Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: psychoanalysis Page 12 of 31

Saving myself from myself

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On October 27, 2017

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It’s Friday night at 10:50pm.  Typically, at this point, I’m tucked into bed dreaming away about Saturday’s adventures.

Indirectly representative of my evening instead…

Right now, I’m on the couch, and I was trying to read, and failing because my mind wouldn’t quiet, and drinking some wine.  I had planned to be doing the former, but sometimes you have to save yourself from yourself.

See, I had planned on doing about a 90 minute run tomorrow.  Here’s all the reasons:

  • It’s going to be effing gorgeous tomorrow.  Chilly, crisp, and perfect running weather.  I was going to be able to break out the tights and maybe a long sleeve running shirt for the first time in months.
  • I’m going to a wedding tomorrow night.  It’s much easier to justify enjoying some good food and drink after expending some calories.
  • My half is in about 3 months.  I’d like to get my running ramped up a little bit before I start full on training.

However, my body and the universe has other plans.  I’ve been nursing a cranky knee, which has subsided just in time to give way to a cranky heel.  I don’t want to say the PF word, and I’m hoping it’s just that the sandals I live in all summer just need to be replaced or at least varied, but I’m trying to listen to the universe talk instead of waiting for it to shout (and be sidelined for weeks).

I even had an incredibly encouraging run on Wednesday, where the pace for the last mile had an 8 in front.  But, to be honest, I pushed through a little heel discomfort to do it.  And then it didn’t feel great after.

As an athlete that is self coached, I have to sometimes disengage and talk to myself in two personas.

Me: My heel hurts two days after running.

Coach: Then REST it.

Me: But I need to run.

Coach: Why do you need to run?

Me: Because I feel SO BEHIND and I’m worried I’m not going to train enough for this half coming up that I want to PR.

Coach: Didn’t you say this was your little offseason?

Me: Well, yeah, but a short run shouldn’t make a difference.

Coach: So, you’re going to jeopardize your ability to train well over the winter because you feel like you need to build your base during your offseason while you’re hurt?

Me: ….

And just like that, coach (and the wine) wins.  If I had an athlete that had a race three months out and had the same issue, NO EFFING WAY would I say, “well, suck it up, run on that shit, and hope for the best”.  It’s so different when it’s yourself because there are all these mental games of why it’s not so bad and why it feels like the cop out not to train.  We are strong.  We are impervious to bad things.  We persevere (even when persevering is not the sane thing to do).

After being at this stuff for long enough, it becomes the new normal.  Running when your tired.  Biking when your quads are sore.  Swimming when you want to do anything but get in that cold pool.  Pushing through discomfort and pain.  And then, when you make the choice to avoid pain, it’s a lingering question of, “did I make the right decision?”.  It’s what we do.

The epitome of a smart triathlete knows when to say when.  When to tell the lazy thoughts to go the eff away and get ‘er done.  When to succumb to them because they are actually encroaching on burnout.  When to push through aching muscles to simulate race conditions and encourage breakthroughs.  When to hole up on the couch with wine instead (or better yet, ditch the workout to stretch, foam roll, eat healthy food, and get amazing sleep).  The most enlightened among us know the difference or have really good advice from a coach to help discern when we should suck it up, buttercup, or actually effing lay off our crazies and rest.

I’m trying to get there.  I’m definitely not there because I had a little heel discomfort on Tuesday, and went ahead and ran hard at our brick on Wednesday, rolling the dice it was just a niggle.  But I’m trying.

#mfw I want to run and coach (me) tells me not to run because it’s a stupid idea.

Here are the things I try to ask myself to keep myself in check:

What am I feeling?  Is it pain?  Is it soreness?  Is it residual stress from work?  Is it pure laziness?  Is it fear?  What is currently bothering me, because normally training is fun and feels good.  What about this doesn’t feel good?

What do I have to gain from this training session? Is it just “filler”, like an easy run or trainer, like base building?  Is it a key session that’s actually really important to my training like a long run/bike or a speed session?  Have I missed a lot of sessions lately?  Is it offseason? Is it peak?  Is it race week?

