we’ll see how things go from there.  It’s neat to occasionally reap some rewards when you don’t rage against the universe’s wishes and I’m trying hard to listen even if it makes me do things I don’t like from time to time.

I’m at the bottom looking up the hill right now.  Thirteen miles at a fast pace seems super far away right now.  But I’ve been down these roads before.  I know how to climb them.

October Wrap Up, November Goals

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On November 1, 2017

In Uncategorized

I like to do shit.

Sometimes that shit is riding my trainer outside the bike store with my teammates blaring music at all the restaurants nearby.  The obnoxious tomatoes ftw!

Goals are, like, my drugs (or anti-drug? or maybe we could with a far more appropriate analogy and say I live for them? …nah).  I love to make them, I love to plan them out, I love to conquer them, and I love to say, “what’s next?”.

I spent the first four months of the year plugging away at a single goal called Ironman.  Then, after a little bit of recovery, I took the blinders off and have been plugging away at a million smaller goals.  Century ride, check!  Getting faster at running short distances and fixing my running form?  Kinda check.  Writing a book?  Getting to the halfway point.  Four usable bedrooms, check!  Twenty million other things I typically ignore during training for a big event?  Either check, in progress, or on the plan.

While I’ll have some days where I feel a little overwhelmed, normally I’m super excited to be progressing towards things I want to do. And then, like late last week, my brain and body pretty much decided that it was time for a complete stop in the way of some MAJOR lack of mojo and heel pain that wasn’t just a twinge.

I committed to waiting until my heel is pain free for 3 days until I run on it.  Even today I’m not quite there yet (close but no cigar), but I think that means the earliest will be next Monday IF I have no twinges this weekend.  I am so frustrated that I’ll be getting a late start preparing for 3M but I’m going to trust that these things happen for a reason.

I had an unplanned day off on Monday and I wanted to do all the things and it was gorgeous outside so I should have ridden my bike everywhere.  Except, I slept until 11 (over 12 hours of sleep).  I read my book in bed and dithered around the house and finished writing a chapter in my book and couldn’t muster any sort of give-a-shit so I rode the trainer while reading more of ROAR (which I have since finished and highly recommend to anyone who is not just a tiny man).  I haven’t done a weights session since early last week.  I haven’t made it to the pool.  I might ride the trainer again sometime this week but it’s also just as likely I’ll sleep in instead.

I feel like I’m letting precious time and beautiful weather slip through my hands.  I feel like I’m in the worst shape of my life for this season (because I’m usually in the best shape right about now).  You’d think I’d feel rested after riding my bike twice in a week and getting lots of sleep but I’ve felt like a frickin’ zombie all day so of course that makes me reconsider resting to begin with and maybe I should just suck it up and muddle through…

“No,” the universe says.  “Hard. Stop.”  It’s not screaming yet, but it’s also not whispering.  And using it’s stern voice.

While I’m trying to discount what I’ve done over the summer/fall as “just having fun”, I averaged 2/3rds of my IM training volume (~30 hours per month from July through October, vs ~45 hours per month from January through April).  Thirty hours per month is actually fairly close to my average 70.3 training volume.  Whether I like to admit it or not, whether it really feels like it or not, even if it was “just” for 3 sprint triathlons and 2 century rides, I just went through a training cycle.  And I need some faffing off time.

I hear you, universe.  No need to yell.  I’ll give you a little more time.

I’ll sum my October totals here:

  • 1000m swim (1 swim)
  • 20 miles run (6 runs)
  • 318 miles biked (17 rides)
  • Weights – 7/8 planned sessions (the last one last week)

Almost 30 hours total.  Even though I feel like I haven’t done much, the numbers don’t lie that it’s 1 hour a day average.  I deserve a little break.

November goals:

  • Swim at least twice.
  • Give myself the rest of this week off and then resume strength training next week and make 8/8 sessions.
  • Allow my heel to heal and then gradually ramp up running, however long that takes (I have 12 weeks until the race, I’d rather train for 8 of them healthy than 11 of them with a hurty heel).  When I do start again, err on the side of more sessions vs big mileage.  3×3 days a week at lunch and then more miles on Saturday is better than 2 longer runs.  My body is used to the 3 mile runs.  It’s not used to much more and yes, an hour lunch run right now is going to feel like a long run until I get some more miles under me.
  • Cycling is now my support sport.  Trainer rides, commutes if I can get up early enough to get mostly home before it’s stinkin’ dark, warmup and cooldown for long runs… I expect it to be my worst mileage month since June and that’s totally fine.

