Adjusted Reality

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

Letting Loose

I don’t even really know what to talk about here when I’m not doing epic shit anymore, but I promised myself I’d continue to check in once a week so here we go…

Things I did this week:

Tuesday: our company gave us the afternoon off to go as a group and volunteer at the food bank.  Considering it’s off season, and all I care about is getting activity in 5 times a week, I decided this would be it and picked the job of loading cans into boxes from big boxes and delivering them to the sorters.  So, I spent over two hours picking up cans, squatting boxes, and working up a sweat running them over.  Made me happy that when my hand shot up  for that, they picked me and a few other buff boys and weren’t just like, urrr you’re a girl you can’t.  When a box got too low for me to get shit out with my little t-rex arms, I decided fuck it, and hopped in and stood in the box.  People made fun of me until they realized how efficient I was being, and then other people got in the box.  We beat the crap out of Monday’s work team by a whole ton (like, 2000 lbs!).  Moral of the story is: sometimes you just have to climb in the fucking box to get shit done.

Tuesday night: drank on the patio and worked through our training and racing schedule for 2013.  Made some choices and while I have yet to actually start filling out the weekly schedules for each phase, I now have a pretty solid A and B race list and – bonus – our first 70.3 is exactly a full cycle of base, build, and peak they recommend.  So I’ll have two (three?) chances at a really solid half IM next year.

Feb 24: Indoor Tri
Apr 14: 10/20 (10 mile run – signed up last year)
May 5: Rookie Tri (super sprint)
Jun 1: Play Tri Olympic
Jun 16: Pflugerville Tri (sprint)
Jun 31: Lubbock/Buffalo Springs 70.3
Jul 14: Couples Tri (sprint)
Aug 4: Jack’s Generic (olympic)
Sep 2: Tri Rock (Olympic)
Sep 29: Kerrville 70.3
Oct 27: Austin 70.3??? (this is a big maybe)

If you’ll note that there is a big emphasis on triathlon, that was on purpose.  Now, I am leaving the end of the year up for grabs.  I may bank on my endurance again and do a late fall marathon (especially if the last 70.3 is a no go).  I may also just take my offseason early and train up for a spring marathon.  I also might join the circus.  I’m not willing to plan my life out that far, we’ll see.  I just know that I would really love to run another marathon soon, but soon may be fall 2014.

Also, I have inked in to volunteer at the TX IM in May.  We will do this.  I want to be part of that shit this year even if we can’t race it.  I want to cheer people in at midnight and help people have an awesome 140.6 day.

I also planned out our yearly hours.  They say that minimum half ironman yearly training hours should be 500, but also not to increase your hours more than 15% per year.  Well, I added up the last 12 months on dailymile… and it was 325.  So, I’m going to peg next year at 375.  And planning that out… my peak week is 11.  We were rolling with 12s all summer.  So, this year will be about consistency (Zliten’s big focus), planning, and going into each training session with a purpose.  No going out to do random miles because I’m terrified I need to do more.  We know we can do a 70.3.  Now it’s time to do specific and purposeful training to get faster and more solid.

This also doesn’t include, what I imagine will be jumping in a bunch of supported rides early in the year to get some bike milez.

Thursday, we hosted a game night and played board games with a bunch of folks from work and I definitely got an ab workout laughing my ass off.  These guys are funny stuff.  I was even a good girl and ate a mahi burger while they ate beef burgers and passed on the beer (I KNOW…) so I could eat lots of junk food snax.  It worked out.

Friday was a stressful day at work (all’s well that ends well though) + packing my office (I get a shiny new one tomorrow), and then off early for the ugly sweater holiday party.  This was my epic creation – a very Mario Christmas.  Puffy paint creations for the win.

The work party was a lot of fun, I behaved myself well, performed some strategerie to get the white elephant gift I wanted, and we had an impromptu after party at the house where we played Apples to Apples and hung out and cheersed a 30th birthday boy, and then people left and Zliten and I stayed up really late drinking and talking and watching triathlon videos and, as I often do, I fell asleep around sunrise watching Kona 2010 on you tube.  Great night!

Saturday, we did nada and watched cartoons in PJs and it was awesome.  I napped on and off all day and slept 10 hours that night and kinda smiled at each other once in a while and said “yay offseason!”

Today, we decided it was time to take our steeds out for their inaugural post-Kerrville outdoor ride and we remembered today that Zliten had just gotten his clips in September and this was only his first neighborhood outdoor ride (we did one at Pfluger which has no stoplights and minimal traffic and then one at the veloway which is a closed cyclist/rollerblader course).  He toppled twice getting out of the driveway, and we both had some false starts in our clips going through stoplights (sorry Austin traffic), and then he toppled again and crunched his leg a bit in the gears.  Awww.  Slowest ride ever at 56 mins for 10 miles (with stoplights) but it was nice to get outside.  We need to do a few more of these before getting with a group – I don’t want to be the dumbass who can’t get their clips on.  I also hadn’t done this ride much this year and I remembered why – it’s fucking annoying to deal with traffic when you’re trying to hold a pace and do your thing.  While I’m in offseason and joyriding, however, it’s good practice and I’ll do some more of this.

