Adjusted Reality

Somehow, with how casually we took the training for Rocky 50, it didn’t hit me that this was going to be the second hardest race ever, second only to the Ironman in 2018.

The lead up consumed my life a lot less than training three sports, but hike/running sunup to sundown definitely was reminiscent of some of the Ironman long days. Just at lower intensity. The recovery from these training sessions and the race itself was so much less (a week later, I’m pretty happy, the Ironman took like SIX WEEKS). However the day of? Very very difficult effort.

Instead of retyping a lot of things I’ve already put words to, I’m going to copy some of my social media posts leading up to and after the race for posterity.

20 miles at Town Lake -> 20 million lbs of cheese.

A while ago, we saw an eatery (right next to our gym, ?) called Deluca, which is a Brazilian Pizza restaurant. Yes, this is what it sounds like – instead of a steakhouse, they just bring around slices of pizza. We were ultra running curious at that point and said when we did our first 20 miler, we’d come here for dinner.

Well, today was the day. We set out around 1030am, and the weather was impeccable, and so was the people-watching. Most memorable was the end, with a guy standing on the railing of one of the bridges (drenched, as if it wasn’t his first illegal jump) and a dude in a toy tesla truck (NOT a little kid). We started with a “run 0.1 miles, walk 0.4” cadence but started increasing this once we gained a little confidence. Both knees and ankles felt cranky at times, but the broken parts rotated throughout my legs, so that means it was nothing serious and while I am generally sore all over, nothing is too bad. For, ya know, doing 20 miles.

Feeling confident (at least more confident) about the 50k in February. I think if I had someone feeding me through the whole day I coulda kept going. 11 more miles? Well, we’ll find out. And I have a few more of these planned to test this theory.

We finished around 430, and headed home to clean up as quickly as we could and then consumed lobster bisque, arugula salad, meatballs, and I think I counted 13ish small slices by the crusts left… about a small pizza’s worth. The Turkish lamb pizza was the best and I’d go back maybe even for the Ala carte if not the full gluttony.

I die now. I have a personal trainer appointment at 10am tomorrow and I know one thing for sure – it ain’t leg day. ?

First 20 miler (Dec 29th)

Been a really super by-the-books build to a 50k. ?

For example, we had 22 miles on the plan because, idk, it was somewhere between 20, which we did last time, and 31.1, which is race distance. We had tentatively planned to do another long run/walk and picked 25 miles because our longest training runs for a marathon are 20 miles, and then you add 10k on race day. Samesies here.

So, because time is an illusion these days, I had our 25 planned for last week in January, which actually ended up to be Feb 1, which was 7 days out from the race. Oopsies. And the next two weekends don’t really have time for stuff like this, so when I asked @jetsers if he could wrap his head around 3 more miles he pretty much did this ?and our counter went from 17 more miles to 20 more miles at mile 5. Glad I have such an adaptable adventure buddy.

My nutrition plan for the race is basically 2x some kid’s school lunch. I ate two chicken salad sandwiches and two bags of chips, maybe a scoop and a half of tailwind, and a few handfuls of candy. I burned about 2800, ate a little over 1k, and felt pretty good the whole time. Definitely need fewer calories to walk/run than just run.

The first 13 miles were awesome. We started the first 3 faster to warm up, running half a mile, and walking half a mile. Then, we took the whole 10 mile Town Lake loop with the camelback after a change of shoes (I’m breaking in new trail shoes so lots of changes today) with about a .2 mile run, .3 mile walk cadence. By the end, Joel had crampy calves, and sadly a pit stop and nutrition didn’t fix it, so miles 14-20 were mentally rough. I can’t walk as quickly as he can without something cramping myself, but I still possessed the power to run, so I just turned on the headphones and let him pass me, then I caught up and got ahead until he caught me over and over.

The next stop was just after 20 miles and I changed shoes again and we agreed on at least 3 more and somehow finished up 5 just as it was getting a little sketchy to see with my sunglasses on.

Pretty fun day overall, and had the best Indian food for dinner. We ordered 3 entrees and an appetizer. Some came home but not as much as you might think.

Bring it on, Rocky 50k! But… um… not right now, thanks.

Impromptu 25 Miler (Jan 12)

Twelve hours from now, we will attempt to go further on foot than we ever have before! ???? ????

After a lovely morning but also stressful morning of work, we shut it down and started to prepare for tomorrow.