Priority is: 1) healing then running 2) weights 3) cycling 4) swimming (sorry swimming, you’ve been last on the list for a while).  If I can only get to the first part of #1 and #2 in this month, I’ll be a little disappointed, but OK.

Scale/food

I have paid so much attention to this week’s food, the most related picture I have is our D&D costumes.  I mean, my name technically is FORK, but…

Here’s another place where the not-quite-end-of-year-but-close burnout hit me.  But I think it’s working out alright.  I’m actually making some real progress here and it’s encouraging.

I stopped tracking my food around October 22nd and haven’t really restarted yet.  Because of that, it’s just about impossible for me to guess what my overall stats were for October.  However, I didn’t stop weighing at least.

  • Oct 1-7: 185.1 avg
  • Oct 8-14: 186 avg
  • Oct 15-21: 185.7 avg
  • Oct 22 – 28: 184.6 avg

So, I’m looking at 185.3 as my average for the month of October, which is -2.1 lbs from my average last month.  My clothes are fitting better and I was literally walking around yesterday in my underwear asking my husband if he thought the elastic went out (and no, I’ve just lost some belly fat, since my others fit the same way).  The good news is it’s continuing to drop… right now is that lovely wonderful TOM and I’m still averaging less than I was last week.  Momentum is on my side, finally.  Just in time for the holidays.

How do I stay sane and not eff things up and gain 7 lbs like I did last year?

Simplify tracking – only the bad stuff.  I am going to have a hard time tracking calories and diet quality next month with camping and a launch and a remodel and all sorts of other shenanigans going on.  I was trying to figure out how I can still keep myself on the wagon but also not stress myself out and I think I’ve figured it out: only track my negative diet quality points/calories.

If you think about it, it’s actually perfect.  Hopefully, my laziness will take over and if I realize I have to track the fun size snickers and I don’t have to do anything if I eat the apple, I’ll go the way of less resistance.  I’m good at eating the good things.  The meals I cook are all roughly similar amounts of calories.  I’m actually pretty decent at eating the right amount if I eat mostly the good things.  So, hopefully, this will be a low stress way of making sure I stay on track.

They are holi-DAYS not holi-MONTHS.  On Halloween I had 2 ciders and ate a few fun size pieces of candy.  I still have a handful of heath bars left over which I’ll dole out to myself as treats throughout the year.  Thanksgiving is delicious, but I’m not a leftovers gal, so that one is really just about that day for me as long as I don’t bring home half a pie or anything (and if I do, it goes directly in the freezer in bite size portions).  Christmas is a little trickier because we celebrate both Eve (neighbors, ourselves) and Day (family) with food-heavy traditions, but again, it’s two DAYS.

So, in November, I’m committing to these two things:

  • Eating like a normal healthy human being on all days except for Thanksgiving. Even if it’s take out during the kitchen remodel (I’ll get healthy takeout).  Even while camping.  Even when I come up with excuses.
  • Log everything I eat that’s not on the Diet Quality positive points list (sweets, fried, refined grains, massive amounts of calorie laden sauce, super fatty meat, alcohol).

Life

I’ve been told to be myself unless I could be a unicorn, so for Halloween proper, I was BOTH!

Summary – things got done.  Not all of them.  I probably need to narrow my focus a little bit going forward or I’m in danger of getting overwhelmed of OMG ALL THE TO DOs.

  • Writing:
    • Take my old outline and make sure that it’s all absorbed in the new one. (CHECK!)
    • Write at least two chapters.  (DONE!)
    • Bonus: finish the one I started last month and got stuck on. (NOPE!)
  • Reading: Finish A Demon Haunted World (60% – I’ll keep plugging away but it’s hard to read all at once).  Read The 4 Hour Work Week (Saving for December) and You Are An Ironman. (CHECK!)  To be fair, I started and finished ROAR! by Stacy Simms, which I planned to read this month.
  • Wills:  Actually do this! (NOPE, sigh)
  • Business plan/website: NOPE! I literally have a document with eight words.  It’s becoming clear to me that I need to focus on one thing at a time, and my focus right now is the book.  This officially goes on the 2018 plan unless I get a hair up my hiney over Holiday Break.
  • Clean off all the bedroom surfaces.  I was about to make excuses and then realized how close I was so I got up and did it.  At least, on my surfaces and shared surfaces.  I will just ignore the ones on my husband’s side of the bed like I normally do. 🙂 (DONE!-ish)

In November, pretty much the primary focus will be on the kitchen remodel.

