A little bit of sunshine

If I haven’t been clear, I really do hate this time of year…

…except when this time of year gives us random afternoons that are in the 70s and sunny when I can actually get out and ride my bike!

I’m typically booked to the hilt with afternoon meetings, but on Fridays, the schedule is a little more relaxed. I complained last week about how I’ve been missing my end of the week bike ride? Well, if the sun keeps shining like this, it’s much more likely I will reverse that trend. With approximately 29 days left before the time change, I’m going to aim to get outside to ride at least once a week until then. We were both geeked up to ride outside again yesterday for our brick… until we saw the weather. It was advertised as 54 and cloudy and windy (not perfect but posssssible) and 45 and hailing is what was delivered (just no). I *guess* I would if I had to, but this kind of weather is what the trainer + Bloodbowl games are for. Absolutely lovely weather for the run portion of the workout though, I was happily bopping around trying to catch hail on my tongue.

This week, I was able to successfully hit 100% of my workouts, even with today completely off. Hooray! As suspected, it just takes doing. Now, it’s time to ramp the difficulty just a bit and start ONE swim per week. After discussing logistics with the Joel, we decided our best bet would be the pool down the street from the house (indoors), but at an abnormal time (during the workday, and we’d adjust our schedule). So, we have a date to swim at 3:30 on Monday. We shall see how that goes!

So, this looks like:

• Monday: Circuits AM, Run 5k lunch, Swim 3:30pm (wow, a triple!)
• Tuesday: Bike 45 min AM trainer
• Wednesday: Run 2-3 miles AM, leg workout lunch
• Thursday: off/walk if it’s nice
• Friday: Circuits AM, ride bikes outside again (45 min-1h) pretty please?
• Saturday: 1h15 ride, 4 mile run
• Sunday: off/walk if it’s nice

Wednesday will be a challenge, I have a 9am meeting so I need to get running pretty dang early, but I can walk in the door and show up sweaty to it (thanks Teams for not relaying smells over calls). I also only have a 30-minute window for lunch, but easy enough to do my leg workout during that time, whilst I nuke my food, and spend 5 mins off camera stuffing my face at my next meeting. In the before times, I was heckin’ busy as well and got it done. I need to get back to that mentality of just making training work around my schedule even if it’s not optimal conditions.

I’m feeling buoyed by this week’s sporty success, but a little hesitant to say I’ve solved all my stupid mental blocks about training yet. If I can get a few more weeks under my belt like this, I’ll be more confident.

In other encouraging news, February’s trend line looks like dis:

The line is actually going somewhere, y’all! *happy dance*

My goal was to cut my calories to around 1350/day average from 1500. In practice, before, I was just shy of 1600/day per week. Last week, with an effort to eat less, I cut that to 1468/day. So, it looks like that, plus a slight increase in activity, was enough to start the trend line going in the right direction.

Let’s not concentrate on the fact that some *&$holes stop drinking sugared soda and go for a walk and start losing 2 lbs/week, and here I am lifting three times a week, doing about 5 hours of fairly intense cardio, and eating like a freaking bird to achieve any sort of results. Let’s instead focus that I’ve found something that is working and I’m pretty willing to do whatever is necessary for a little while to get rid of that lumpy too-stuffed sausage feeling I’m rocking right now.

Yeah, it means that snacks don’t really exist in my world right now. Yeah, it means some nights I need to choose between having dinner and having a few drinks + a snack. Yeah, it means I need to be VERY careful to check my mood and make sure I’m not HANGRY at people. However, it’s going to be worth it when I’m back near my fighting weight and feel confident and happy in my own skin again. Blah blah blah, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. I abhor all the stupid diet rhetoric that attempts to placate angry calorie-starved people as they dig into yet another plate of plain chicken and broccoli. But, like I said, it’s working, so I’ll play along for a bit until I can get back to riding bikes for a few hours and stopping for pizza and beer on the way home.

I slept well and my resting HR average is back down to 49, though my stress levels don’t seem to be going down. On the flip side, I didn’t prioritize was recovery, and it shows because my heel is a little cranky today and things feel tight all over. So, next week’s goals are:

• 100% of my workouts, no excuses
• Aim for 1200 calories/day every day that I can, 1500 max on other days and try for my average to be closer to 1350
• Pick two recovery things per day: stretch, roll, ice, boots, massage (and they can’t be the same two every day)

Hopefully the sun continues to shine (both literally and figuratively) on my efforts and cheers to another great week!