Adjusted Reality

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

Month: December 2012

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.

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?

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