Pack up the kitchen between now and November 13.  The goal is to do one box per day.  That should give us more than enough time without getting us overwhelmed and give us the opportunity to go through what we have and get rid of some stuff instead of shoving shit in boxes willy nilly.

Get the cabinets Nov 11.  We plan to rent a trailer and then our cabinets will live in the garage until they are ready to go in the house.

Figure out the counters.  We bought slabs of granite and have since reconsidered being so cheap about it because our counter shape is pretty custom and we’ll already be saving an insane amount of money doing the rest ourselves so we’ll splurge on having someone do the counters.  We have one estimate for about 3 grand, I want to price a few others to see if that’s reasonable.

Figure out the cabinet colors.  These came unfinished, so it’s actually up to us to pick out exactly what we want.  I really liked the ones we got the estimate for, so I’ll probably try to find the slightly off white for the top, and a dark grey/almost black for the bottom (but I also want to nail down the countertop color before we buy them).

Pick out the backsplash and decide if I want to change the wall color.  I love my apple green kitchen walls but I keep thinking about possibly going red, or turquoise.  Even if we stay with the same color, I definitely want to repaint since it’s been 10 years.  Then… we’ll decide what backsplash would go with or if we even have enough place to put a backsplash where it will be worth it.

Purchase an above-the-stove microwave.  I am so ready to have a microwave that doesn’t take 20 minutes to cook something frozen, but we didn’t want to buy a new one until we remodeled.  So, so, so soon.

Look at the actual remodel process like a race.  It’s messy, it’s uncomfortable, I’m going to get cranky about stuff, but the finish line is worth it.  And, we have some pretty awesome and experienced people on our team (Zliten’s parents).

Other productive stuff:

Read books.  Finish Carl Sagan, finally.  Read 7 habits of highly effective people.

Write book.  I think I can commit to two more chapters OR one chapter and finishing the chapter I started and didn’t finish.  I think it’s probably time to start at the beginning with chapter 1, but whatever I’m motivated to write at the time I sit down will totally work.

Non-productive fun stuff:

Camping!  Heading out to the woods this weekend with some friends.  Of course, we picked a weekend in November as they’re not really warm weather people… and the highs are looking like upper 80s.  D’oh!

Comedy.  If we can make it out, we have SEVEN admit-2 comedy tickets left that expire at the end of the year.  To be fair, some of the shows we’ve seen have not allowed us to use the discount passes, but we should probably try to use some of them (and drag along some friends).

Tri Series Party.  It’s always awesome to celebrate a great season and sometimes get cool prizes!

…and that’s a wrap.  Time to go eat healthy food and be productive to start out the month on the right note!

October Goals and Goals and Goals

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On October 20, 2017

In Uncategorized

Hello world!  How are you?  I am fine.

My many moods this month – happy, frustrated, and unicorn.

Busy as hell, but hanging in there… how is it already past the midpoint of October???

Let’s do one of these update thingees because it feels like I need a little more accountability than just checking in once a month.  So, let’s kick the tires and start the fires!

Training

What? You don’t wear bright red lipstick when you run?

I can sum it up with this: lotsa bikes, back into weights, zero pool time, and running is happening but I’m building slower than I’d like.  My knee was hanging onto some sort of a super mean grudge for a few weeks after the race, but it’s feeling pretty good now (and now my heel has been cranky this week… sigh… always something!).  I was able to do some running, and while I’m not back to that nice 9-min mile pace, it’s still in the 10-min mile with good form range so I’ll call it a win.

I’m willing to sacrifice whatever voodoo I need to do to the diety of knees and running to get everything ship shape by early to mid November, when I plan to start the half marathon training plan for REALS.  However, until then, the goal is to:

  • ride bikes a lot and ride 100 miles for Livestrong this weekend with all the BSS team peeps
  • do weights 2x week
  • ignore swimming as much as I feel like
  • ramp up my run miles a liiiiittle bit so I can start my long runs in November closer to double digits than a handful of times around the track.

