Boy, are my arms tired…

I have flown ten times since we spoke last, and boy, are my arms tired.

We went Austin -> Denver -> Switzerland -> Hamburg, then a few days later took the train 4.5h to Koln, then flew Koln ->Munich -> Chicago -> Austin. Then, 3.5 days later, we turned around and did Austin -> LA -> Seattle (and back). I’ve been in nine different airports, and three different countries. Only once was my luggage lost (it didn’t make the connection from Koln -> Munich, so it had it’s own German adventure, apparently), and twice did I get into the Austin airport after midnight.

I enjoy traveling, I love adventures, and I feel super privileged to have the opportunity to do it for work. However, I crashed into the last few days of Seattle a freaking zombie and have just barely gotten my mojo back. No Covid (knock on wood), no sickness, just exhaustion through and through.

Even though it feels like August barely existed, let’s talk about the triumphs and tragedies in regards to my personal goals.

#1 Weigh some weight at some point…

As of today, we reset at 183.6, the average of what I weighed last week. Not terrible for 3 weeks of travel, but still a little gain. My goal is to not gain anything else in September (losing if I can!) and get back to the goal of four per month in the last three months of the year.

My goal in August was to track all my food. I did… some of it. I actually did the entire Germany trip until the flight home, and then I just fell off through the three days at home and then Seattle. Long story short, I did really well in Hamburg, did REALLY poorly in Koln (convention work is get whatever food you can in you so you can keep going and the drinks, they do flow…), and I’m going to guess I did fair to middling in Seattle.

At this point, all you can do is start again. I’ve been tracking since last Thursday, I have Snap Kitchen and Factor back in my life, and while it took a bit to detox the extra caffeine and extra calories, I am ready for three months or so of normalcy.

September goals are same as they ever were. Easy to state, difficult to stick with.

• Track every day
• 1200 + activity calories
• Detox the caffeine and be excited for boring food again

#2 Strength Over Stamina:

I was not perfect here, but between work, travel, and conventions, I was able to do:

• Two runs in Hamburg
• One row (40 mins in a canoe) in Hamburg (counting this as back and biceps because… yeah)
• Jack and pucky in Koln (yeah, I officially missed chest and shoulders and legs this week)
• Back and bi and chest and shoulders at home
• Two runs in Seattle
• Legs and chest and shoulders in Seattle
• One elliptical in Seattle
• Back and biceps and legs at home last week

This is not as much as I’d hoped but it’s more than I honestly expected. I kept up with all my weights except Koln week, and if I’m being honest, the amount of stairs I was climbing probably SHOULD count for legs. I was thrilled to find a gym in Seattle or I might not have been able to do much. I didn’t feel super comfortable going too far from our hotel. We were in a nice area but five blocks away… it was not so good. In all three places I was getting 15k+ steps per day and lots of standing, so it’s not as if I was sedentary.

Now, I’m back to being sedentary minus workouts, but thankfully the weather is easing up just a little bit. So, here’s my goals:

• Swim a few times, at least once in the lake (lake done!)
• Race distance bike, some shorter (done)
• Three runs per week, some off the bike (yep)
• Weights as usual (I really slacked on back and bi this week but… technically done)
• Stay on top of recovery – 3x week stretch and roll, most days ice and boots (heck yes)
• Waaaaalks. A few times a week now that the highs are like ten degrees cooler (wheeeeee!)

Oh yeah, and I race in 6 days. Obviously, my lead up has been sub-par for… reasons. Thankfully, I’ve been lifting and running regularly, and cycling semi-regularly, regularly before the travel. Swimming, well, it is what it is. All I need out of the weekend is a good, solid finish, and some quiet time camping. It’ll be nice to return to the race where I hit rock bottom and resolved to stop whining about being so far from fighting form and work on getting back there. I’m not there yet but I’m on the path. We’ll see what that means in the moment.

#3 Surroundings

I cleaned nothing. I did however make sure to take the convention swag I didn’t actually want to the office quickly. Baby steps.

This month I’d like to clean out two drawers of mine. More baby steps.

#4 Relaxing Hobbies

• Finish London photos. YEP! London Travel Blog – NOPE!
• 4 Bloodbowl games and 10 hours into Persona – 100% NOPE.
• Meditate 5x week. Ehhhh, probably about 3x week while I was travelling but I’m back to it.

For September…

• London Travel Blog, Krause Springs Photo Editing, Krause Springs Travel Blog
• Guitar 3x week
• 4 Bloodbowl Games (I’m really rusty!), play some Baldur’s Gate (downloading now, so excite!)
• Meditate 5x week

#5 Write a Book

My August goal was to share my draft with someone else. On the way to Germany, I finished a read, and I actually think it’s in better shape than I expected. I don’t hate it. I sort of shared it, and then told Joel to wait because man, one more edit pass, and I’ll actually be super proud of it. Well, proud enough to share with Joel. And then maybe two more edit passes before I send it to anyone else. 🙂 Baby steps.

Two goals this month:

• Not touch my book until after Sept 10th (to give myself some space from it)
• Do the edit pass and ready it for one more read during camping in two weeks

Spoiler alert: I did both these things. I am giving myself up til I leave to continue to tweak it, but I’m ready to send it to my first reader, and should that go well, my second. 🙂

It’s weird writing this blog over like a week and seeing myself complete things I wrote before I posted this, but what’s left for September?

• Continue to track daily (no excuses now that I’m back) and weigh most days
• Prep for Kerrville, and after Kerrville continue to lift 3x week and stay active (5xweek cardio)
• More waaaaaalks (yay!)
• Clean out two drawers
• Photo editing and travel blogging
• Give my book to my first reader this weekend!

It was nice to go places, but it’s really nice to be back home. Now, it’s time to resume progress on some of these things I mostly paused in June.