What comes next?

Some of you are singing Hamilton now, and some of you are just wrong.

It is clear to me that I need some racing in my life for motivation to do something besides work and sit on my couch after work and play Bloodbowl. It’s also crystal clear that training for longer races right now is the height of folly. The dominos are starting to fall into place where I may downgrade my level of WOAH from bananapants to just busy this summer, and I’d like to enjoy that for a month or two instead of deciding my vacation of working 40 hours a week should be bookended by doubles and multi-hour training sessions.

So, sprints it is! I’m about to give the credit card a workout and sign up for:

• 6/26 Lake PF Tri (sprint)
• 9/26 Kerrville (sprint)
• 10/9 Wurst Tri Ever (sprint)

I had thoughts about wanting to do a longer distance at Kerrville but y’know what? I’m good with 60-90 minutes of pain right now vs 6-7 hours. My goal is to participate at Pflugerville for funsies, and then get serious about trying to race Kerrville and Wurst Tri. Well, as serious as one can get whilst starting the race descending a 2-story water slide, as that certainly adds some levity to the competition, heh.

How do I get there? Hey, remember all those big words about #projectraceweighttakefiftyorwhatever I had earlier in the year? Pitter patter (I need this shirt). It’s time to fully focus on this. If I do nothing more than maintain some level of cardio fitness, lift heavy things, and lose weight, this is probably the best training I can do for a sprint later this year.

So, if this sounds like more words about the same ol’ same ol’, it totally is. And obviously, I need to say ’em a few more times at least until I start doing them.

Tracking my food starts TODAY (and weighing starts tomorrow since I’ve already eaten). I initially said “Monday” but who gives a crap that it’s a weekend? Why wait longer to pursue my goals? From now until the end of the month (with a little break, you’ll see soon why I’m giving myself some leniency initially here) is to re-establish the habit and quantify my intake vs exercise and weight. I got on the scale on a random day in late April and it read 190.2, so that would make my trendweight go down… if I could find the damn site that I was tracking it on. Maybe I’ll just start over and make my own trendweight tracker, that way I’ll never lose it. Either way, thankfully I haven’t gained but there’s no more ignoring it.

Going forward, the workout plan is vague but the scheduling won’t be.

• 5x week 30+ mins of cardio
• 3x week weights session
• 3x week stretch/roll

This will be a fight of wants vs musts. Now that it’s all nice and summery out, what my doe-eyed self currently wants to plan is all manner of swimming in lakes and outdoor pools, outdoor bike rides, sunrise jaunts with my running shoes, spin classes, etc. Middle-of-the-day-Wednesday me, fighting with my to-do list, is probably going to get on the trainer for 30 mins exactly working from my phone half the time. And that’s okay. This plan allows for both methods to be valid ways to check the box. Move my arse for 30 mins? Check.

So, I’ll ask for the happy and settle for the mildly crappy. As of now, next week looks oddly sane. I won’t believe it yet, but it makes me think perhaps we can do such things as:

• Monday – weights AM, outdoor ride lunch
• Tuesday – trainer ride lunch
• Wednesday – run 2-3 miles, weights AM
• Thursday – off
• Friday – run 2-3 miles, weights AM
• Saturday or Sunday – outdoor bike ride, swim in the lake

However, could be:

• Monday – weights AM, trainer ride whenever
• Tuesday – trainer ride lunch
• Wednesday – weights AM, trainer ride whenever
• Thursday – off
• Friday – weights AM, walk after work
• Saturday or Sunday – trainer ride

…and that’s fine too. It just can’t be:

• Monday – oops
• Tuesday – oops
• Wednesday – oops
• Thursday – oops
• Friday – oops
• Saturday or Sunday – finally, we do something

So, why am I not hopping 100% in immediately? Well, we’re on vacation later this month. Another cruise (aka, floating cavalcade of food stuffs). My goal this time is to not look at this as “one last hurrah” before I really buckle down, but to start AHEAD of the cruise and eat like a reasonable human being and not be an arsehole.

All words I have said before, but bear repeating to remind myself:

• On sea days, snack size breakfast at most or skip entirely, and for lunch, one plate of food + a soup or salad
• On diving days, significant enough breakfast to fuel diving (somewhere between the snack and a full plate), and lunch when I get back
• One piece of bread with dinner, and try to err on the side of entrees that aren’t fried, creamy, or otherwise high calorie unless they seem like they’ll be really worth it
• One dessert per day, maximum
• Try to lay off the snackses. And if I need to have them, eat less at a meal.
• Gym every day that I’m not diving

And while I’m not going to track my food in the app (no internet), I’m going to log each day what I eat and bring the travel scale to keep myself in check. Notice I’m not mentioning alcohol. I don’t aim to go crazy or anything, and I plan to stick to lower calorie drinks like hard seltzers, wine, and whisky on the rocks, but it’s still vacation. 🙂

Then, when we return, back to the plan immediately (tracking, weighing, consistent exercise), which should just feel like normal, just a little bit of a reduction of portion sizes from vacation. It is time to create the habits that brought me to success before. While they may be more challenging to get started, start again I shall.

Time to get back to this again. It starts today! 🙂