50k race prep is something different:
-Get ice, like 50 lbs of it, so we have enough for the camelback twice even if some melts
-Nap. Totally important part of today
-5k walk back and forth to packet pickup and race briefing, and dropped our drop bags off
-Eating alllll the food. My body somehow knows what it’s in for tomorrow, and I think I ate four full meals today
-Race nutrition prep: using an entire half loaf of bread to make chicken salad sandwiches and sunbutter jellies for Joel White as well as all the chips and candy
-Kinda feels weird laying out a tank top and shorts for a Feb 8th race, but here we are with a high of 83 tomorrow. It’s better than 30 and rainy for a trail race!

Everything is now locked and loaded, all the stuff is packed, and only one more sleep until Rocky 50! Woo!

Day Before Rocky 50 (Feb 7)

Rocky 50… ??

I was unprepared for the adventure that was to be. I mean, I trained for it. But I highly underestimated the difference between the trails I trained on vs the Rocky course. It wasn’t the elevation, as this was pretty mild, but… the roots. They mentioned them but I was like, whatever, trails have tree roots. This course has ROOTS.

For some reason at the start, my legs weren’t feeling fresh and it never really got better, but sometimes that’s what the day gives you. I have no shortage of training on tired legs so it was what it was. Joel thought we forgot his sandwiches in the camper, so we took a .75 mile detour and found they were in his pack. D’oh for both of us forgetting to check. We kept a nice pace the first loop, enjoying the aid station buffets – normally there’s PBJs and fruit and chips and pickles, but bacon at mile 9 and 15 was a treat. I ate my chicken salad sandwiches as planned and noted some candy when spirits got low. I was a hydration champ and even ran my camelback out between the 6 miles between stops, which is not normal for me but I guess that’s what a random 85 degree day in February does.

I also had my first trail fall around mile 14. My foot caught something invisible and I went down… but thanks to 13 years of gymnastics muscle memory kicked in and I just tucked my head and rolled over my shoulder. It freaked Joel out but I was fine (sorta, have a nice little bruise on my shoulder today but it didn’t even register on the list of hurts yesterday) and we proceeded after I unsuccessfully tried to brush the dirt off.

At the halfway we had a little sit and reapplied sunscreen and used the potties and were off again with just about a 12 min stop. Our pace continued to slow but it was what it was. At 18, we stopped on a bench to eat and I took my socks and shoes off to try to clean out some trail gunk as I felt hot spots starting to form. Wildly unsuccessful but it felt nice. By the 21 mile aid station, I was having a rough go of it. With training, I was done or at least almost there and I still had 10 (actually 12 <>) to go and that’s a lot of miles. This one was the highlightfor me as the had super salty ramen AND mashed potatoes made with chicken broth. Not for Joel though. They accidentally fed him a quesadilla with peanut butter, which was bad news since he is highly allergic. I watched him for the next few miles to make sure we didn’t have to call it. Everything was fine. Ish.

This was the low point if the race for me. 21 miles is a lot, and in training I was either done or almost done. I had 10 (actually 12 ><) to go and that’s also a lot of miles. The time between this aid station and the next at 26.5 was approximately 10 years. However after a sit, a refuel and refill, and rubbing some trigger point on my aching knees and back, I felt better.

We left there at 6pm, which was about our anticipated finish, and still had miles to go, and I was thankful we had packed our headlamps just in case. Unfortunately they were both decade+ old, and mine was dim and Joel’s died quickly. So, he used the flashlight on his phone with me behind, calling out each rock, root, muddy spot, whatever. I spent 2.5 hours looking at the ground directly at my feet. It’s honestly the most monofocused I’ve been able to be in a long time. Root. Root. Rock. Mud. Step down. Step up. Nothing existed beyond the two feet in front of me.

So we plodded. And plodded. Root. Root. Rock. Mud. Step. Step. I made an exception to my complaint rule when the girl that passed us said she thought there was 2.5 miles to go and my watch was already at 30 miles. But nothing to do but plod forward in the dark and quiet. Root. Root. Rock. Mud. Up. Down. And then finally the dark became light and there was the finish chute and medals and cake.

More thoughts about the aftermath and the future later, but I am certain this was the second hardest race I’ve ever done, coming in just after the full Ironman in 2018. It’s nice to be back to doing difficult physical challenges again.

Today is about ice packs, relaxing, and eating and drinking all the things.

ROCKY 50 Day (Feb 8)

50k tales continue!

