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<\/p>\nHi everyone! I leave for Nationals tomorrow!<\/p>\n
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All the feels!<\/em><\/p>\n I went from zero freakouts to maximum over the course of Monday, so I shut down my planned second workout of the day and just destressed and prepared instead. I think I’ve even outdone my normal craziness with a 10 page vacation document for 4 nights away, but there’s so much “you must be here at this particular time” going on this weekend, and we don’t have a car, so it’s definitely not our normal getaway.<\/p>\n My goals in Cleveland are to:<\/p>\n #1 Survive racing back to back days. I think I’m less worried about the actual effort, and more about the back to back 4am wakeups (ughhhh), and all the logistics that go along with racing two different races, so there’s that.<\/p>\n #2 I rarely get to race Olympic distance, so I’d like to take a stab at the holy grail for me, a sub-3 hour race. The temperatures and the course should lend itself well to it, we’ll see how my legs and brain react to the day.<\/p>\n #3 Have fun! I don’t have any delusions about actually qualifying for worlds in either category this year, so I’m just here to enjoy the experience and hopefully not come in last (and even if I do, eh, it’s fine, I know I’m a little fish in a big pond again).<\/p>\n This week I’m training fairly minimally because I’m not 100% sure how my body will react to two hard efforts in a row and I want to give it the best fighting chance possible without a real taper. Also, it’s a great excuse to let some little niggles try and heal. I’m looking at you, stupid blister on my right arch and cranky left leg (earlier in the week, my glute was bothering me, now it’s my ankle… sigh… the tapers). I’m doing a bunch of short swims, did one bodyweight session, some bike riding, and trying to stretch and roll and boots as much as possible while I’m at home since all I’m traveling with is my teeny portable roller.<\/p>\n Monday morning bike rides make the entire week better.<\/em><\/p>\n Last week was a great training week – I hit every session I planned!<\/p>\n Things to note:<\/p>\n Tuesday’s run was the first strugglebus in a while. I still did the exact run at the exact paces I needed, but the second half was not pleasant and I definitely aggravated my blister doing it. It was a great mental toughness workout and honestly, I’ve had worse. <\/p>\n On Thursday, I pulled off just about the exact same paces I did at the Indoor Tri in January but they felt much easier. I almost hurled after getting off the treadmill earlier this year, keeping the same pace in August felt challenging but not pukeworthy. The perceived effort on the bike wasn’t even the same zip code. I was dying the entire time in January, this was a build from steady to sorta challenging by the end now, both ending at 10.1 miles in 30 minutes.<\/p>\n Saturday’s ride was actually super nice – while 15 loops of anything gets monotinous, it was nice not having to dodge cars or stop for anything but bottle fills. I was able to manage 18.2 mph for the entire ride and the effort felt reasonable. My legs were a little sore after 45 miles (which makes sense, because this is my longest ride in six months by 10 miles), but I definitely had another 11 miles in me to complete the half ironman distance and my legs ran off that bike just fine (I held 9:50s instead of 9:30s, but heck, it already was feels like 100 when we started, so I’m still pretty proud of that). <\/p>\n On swimming: I just haven’t been able to manage to get myself to hit the 70.3 race distance yet. I’ve increased my comfort zone to a little under a mile (1500-1600yd), I just haven’t had the oomph to do that .2 yet. My glute most commonly starts barking on longer swims (especially towing the safe swimmer – I decided the second lap without it on Friday was worth the risk so I ditched it), so I’ve cut a lot of attempts at 3 lake loops (about 2400 yd) to 2 (1600 yd) because of it. As long as I get a few 3 loop swims and some longer pool swims before race day, I should be fine (and I have 7 weeks after this one to do it so… not worried yet).<\/p>\n Training requires some substantial high quality food. Training does not require that chocolate thing, but it did come with the meal so *shrug*.<\/em><\/p>\n I’ll announce that I’ve found the answer to weight loss success. If correlation = causation, then all you need to do is eat two slices of cake, skip your planned workout, and drink whiskey for dinner.<\/p>\n Yep, I’ll be selling this on late night infomercials starting next week. It’s the path to success! Actually, I know what I do in the weeks before seems to affect me much more on the scale than what I’m doing immediately (unless it’s drastic like a long hot run or ride or eating a giant bowl of super salty MSG-filled pho), so I don’t want to get cocky, but for better or worse, that was my Monday and I woke up and weighed myself on Tuesday and the scale taunted me with 169.8, 169.9, and then finally settled on 170.2. While that’s a low swing, my upswing the next day was only back to 173, and my trendweight is actually tilting down rather nicely.<\/p>\n So, underneath my “diet by cake and laziness”, I actually have some solid scores for last week. My goal for the next few months will honestly be to just keep doing pretty much this above and see where it takes me. I ate mostly healthy food in the proper portions and counted my calories, but this plan also involves a burger and fries, whiskey and wine, a giant bag of BBQ from Rudy’s that consisted of most of this weekend’s protein, one small slice of cake and half a cookie. So, it’s not all angelic but 9 hours of training means there’s room for a few splurges here and there.<\/p>\n This week, I’m going to have less of a deficit because I’ll be doing less training, and probably not taking the calories down too much lower (both because of racing). So, I’ll expect to not see too much happening on the scale, but I hope to minimize the asshole eating (but allow for some) while in a new city.<\/p>\n Fun with the fireworks setting…<\/em><\/p>\n In life matters that don’t involve triathlon or what I put in my mouth, I edited July 5th and July 6th camping photos. I still have 51 left for July 7 and 8th, but you can see what’s done HERE<\/a>. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so late with a vacation post (I almost want to pre-date it to July to hide my shame :D), so maybe look for a PART ONE coming soon-ish. Maybe I need to post about my July vacation before I leave town in August. Maybe I’m ridiculous, but I just love to explore and take photos! Now, if someone could pay me more than 18 cents for it…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/wckits-1024x762.jpg\")
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