Week 3: A Lot of Words About More of the Same

Since I started this round of training, I haven’t had a day to just relax.  It’s been either train, work, batch cook, work on January goals, socialize, etc.  It’s been an awesome month, but my soul is starting to feel a little thin.  I wanted today to be that day, and it was cool to sleep in and watch a movie this morning, but since then it’s been DO DO DO DO SHIT.  I really really need a day off and some major vegging soon.  Maybe next Sunday?  Please please please?  I’ll muscle it away from ya…

Week four is the last one where the training schedule is the same.  The eating goals are the same.  I’m in a little bit of that third week motivation slump – like the third lap of a four lap course.  It’s no longer new and exciting, and it’s not yet “the last one”.  So, without much ado, let me talk you through my week.

Workouts:

My heel has gotten less creaky, I got to run outside 3 times and I’m not limping and feels better than it has for a while.  That’s a happy for sure!

I did a 1050m test (70 laps) and hit 23 mins.  That’s a ~35 minute mile.  Faster times than I’ve posted for a while/ever (for a while I had the pool measurements wrong so I thought I was faster than I was)?  It felt great to push myself in the pool and I am HUNGRY for some hard pool workouts that are going to come starting March.

Cycling has just been more of the same good.  I’m craving some outdoor riding, but I want to push myself to see what I have outside at a closed road course (Veloway).  I may have to break my zone 1/2 rule just once soon.  For now, loving the trainer movie rides.

Running – meh.  My HR finally came down a bit this week for the lunch runs, but Saturday’s run was just shit.  Allergies, lack of motivation, no music because I’m a dummy and didn’t charge my mp3 player, and just plain tireds made my heart rate go sky high after about mile 1.5 and I was either trotting or walking so I bagged it a little early (with the warmup and cooldown I got my intended 45 mins in, because I ran so frigging slow, but it’s not what I set out to do).  I’ll keep at it, but right now, runs are, pun intended, my Achilles heel.

Weights are good.  Raised everything to 22 reps, and I even upped some weights.  I’m getting stronger.  Let me tell you a story… I went about my normal weights workout on Wednesday…and Zliten and I were staggered so he was on the exercise before me. I get to the squat bar, put my weight on, and go at it. The first set went OK, but the second set was just WAY hard. I started thinking about how the day really drained me. Finishing his last set of the previous exercise, Zliten comes over and points to my bar and gives me a thumbs up. I’m like, what? I then realized I had put two 35s and two 10s on each side instead of 25s and two 10s. Holy crap, I squatted 125 lbs which is 20 more lbs than I was struggling with last week! I almost took the weight off, but figured if I could do two sets I could do three. It did make my hips (of all places) REALLY tender for about 12 hours after but I survived.  I’ll scale back a bit next week (115 maybe?) but that was awesome!

One more week of this schedule and then we start Base 1.  I’ll talk about that more next week when I have a training plan done.

Day by day (this should look familiar!):

Monday: Weights: 3×22… 190 lb* leg press, 40 lb pulldowns, 105 lb squats, 20 lb* dumbell chest press, 60 lb row, 80 lb* calf raises, 10 lb plate situps with twist. Swim: 1290m in 30 mins.
Tuesday: Bike: 11.37 miles in 30 mins.  Run: 3 miles in 36:30.
Wednesday: Weights: 3×22… 190 lb leg press, 50 lb* pulldowns, 125 lb* squats, 20 lb dumbells chest press, 60 lb rows, 55 lb* hammie curls, situps w/twist w/10 lb plate.  Swim: 1350m in 32 mins.
Thursday: Bike: 10 miles in 32 mins (hurty hip).  Run: 3.1 miles in 38 mins.
Friday: off
Saturday: Swim: 1050m test (in 23 mins).  Bike: 20 miles in 52:28.  Run: 3.1 in 40:30.
Sunday: off

Foods Stuffs:

Batch cooking is really awesome, but we found our limit last week.  We decided to cook 4 meals (so we’d have every meal spoken for) and while most were quick and easy, I decided to undertake making two indian dishes with homemade sauces.  If that was all we were cooking, it wouldn’t have been too bad, but after putting together 3 other things, it made the day DRAG and we were just grumpy by the end.

It also resulted in me not putting in the recipes in spark since I was so behind with everything, so I just guesstimated calories, so I was less motivated to track right away, so my food intake was more.  It also gave us some food fatigue – yes, it’s nice having food ready, but I missed my fish.  And Zliten pretty much needs a hamburger every week.  So it was just a little too much.

So, this weekend, we’re already done – it took us about 1/3 the time since we picked easy stuff and as such had time yesterday to squeeze it in.  I already have the recipies in and can now plan out my days ahead of time to maximize my scores!  Lesson learned, just like everything else, if some is good, more isn’t always better.