Can I reschedule?  If it’s a morning run and I’m super tired, can I just run at lunch instead?  Can I give myself an unscheduled day off and trade it with another off day I don’t need?  Is it a scheduled workout with my team?  Is it a Saturday morning long workout I can’t do any other day of the week?

What do I have to risk by starting?  If I just feel a little bleh, can I just give it a try and bail if I feel bad?  Is it potentially an injury I can train through and make worse later?  Will I risk getting sick or being knocked out of training by pushing through?  Is it something that if I start, I’ll be unable or unlikely to stop even if it’s not good for me to continue?

As much as sport is a labor of love, we run into periods where don’t feel motivated for various reasons.  Maybe we didn’t sleep well and we snooze the alarm instead of hit the pool.  Maybe work has been stressful and the last thing we want to do is put on our kit and ride with the team.  Maybe our legs are sore from a week of training and the last thing we want to do is go crush a track workout.  It. happens. to. everyone.  No matter what social media says, everyone has that day where all they want to do is be a normal human and eff all this training noise.

However, by really concentrating on the HONEST answers to the questions above, you can help coach yourself.

Sometimes I’ll find I’m pushing off a session that intimidates me.  In that case, I’ll suck it up and commit.

Sometimes I’ll find I’m feeling life stress.  That’s a toss up, because stress is stress is stress.  If I’m not feeling completely burnt, I’ll start a workout with the out of bailing.  Sometimes instead I’ll reschedule or bag it if it’s especially bad and/or it’s not a critical session and/or I’m feeling particularly stabby.

Sometimes I’m feeling sore.  Pushing through soreness has lead to some big breakthroughs for me.  Sometimes it’s a great (albeit miserable) race simulation.  Sometimes it’s unnecessary torture.  In that case, it really depends on what the workout means to me and how likely I am to reschedule.

Sometimes I’m feeling something I can’t determine is a niggle or the beginnings of an injury (like this week).  Wednesday, I pushed through because it was a fairly key workout and might have been just a twinge.  I’m still dealing with it two days later.  In that case, nothing is worth a flare up that could sideline me for 2-6 weeks.

Don’t want to eff up this day in January….

At this point, you have to make the plan going forward.  For me, here’s what I’ll do (and I may be posting this so I actually commit…)

  • I will wear supportive shoes for the next week.  No sandals, no cute shoes, I’ll wear one of my three pairs of running shoes at all times.
  • I will not run until my heel is completely pain free for at least three days prior.
  • I will swim, bike, and do weights that don’t aggravate my heel to stay active.
  • I will ice, roll my foot, and stretch at least every other day.
  • I will not be a basket case about it (or at least attempt to not be…).

I’ve been through this one before.  It’s much less frustrating than my back being out, since you can’t do jack or pucky with a hurt back.  I just have to lay off the running for a little bit (and also replace my shoes).  Frustrating, when the weather is perfect for it, but I will live to pound the pavement another day.

Sub-2 plan is not subverted.  Just on hold…

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!

 

A map and a plan for the next 15 months…

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On October 5, 2017

In Uncategorized

Let’s talk about the last mile of Kerrville again since I’ve uncovered some new facts.  If I would have been able to hang onto 3rd place that last mile, not only would I have placed in my age group, but because there were more than 25 finishers in my age group (29, actually), I would be going to Nationals in Cleveland in August.  OMG.

I’m smiling because I didn’t know yet…

While I keep harping on the run being my weak point, and obviously, if I could have run about 45 sec/mile faster overall that would have done it, there’s other things that happened imperfectly that could have tipped the scales in my favor.  If I wouldn’t have had to wait at the exit wall of the swim.  If I was faster at transitions and did the things the people who win do like clip your bike shoes to the bike ahead of time and do flying mounts and dismounts.  If I would have pushed harder on the downhills on the bike and been paying attention to my average power being a little lame even if the speed was good.  There are a lot of ways to make up 1 minute 47 seconds and not all of them are running related.

