I Said Hey, What’s Goin’ On

There’s an order to things, sometimes.  Have to unload the dishes to load the dishwasher so you can clean the counter.  Have to plan the key workouts to plan the other workouts so I can plan the meals so I can write out the grocery list.

One of those order of operations things is that I need to look through and edit almost 1000 pictures and choose which ones I want to display and upload to facebook, and then I can finish my vacation post.  But I have not had those few hours of concentration since… vacation.  And these are worth doing right when you have some awesome shots like this.

So, what else, besides procrastinating photo editing, has been up in the hizzy?

New Stomping Grounds:

We finally ended our time at Body Business and started at Pure Fitness three weeks ago.  It has been… a breath of fresh air.  It’s weird, I don’t know how to express the joy I feel changing to a new gym.  I should have done it long ago but whatever.  Five minutes away from work (or, 10 mins away from home) I have at my disposal: a real lake to swim in, a heated outdoor pool, spin classes that kick my ass, lots of treadmills, and a huge weights floor.

There are also things I haven’t taken advantage of yet – like all sorts of strength classes, free sups and kayak rentals on the lake whenever I want, sup yoga classes (and regular yoga), and rock climbing.  It’s really helping us enjoy loading up training these last few weeks, but I also kinda can’t wait to have some offseason time to PLAY and just take a different class every day.

Hell hath frozen over:

On the vacation, I read Beyond Training, and his book was finally the nail in the coffin.  There are all sorts of athletes around doing things like Whole 30 and going lower carb and minding inflammation and all that, and they seem to be kicking ass and taking names doing it.

So, I decided to give it a month.  I’m three weeks plus into it.  For the most part (let’s say 80% of my meals), I’ve cut out all grains, rice, and beans, and relying on (mostly organic) corn and potatoes and fruit when I need carbs.  I’m finding new ways to incorporate different veggies in my life, like using zucchini and carrots as noodles, cauliflower rice, and roasting every veggie in the oven with olive oil, garlic, and parmesan.  I’ve been drinking (decaf) butter coffee and a piece of fruit for breakfast most days.  Lots of cheese and guac as snackies.  The calories have to come from somewhere to support training.

I’m actually surprised at how EASY it is.   There are so many awesome things to eat, I have not been too bummed about what I am trying to not eat.  I’ve given myself one splurge meal per week, and neither one made me want to stuff myself with bread.  Actually, the opposite – I felt yucky after and realized that most refined carbs are kinda tasteless.  Now – a great sourdough bread with some garlic butter?  Still calls to me.  Crappy white dinner roll?  Not so much.  Not worth it.

Why?  Well, I’ve been feeling pretty great otherwise.  I was worried it would completely zap my energy for workouts but that’s not the case at all.  I’m plenty fueled, getting about 100g carbs per day and about 2000 calories.  My face feels incredibly unpuffy (jawbones, I have them again!), and my stomach has been more even tempered.

I am a little pissed that I haven’t lost weight, but I’m pretty sure dragging myself from zero to full training is definitely inflaming me a bit and my body is in shock, so hopefully as I settle in, that settles as well.

Last Train to Kerrville:

6 more weeks until Kerrville.  That’s sort of terrifying, but it will be an interesting experiment.

Swimming is coming along… swimmingly.  I pretty much picked up where I left off in June and have been building on it.  My pool times are coming down when I swim sets, and while I have to work for it, I’m seeing 1:xx in front of average 100m times and that’s good.  My open water swimming has been slow, but I haven’t done any intentional work on sharpening that knife yet, just logging lake time.  Soon.

Also, since it’s both convenient and pleasing to swim now, I will be doing it more often.  Have I mentioned I love my new gym?

Cycling was another thing I put aside for 5 weeks.  It did NOT exactly pick up from where it left off, or I neglected cycling earlier this year, or probably a little bit of both.  30-40 miles (outdoors) is a long ride for me.  The endurance didn’t just reappear.  I’m going to have to work for that.  Hills are my enemies.  Evilbike and I are just getting back into the swing of things.  This is probably the sport I’m most nervous about coming back around in 6 weeks but we’re going to make that happen.

