Week 6: Scuba Ate My Life

Scuba ate my life last week.  I crashed and burned into Friday at 6pm with just about nothing left, but after a 3 day weekend (even though it was pretty busy), I feel pretty a-ok.

Squeezing in ~9 training hours, a full time job, and approximately 10 hours of class, 6 of them being in the pool – it didn’t leave us much time to do anything but sleep, except on Thursday, where we drank 4 bottles of champagne and then didn’t sleep enough.  Hence the crashing and burning on Friday.  That was our dumb fault but it was a needed stress release (though, an excessive one).

Food Stuffs:

I just tracked DQ score, not calories.

I gained some weight this week and there should be no reason why.

I won’t be doing that again.

Monday: 30
Tuesday: 32
Wednesday: 28
Thursday: 17 (drinks)
Friday: 23
Saturday: 26
Sunday: 11 (drinks, fancy v-day dinner)

Average: 24

It’s just becoming clear that my body isn’t working well with the ~2000 calories I’m taking in and the amount of training I do.  Even if it’s mostly all high quality food.  The scale should be doing something good, and it did something ELSE this week – lowest was 185, but my official weigh in day was 189.6!!!  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  I’m close to two months in, and instead of being 10-15 lbs down like I was hoping, I’m 5 lbs up.  All my numbers went the wrong way this week.  Nothing is changing for the good.  I gotta get this figured out because I’m definitely in unacceptable territory with the scale, and how I look, and I’m sure my feet issues can’t be getting BETTER as I gain.

So, there has to be a compromise here.  My goal this week is a DQ score of 20 or above, and calorie count each day of 1700.  What that means?  I’ve felt like a lot of days I’m spending the afternoon or the end of the day shoving shit (healthy shit, yes, but still calories) into my mouth to game the score even though I’m not that hungry.  I’m going to stop doing that.  If I have 3 veggies, 3 fruits, 2 meats, 2 grains, 1 dairy, and 1 nut, that’s 24.  Monday, I was able to come in with a 24 at 1695 cal.  That’s what I’m going to try to do all week.  Days I have a few drinks I’ll need to really focus on low calorie good quality food to do it, but I’ll get it handled.

This week, we’re also compromising on the batch cooking.  We just needed some downtime, so we got a few Snap Kitchen meals, and made 2 batch meals: chicken, veggie, and whole wheat spaghetti w/tomato sauce and beef stew this week.  We also have a few leftover meals frozen from other weeks (and of course, fish).   Should be delicious.  At some point I’ll feel mentally caught up enough to spend hours in the kitchen but until then, I’ll let them help a little.

Training Stuffs:

I may have needed talking off a ledge due to what’s happening on the scale, but the magic is happening here.

Unfortunately I can’t curl up into a little ball and sleep every time I don’t like the world like Kitty face.  So unfair.  Though there is no cat division for triathlon, so I guess it evens out.

Run:  Magic is happening.  My average pace is now consistently in the 11s below 155 HR.  That’s nice.  I rarely have to slow down and walk to get under 160, even on hills.  I feel like my running is finally at a point where I can incorporate some short strides this next week on one of my workouts without either spiking my HR or reinjuring my heel (that’s pretty much all better too, thanks Sauc0-ponies!) so that’s a bunch of yay.

I also did my 30 min run test Sunday.  It almost wasn’t a fair test because a) I put in over two hours of training the day before instead of resting and b) I spent 5 hours that day before on my feet volunteering and almost 2 hours cheering that morning for the marathon.  My leggies were toast during that test, and I had a bit of an allergy flare up (snot snot snot lungs blech), but I got on with it the best I could and maintained a 9:35 average pace for 3.13 miles in 30 mins, with a 170 avg HR.  That’s right – 21 seconds faster per mile at 5 BPM lower.  I just could not shove my heart rate up any higher.  I’ll take it.  Hoping I can get a really solid test in next month and see that number improve even more.

Bike: Just lots more solid work on the trainer.  The one leg drills are helping me feel more fluid.  I’m going to try and start changing up my resistances like yesterday, where I did the first 40 at 2/5 resistance and the last 20 at 4/5.  I also need to be getting outside more – there’s just no good places to ride that don’t involve lots of stoplights and riding in 2 mile circles near us so we wait until the weekend so we can get to Pflug or Veloway – and then life gets in the way and driving 30 mins away doesn’t sound so good so we trainer.

However, last year, we didn’t have trainers and we did our first outdoor ride in March, and were huffing through rides longer than 10 miles, and I clocked my first 30+ mile ride this weekend and regularly hit 20, so there’s that.  I’ve got a pretty decent base riding flatlands, I just need to get some force in my leggies for them thar hills.  Because my first 70.3 has a LOT of them.

Swim: Loving the swim lately.  Did my swim test Saturday morning, and I took 2 mins 15 seconds off my time (went from 23 mins to 20 mins 45 sec for 1050m).  Enjoying swimming with the fins for warmups and/or intervals during easy days.  I’m futzing with the MP3 player a lot less.  I’m spending a lot less time waking up my stroke and having things just fall into place.  Going a little faster doesn’t make my form fall apart.