All in all, I’m about 15% bummed but 85% stoked.  I’ve never been this close before which means I’m getting better.  Also, this year, post Ironman, I trained pretty much with the whatever-I-feel-like plan.  I mean, to get better at sprint triathlons, you should ride your bike (road, not TT) everywhere at a random pace, lift weights, ignore swimming, and run about 3-5 miles a week, right?  That’s the path to success… said no coach.  Yet, I almost pulled it off.  What could I actually do when I, like, actually *tried* to train like a shorter course triathlete?  I’m excited to find out.

But first, something completely different.

This race again!

My next A race is 3M Half Marathon.  Honestly, right now, I’m less than excited for it because running right now is not my favorite, but I know that will change once the temps cool down and I get some miles under me and my knee cooperates.

I have found some success at running less but faster to actually knock out a pretty decent 5k off the bike, so I’m going to continue that methodology into the next season.  Here’s the thing.  I can totally run 13 miles.  The muscle memory is there.  Right now, it would be a miserable endeavor, but I think I could probably jog it in about 2h30 or less if the weather didn’t suck.  However, that’s not what I’m looking to accomplish.

I am rolling the big scary goal of sub-2 around in my head again.  I really went for it one year (2010) and my runs were looking awesome and on pace until I caught a chest cold on race week and was happy to be able to even race that day and jogged it in at 2:19.  Since then, I’ve never done a full training build for a half marathon, they’ve been races I jumped into for funsies, to hang with friends, as training runs for something longer, or to take a crack at my PR but not specifically trained for them.  I’ve hit 2:08 twice, and if I put my mind to it, the 2:10-12 range is not too challenging for me to hit without specifically training for it.

This year, I’m clearing the runway and going for it once again.  I’m about 30 lbs heavier than I was back then, but I’ve also got a lot of endurance and muscle and experience and maybe that will tip the scales the right way.

Now, the plan is, how do I get from about 2:10 to 1:59:59?

A) I need to continue to teach my body good running form.  That means no marathon shuffle.  I’ve found I can maintain proper form and also go as easy as about 10:30/mile.  I’ll have one of those runs per week that’s as relaxed as possible but still with good body position (and also drills during it).  These can be hilly or flat, but the goal is still the same (run easy with good form).

B) I need to remind myself how to run fast and strong.  I will have a diet of intervals, hill repeats, and tempo runs.  I’ll alternate through these and do one per week.

C) I need to improve my run endurance.  I will alternate through one of these per week – long run (shorter + faster), long run (longer + slower), long bike (40-60 miles, to maintain endurance and minimize pounding).  When the run miles are low, I will supplement with some cycling as well so my Saturday workouts probably won’t be less than about 2-3 hours.

So, that’s my 3 runs.  Here’s how I’ll supplement them with cross training:

Weights.  I would love to say that I’d be lifting heavy here but I don’t think I have the time to make the transition without affecting my running.  So, probably continue with bands and DDR for plyometrics.  I may try to split this up more than I do now and do 15 mins x 4 mornings so it’s less of a session and more of a habit, but it also might not get done that way instead of taking 30 mins over two lunch breaks *shrug*.

Bikes.  I will not be putting Death Star and Evilbike away this year, though I’ll be riding them a *little* less than last year.  I plan to keep up with at least one work commute per week, and I would like to have one shorter speed session, but we’ll see if this plays nice with running.

Swim.  My body thanks me if I can make it to the pool once a week or at least every other week.  Even if I’m not really trying to train swimming right now, it loosens me up and my body complains if I spend too long out of the water.

In practice, what does that look like?  Early November might be:

  • Monday: 4 miles of hill repeats at lunch, PM weights at the gym
  • Tuesday: bike commute
  • Wednesday: 40 min AM bike speed trainer session, easy hour lunch run
  • Thursday: weights (bands at work)
  • Friday: AM swim
  • Saturday: 10k run on flat roads, goal is sub-10 min/mile pace, warmup on the bike for 15 mins, easy ride after to round out the time.
  • Sunday : off

This is a 7.5-8 hour week.  Totally doable.  Even when the runs get longer, this should never top out beyond 9-10 hours, which is my normal volume right now.  I think it will work out well.

Double the distance, double the crazy eyes?

