{"id":6726,"date":"2017-03-02T12:47:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T18:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/?p=6726"},"modified":"2017-03-02T12:47:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T18:47:54","slug":"tomorrow-i-will-be-the-oldest-ive-ever-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/02\/tomorrow-i-will-be-the-oldest-ive-ever-been\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomorrow I will be the oldest I’ve ever been…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is my birthday.\u00a0 Normally I get all sorts of introspective, but with all this training, that part of my brain is kind of asleep so you’ll get a little less than normal, but indulge me a bit.<\/p>\n

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37 was the year I would finally not feel like an imposter wearing this shirt…<\/em><\/p>\n

A year ago, both my body and spirit were pretty broken training for The Woodlands Marathon<\/a>.\u00a0 I spent a lot of time last winter believing the way out was through, but sometimes, as I learned, you just need to strategically retreat and live to fight another day.\u00a0 I don’t regret suffering through a 6+ hour marathon to really hammer that lesson home, but would it have been smarter to cut my losses and run the half?\u00a0 Probably.<\/p>\n

Right now, I’m really enjoying the process of watching my body transform into someone capable of calling themselves an Ironman soon.\u00a0 Is it hard?\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 Do I have moments of despair and doubt?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 However, each workout I conquer gives me confidence that I’ll be able to pull from on April 22nd.\u00a0 It’s fun watching my body do things it’s never done before and when I check in, it’s like “that was ok!\u00a0 I can’t believe that was ok, but it was!”.<\/p>\n

A year ago I was terrified of being a cyclist<\/a>.\u00a0 I’m still not intentionally heading out to those crazy cycle races where you can touch 5 bikes from your own while riding, and things like pacelining and riding my TT bike in the pouring rain still give me pause, but I’ve made big steps.\u00a0 I can ride my bike with the clipless pedals in traffic with other people confidently.\u00a0 I’ve got the hang of commuting and running errands on my cruiser bike.\u00a0 For my birthday weekend, I’m going to go play bikes with people (and run off it because I *do* have to train for a race and March is for bricks) because that’s what is fun to me now.\u00a0 All of this would have sounded like greek to me 365 days ago.<\/p>\n

A year ago I didn’t weigh much more, I’m a few lbs down from March 2016 depending on the day, but I’m a lot more sturdy now.\u00a0 I’ve spent (most of the) year being a good student at weight training, and it’s helped me be successful and relatively uninjured once my hip recovered.\u00a0 I lost some weight and gained some back and now I know how to do both and I’m going to try to do more of the former than the latter this year.<\/p>\n

A year ago, I was kind of content just doing what I was doing.\u00a0 In the last year, I’ve become certified as a personal trainer, a sports nutrition specialist, and I’m about to be a certified triathlon coach.\u00a0 I revamped this space and I’m starting to learn the ins and outs of social media, PR, and marketing.\u00a0 No matter what I end up doing with this knowledge, it’s helped awaken the part of my brain that grew up loving learning because learning shit is awesome.<\/p>\n

37 was definitely a year of discovery.\u00a0 What will 38 be?\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 I’m looking forward to finding out.<\/p>\n

Training updates:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Bike->Run->Bike->Cake.<\/em><\/p>\n

7 weeks, 2 days to go.<\/p>\n

I will definitely say that I’ve found an edge, but I’m still hanging on.\u00a0 I know that I have five more weeks to build fitness, five more weekends to do the long stuff, and then it’s time to shut it down and taper.\u00a0 Light, tunnel, and all that.<\/p>\n

I detailed my long day in REALLY FINE DETAIL<\/a> here, but, in other training news, last week was definitely one of the peaky ones this cycle.\u00a0 It included both a) a long run of 19 miles and b) a long day workout (1 hour swim, 5 hour bike, 2 hour run).\u00a0 Luckily, they were separated by 5 days because I had the day off Monday.\u00a0 I had a really lovely solo 19 miles in beautiful weather… well, ok, I had a lovely 15-16 miles, and then toughed out the rest of them when my legs started to cramp a little, but it was still definitely the best long run I’ve had in well over a year.<\/p>\n

During the week, I kept it pretty chill.\u00a0 I did find that my body needed a little more time to recover after the 19 than I’d hoped, but not beyond rational expectation.\u00a0 I had to cut a 90 minute cycling session to 30 easy minutes instead, but there was just about no choice in the matter.\u00a0 As soon as I hopped on my bike I instantly had a headache and felt gross.\u00a0 That was my body slapping me on the wrist and saying “NO!”.\u00a0 So, I ate some soup and went to bed at 7pm and felt just fine in the morning.\u00a0 Listening pays dividends.<\/p>\n

Last week:<\/p>\n