Week 27 and 28: Hungry Robots and Real Clothes

Not having a working laptop is both terrible and wonderful.  Terrible, because I am going to type up a really quick post here and not spend much time on it because I can’t do it at home, and I really wanted to play my game this weekend (probably ONLY because I couldn’t, but still).  Wonderful, because I have unplugged a little bit since it’s annoying to do all that much from my tablet internet-wise, and I played a lot of other people’s games this weekend.

However, I’ve got two weeks to recap, so let’s git.

Training:

Week 27 was the pre-week kick off for training block #2 this year.  It was more of a gentle return to routine – I didn’t want to hit it 100% hard after the two extremes of BSLT racing, and then a full week completely off, doing no more cardio than thrift shopping.  I did a little bit of biking on the trainer, which felt good, especially because we have our new resistance controls that make adjustment ON THE BIKE possible (I know, should have spent that money 2 years ago, but better late than never).  I did (really light – less than half of 1 rep max) weights once.  I ran a pretty solid 5 mile run in clouds and drizzles that felt magical.  I swam really fast.  It’s amazing what happens when your body is completely rested.

I even think being that rested helped me race better at Couples.  I was able to keep my brain positive, and it wasn’t worn out from suffering through a lot of hard workouts, it was like, ok, we can do this.  My FITNESS was pretty low but my brain was into it.

Monday: off
Tuesday: Bike: Trainer Hill Workout + Starga… 22 mi 01:00
Wednesday: Weights: gym weights + stretching 00:45, Swim: Pool laps 1650 m 00:33
Thursday: Run: Neighborhood Loops 5 mi 00:56
Friday: off
Saturday: Bike: easy spin + quicksilver 16 mi 00:45
Sunday: Swim: Couples Tri Swim 800 m 00:19, Bike: Couples Tri Bike 11.2 mi 00:42, Couples Tri Run 3.1 mi 00:34

5.5 hours total, 49 miles biked, 8 miles ran, 2450m swam, 1 weights session

Week 28 was about 80% of insan-o levels.  Two weights sessions, slowly working my way back from barbie weights to real heavy things.  On the bike, we did a 45 miler trainer (aiming to start the process of a long bike ride most weeks so a 56 mile tour de Kerrville is not such a shock to the system), and two short, speedy 10 milers for double bricks the next day (followed by a 1 mile run).  Looking at last year’s bike mileage, I did not ride nearly enough, inside or outside, so I’m hoping to change that with quite a few 100 mile+ weeks and lots of 45+ days.

I got a little bit of my run mojo back.  The double brick 1 milers conjured up some speed I didn’t know I had – the first was 9 minutes flat, the second was 8:40.  I’m not entirely sure I’ve run an 8:40 mile at any time this year, but certainly not after 20 miles of hard riding and a pretty fast first mile.  The next day, I ran 7 – it was hot, my legs were tired, and I had to run slower than I wanted to keep my heart rate from blowing up, but I got through it, and it was a good easy run, staying in zone 2.  After the epic swim on Saturday, I did a 5k in the 90 degree mid-day heat in no shade, and while I didn’t track HR, I felt pretty strong even in the heat and on tired legs.

Swam twice this week, meant to swim 3 times but this was the one session I missed.  Oh well.  The weekday swim was uneventful, but the weekend swim at Pflugerville was definitely of note – it was my first Iron distance swim (2.45 miles to be exact – so .05 more) and I did it in under 2 hours!  This was 10 laps around the Lake Pflugerville buoys.  The first four laps were uneventful.  Lap 5 and 6 were a little soul sucking, because it was that no mans land where I’m swimming further than normal, but I still have a lot to go.  I got a little brain foggy then, lost my form, got sloooow, and got a little down.

Then, lap 7, I picked it up because “I only had an Olympic swim to go”.  I build speed again, had better form, and rounded the last buoy of lap 9 and headed out to shore.  I waited a bit for Zliten, I chilled, and then when I saw him go for another lap, I got my garmin out of my waterproof safe swimmer – I still had .3 of a mile to go!  D’oh!  I made quick work of that one and ended up with 2.45 miles in 1:58.  While I still certainly need to get better at that, pretty impressed that I’m 22 mins under the Ironman cutoff (you have to complete your swim in 2 hours and 20 mins) without any training!

Monday: Weights: Weights + Stretch 00:45
Tuesday: Bike: Trainer + Star Wars Episode V… 45 mi 02:01
Wednesday: Bike: Double Brick: Bike 19.18 mi 40min, Run: Double Brick: Run 2 mi 17:40min, Weights: The ush… 01:00, Swim: Gym laps 1080 m 00:22
Thursday: Slow + Steady + Strong 7 mi 01:22
Friday: off
Saturday: Swim: Iron Distance at Lake Pf 3950 m 01:58, Sweaty 5k at Lake Pf 3.1 mi 36min
Sunday: off

9 hours total, 65 miles biked, 12 miles ran, 5000m swam, 2 weights sessions

Food/Scale:

July is frustrating, but I did it to myself.  June’s 3 races of carb-loading (and probably subsequent body abuse) and a little less attention to detail in this area, and then a week off + less quality food while family was in town = back to what seems to be a setpoint for me at 177-178.  See, I now KNOW that it takes my body 3-4 weeks to respond to what I’m doing to it once it gets in a state of confusion (read: hungry ALL THE TIME), and it just takes patience.  Still doesn’t make it any better when I’m going to bed hungry and the scale doesn’t change.