Looking out a little further into 2018, I plan to do an ill-advised 12 hour bike race with my teammates that I know I won’t be trained for on the 3rd, and then take February and probably the first part of March to do whatever I feel like (though I do want to take this cycle to go lift heavy and I’ll need to do SOME efforts to burn off birthday cake).

Then, I’d like to take a crack at a bunch of sprint triathlon podiums and Nationals qualification.  It’s my last year in the 35-39 age group, and those 40 year olds are serious competition!  While I’m not going to get too detailed this far ahead, here are some rough thoughts:

  • I’d like to do a bunch of races (yeah, I know, who am I, the girl who’d rather train than race) so if one sucks, it doesn’t matter.  Probably once every 2-3 weeks for a few months.  There’s a bunch of early season triathlons within a 3-4 hour drive and that means we get to use turtle home more.  Win win!
    • The one I’m most excited for is Play Tri – it’s SO flat!
  • I am actually going to swim!  While I probably won’t do long sets, I want to get my form back (and more importantly my time back) to where it was last year.  This means sets and drills in the pool.  Maybe even consider a month of masters’ swim (but its so eaaaaaaarly) to get my butt kicked.
  • Training with power on the bike.  I held 20 mph on the bike and did really well in my age group and my power was a measly 150 watts.  I know I can push harder than that for 40 minutes, but I know from experience pushing harder than that takes practice.  I’ll need to actually spend some time on the trainer or reasonably closed courses out of traffic and work on some TT intervals with actual power goals for workouts.  And, while this is a simple one, it’s taken me over a year to do it – I need to add the AVG POWER field to my race day garmin fields so I can see it during the race and not be surprised by it.  Durrr.
  • Hopefully I’ll have some nice run fitness at this point that will be balanced between speed and endurance.  During this season, I’ll cut the endurance part and go back to less miles and moar faster like I did this year.
  • Probably back to lighter weights at this point.  Or at least maintaining what I’m at without being super sore for workouts.
  • If I’m looking at a few minutes being the difference between achieving a goal or not, I need to do all those things that the really good triathletes do:
    • Invest in a swim skin.  Of the 40 of so of these triathlon thingees (not to mention splash and dashes) I’ve done, I think maybe 5 of them have been wetsuit legal.  I will get much more wear out of one of these then almost anything else I could buy to improve my swimming.
    • Actually practice doing the things the faster triathletes do in transition.
      • Work on my barefoot running speed.  Like, actually go run on the sidewalk/in the yard.
      • Practice transitions with my bike shoes clipped in already.  This is going to involve me doing some dumb looking shit in my front yard and riding around my block a bunch of times trying to get my feet in tri shoes without getting hit by/hitting a car.  Not to mention the hilarious attempts at flying mounts and dismounts.  I should probably film this…
      • Find a pair of shoes I can run at least 3 miles in without socks.  I actually think my Sauconys might fit the bill but they’re getting old so I will need to replace them.  Maybe also try some racing flats?
  • And, as much as I get so cranky about it and it’s the worst (I’d rather suffer through an 8 mile treadmill tempo run, 1000 meter swim test in rough open water wearing my wetsuit for the first time in 6 months, and cycle class with 20 minute intervals and then heavy lifting all in the same day), each lb I take off in a proper and healthy way gives me about 2 sec/mile of free speed.  So, if I could manage to take down 10 lbs, I could get one minute off my 5k without training.  I need to remember this when I think about saying “fuck it, let’s eat a giant plate of french fries”.  More french fries = less Nationals.

As for the schedule, it’s so far out, but for funsies, let’s do the first week in March:

  • Monday: AM swim (100 warmup, 500 drills, 5×100 fast on 2:00, 100 cooldown), lunch weights
  • Tuesday: bike commute – AM faster (at least 180 power average on the power cal), PM recovery
  • Wednesday: AM swim (300 warmup, 200 fast/200 steady, 150 fast/150 steady, 100 fast/100 steady, 50 fast/50 steady, 25 fast/25 steady,  100 cooldown), PM team brick (average power on the speed loop – 175+, pace on the 2 mile run sub 9:30)
  • Thursday: lunch weights
  • Friday: AM/lunch run (4 miles steady)
  • Saturday: Ride to and from BSS social ride, 3 mile brick run off the bike at home (sub-10 min/miles).
  • Sunday: off

This is only about 8.5 hours so there’s room to grow some of the workouts even if I want to keep to 10 hours a week or less (which wouldn’t be a problem to go over every once in a while).