So far, so good.  Things get a little more real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot next month, but um… while I have big goals it’s just a half, so while it’s a lot of uncomfortable work, it’s not a big time commitment.

Totals so far this month:

  • 225 bike miles (if I literally don’t ride my bike again until November, which is absolutely not the plan, this will be 325 after the 100 this weekend – big cycle month for me!)
  • 15 run miles (which, unless I don’t run again this month, which is also not the plan, I will have my highest run month since April, sad as that is)
  • 0 swims.  I’m hoping to break that record this week, though.
  • On track with weights so far – 2x week for the first three weeks.

Total training so far: about 22 hours at this very moment right here.  On track to be WAYYY over 1 hour per day average, so it’s been a pretty awesome month for me!

Food

After a long and hectic day, mother effing Jason’s Deli to the rescue for mass doses of veggies, fruit, and whole grains.

October is the first month I really have positive things to say about this arena.

While my progress is still slow AF, I will definitely be posting a loss of a few lbs for October (unless I fall face first into a vat of halloween candy, which I am attempting to avoid).

I have been doing better at tracking right away.  I haven’t been paying as close attention to my deficits as I could/should, but I have been doing a decent job at things working out on the average.

I have done a better job at not eating like a complete asshole on weekends.  Spending a little $$ at the grocery store on easy, premade healthy foods I actually want to eat helps here a lot.  My weekends are not completely stellar, but they’re not the junk food orgy they used to be.

I started taking Turmeric capsules, which really really helped flush out some of the inflammation I’ve been carrying.  My weight dropped a few lbs within a week and on a day to day basis my stomach feels flatter.  However, I’m not sure it did anything for my husband so ymmv.

Booze consumption feels like it’s back down to normal levels.  Even with life being stressful right now.  So, I’ll call this a win and not nitpick at it.  Some people like to splurge and relax with a Starbucks milkshake coffee, some people like cake, I like whiskey.  All these things are fine in moderation.

Averages for the month so far (through Oct 17)

  • Calories: 1912
  • Deficit: 720 judged by Garmin (my Fitbit stopped working mid-month)
  • Weight: 185.5
  • Fat: 63
  • Carbs: 179
  • Protein: 103
  • Fiber: 26
  • Diet Quality: 18.6

I’m going to say everything is in fairly good order there.  I’d like that diet quality back over 20, and I just need to focus on these things:

  • Nuts as a snack.  I’m decent on most workdays but at home on weekends?  Forget it.  I reach for something else.
    • To fix it: getting a bag of almonds to keep at home and putting them directly on the counter.
  • Making sure I eat my fruit daily.  Some days I’m good, some days I skip it as a snack.
    • To fix it: weekdays: setting myself an Outlook reminder to eat my fruit; weekends: something similar, maybe low tech, like putting a post it up on the fridge and marking it off.
  • I’ve been letting sweets creep in a little more than I have been over the summer.  A bite of cake here, a little ice cream there, a little bit of chocolate from a candy dish there, but it all adds up.
    • To fix it: Cut this shit out unless I REALLY want it and it’s not just idle snacking.  This should be weekly-ish, not daily.

Can I improve the average up to 20 in the next 11 days?  I think it’s a challenge!  Hopefully, a challenge that will help me make more scale progress.  I’m thrilled with 2 lbs lost, even thought it’s slow AF, it’s going in the right way, noticeably, so I’ll keep at it.  About 4 lbs to go until I am back at the weight I raced Austin 70.3 last year, and then I’ll set more goals from there.

Life Stuff

We’re not gonna pay… we’re not gonna pay… for PRESS PASS RENT TICKETS!!! (thanks Yelp!)

I’ll be honest, I’m a little burnt out from GOALS and GOALS and GOALS everywhere, but hey, I want to get stuff done, it’s the price to be paid.  I know I have a rough November to get through with a product launch and then a kitchen remodel, but it will all be worth it and December is a lot of time to relax and enjoy life.

But, it’s still October.  Let’s focus on the present.