Again, disclaimer for the people who may be happening upon this without a lot of background – don’t try this at home.  My body is not your body.  For most people, 90% healthy food consumed to their appetite works to effortlessly bring them down to a healthy, optimal weight.  Not me.  Once I get the weight loss going, it seems to be that way, but once I get stuck, I really, really have to get to the point where I’m angry-hungry for a few weeks until the lbs start rolling off, and then I can resume being a human for a while.

I tried giving up grains, I tried low carb, I tried low salt (probably the worst I’ve felt in a long time), I’ve tried super protein… all these things make me feel is heavy and gross and weak and angry and tired.  I worked with a nutritionist for a year who I love for introducing me to the concept of quality food (organics, etc), but she cycled through all these types of things and I ended up putting weight ON.  My body seems to thrive on a super healthy vegetarian’s diet who eats meat once a day (or twice in smaller quantities).  Chicken and a salad shuts my brain off and my tummy feels heavy all day.  A salad with a small bit of chicken, beans, cheese, and veggies rolled up in a whole grain wrap with more veggies on the side?  Brain up, awake, and body feels light and happy.

Even with this diatribe, my calorie counts are not super low for the amount of activity.  This week though, I’ll be training full capacity and attempting to not increase calories at all (of course, there is a level of hunger that is stupid, and I’ll go eat something healthy to shut my stomach up, and I will not be skimping on calories before, during, and after workouts), and keep that DQ score through the roof.  Hopefully this is the jump start needed to get on with my 15 lbs to Kerrville initiative.

Week 27:

Monday: 1887 calories, 16 DQ
Tuesday: 1654 calories, 29 DQ
Wednesday: 1442 calories, 26 DQ
Thursday: 2107 calories, 26 DQ
Friday: 1622 calories, 25 DQ
Saturday: oops.  Guessing about 1700 calories, ~15 DQ
Sunday: oops.  Guessing about 2500 calories, ~3 DQ

Averages: 1844 calories, 20 DQ

Weight: Low – 177.4, High – 179.4

Week 28:

Monday: 1685 calories, 28 DQ
Tuesday: 1781 calories, 28 DQ
Wednesday: 1890 calories, 25 DQ
Thursday: 2281 calories, 18 DQ
Friday: 1724 calories, 22 DQ
Saturday: 2336 calories, 4 DQ
Sunday: 1440 calories, 25 DQ

Averages: 1876 calories, 21.5 DQ

Weight: Low – 175.8, High – 179.2

The low weight is moving, but the bounce back is about the same.  Bugger.  This week, I’ll add 2 more hours of training, and attempt to keep the calories around 1800 average.  Stay tuned!

Other stuff:

We went out, with people, to a brew pub and had dinner and beers.  I wore clothes – a dress even – and makeup and such.  It was a lot of fun to catch up with some of our friends.  I need to remember that we need some outside social interaction and not just drink on the patio (or at the very least, invite friends over to drink on the patio) and wear real clothes on a Saturday night (not pajamas or spandex) every once in a while.

As I eluded to above, my laptop keyboard is toast.  The shift key on the left won’t unstick, so it’s stuck on.  This sounds less tragic than it is, as I can’t make numbers, periods, or anything, so I’ve just been using my tablet while it gets fixed.  It IS under warranty through American Express (yay), so it shouldn’t cost anything, but I’m waiting right now for the approval and the parts to come in.  We took it first to Best Buy as we weren’t sure if we got the insurance on it (we didn’t), and they said they’d charge a 35$ non refundable fee before it even gets looked at, and they had to ship it off to another state, and it would be minimum 2-3 weeks.  We then went to the shop down the street, they said it would be ~50$ in labor, part at cost, and it would take an hour or two once they had the part.  We will be going with the local shop. 🙂

If you are into that type of thing (big giant robot smash crazy alien monsters) – GO SEE PACIFIC RIM.  It was a lot of fun, thoroughly mesmerizing, and made me smile on the edge of my seat the whole time.  First movie in a long long long time I’ve seen on opening weekend and it was totally worth it.

We did get to game not last Thursday, but the one before.  We took over a pirate ship and found ourselves 400+years in the past and snuck past creepy fish monsters chanting in an uber creepy basement. There was one super spooky part where our GM reached out and touched my arm to demonstrate something and it made me shriek and jump.  Fun stuff.

Other gaming related stuff – I’m really making progress getting further along in my own game.  I also spent a lot of the weekend playing Secret of Monkey Island (the Telltale Adventure Game).  It’s cute, it’s fun, it takes no reflexes, and it’s my kind of game right now.  I got through episode 2, 3, and most (I think) of 4 until I started getting crabby and realized I had played for 9 hours already.  Next on the docket is the Telltale Walking Dead games, which are supposed to be AWESOME but much less fun and cute.  We’ll see when I feel like I’m ready for those.  This gaming was at the cost of getting any sewing done, but I’m going to haul out my table to the front room this week so I can sew and TV (at least listen) at the same time.

I’m pretty sure everyone has seen this, but if you haven’t… well… lots of this.  The Oatmeal – Why I Run.

And with that, I’m out.

Question: what’s the last movie you saw in the theatre?