April Check-ins Make May Progress

I’ve been focusing much of my creative time on fiction writing, but lest we think I’ve jumped off the wagon, ’tis not the case, friendos.

So, here’s a quickie check in on April smack dab in the middle of it!

#1 – Weigh 180.2 lbs by April 30th. Progress is being made. I’m tracking on the daily (not days at a time). Using the formula of 1200+ exercise calories – I’m staying an average of ~50 per day under that. I’ve reversed the upward trends from March, and I’m making my way back towards the 170s. I’m honestly not sure I’ll make the number goal I want this month, though anything could happen. However, I will keep at it and would be stoked to see the line continue to creep on down and would sure be neat to see at least one weight in the 170s this month.

#2 – Strength Over Stamina. Well, this is a whole lot of NOT NOTHING!

I finally figured out when to swim this week (as early after work on Mondays as possible), and I found a little speed last time and brought my pace under 2:00/100yd. Woo!

Running is back on the menu, and I’m here for it. Pain free is a bit of a misnomer, but I’m running with a warmup/prehab routine, vigorous applications of my new massage gun after, and most importantly, with the blessing of my chiropractor. I’m almost back up to 5k and will hang out there again 3x week until there’s zero issues. And maybe even longer, I’m not racing anything longer than 5k off the bike.

When I’m on the bike this month, I’m doing something challenging to see if it can improve my fitness. Technically I did an FTP test already, but it was just in place of a difficult workout (and my numbers went down, actually, I wasn’t feeling it). I got a new bike Garmin, and I have a new type of test to try later this month. Excite! I’ve ridden outside twice this month, and plan to get plenty of smiley bike miles outdoors whilst camping. I haven’t run off the bike recently, but I imagine that will change soon as I have actually signed up for races!

• Cap Tex Triathlon – Sprint (May 29)
• Lake Pflugerville Tri – Sprint (June 25)
• Kerrville Triathlon – Sprint (Sept 23)

Keeping it short and sweet to stay true to this year’s focus on strength, but this will keep me honest with my cardio. I need races in my life to scare me into doing the things that I actually really enjoy once I start doing them, if that makes any damn sense.

#3 Stop Ignoring My Surroundings

Let’s move on. I’m letting Sir Joelio dictate the timeline and my involvement in helping him with his projects, and we just haven’t done much. S’okay. Other stuff is happening and it would be a shame to waste this beautiful weather cleaning things. Bleh.

#4 Relaxing Hobbies

• Continue my meditation goal of 5xweek and go camping! Ehhh, it’s close if not exact. I’m hoping camping helps me focus a bit more. Focus is a little challenging these days.
• Finish the minis by our first April play session. Hey, I did this!
• Every WFH day take a guitar break. YES! I’ve been pretty darn good at taking some guitar breaks this month. I just need to intend to do it until it’s habit.
• Finish the post on Koln DONE!!!
• Get through the first 2 full days of Paris photos. Well – I’m done with Day 1 and moving onto day 2. And day two has almost 600 to sift through. I may not complete this, but I’m moving through them. I’m motivated by impending travel. 🙂

And finally, #5 – Write Stuff.

This is going REALLY REALLY well. I’m closing in on 50k words (~49k now), which is great. But much more importantly, I know where I’m going now. One evening, the payoff at the end came to me, and I loosely wrote the ending and the epilogue to lead to the next book in my head. Then, I watched ahead and found out the ending I came up with actually goes along with the campaign timeline that actually happened! I now have progress happening on all the plots and I’m preparing to wrap them up.

I plan to do another “kindle read” at the 75% complete stage while camping, and… if nothing completely throws me off track, I might have a rough draft sometime this summer!

This has been a pretty solid month so far, and I’m enjoying the ride (especially because I’ve been able to ride outside, woohoo!). I’m VERY VERY VERY much looking forward to our camping trip coming up here shortly to play bikes, read books, and just chill the eff out.