Then, we did our errands and had salad bar lunch, did some laundry, and then went to Event #1 of this week – a yelp.com party – Yelp Helps.  They had nummy foods and lots of alcohol sponsors, but also a bunch of non-profits out telling us what we could do to get out and volunteer.  We got on some of the lists of the outdoorsy places (volunteering at the park we bike by sometimes, camping, river rafting, etc), and hopefully that will help us knock out two birds with one stone – being more outdoorsy, and being a little more selfless in 2013.

Now I’m drinking manhattans on the patio, awaiting my chili to congeal for dinner, and enjoying the last warm day we’ll have for a little while.

Headcheck: I’m really becoming more ok with offseason.  4 weeks left.  I may have had a lot of *twitchtwitchtwitch* earlier, but I’ve really enjoyed being a normal human being.  I will pull from this time during peak where I am not having social fun and just eat, train, sleep, and remember I can have my fun again.  I may have some twinges when I hear race reports from today’s Decker half marathon and hear about people training up for 3m, Rogue 30k in January (OMG an 18 mile race I WANT IN!!!), and the Austin Marathon, but mentally and physically I know it’s good juju.  In 3 weeks I have become weak and lacking in endurance and it’s ok.  A few miles of running is enough.  Short slow bike rides are fine.  They feel like nothing, but I know it’s enough to keep me in good enough shape that Jan 7th won’t be too horrible.  I’m sure if someone held a gun to my head I could do a half marathon but it wouldn’t be pretty.

Details, details:

Monday: 30 mins DDR, 30 mins full body weights
Tuesday: 2 hours volunteering
Wednesday: off
Thursday: 3 mile run – 10:30-ish pace
Friday: 40 min trainer.  No garmin – maybe 19 mph pace?
Saturday: off
Sunday: 56 min ride outside (10.3 miles)

Yeah, no yoga.  I suck.  I did nail 2 weights workouts (counting volunteering, and I would say squatting boxes for 2 hours counts like woah) and got in enough cardio not to be a complete couch potato.  I’m going to go ahead and skip the food and calories and weight because: a) I sucked it up b) it’s that time of the month and c) it just makes me sad. Lets just say it was 180+ and leave it at that.  I can’t be too mad at myself.  All this is not going to come back at once and all I can do is resolve each day to be the best I can be without making myself crazy.  Soon I will really kick it into overdrive but I’ve realized these weeks are not the time.  Going from rigid training schedule to rigid calorie schedule is going to do nothing for decompressing.  I’ll do my best not to be an asshole and chose good things most of the time, and in January, really step it up.  I’m looking into a bunch of batch cooking and ways to make healthy eating easier and will capitalize on my plan SOON (TM).

This week is epic in the social situation department.  Today was a Yelp party, Tuesday is a coworker birthday happy hour, Wednesday is an ex-coworker going away party + comedy late show, Thursday is Game Dev Beer Night, and Saturday is two races + parents hanging out in the middle and then a friend’s house warming party at night.  The lesson this week is a primer in moderation.  I have designs to do this workout schedule:

Monday: DDR or trainer + weights
Tuesday: lunch run  (happy hour)
Wednesday: trainer + weights (goodbye party + late night comedy show)
Thursday: lunch run + yoga (beer night)
Friday: off
Saturday: 2 5k races
Sunday: off

I have designs about racing Saturday 5k #1 hard.  I mean, why not? I’m not saving my legs/lungs/body/mind for anything, and if I throw up/pass out at the finish line, who cares?  But, I also know I’m not setting myself up for success.  It will be in spite of everything.  And I’m fine with those odds.  I expect to see God/Santa/Krampus/baby Jesus/etc and the (Christmas) lights and just feel like it might be fun to see what I can do trying to shut my brain and my limiters off.  If it’s a PW, whatevs.  No tears here.

And, this is my week in review.  5 more days and I’m on the other side of working days for 2012 and 6 more days and no more races for 2 months.  True true offseason will really begin.  I’m sorry Austin, this lady will really and truly be letting lose.

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3 Comments

  1. Miz

    GIRL who you ARE is some EPIC SHIT.

  2. zliten

    Last week was rough to keep up, and this week is going to be even more insane.
    I am going to say now though, no on Thursday run. Not after a late night at the comedy club. At least for me.
    Also I am enjoying the off season less than I thought I would. I keep waiting to go do more endurance stuff too.

    Like I said last night, we are sick people some times.

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