Always great to race with friends and teammates!  I’m already looking forward to tri season next year.

My last race of the early 2018 season will probably be Lake PFlugerville Tri, and I’ll take my usual 6 weeks off between that and Jack’s Generic.  However, this could change a little if I do qualify for Nationals (Aug 11) – but those are scheduling chickens I will count and shuffle around when they hatch.

The next build will probably be to Ironman Cozumel 70.3.  If for some reason that falls through, there are about a million other 70.3s in the area around that time (and I might consider doing 2 of them if I can space them enough apart – it would be AWESOME to have two cracks at the distance on the same build).

As a self-check on recovery, I’ve given myself some breaks (6 weeks in Feb/March, 6 weeks in June/July), and I don’t expect I’ll roll directly into marathon training (no interest, at least right now) in October like I have previously, so I expect I’ll have a lighter load (or at least less serious one) the last month or two of 2018.

It’s weird to consider that you have the next 15 months of your life mapped out, but I tend to do better with a map and a plan than just sailing around aimlessly.  I’m excited to get started!

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Eight is not enough

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On October 4, 2017

In Uncategorized

Today marks the day of eight years since we did the “I do” thing in Vegas with our friends and family.

Let’s not mention that our actual relationship would be a moody, petulant high schooler quickly approaching graduation.

Among all the normal life things like cleaning out bedrooms, launching updates at work, studying for certifications, celebrating holidays, and all that, there were some major highlights in year eight:

We became one with the ocean for 8 days in Key Largo.

We become Ironpeople after many, many months of training.

We spent more water time in Cozumel, Costa Maya, and Roatan.

We bought turtle home and spent the summer camping everywhere.

It consistently surprises me how all the years live up to each other.  I’ll think about the last year  together and think, “ok, this has to be it”.  The pinnacle of awesomeness.  But, instead, it keeps getting better.  Magic!

I mean, we are not perfect people.  Far from it.  I make him drive EVRRRYWHERE because I hate it and make completely over-the-top plans that sound awesome but are actually crazy that he has to talk me down from and I make him handle about 99.9% of the phone calls in our relationship.  He brings me junk food when I’m trying to be good, is like a cranky toddler some mornings, and somehow always beats me in races now and sometimes whines incessantly about putting away laundry.

However, we’re imperfect together and that’s perfect.

If I could give advice to myself at year one, or frankly, anyone embarking on a long term relationship, I would give these tips:

#1 Try each other’s THINGS.  I never thought I’d be into working in video games for a living.  He never thought he’d be into sports.  I resisted Dungeons&Dragons for years.  However, I trust my husband enough that if he enjoys something, it’s gotta be worth giving it a try.  Oddly enough, most times, we end up with a shared interest.  Or not.  He questions my music tastes and I question his movie tastes sometimes.  However, even if it’s one and done, you gain a little understanding about each other.

#2 Be straight.  Not mean, not even brutally honest, but if there’s a thing I want or want to do or am feeling, I tell my husband and vice versa and we do our best to accommodate each other.  Being psychic doesn’t work for us.  Playing the “figure out what’s wrong” game doesn’t work for us, no one has time for that shit.  I am never “just fine”, I’m either awesome or I’m going to tell you what’s bothering me.  If I am grumpy about the office being messy after it not bothering me for 10 years, we figure out what the actual problem is and fix it and life goes on.

#3 Be better about the way you give up control.  This is a simple one.  Eliminate the words “I don’t care” from your vocabulary.  Especially if you do.  But even if you don’t want to make the decisions there are other ways to say it.  “Can you decide today?” is good.  “I am so exhausted and have insane decision fatigue, can you suggest some places that sound good to you?” is better.  “I trust your judgement” or “I leave this decision in your capable hands” is great.  Also, “we’re going to In-N-Out and you’re going to split fries with me because I don’t want a whole order” is pretty good too if that’s what you want (see #2).