I’ve also been triathlet-ing up and riding outside.  I did 2 hours at the veloway with the sun and the heat and the wind and I even did a 2h40m ride on a real road with real cars (and a lot of hills).  I know that there is just something about riding outside that I’m not going to be able to replicate by riding on the trainer.  I wanted to disprove that earlier this year and my biking suffered.  So, once a week, I will hit the streets.

Also, as much as I sickly and sadly love nothing more than a trainer, some tri videos or a movie, and my feed bag bento box, these rides can’t be the majority of my sessions.  So, what’s a time-crunched triathlete that lives nowhere near good places to ride do?  Enter the spin classes at my new gym.  Every Tuesday, there is a long 1h15m+ of ass kicking sport focused spin.  I’m trying to make that one each week.  6am, noon, and 6:15pm most every day, there is a 45min spin class and the one last week might have well been one constant hill climb.  So painful, so good, so hopefully will make me a better cyclist.

Running… is coming back at a pace somewhere between the two.  The heat and humidity make it a little harder to judge, but I have had two longer runs (seems silly to say but, it’s the truth) at 7 and 8.5 miles, and on the latter, I would have happily kept going if I had more time.  It’s really and truly just hot as balls, even at sunrise, so I’m just simply trying to get through these at around 11-ish min/mile summer slog pace.

I am taking some miles inside.  On the treadmill, I’m able to remind myself that I know how to run faster if it wasn’t for the oppressive death star in the sky.  Since it’s almost utterly impossible for me to run super slow on a treadmill, I’ve done some nice progression runs as a gentle re-entry to speedwork and plan on continuing that trend of at least one run a week that reminds my legs how to turn over faster, so they remember that 11 min/miles are not the norm once the temps come back into the reasonable range.

I’m also running a lot without music.  Not inside, because that’s torture.  Sometimes on long runs, but not always.  Definitely not every little run I do.  I think it’s going to help me not feel like I’m at such a disadvantage on tri runs when I always have been training with phat beats.  We’ll see.

If you have 5 mins and want to check out our Sunday Funday, Zliten made a mooooovie.

Trying to get a little something strength-ish in each week.  Weights, or like Sunday, ripping it up at the adventure park for an hour and a half (literally, I ripped up my hands like I was back on the bars in gymnastics), etc.  Also, trying to emphasize hill workouts, rough interval stuff, hard swim sets, and other force workouts.  Lifting heavy things in the gym is not the only way to gain strength but I’m still trying to do that once a week if I’m not 100% zapped.  Last week I was, this week I think I’m ok.

Work has been interesting as well.  A little soap-opera-y right now, but nothing tragic.  Lots of people and things changing around.  Lots of *last day* happy hours and welcome to the company announcements.  It’s a little weird, though where I’m at is pretty stable, thankfully.  Could actually be awesome.  We’ll see!  Hello vagueblogging!

In the attempt to cram every bit of fun I can into life and not go into a 70.3 hole, I got to play the first campaign of a dungeons and dragons game.  My friend, who has created the story, has been working on the setting (story and painting EVERY INCH OF IT) for two years.  We all stepped up our game to actually roleplay, and I’ve been doing this “valley elf” magic user that is pretty much like Alicia Silverstone in Clueless and having a lot of fun.  I’ve got a secret though… it should be fun to reveal later.

Also, I finally got to see the Lego Movie with friends.  Everything is Awesome is totally going around mile 17 of my marathon playlist.

…and, that’s sort of life.  Training, eating clean-ish, trying to keep myself out of sleep debt, maintaining social obligations, and hoping I can whip myself into good shape for a 70.3 in 6 weeks while still maintaining my sanity, my relationships, and my job.  Y’know, no big deal.  Just a few plates to spin.  I’m used to it.

A vacation post will come soon with some awesome aquarium pics.  Pinkie swear.