Last week was one that just felt so OFF.  Different.  Weird.  I mean, there was this election thing that kind of rocked our world, but on a more localized (aka – me) scale, it was still a weird week.

nov15-1

This is how weird it is y’all, I wore makeup.  And used a straightener.  Gasp!

The weirdest thing (locally) that happened?  I was out playing bikes yesterday afternoon on my cruiser, and I passed a dude with a bunch of stuff on a bike.  I’m in this GREAT mood because sun + endorphins + bike = happiness, so I say “isn’t it a beautiful day to be biking?” as I passed him.

Your normal response might be “hello” or “sure is!” or maybe a “meh” or just ignore them if you’re in a bad mood, right?  This gentleman’s normal response was to throw the contents of his drink (beer, I think) at me.  He missed, which I’m sure made him angry, so he started cussing at the world.  Realizing my presence angered a drunk guy and I was solo, I figured I should probably hightail it out of there in case he started throwing other stuff since he had a lot of ammo.  Normally it’s cars chucking things at cyclists, not other cyclists, heh.  Nevertheless, I’ll add this to my list of cycling achievements.

nov15-2

How adorable is this collage our club captain put together? <3

One of last week’s goals was to start tracking my food and making healthier choices and start considering maintaining a deficit again, and I did pretty good on Monday.  However, Tuesday through Sunday?  Not so great.  We celebrated all the triathlon things with our club and then our series finishers, and triathletes are a group of people that generally like to indulge. So there were fried foods and beer and tacos and chips and cake and brownies and wine and it was wonderful.

I also found my appetite is STILL not back to normal when Zliten and I ate the entire giant fajita-for-two plate and a whole bowl of chips on Friday night without feeling overly full.  My stomach has moments of feeling normal, and then I’ll go and have two full servings of dinner.  It’s frustrating, because I am OBVIOUSLY not maintaining enough activity for it, but the last thing I want to do is stunt my recovery by starving myself.  Baby steps.

The good news is that activity is coming back into my life fairly effortlessly.  The weather last week was amazing and I felt and continue to feel that good kind of antsy where I just want to get out and do stuff.  No surprise, my activity is skewing towards running as it tends to do in the fall.

I ran 3 times last week, because I wanted to – 4, 6,  and 7 miles.  No mileage or pace plan, just ran until I felt like I was done or I had to be somewhere.  My average easy pace seems to have come down to about 10:50-ish now that it’s not a million degrees outside and I imagine that will just get better with even lower temps and more running.  Maybe this week I’ll put something spicy in there to test out my legs, but if I’m not ready, I’ll just run.

nov15-3

Fall running makes me feel like dis.

Everything else was less than expected and that’s totally fine.  I rode my cruiser bike for about an hour but neither of my other serious business bikes.  We planned to do the 25 mile Tour De Donut, but the 6am Sunday wakeup call made us roll over in bed, look at each other, say “NOPE” and then go back to sleep. I did a weights session at the gym on Monday that had me sore until Friday, so I skipped the second session of the week.  I intended to swim at some point, but Zliten’s evil rib has earned him a no-swim mandate for another week, and it’s really hard to motivate to get to the gym myself.

Does that sounds like a lot of excuses and wankery?  Absolutely.  And that’s TOOOOOTALLY fine at this stage.  Pushing a rigid schedule year round is a recipe for burnout for me and while sometimes I want to be there, I am not yet.  I’ve got that little voice in the back of my head telling me my bike and swim endurance is going to shit on my break, but I’m successfully telling it to shut the hell up.  I’ve got plenty of time and I also have a few big rides and swims planned in the next two months, plus I can’t imagine I’ll lose my run base when it’s all I’m really motivated to do.  So there, stupid voices!

This week’s goal is to continue the baby steps.

Workouts:

Two weights session, stressing bodyweight/lighter weights.  Oddly enough, when you take a month off lifting, you can just go resume what you were doing.  I did one Oiselle Dozen last night, and I’m much more reasonably sore than last week, so I’ll follow up with another strength session of some sort later in the week.  Once I’m not a member of the walking dead after doing that regularly, I’ll resume throwing around heavier things.

Running, obviously.  I plan to run Saturday morning and I’d like to see double digits but only if my body wants to go there.  I’ll go out for some other jaunts as I can, probably in the mornings because we’re a little warmer this week (in the 80s).  It was nice to have fall for a few days!

Jul5-2

Don’t worry, there won’t be a shortage of bike commuting selfies ’round here.  I’ll just probably be wearing a little more. 🙂

I bike commuted yesterday and it’s the best.  I think I’d like to do that at least one more time this week.  I’d also like to get out and ride Evilbike, but that might be beyond the babysteps for this week.

Swimming…. eh… if I can make it there.  Once Zliten is off rib-rest, we’ll get back to it.  It sounds nice on my body and maybe one of those lunches where it’s 80 degrees I’ll get motivated.  But maybe not.

Food/Drink

I had really been indulging the last two weeks, and I can see the effects.  Last week, I barely slept through the night – I would wake up around 4am and have to read for somewhere between 30 mins and a few hours before I could fall asleep.  My weight is up from about 180-182 to 183-185.  I can’t see any way that I legit took in over 10k calories more than I burned in 2 weeks, especially with an enhanced metabolism for some of that, but my jiggly water retaining belly says regardless, my system is out of whack.

nov15-4

Steeeeeeamy.  Get in my belly (and make it jiggle, apparently).

This week, I’m taking a pass on alcohol, mostly.  I’m giving myself the option to have a few Saturday, but I’d like to have a good majority-of-the-week of detox before that.  My liver has been a trooper, and it needs a rest.  My tolerance is pretty wicked right now, so it takes a lot (and a lot of calories) to catch a buzz.  I took a mental recovery break for the last two weeks and indulged.  Now it’s actually time to let my body recover and treat it nicer so it doesn’t break down.

While I’m not going to go nuclear on my diet (eliminating alcohol for a week is enough of a shock to the system, heh), I am trying to push for more fruits and veggies and less junk, and for fucks sake, track my food.  I got through half of lunch yesterday and failed at the rest.  It’s all about making things a habit and this one has fallen off.

Life Stuff:

The motivation to start cranking on the to do list is still not there.  That’s alright.  I’m kind of enjoying being social, I’m kind of enjoying my lazy weekend mornings and early evenings curled in bed voraciously devouring this new book series, Metal Boxes. Besides work, I don’t have a lot of the have-tos right now, and I’m trying to calm my shit about the “shoulds”.

nov7-2

I *should* relax in my hammock is appropriate though.  Maybe chill on the beer though and drink some tart cherry juice to CALM the inflammation instead of encourage it.

Eventually I need to start being a responsible adult.  I need to find another doctor for a check up since mine left my network.  I need to make an appointment with a financial planner.  I need to clean my car.  I need to get going on my social media strategies and triathlon coaching.  But, I need to be READY to do that shit and I’m not mentally there yet.

This week, I’d simply like to get my new passport photo.  It’s expired, and I need to get it dealt with soon because I’ll be out of the country in May.  It will be really refreshing to get a new picture, as my old one was at my highest weight of 265 lbs and doesn’t even look like me.

Otherwise, I have plans to see two movies, we gamed with friends last night, and we have plans to introduce some of the family to virtual reality.

And that’s plenty.  Off to one of those movies (Arrival), I’ll let you know how it is!

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