Quixytown Newsletter

Promise I haven’t completely fallen off the edge of the world.  Here’s a quickie (that’s what he said?) update:

Doing a lot of this:

Now that things are calming down a lot, I’m trying to get back into cooking healthy foods.  Here’s my crockpot chili:

1 lb organic ground beef
1 can organic corn (drained)
3 assorted cans of beans (2 organic one not) (drained)
1 can organic tomato sauce
1 chopped onion (I actually used less because I had less, but a full onion is good stuffs in here)
1 chopped bell pepper
garlic to taste (I used a big ass spoonful from my costco jar)
2 squares of chocolate (I used 3 and it was too much)
1 full jalapeno, chopped up, seeds and all (of course, modify if you like it less spicy)
pepper, paprika, cayenne, and chili powder to taste

I also added a can of rotel chilis/tomatoes, which I liked but Zliten didn’t, so I probably won’t do that again.

Directions:

Cook beef first.  Put everything in crockpot, turn on all night, wake up to amazing smelling food, and resolve to get back from run quickly so I can eat it.  In all seriousness – 8 hours on low will do this right (or if you’re short on time, you can make this on the stove, give it about 30 mins to cook on medium heat and congeal and get yummy).  You can top with anything from sour cream to ranch to shredded cheese, to green onions, to tomatoes, to cilantro… I went with a dab of ranch, onions, and cilantro.

Doing a lot of this:

(Don’t actually click to look inside, you’ll be incredibly disappointed) I’ve spent a lot of the last week rereading this book, and actually going through it and doing the self evaluations and starting the process of making a 2013 plan. I made some strides in finding a focus for next year, and I’ve decided I want to be good at triathlon.  I know that sounds obvious, but it’s not – I’ve freed myself up not to pursue a half marathon, 5k, 10k, 5 mile, marathon, century ride, or splash and dash PR this year.  I’ve gone from a runner, to a runner who dabbled in triathlons, and this year, I move squarely into calling myself a triathlete with no asterisks.

Which means, I probably won’t enter a lot of races unless they correspond to training days and I’d rather head out with hundreds/thousands of my best friends to go train, and it’ll be no pressure, I’ll just use my specific goals for that day to dictate my time and pace.  I expect instead of running races, I’ll do a lot of supported and shop rides for bike training, and splash and dashes for speedwork.

I’ve got a few things to figure out though…

How many 70.3s and when?
There’s obviously Kerrville, but there’s also two more in TX, one in Racine, and one in Boise that look interesting.  I know I want to at least do 2, but maybe I could do 3.  I want to make sure the timing is right – I figure one early in the year just to gut check my endurance with the goal just to finish (as a long training day), and 1-2 that I want to PR the crap out of later in the year once I’m fully trained up.

How many Olympics and when?
I’ve got 2 on the schedule already with the TX Tri Series, but they are both when it is hot as balls (Aug and Sept).  I sort of want to race one early in the season when I can really get a sense of my Oly-distance fitness sans oppressive heat, and smash that 3:25 PR.  There is the Cap Tex Tri (but it’s on Memorial Day and I hate Monday holiday races since you have to be good all weekend), and there are a few more Apr – Jun I’m considering.

I want to do a marathon and I shouldn’t
After a great experience with RnRSA I really want to do another one.  I was considering just doing it as a C race and not really trying to improve my time and just running it, but it did take weeks of specific training to go from 70.3 to 26.2 to even run/walk to the finish the last 10 miles.  I’ll have to decide on the fly considering a few factors: a) how is my run training going?  Am I just about M-training anyway during tri season? b) when is my last 70.3?  Is it Oct 28 (Austin 70.3)?  In that case, it’s probably best to end the season after that.  Is it Kerrville?  Then RnRSA or something in early Dec might be cool. c) Where is my head?  Am I ready to be done with the season or do I want one more hurrah?

Through my self evaluations, I’ve figured out I want to work to improve these limiters next year:

• Swim Speed (at any distance)
• Confidence and focus (better at the end of the year, but 2013 is all about head = in game 100%)
• Body composition/Nutrition (when I think about eating that cookie, I’m remembering this is on my “to fix” list and is considered multisport training… cookie skipping should have a race bib and medals and I’d be all up in that)
• Run endurance on long runs (holding a pace the whole way and not fizzle-boom-ing)
• Run speed on short runs (I miss speedwork and miles in the 8s and the track and feeling zippy)

I’ll certainly be training a lot on the bike, but I really think this was both my most solid of the 3 sports (if you would have told me that in 2010 I would have laughed) and the one I made the most gains in last year, so I’m just working to improve there, not to fix a specific weakness.

Jan 7 starts my first official training week.  I’m excited, but after I get the prep work and scheduling done, I think I’ll really be able to relax and enjoy this month.

Doing a lot of this:

We have an ugly sweater party for work on Friday, and we’ve been searching around thrift stores and for fucks sake, the hipsters must have them all, because there were NADA.  We recruited some friends and got together on Saturday for some cocktails and ugly sweat(shirt)er decorating.  I’ll include some pics next week once they’ve been exposed to the world but suffice to say, they are phenomenal and it was a jolly good time having our friends over to decorate!

And, not so much:

It was a pretty sad week for activity but let’s just call it offseason.

Monday: 30 mins DDR (30), arm work (15)
Wednesday: 12 miles on the bike trainer (31), ab work (20)
Thursday: 3 mile run (30)
Saturday: 5.3 mile run (60), .75 mile walk (15), yoga (15)

This week I want to do some more lifting heavy things.  I’ve just been feeling fragile and want to make sure I’m recovered before I start really moving from my 10 lb weights at home and body weight exercises to real big girl weights and 60 min group power classes.  I’ll say that this week – same amount of cardio (2.5 hours low/moderate intensity), and I want to work each body group (arm/ab/legs) twice.  Yoga 1-2 times.  I really shouldn’t have such an aversion to 15-20 mins of stretching. 😛

Eating/Weight wise:

Last week: low weight 179.2/high weight 182.6

Calories per day:

Monday: 2116
Tuesday: 1577
Wednesday: 1670
Thursday: 1668
Friday: 1806
Saturday: 2397
Sunday: 1659

Avg = about 1850 per day

This is probably about maintenance mode for the amount of activity I’m doing now (considering room for error).  My goal for this week is to bring it down 100 overall (1750 avg).  I do have to say though – it is nice to see myself eating a good amount of good quality food, and showing a maintain on the scale and not being like “I’m showing a 500 cal deficit per day, why the fuck am I gaining?”  Also, this is not 1850 per day of twinkies.  While my diet certainly isn’t perfect, it’s 80% fage and fish and lean protein and whole grains and veggies and fruits.  I’ve been attempting to get back on the “vegetarian before dinner” kick, but it’s not actually what my body wants most days now that I’m not training as much.  It wants meat.  I’m listening, because I’m pretty sure there’s still some recovery going on there and extra protein probably will do me aight.

The one real allowance I’ve been making is booze – so many months of squishing my fun for the week in Saturday afternoon/evening means I’m allowing myself to sit on the patio with some vodka on a Monday if I so choose.  I’m attempting to normalize that with less calories/good choices that day, but we’ll work on really shoring that up when season really starts.  I’m still working on cutting down sweets, but I’ve made some progress.  There will be a hard stop there as well once we’re into Jan, and those no sugar months have always been good for me, plus with volume increasing, I’ll get my sweets, they’ll just be on the run/bike.

So, that’s what’s going down in Quixytown.  What’s going on in your neck of the woods?