After the race, we hobbled around to collect our stuff and sadly, the drop bags weren’t there yet (next time we’ll probably skip it… if there is a next time). So I convinced Joel not to just take a lazy shower in the sink but an actual shower. I navigated the camper stairs and grabbed shower stuff – he walked the extra quarter mile to the truck, it was only fair, and oh boy, that was an absolutely wonderful crappy campsite shower. After we got our bags, we made microwave cheese enchiladas and had a few beers to ease the ache in our legs and then slept like the dead.

Sunday was an awesome day of reading and napping and eating and repeating all that again. These long efforts at lower intensity are definitely serious in the moment, but recovering is so much easier than running marathons or Ironman, even halfs. My biggest complaint was the giant blister on my toe (might post in the comments, it’s impressive and two days later HASN’T POPPED YET!), some chafing, and yeah, sore muscles, but I’m not hobbling or anything.

All the wonderful calories I consumed didn’t mix well, and I was up for a few hours feeling icky last night, but I woke up today feeling great! We had a nice, eventful ride home, stopping at a gas station burger shop that was AMAZING (all the beef came from the ranch behind it). And now, we’re unpacked, showered, and having one last hurrah at Pinthouse Pizza before calories matter again tomorrow.

My thoughts on 50ks: I am pretty sure this isn’t a one and done for Ultramarathons, but I’d also like to get stronger on trails first at shorter distances before I try again. Eyeing the half marathon we did in June last year as the next trail race (mostly for the excuse to camp again). Playing on trails for the morning sounds nice. Thirteen hours was a lot. ?

For now, hikes and walks get to go back to being for fun/activity, and after a week or two, I may reintroduce myself to my bike and the pool.

ROCKY 50 After the RAce and day after (FEB 8-9)

And a week later, admittedly a week of just walking and weights, we went on a 12-mile Walko Taco and I’m prepping to return to running tomorrow. All in all, it was a pretty cool experience to push myself that far again. A nice reminder that I can do the difficult stuff physically, even if I may not be in the peak physical condition I was pre-pandemic. I’m looking forward, as I said last post, to establishing more consistency vs the “weekend warrior” type training we did for this race, but it was super fun to go out and spend 4, 6, 8… 13 hours on our feet persistently moving forward to remember that sometimes, it’s just all about being too stubborn to quit.

I had a feeling this year wasn’t going to start out hardcore progress towards weight loss.

Let’s not call me a pessimist, but a realist. And, shocker, REALISM won out over progress.

• Week 1: surprise visit from the parent parent company CEO. Ended up being a very nice meet and greet, but it added a twist to what’s normally a week of just remembering how to human again after the holidays. Cold AF weather. Also, impromptu 25-mile training day when I realized that it was my last chance with the coming weeks ahead.
• Week 2: Theater outing and then a trip to Houston for a wedding. Less activity and more “sometimes food” than normal. Also, work begins to escalate.
• Week 3: More cold AF weather. Work ramps up to insane levels of insanity, we have D&D night and hosting the parents in the same weekend (social overextension, engage!)
• Week 4: Work gets even more stressful, last training day of 10 miles, allergies hit hardcore in Austin and I want to die.
• Week 5: Weather drama! 50k race! (post forthcoming) Work stress! Oh my!
• Week 6: 50k race recovery and uh… nonsense. More cold AF weather. Work reaches a crescendo where it feels like a four-day work week was at least two months. But… there is light at the end of the tunnel as some things have come to a conclusion.

So, here we are approaching Week 7, where it’s time to reset, stop the nonsense, stop making excuses, and get with the program, and make some progress. Now, to be fair, there needs to be a program again to get with. This has been solved.

#1 The unwanted kettlebell

I maybe had one week where I did good, every other week has been… eh. Either I’ve fallen off tracking or at least failed at keeping the numbers in balance. I have proven to myself time and time again if I don’t measure what I eat, I will overeat and gain weight. It’s just the price I have to pay to be me. It’s no big deal if I keep up with it every day, taking wayyyyy less time than doomscrolling or my Duolingo sessions. So, back to it. No excuses. 1200 calories + activity (and looking to average about 1500-2000/day depending on what I’m doing now that I’m not doing 5+ hour training sessions with some weekdays where I’m only walking 1 mile – workouts should have more consistency).