#4 Never go on your honeymoon.  My dream eight years ago was a European trip to Italy and Greece.  In my wedding thank you letters for the cash gifts, I let everyone know that’s what I was saving money to do.  I’m sorry I lied.  I have not yet set foot in Europe, but instead, after my interest turned to scuba diving, I’ve visited almost all the islands in the Beach Boys’ song Kokomo (though I have no desire to visit Indiana).  So, when they say “the honeymoon’s over”?  Nope.  Haven’t gone on it yet!

The next year promises to hold some amazing things.  Together, we’ll test our relationship and remodel our kitchen (and then hopefully stop effing with the house for at least a year).  Then, we take off to paradise again for a week underwater before we celebrate the holidays with friends and family.  I’m excited/scared to chase his stupid legs as we both attempt to smash PRs at 3M half marathon in January and then race all sorts of shorter triathlons in the spring.  We have family vacations planned in the spring.  We’re looking at racing outside the country in the fall and spending anniversary #9 underwater again in Cozumel.

It’s all sorts of exciting and it’s amazing that we get to do all this together.  Cheers to 8 years, and to 80 more because triathlon will keep us alive forever, right?

Kerrville Sprint Triathlon – a lot of words about a little race

By

On September 26, 2017

In Uncategorized

So, last we spoke, I was doing some major mental gymnastics about a B+ race.

Picture fail.  My name is actually right under my butt.

I think it actually became kind of important to me for a few reasons.

  • This is the first race since Ironman where I felt like I showed up fit to compete.  Against my age group, against my previous self, though not really against my husband who is getting super fast (which I love and hate at the same time, mostly love, but yeah…)
  • B. It’s the last tri of the season.
  • C. After reading the sports psychology book, I realized that I had a lot of work to do, and less of it involved swimming, biking, or running than I imagined.

So, it’s not that THIS race actually mattered that much, but it was a great opportunity to throw some new strategies against the wall to see what sticks.  So, I did these things, some of which are new, and some of which I used to do and they fell off somewhere around Tri #30.

  • Going to bed, I visualized the race going really well.  I actually fell asleep before the end of the run so I have no idea how that one ended up.
  • I did the same thing as I was waking up.  I honestly think it helped me focus my energy somewhere positive instead of being grumpy about how early it was.
  • When I went to go potty and put in my contacts, I put on my headphones and listened to a few pump up songs good and loud.  My husband needs light to wake up on race mornings.  I need sound.  Loud sound.  This was step #2 about not being apathetic and I felt it actually start to work.
  • I actually followed my race breakfast plan.  I consumed a whole sunbutter jelly on wheat and a cup of earl grey, hot.  At the race I was full but not sick, caffeinated to the level of excitement and enthusiasm, but not jittery.
  • We took 10 minutes and went through our normal stretching routine.  That helped my body not be so stiff (these things involve standing around for hours before its go time and my body hates standing) and helped having something to DO for a bit instead of spacing out and wandering around.
  • When I sent my husband off, I spent a few moments away from everything, focusing on the race and what I was asking my body to do and just preparing to fight.  Then, I got in line, put my earplugs in, put my game face on, and didn’t talk to anyone.

The end result?  I started this race more focused, energized, and enthusiastic than I have in quite a while.  Every time I felt doubts creeping in (no effing way you’re going to hit 20 mph on the bike, you’re going to die on the run like you always do, yay, they delayed the start, I don’t have to be ready yet), I countered them with positive thoughts from my alter ego like – “you’re going to ride your ass off and try, you have been running really great off the bike the last month so probably not, eff that, let’s GET THIS THING GOING Y’ALL” with positive thoughts from my alter ego.

Enthusiastic or caffeinated?  You decide…

I thought fake-it-til-you-make-it was a little hokey, but damn, that changed my attitude.

I found myself getting pushed to the back of my swim wave in the line as people continue to jump in, and instead of being grumpy about it, I just walked up closer to the front (earplugs in, gameface on, saying nothing).  With this confidence, I walked over the line and started my race.

Swim:

This swim is hard to really quantify how I did in terms of pace.  First of all, you WALK to the ramp and venture carefully down this steep incline which you are under no circumstances allowed to run.  This probably takes about 30 seconds if you’re as paranoid about tripping as I am.