I’m actually seeming to do well with the no sweet treats.  It may be worth keeping up for February, minus one exception for the damn rum ball I have saved all month in my fridge, and I’ll allow one desert for v-day.  All other sweets need to be consumed right before or during workouts.

Only having one splurge meal per week is working out too.  This week I did really damn well, my “splurge” was a whole wheat thin crust all organic mini-pizza, and the same day but at a different meal, one olive garden breadstick and some croutons.  I did drink 3 times (weird week), so there is that.

Diet Quality Check:

Monday: 26
Tuesday: 18 (had a few drinks)
Wednesday: 20
Thursday: 15 (also had a few drinks)
Friday: 14 (oops :P)
Saturday: 1 (double oops – drinks and snacks at party)
Sunday: 14

Average DQ Score: 15.48 (down about 2 from last week)

Average Cal/Day: 2109 (almost 200 UP from last week)

High Weight 187.2, Low Weight 184.4

So, as you can see, I start out the week well and then all goes to hell.  I had a better diet quality on weekday nights where I had to subtract quite a few points for drinking than Friday and Sunday when I just didn’t eat the right food.

Piss poor planning prevents proper procedure.  This week was piss poorly planned.  Not making that mistake again next week.

Next week, my goals are to:

• Keep the food calories lower, but diet quality the same or higher.
• Plan out what I’m eating before I’m forced to just grab shit and hope it’s not too many calories/the right things.
• Eat my damn rum ball on Feb 2 after training.
• Try to make sure I eat my max fruits and veggies – nuts I’ll add once I have more workout hours, but 4 of each freggies per day shouldn’t raise my calories too much. Remember that avocado is a fruit.

The good news is that I’m back to what I was weighing before this weird spike last week for no reason, and down another 0.2% (4% overall) body fat and up 0.1% (2.4% overall) muscle in one week.  I’ll take it.  Diet score and calories be damned.

Other Stuff:

Things this week have been interesting at work.  A little bit weird, but also a little bit of possibilities opening up for me.  Totally specific I know.  If any of you follow me on twitter, please do excuse the vague messages.  Sometimes I just need to say things.  And since I can’t really say things, I just need to say vague things.  The thing that I am most impressed with is the fact that this time around, I’ve realized that one does not get where they want to be by not stating one’s intentions and hoping for the best.  If you want to get somewhere, the first step is making sure anyone that can help you knows what you want.  Even if it doesn’t work out, I can be proud I’ve done that.

I put a stitch in something!!! OMG.  The sewing machine was super intimidating, but I realized that today had to be the day, and Zliten was super nice and helped me get it set up and once I figured it out the first time, it really wasn’t so bad.  Now I’m kinda inspired to actually do something with it, but since my previous experience ended so horribly (with my first and only C grade in a class… the terror!!!), I’m going to take it slow.  Next month, I’ll mend something.  If I do more, cool.  If not, baby steps.

We had friends over for a game night and it was a total blast!  We played Mario Yahtzee, Apples to Apples, and Drunk Jenga.  Then, we had deep and meaningful conversations until 4 am and I had 3 overnight guests. 🙂  It was way fun and much less stressful than hosting a big party.  I think we’re going to try to do one a month (maybe let other people host if they want but I’m happy only having to navigate from the living room to the bedroom once we’re done).

Zliten has been uber-complaining about the couch lately, and when I mentioned I really, really need a lay-on-the-couch day soon (was hoping for today but… it ’twasn’t to be) and he pretty much refused until we got a new couch.  To be fair, his side is REALLY saggy and uncomfortable and hurts his back so I don’t begrudge him, but then all of a sudden, it went from a “nice to have” to a MUST BUY NOW (I love me some ass to couch time).  The store down the street was doing a sale on room groups + two flat screen tvs for free, so we went, we purchased, and when we found out it was 36 months no interest, and we had already maxed out the shipping cost, we went ahead and got some bedroom furniture we’ve been wanting as well.  So, coming in the next few days will be a reclining sofa, a loveseat, a coffee table, two end tables, three dressers, and we took home two nightstands and have them set up.

There was a rug that I was eyeing that will “tie the room together” (the couch is sort of a red/chocolate brown and we have a black entertainment center, grey walls, and navy blue trim 😛 so the couch DOESN’T GO AT ALL).  We’ll need to eventually (or sooner, dependng on how much I hate the brown/grey combo) have to repaint our living room a warmer cream/beige/something color.  But, we finally have adult furniture and can ditch the coffee table with one broken section spraypainted red and blue.

I got a fitbit, so now I’m part of the fitbit gang of our friends.  I swear, Zliten and M will both be constantly walking around the block by the end of this feud… let the competition begin!

…And last but not least, I finally did the last step to clean out the closet by getting enough storage to get all my “not-right-now” clothes stored away on the shelf.  January organization zone done!

And with that, I’m out party people.  Question of the week: how are your goals going for January?  Conquer something intimidating?

…and hey, if you like all this, come check out our family blog at adventuresintriathlon.com!