Due to various reasons above, I haven’t had that chat with whiskey yet. That happens today and the pins come out. I have a set number of drinks I’ll let myself have in a week, and each time I have one, I move the safety pin out of a glass in my kitchen. When the glass is empty… I’m done for the week (just like calories – when my calorie bank account is gone, I’m done eating for the day).

I have been so/so on lots of fruit and veggies. When I go out of town it disrupts my normal eating, and then also disrupts when I do a grocery order/get Snap Kitchen. Both trips we put off getting groceries a whole week. I need to aim to replenish my produce quicker once I’m back or I end up eating junk/takeout. The good news is that when I’ve taken my blood pressure, I’ve been normal. The one thing I have stuck with is not salting my food, and that seems to have been enough to keep that in line.

So, the big thing here is just go back to measuring things and re-establish the good habits. Today honestly feels more like New Years Day than Jan 1 did because I knew what I was up against early in the year. I mean, it’s not going to stop and it’s never going to be the perfect time. I’ve got March coming up which is always challenging (everyone’s birthdays! I’m going to GDC this year! office grand opening so we will have EVENTS! so many social obligations I’m already dreading the overextension!), but I have a few weeks to get there with some better practices and momentum. So, let’s make that happen by focusing on those.

#2 Sporty Stuff

Now that we’ve conquered the 50k, training will go back to being more reasonable than 5 to 8-hour hike/walks. I’m actually excited to get back to a little bit of triathlon training, if for no other reason than the variety. Trails have made me super strong and sturdy, so I don’t want to give them up completely, but maybe once a month for the hikes and for a few hours instead of most weekends for half of the day, and for fun, not trying to keep a specific pace.

I also am ready to re-acquaint myself with my bike (and possibly swimming). I can count on one hand the number of times I rode my bike since Kerrville, and I don’t need any fingers to count my trips to the pool (zero). I had thought PERHAPS I’d just gravitate towards one or both of those for extra inside activity but hopes and thoughts here did not work.

I need a plan. So, I’ll do that. Here’s what my next week will look like:

Week 1. Weather sucks Wed-Fri (Sat may be a little cold but not quite as bad).

• Monday – Run 5k, walk to the gym and back, lift chest and shoulders
• Tuesday – Bike 30 mins, walk 1+ mile
• Wednesday – lift back and biceps at home, walk 1 mile on the treadmill
• Thursday – Bike 30 mins, walk 1 mile on the treadmill
• Friday – lift legs with trainer, swim (???), walk mile inside
• Saturday – 5k+ run, walk a mile
• Sunday – walk

And now, let’s be honest about all the challenges to do this and get back to a calorie deficit.

• Monday – weather will be beautiful, and I have the day off. No excuses here.
• Tuesday – I’ll do the bike in the morning, so I don’t skip it. Weather looks nice for a walk outside so that should be enjoyable.
• Wednesday – Weather will suck, so not planning to leave the house for workouts. I can do all this between meetings at home.
• Thursday – Weather will suck, so I’ll do this in the morning at home so there are no excuses later.
  • We have a filmed interview that afternoon for work and a happy hour. I’ll plan to eat healthy foods at home (no going out for lunch or dinner too) and enjoy a few drinks as the calories allow.
• Friday – Weather will suck so this will all be inside. I have a trainer appointment anyway so I’m going to at least bring my swim stuff and TRY to swim.
  • D&D after work which means snacks. I’ll stick with the least offensive calories ones (pretzels/veggies/dip) and not buy anything fancy. Something like a big salad and brothy soup for dinner so I’m full on less calories than a normal meal.
• Saturday – I want to run so I will suck it up in what will be something like 40-ish degrees, with a walk cool down.
  • Family day. Woof. This one is difficult. Big meal, dessert, and in proximity to second helpings and snacks for 6+ hours. So, I guess I’ll make it a game. Every hour, I can pick at something but no more than that. If we eat lunch at noon, I can have a spoonful of extra veggies at 1. I can have a bite of chex mix at 2. I can pick up an extra slice of protein at 3. And… a small slice of whatever is dessert. I always feel sick after eating sweets, I really just want a taste not a full serving.
  • After the previous 3 days I will be socially overextended so plan some calories for a few drinks while reading my book and not talking to anyone.
• Sunday – Day off of everything (besides walking). Make sure to have a plan for Sunday morning food that fits in the calorie budget instead of ordering whatever for delivery. It does look really nice for a walk though, so enjoy it!