Then, you swim.  I think the current was in our favor and I think I did fairly well in terms of my goals.  Swimming is the thing I’ve practiced least of all the sports, and open water swimming the least (once since my last race), so I decided that I would try to swim steady and strong but not gas myself.  I did just that.  Oddly enough, when I seed myself properly, I have a great swim, I never got swam over or passed, and I also had my own little bubble most of the time and never got into combat.

The only thing was there was definitely congestion at the swim exits and only two people at a time could get up the steep ramps with volunteer help, so I probably had to wait another 20 seconds here.

Swim official time: 11:19 – 2:16/100m – 6/29 AG

Interesting notables from garmin: 1:49/100 yd moving speed (which is exactly 2:00/100m).  159 average HR and normally my max in the pool is around 140 so I was pushing pretty hard.  Considering my pool swims these days are only about 5-10 seconds faster per 100 I’ll call this a win.

T1:

I knew I had paced the swim alright because I was able to jog up the steep hill.  Stepping gingerly on the rocky ground and hoping to avoid the stickers, I hustled to my spot as much as I could.  Looks like it took me about 1:20 to get to my spot, 1:00 to do stuff at my spot in transition (my feet were super muddy so I had to take a little extra time to wipe them off or the run would have been terrible), and about 30 seconds to carry my bike out to the mount line.

T1 official time: 2:55.   4/29 AG. 

Best I’ve done here so I’m stoked.  I honestly think the 3 other girls who got through T1 quicker (2:10-18) were just faster runners than I am.

Death star and I are starting to make a pretty great team.

Bike:

Here’s where I wanted to start spicing up the enchilada.  I have been biking my ass off.  I have been putting in the miles.  I have been chasing faster people.  Since forever, one of my long term goals was to hit over 20 mph officially on a bike split.  I know this course really well (at least, I thought I did), and I figured if I’m going to do it anywhere this year it’s here.

Then the wind hit me.  I started freaking out a little because keeping that 19-21mph pace downhill was actually a lot of work.  Then I realized it was all a blessing in disguise.  If it was that hard to ride down the hill at that speed, riding UP the hill was going to be amazing.  I kept my effort on, and pretty much rode on the left side the entire time and I realized that I had become the person I used to grumble at that passed me and left me in the dust on tris.  At least I try to say “on your left” most of the time.  The caffeinated gel pre-opened in my bento box was amazing.  I may have skipped it entirely if I didn’t remember it was open and would be wasted, but when I did at about mile 3 it went down in 2 seconds, so obviously it was a good decision.

Then, my husband comes whizzing by me and yells, “the bike is two loops!”.  I tried to kick into another gear and go with him but by the time my brain found that thought, he was very far ahead.  I had yet to see the second half of the course and I didn’t want to gas myself early.  I figured I’d hammer the second lap depending on how the second half of the first loop felt.

I continued to pass pass pass and got surprised by a diversion to a side street and had to sit up and slow down a sec to not wreck on the turn.  Then, we hit the turn around and I started going up… faster than I was going down.  My average speed had dropped to about 19.5 mph at the bottom of the hill and climbed back up to 20.0 by the time I hit the top.  Let’s be fair, the total elevation gain in 14 miles was less than 300 feet, so finger quote “hills” is more appropriate, but it still went up vs going down.

The second loop I maintained what I had built but I had a little less oomph up the hill and only got to 19.8 when I pulled into transition.  Either way, I was super excited about it because it was my fastest bike split yet and I maintained it at a reasonable heart rate (165), though my power was kind of pathetic (150W, 162W normalized).

Official Bike Results: 43:08 for 15 miles, or 20.9 mph. 3/29 AG.

So, of course my Garmin (19.8) and the official race results (20.9) don’t match up.  I’m going to credit it to three things.  First, I probably took a few seconds to turn it off in transition.  Second, I think my garmin sandbags me because my pace is almost alllllways slower than race results.  Third, I think we actually biked less miles than planned.  Either way, the exact wording of my goal was to have 20+ mph official result on the bike split and it happened (and I’m taking it).