  • Writing: One chapter down, one to go.  I still need to revise the outline, and haven’t touched the chapter I got stuck on.
  • Reading: Carl Sagan is a prolific wordsmith.  I got 50% through the book and had to put it down for a while.  I am about 50% through the triathlete book and it’s pretty decent.  Apparently I’ve been told the 4 hour work week will drive me nuts, so maybe I’ll save that one for December when I’m off work. 🙂
  • Wills: Eh… not yet.
  • Clean off bedroom surfaces: I’ve started!  It’s in progress.
  • Website/Business plan: well, I started a document.  It literally has three lines in it, but it’s created.  I think I need to focus on the book first while I’m motivated to do that, and if I find myself at my desk procrastinating the last few chapters, I’ll work on this to get something productive done.

So, I’ve got essentially one week and two more weekends to make progress.  Time to regroup and focus my efforts.

  • Writing: take some time tomorrow (because all I have to do is packet pickup, no major workout) and start with the outline and then see how much progress I can make on the next chapter.
  • Reading: keep at it! Finish the triathlete book, finish Carl Sagan, and scope out two more November books (since I’m saving the 4 hour work week)
  • Clean off the surfaces: I’m going to try and take 10 minutes every night before bed the rest of this month and see if I can knock it out, rather than trying to do it all at once.

Wills… well, I’m obviously procrastinating this one.  I’ll give this one about a 50/50 shot at being on my To Do list next month, if I’m being honest.

I’m going to add “start packing up the kitchen” to this list as something to do in the next 30 days.  We start remodeling in a month.  Instead of scrambling to do this the weekend before, we can do it more slowly over a month.  I’ll let you know how this new *not procrastinating* thing goes for me! 🙂

We have done things that are not just werkwerkwerkwerk too.

We celebrated our anniversary at Trulucks.  Because we are old (and more importantly, we rode 80 miles that day), we were back home before sunset though!

We saw Rent with the nifty press passes from Yelp.  It’s one of my favorites, and I’m so stoked I got to go!  All the songs have been in my head this week…

Kona party!  Every year that we’re in town, we spend the day watching the Ironman World Championships and last Saturday was no exception.  I expected them to kind of be boring and it was so not the case!  I also now want a pouch in my tri kit to store my random crap, but it probably wouldn’t work out that well for me because I am not 2% body fat like Patrick Lange.

We actually got out to ride on dirt this month!  And it was less scary than the last time!  I’m hoping we can make it our sometimes-Sunday thing and conquer the super easy trails in Walnut Creek Park.

It’s been a super hectic, but super fun first half of October.  I’m hoping to buckle down a little bit on the To Dos even with a lot of work stuff coming up, but I also have a lot of fun stuff planned, so if I can survive, it should all work out just fine!

What cool plans do you have for Halloween/October/Fall/etc?  I love to hear about fun stuff!

 

September wrap up, October goals

By

On October 2, 2017

In Uncategorized

Noticed the lack of weekly check in posts?

Well, I’ve been crazy busy during the week and out of town a lot of weekends, so I kind of dropped them.  I think I liked that, because while they’re helpful to me, I feel like they’re kind of boring content.  So, I think I may keep that up except in times where I really need the accountability.  However, I need to keep track of things so I’ll be doing that internally and wrapping up each month because… that’s how we roll here.

So, September was an interesting one.  Lots of playing out of town in the woods, but also, chipping away at some goals even if I didn’t quite meet my ambitious standards.  I’m at peace and excited to start a new month with a refreshed map and plan.

September Training

Some of the best training sessions this month were spent in my BSS tri top.  Or Zliten’s when I forgot mine…

After a heck of a lot of bike miles in August to prep for Hotter’n Hell, I definitely needed a little break and more balance.  So, that’s what this month was all about… and also finally being able to race-race (instead of just have a hard workout) at Kerrville Sprint.  I’m finding out that really going all out at a sprint works you just as hard (or harder, in this case) than just riding 100 chill miles.  Intensity, people.  It’s no joke.

  • Swimming: 4 miles or about 6500m.  More than August.  Swimming was just not a priority for me this year after IM Texas, and I did enough not to get completely rusty for sprint tris.
  • Biking: 289 miles.  86 less than last month but I didn’t have a century ride or any training rides over 60 miles, so it makes sense, and is actually pretty impressive in that regard!
  • Running: 17 miles.  Yep, technically up from 12 last month like I wanted.  I would have more, but I gave myself the week off after the race to heal my wonky knee, which seems to be healed (knock on wood).  Game on.
  • Weights/DDR: 4 sessions.  Oops.  Need to fix this.