Yeah, it’s a lot. But at least thinking through what the week will entail helps me anticipate the situations where my plan will go off the rails. Weirdly enough, the week after has beautiful weather and NO social obligations, so it may look more like this:

• Monday – 5k run, walk to gym after work and lift back and biceps
• Tuesday – 30 min bike morning, 1+ mile walk after work
• Wednesday – lift legs at home, 1+ mile walk at lunch/after work
• Thursday – 5k run, 1+ mile walk at lunch/after work
• Friday – walk to gym, trainer chest and shoulders, swim
• Saturday – bike ride outside for the first time in forever
• Sunday – beautiful walk in the sunshine

…but, we always want to reset the plan the weekend before because who knows, I could have a long lost relative come into town or the opportunity to fly to Fiji or nuclear winter could happen (in which case, I probably have bigger problems).

Another thing that helps with this is using our “The Plan” spreadsheet where we would put all this stuff before, so it wasn’t a surprise what we were eating or doing or how we were working out that day. So, I’ve resurrected that as well.

In terms of the other stuff:

#3 Adulting

• We (mostly Joel!) cleaned out the nonsense in the cubby under the coffee table one day. It’s been bugging me for years. Most things were just junk but found some gems (old game CDs, etc).
• All the goodwill stuff went to goodwill, and the Christmas stuff got taken down… later than I’d like to admit but we got there!
• Doctors!
  • I had my checkup (I am a healthy human specimen, yay)
  • Had my pre-visit for the 45-year-old thing (colonoscopy) which I will have in April like a good girl even though I really wanted to just go for the “poop in a box” route (at least will do the actual procedure for the first one)
  • Had my moles checked and none are worrisome. Also yay!
• Lots of truck and camper drama to get us to the 50k race (again, mostly Joel) but everything is taken care of now.

For the next two weeks, I’m going to focus on the first two goals (building good habits) rather than more chores, but I do have some spring things I’d like to do so we’ll get back to that soon.

#4 Fun Stuff

I have been MOSTLY consumed with work, prepping for the 50k, cranky because of the weather and other stuff, and feeling socially overextended so I haven’t done a ton here. But, to not sell myself completely short:

• Saw two theater productions – Clue and Les Miserables
• Weekend trip to Houston for a wedding and a day of sightseeing in the city
• D&D with friends (and again this week)
• Family day (and again this week)
• Worked on the book at least once (and planning to this weekend as well)
• Picked up the guitar a little bit, but annoyed with the state of my office and the state of my guitars
• Some photo editing in there as well but definitely not that much
• Camping trip to Huntsville TX for the 50k race and relaxing after
• Walko Taco Day #2!

I have spent a lot more time reading and staring off into space to relax vs creating. It’s ok. It feels like the circle is coming around again. I shall restate my intentions and move along:

• 1 hour minimum of book work per week (more is great, but not to any point where I feel frustrated or burnt out)
• 1 guitar song per WFH day
• Get back to editing some photos while watching silly TV or just as a way to wind down after work vs doomscrolling

I think everything else waits a bit to be in focus. Trying to do all the things at once usually fails spectacularly.

#5 Work/Life Balance

This was absolute rubbish the last few weeks. I worked a full day in Houston only quitting an hour before leaving for the wedding. I reversed half a PTO day the day before the 50k because I just couldn’t NOT work. These were acute issues that have since resolved themselves, but it sucked that I couldn’t do a trip without work yet this year.

In the next two weeks, I resolve to swing the other way – putting work in a box when I leave and picking it up the next business day FOR REALS. I have done a good by keeping a solid to do list, have occasionally shut down Teams chats long enough to get focused work done instead of doing it badly while distracted, and I did schedule myself the 4pm hour daily basically to strategize on problems I don’t have time for otherwise, do correspondence I’ve been putting off, update my To Do list, and start winding down for the day. Not to say I can always leave by 5, but it’s the start of my wrap up most days.

So, yeah. February (the rest of it at least):

• Track the food, track the booze/empty calories (and aim for less of it), treat both things like a bank account that cannot be borrowed against. Make a food plan.
• Make biking and swimming a thing again and follow the workout plan.
• PLAN PLAN PLAN instead of winging it and then being surprised when things surprise me.
• 1 hour/week on the book, edit some photos, pick up the guitar but like the first three things on this list are the most important.

…and then we will deal with March things in March and figure out how to navigate birthday and traveling fun times without killing my momentum. But first, establishing that momentum with New Years Day Take Two!