T2:

I was a little shelled from the bike coming in, but I kept repeating THIS TRANSITION IS LAVA.  LAVA.  LAVA.  I feel like I did OKAY here until I looked at my age group placement.

Official T2 time: 1:43. 10/29 AG.

I was 30 seconds slower than the leader.  While this in and of itself didn’t make a difference in my placement overall, I could have hustled more.

Run:

I started here and I had decent legs but not great ones.  Sub-10 minute miles were happening with some prodding.  My lungs felt like they could handle a little more, but my legs just felt so heavy, especially when we were going up (the absolute smallest) hills.  I gave myself the first mile to get with it and tried to turn it on for mile two… nope.  I had this 9:40-ish average pace and that was it.

I tried all my tricks.  Driving with the hips… which actually worked since my stride length of .96 of a meter is pretty good (for me).  Quick feet… nope.  My cadence was solidly 85 instead of the 90 when I’m really loose and rocking it.  I tried fishing but my mind honestly was too scattered to focus on anything external, it was taking an internal focus to keep my parts moving correctly.

Then, this moment happened.  Right at mile two a girl went by me with 39 on her calf.  Shortly after that, another with 35 went by as well.  “Well, this is it.  If you were in 1st off the bike (not likely, but let’s assume), the best you’re at right now is third.  Let’s catch them.”  I tried, folks.  Mile three’s split was about 7 seconds faster than mile two, but looking at both of those girls’ run splits, they were running 7- and 8- minute miles average.

I gave it all I had to cross the line as quickly as possible, but the best I had was roughly the pace I started with.

Official run results: 29:33 for 3.2 miles (9:28/mile). 12/29 AG

First of all, ouch on the AG placement, but I officially (and actually) did what I set out to do.  I ran sub 10-minute miles.  It’s actually one of my best run paces in a tri yet (I did slightly better at Pflugerville in 2014 and Rookie in 2015 but it’s been a WHILE).  However, my heart rate average was 170.  I can raise that 3-5 bpm and not blow up usually.  I’m not sure what happened there.

Happy finisher.  Also, I’m glad my husband and I are about the same size because I grabbed his tri top and that’s what I raced in…

Official results: 1:28:39 for 5/29 AG.

I missed 4th by about 45 seconds and 3rd by less than two minutes.  I was in 3rd place off the bike until the last freaking mile.  I recognized the moment where I needed to go and tried.  I was at least conscious enough to do that.  I maintained a pretty positive attitude throughout, and I didn’t quit.

So, here’s what I need to do for next year:

  1. Put my eggs in the bike basket (hehe) next year and go all in.  Aim to come off the bike in 1st place in these events (I’m typically coming in 3-5th, and this time I was only down 90 seconds on the leader’s bike time) and hang on during the run.
  2. Or, the obvious, get faster on the run.  I’ve made amazing strides (ha!) in the last few months taking my fast runs down from 11-something minute miles to 9-something, but I need to be able to run a 5k off the bike with an 8 in front of the pace to compete for podiums.  I need to have a mile time back in the 7s.  I need to shed at least 1-minute per mile over what I’m doing now.  I can out-bike a lot of women but I need to have a run that can at least hold position if not gain.

More reasonably, I need to work on both.  Also, do regular training that’s specific to my event instead of kind of whatever I feel like doing at the moment.  Also, maybe run more than 3-5 miles a week max.  Also, possibly ride the TT bike more than a handful of times all season not in races.  Oh, and swim more than an average of once a week for 20 minutes.

But, none of this was the focus this summer.  It was to recover after the Ironman and not get burnt out and still love what I do.  Any race goals were secondary to that.  I am more than happy with how everything went this tri season even if I was grumbly in the messy middle where my fitness was missing.  I’m stoked to have such a great bike split and more confidence on the TT.  I’m glad I did reasonably well on the other events and put up a time that’s hard to compare with anything else but was 11 minutes faster than 2011 on the same course, so at least I have improved a little in the last 6 years!

I have all the thoughts and goals for the next two seasons, but for right now, it’s time for one more month of biking all the miles as slow or fast as I feel like in preparation for Livestrong 100!

Page 12 of 31

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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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