Total = 27.5 hours.  My first thought was… eek, kind of pathetic, but that’s almost an hour a day.  My brain is warped.

For October, I’m reverting back to August and the bike all the miles training and resume weights training plan.  I’m hoping to run a *little* more than previously, but I’m willing to concede on any swimming now that tri season is over.  It’s good cross training for me but I can let it slide this month.

October is also probably the last entire month without a specific training plan.  November starts the ramp up for 3M and I want to be a little more specific with my training since I have big scary goals there.

October high points:

  • Need to do a 80 mile ride (Oct 7) to prepare for Century #2 (Oct 22) and maintain a pretty good bike volume (like August).
  • Back to 2xweek weights, work in 10-15 mins DDR at least once a week
  • A *little* more running.  I’d like to get back to about 10-15 miles a week by the end of the month to build a lil base for half marathon training.

September Food

This sums up September’s eating.  It’s not as bad as it looks, but it’s definitely not the pinnacle of healthy consumables.

In like a lion, out like a blerch.

Here’s some truth talk: weekends are the best for just about every other reason, but they SUCK to try to stick to a healthy diet.  Especially while camping, or while hosting parties, or when you’re out riding bikes for 12 hours.  Here’s more truthiness: just because your knee is cranky post-race and you’re taking a few days off does not mean your appetite will go down.  In fact, you have more time to get yourself into trouble with interesting food and more opportunities to drink wine.

I asked my husband to remind me when I’m whining in a week or two about how I’m not making any progress it’s because I’m not doing the things that make the progress.  I’m eating to maintain my weight right now.  In fact, last week, I was eating to gain weight, when you take the fact that even DIETICIANS tend to undertrack themselves by about 250 calories per day.

However, the last five days or so have shown progress.  Strange, huh?  My weight just jumped down about 2 lbs on average and it’s being less swingy than normal.  I don’t even know… I will more than take it but sometimes my body is a huge troll.

So, what did I want to do in September?

Actually measure out the drinks I want to have when I’m home and try to stick to them.  I did this *some* of the time.  It’s actually starting to feel like a habit instead of an annoyance.  However, two camping weekends made this rough.  I’m not one to get much of a hangover and I had two killer ones on the two mornings we drove home from camping.

Continue to work on what I put in my mouth on the weekends.  Honestly, this hasn’t been *too too* bad.  I had a run of a few weeks where I had no nut butters or pistachios at home and didn’t break into anything else and ate crap for salty snacks instead.  I was about 7/9 on the weekend days on getting good nutritionally sound food in my mouth and that’s actually pretty awesome.

Abide by the deficit a little more strictly.  Here is where I did amazing week 1, eh week 2 and 3, and have sucked ass through a straw in space the last week of the month.   This really is the key.  I’m going to need to get back to this.

September Numbers:

  • Weight: 187.4 (+0.1)
  • Avg cal per day: 2023 (-59) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -840 calories Fitbit (+20)/-475 garmin
  • DQ Score: 18.2 (-2.7).
  • Macros for the month
    • Fat = 63g avg
    • Carbs = 197 avg
    • Protein = 110 avg
    • Fiber = 30 avg

I’m kind of amazed that my deficit got better, but also, I’m going to guess that I had significantly less accurate tracking data because I was often tracking the weekends days later.  *shrug*.  I think I may move over to tracking calories on the Garmin since the fitbit seems to be overestimating what I burn because I regularly maintain a 1-2 lb per week deficit and as you can see, I’m losing about 1-2 lbs every 3 months. 😛

What’s on tap for October?

Goal #1 – Increase tracking accuracy.  Like I said, lots of these weekends I was tracking Friday night through Monday morning on Monday evening (or worse).  My goal this month is to track at least 2-3 times per day, even on weekends.  If I can’t make myself open the calorie tracking app for some reason, I will text my husband with what I ate so I can remember to log it later.  Oddly enough, when I have to log things, I consider them more carefully.  Funny that.