Being here so far from the beginning of the season makes me happy.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to blow all my swimming times from last year out of the water if all continues on current course and speed.  Also, I wish that Lake Pflugerville would hurry up and get warmer so I can swim in it.

Weights: Another good MT (transition to maximum weights) week.  I leg pressed 270, squatted 155, rowed 100, and upped my pulldown to 85.  For the lighter stuff, I’m doing situps on the incline now with a 10 lb weight and not completely dying.  Calf presses are at 90, and hamstrings I’ve inched up to 60 (need to work on these).

Now that my swim/bike/run is going better, I sorta look forward to these days less than when everything else was awkward and wrong and this was my only happy, but it’s definitely making me stronger, less jiggly, and more badass and allowing me to have better days at the other 3 disciplines, so I’ll keep on with my 2xweek lifting heavy things.

I have my first “race” this weekend – the Indoor Tri.  I predict I will kick my swim and bike’s ass from last year, but not quite be able to hold the 8:35-ish pace I did last year for 20 mins on the run.  But who knows.  It’s been a while since I knocked out anything but an EZ run on a treadmill and noticed my HR was about 20 BPM below what I would expect outside.  20 BMP up these days translates to about 2 mins/mile faster (11:40s to 9:40s), so by that magic I should be able to hold about 7:40s at 175, which I’m sure is not the case.  But hey, it will be interesting to see.  I placed 2nd in the under 40s last year, but that really depends on who shows up – it’s not like you know how anyone is doing until you see the results, you can’t really run anyone down.

I’ll be done and drinking my first mimosa around 9am Sunday, so I’ll definitely report in and let you know how it goes.

By the days:

Monday: Bike: 9.35 miles in 30, 117 HR avg/136 max  Weights: 3×12… 270 lb leg press, 95 lb rows, 75 lb pulldowns. 3×20… situps with 5 lb plate on incline, calf raises w/100 lbs.
Tuesday:  Swim: 1110m in 28 mins.  Run: 3.1 in 36:04, 150 HR avg/171 max
Wednesday: Swim: 900m in 22 mins. Weights: 3×12…. 155 lb squats, 100 lb rows, 80 lb pulldowns. 3×20… situps on incline w/10 lb plate w/twist, 60 lb hamstring curls.
Thursday: Run: 3.4 miles in 39:45, avg 155, max 186? (garmin was being weird at the beginning so I don’t think this is accurate. Bike: 15.25 miles in 45 mins, 139 HR avg/199 max (I KNOW this isn’t right)
Friday: off
Saturday: Swim: 1050m in 20:45, Run: 3.86 in 45 mins, HR avg 152/max 170 Bike: 33.5 miles in 1h30.
Sunday: Run test: 3.13 miles in 30 mins (avg HR 170).  +1.25 mile warmup and cooldown. (did a swim also but that counts for next week)

Total: about 8.5 hours.  I was short 30 mins this week of the 9 hour training goal, but I did scuba for 6 hours so I’m calling it a wash.

Other Stuff:

New glasses last week.  These look almost just like my old glasses but thicker.  I likey.

I got so cranky last Saturday that I had to put myself down for a nap like a 3-year old.  It was bad.  The world was ending I was so tired and when I woke up everything was just fine.  Hate when I get that way!

Scuba was just fucking COOOOOL.  I got to spend 6 hours in the pool breathing underwater and doing drills and figuring out how to use this stuff and it was a BLAST!  I did kinda freak out the first day because I couldn’t equalize the pressure in my ears well, but once I remembered to swallow and plug my nose and blow air out my ears it was AWESOME.  By the end of pool day 2 I was floating neutrally buoyant and hanging out in the deep end of the pool like a badass.  We still need to do our lake dives in two weeks to get certified, but I’m only about 25% nervous and 75% excited for that!

Our friend Mariko (I work with his husband and have hung out with/ran with them on a few occasions) WON the Austin Marathon.  How cool is that?  I’m all inspired and feel like since I handed her her nutrition at mile 18, I’m pretty much the reason she won (not at all – she’s just a crazy awesome talented runner).

I think I have forgotten how to relax.  On my day to do nothing, I cleaned the house, transferred clothes from the old to new dressers in the bedroom, put away laundry, typed up a blog post, and batch cooked.  We did get some time to become one with and nap on the new couch, and didn’t leave the house.  So I feel pretty recharged, but still, I miss my talent of laying on the couch and not getting up to do anything but pee and make food.

We had late Valentine’s Day dinner at Bartlets.  Amazing amazing best filet in town, caesar salad (a splurge for me since the dressing is sooooo calorific), delicious wilted spinach, and we shared a phenomenal piece of key lime pie.  With a side dish, the filet lasted me two meals.  I love that place.

I think I may have our vacation time at the ports and the workouts we need to accomplish pretty much planned out.  Now, life needs to not hand me a weird and foil my plans.  I have WAY too much running across islands, snorkeling, scuba, ocean swimming, SUPing, and checking out rainforests, museums, and shopping to do.

So that’s Quix in a nutshell.  Question of the week: (think of a question)