Deep Thought on Shallow Subjects

My brain has been all over the place.  I hope this is not the only post I can eek out this week but no promises.

In honor of Mizfit, I’m putting away my scale for a month.  I weighed today at 161.4, and I plan to start again today continue tracking all month, trying to do the healthy thing, but not weighing.  I think the scale is fucking me up psychologically, and I’m going to see what happens without it.  It’s not helping me anymore, really, so I might as well give up the ritual for a while.  My guess on what happens in a month: I get on the scale and weigh about the same thing.  Hopefully a little less.  Doubtfully more.  So just about exactly what is happening now except without the annoying ritual of weighing each morning.

I know this feeling – I’m slightly unhappy with how I look.  I was looking at old pictures and thinking “dang, I wish I looked like that again”.  From last year.  Like 5 lbs lighter.  I think it’s all in my head, but still.  However, I’m not at the point where I feel ready to do anything drastic about it.  Like January 2007 when I started actually dropping weight.  I need to accept that I’m not there right now, and not smack myself in the face with a number I’m just a little unhappy with constantly.

What I’m not unhappy with are my athletic accomplishments.  This weekend, I just rode the full olympic tri bike distance – 25 miles.  Then, on a whim, I hopped off and found an open treadmill and decided to run.  My legs were a little jello-rific at first but I shook that off in the first quarter of a mile and started feeling…STRONG.  I quit at a mile since I had my old heel hurty shoes on, and I took it supah slow (11 min mi pace) but I felt like I could have kept going, easy.  At the very least, a lazy 10 min/mi 5k.

I’ve also been able to pick up my biking pace in the last 2 weeks.  Stronger quads are stronger.  I’m pretty happy that I was able to do 3/4 of the olympic tri swimming distance in the pool without much rest (I only stopped when my mom wanted to talk to me and it wasn’t for very long each time) and think I improved my stroke with her pointers (she never swims, just waterwalks, but apparently remembered a thing or 2 about technique).  Once I start doing distance running again (just up to and a little beyond 10k, no double digits planned), I’ll feel super duper and start beating my chest and roaring.

Somehow with all this, I’ve also been able to start sneaking in weights and some stretching (not yoga, but let’s just celebrate the baby steps).  And I haven’t been working out 1 million hours per week either.  It’s all coming together nicely.  Adding back running and doing some more pool training once I have one available to me is going to screw that all up, but for now, I will rejoice.

I’ve come to a realization – so there is this saying in games (well, business as a whole but since all my professional experience is in video games it’s what I know) that there is fast, cheap, and good, and you can only reasonably have two of the three even if you’re running on all cylinders.  If you try to go for a fast and cheap product, it’s going to likely be shite unless you have all the stars align and concoct the right mixture of magical pixie dust.  If you want it fast and good, you are going to have to throw boatloads of money at it.  So on, and so forth.

I think there is a similar dichotomy with fitness, but with endurance, speed, strength, and flexibility being the operative words.  Two years ago, when I had just started running, but did 3 days a week of week of weights and stretched religiously, I was strong and flexible, but had less endurance (I almost said no endurance, but being able to DDR for 45 mins straight should count for something) and no speed.  Even further down that road, when I was a gymnast, I was super strong (sitting straddle press to handstand anyone?) and suuuuuper flexible (all 3 splits were at least 10+ degrees past 180), and I had deeeecent speed but crap for endurance.  Running a mile would have been out of the question.

Now, I’ve swung the other way.  Back when I completed my first half marathon, I was STRONG (I kept up weights x2 a week and didn’t let the reps or weight back off until the week of the race) and had some mad endurance, but I was slow as a snail and not very bendy at all.  Now, I got this whole fast thing going on even at long distances (endurance), but I’ve definitely had to scale back my weights consumption and flexibility to get there.  I don’t find I’ve lost too much, but I’m definitely not where I was at.

For some reason, I keep feeling a lot prouder of my endurance and speed accomplishments than being able to lift heavier or bend further.  And I enjoy pursuing them much more – they are BIG! GOALS! that take a LOT! OF! TRAINING! and I seem to dig that lately.  For a while I thought that it was compensating for a lack of accomplish things in other areas of my life – but now that those are back… still motivated as ever.  So that’s nice to discover.

But I’m rambling.  Let’s get with the numbers, shall we?

Anyhoo, last week’s workouts:
Monday: DDR and weights
Tuesday: 12 mile ride and 5k run (first run in my new shoes, first run in a while that felt AWESOME)
Wednesday: camp gladiator (which was way butt kicking and I loved every minute)
Thursday: 11 mile morning ride at the gym (wanted to bike commute but there was a chance of rain)
Friday: relaaaaax
Saturday: 25 mile ride, 1 mile run (4 hours of shopping)
Sunday: more relaxing

This week’s plan, I has it:
Monday: DDR and weights (450 cals burned), eat around 1600 cal
Tuesday: 10k run (750 cals burned), eat around 1800 cal
Wednesday: bike commute + weights (450 cals burned), eat around 1600
Thursday: bike commute or morning ride (300 cals burned), eat around 1500
Friday: rest, eat around 1500
Saturday: 25 mile bike, 5k run (1300 calories burned), consume around 2500 (perfect day for a bachelorette party)
Sunday: swim (400 calories), eat around 1600

Looks to me to be FULLY reasonable and doable.  I might bank a few more calories for Friday (as we want to do dinner and a movie) but we’ll see.

I’ve thrown down my plan.  What’s yours this week?