Goal #2 – Sticking to deficits more carefully.  Let’s try this again.  This goes hand in hand with above – I need to know how much I can eat per day.  My goal used to be 1200-1500 calories per day depending on activity to lose weight with a few days closer to 2000.  Looking at my Garmin calorie burn, that’s not too far off.  1200 on completely off days.  1500 on easy 1-hour or less days.  Reference my burn for anything else beyond that.  Looks like longer bike rides earn me about 2-5k (25-100 miles).  We’ll see how the longer runs affect me on the garmin.

Goal #3 – Portion control with the sauce.  This is starting to become a habit but worth mentioning again.  Set aside what I intend to consume for the evening.  Consume that.  Be done.

Hopefully I can make the numbers all go back the right way next month.  Let’s be honest, I didn’t try very hard in September.  My overall goal is to actually TRY HARD in October.  I think if I actually mind the numbers I might do well and be able to stop talking about the same bullshit I have for the last seven years.  Dieting is the worst.  THE WORST.  I just want the pain over with so I can get to race weight and eat lots of healthy food and a little junk and maintain and be happy.

September Life Stuff

This is a bridge to the next section. (Ha!)

September was super fun and decently productive, though after the pinnacle of producitivty which was August I had some lofty goals.  Here’s what I wanted to do and if I did it, started it, or just ignored it:

  • TWO camping trips.  Yesss!  I do feel incredibly happy and relaxed even with work craziness because we played in turtle home a lot.
  • Office.  Actually using it.  NOPE!  Funny thing, when you are out of town 3 out of 5 weekends… you don’t exactly have time to do that kind of thing.  I got no website/business progress.  I started ONE chapter and haven’t been motivated to finish it.
  • Dr. Appointment to drain my ears.  DONE!  That was a big ball of wax, literally.
  • Two more Non-Fiction books.  Brave Triathlete DONE (and I actually want to re-read it… I feel like it needs another go to fully absorb it), and Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World has been started.  Luckily, I think this is one I’ll be able to read and fall asleep to, so it should go quick.
  • Wills.  In progress.  We’ve looked into it but have not finalized.  This will have to carry over.
  • Remodel.  We bought and paid for all the major stuff!  At this point, we need to pick out paint, a backsplash, and probably buy a few more things as they come up but we don’t have *too* much to think about until it’s time to pack up the kitchen!
  • Actually learned how to be a designer again.  One reason I’ve been so busy and my brain has been unable to fathom doing creative work is I’ve been doing some at work to help out!  Thanks to my awesome husband who has answered the majority of my stupid questions this month about the idiosyncrasies of this particular editor.

October should be a little more mellow.  We are in town all month except for one night away for a wedding on the 28th.  We have plans every weekend but most of those plans are with ourselves (anniversary and annual Kona Trainer Party).  As the weather turns a little cooler we’ll be less obsessed about funinthesunnnn and maybe the office will look a little more appealing.

  • Writing: I have written a lot, and now I’m realizing I was having a lot of trouble getting motivated because I needed structure.  So, the first thing I did on Oct 1 was write a working outline.  I organized the chapters that had full rough drafts into a document (and it’s 112 pages, so that’s something!) I also wrote the prologue and started the epilogue.  I feel MUCH more motivated and directed now.  Things I want to do this month:
    • Take my old outline and make sure that it’s all absorbed in the new one.
    • Write at least two chapters.  I was going to say Chapter 1 and Chapter 15 (the last) previous to this outline, but now that I’ve restructured, the last ones are going to be the most fresh and probably flow the quickest and I might as well continue to pick low hanging fruit.
    • Bonus: finish the one I started last month and got stuck on.  However, I’d rather wait to unstick myself until later if another part of the book is flowing.
  • Reading: Finish A Demon Haunted World.  Read The 4 Hour Work Week and pick one triathlete memoir, since that’s kind of what I’m trying to write.  I added a BUNCH of them to my wish list on Amazon so I’ll be ready to grab one when I’ve finished the other two.
  • Wills:  Actually do this!
  • Business plan/website: I kind of want to leave this open for what I have time/inspiration to think about, but by the end of the month I’d like to have a working document that’s at least in progress.  Even if it’s a google doc with a few lines in it, it will be a start!
  • Clean off all the bedroom surfaces.  It’s starting to annoy both of us and should take an hour, maybe two maximum.  We’re going to need a sanctuary once we start remodeling next month!

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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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