September… wooo! It’s been a lot. Lot of fun. Lot of stress.

But, like, overall, a lot. But the good news is that…

#1 The Unwanted Kettlebell

Even with all the crazy, and travel, and such, things are still moving in the right direction. It’s still like a big fight for like 2 lbs a month but if I keep at it, I’ll be a happy camper before I know it. This progress is pretty much motivated by workouts. Yes, I am tracking carefully, but I am eating a lot. Because I’m working out a lot. Which means I eat a lot. Which means I need to work out a lot to keep progressing. It’s a cycle, but I’m enjoying it and not really complaining. Because I love food (healthy or not).

Still, for the month, though, I have tallied my over/under and I am at -3728 calories over my goal. That’s -124 calories per day. Obviously, I am still doing well enough to make progress, but I always seem to be slightly lagged (what I do 2-3 weeks earlier seems to catch up with me) so I shouldn’t be surprised if things slow down and it’s actually pretty justified if they do.

So, October’s goal will be to get back to eating a little less and banking more calories for days I need a little more.

#2 Sporty Spice Stuff

But hey, look at all those garmin entries, lots of workouts to burn the calories!

I skipped strength the week after I got back from Seattle – I was effing zonked. As you may notice by the almost 0 workouts besides walking the first week of September, but somehow still at 12 hours… because 8 of those were from my epic walkabout on Monday. After a light week, I was back to it and feeling great though.

Run: 25.5 miles, 11 runs. I did some shorter runs after my vacation to get back into it, and just now am getting back to not just easy pace.

Bike: 182 miles, 15 bikes. It was just easier to get back on the trainer and pedal out some miles so I did that. Same with the run, I am just really getting back to doing “what the garmin says”, though the problem is that the garmin has a lot of “base 1h30” and “long ride 2h50” which right now is just a NO. So, I’m cherry picking until I have more time. But hey, 2 of these were outside! And the first one shook out some major problems on the bike (my tires were too big and they were rubbing constantly!). I would have been PISSED if I didn’t find that until I raced.

Swim: 1250yd, 2 swims. One in the lake (race prep), one in the pool (instead of racing, more on that below).

Weights: 6 hours, 12 sessions. It’s definitely the vegetables of my fitness regiment but good thing I like vegetables.

Walking: 77 miles, 29h. It’s finally starting to get nice at some points during the day again (dawn, dusk) instead of just being soup so we’re enjoying it a bit more.

Next month, honestly? More of the same. I am enjoying it, feeling strong, and making (some, even though my garmin says I’m unproductive :P) progress. I know I just need to take a day or two here and there if I’m not feeling it and do something lighter for a bit and I do and I’ve been pretty consistent here for 6 months with the run/bike/walk/weights, so I’m just excited for some cooler weather at some point in which to do that.

So, yeah, I was supposed to race this month. Cal Tri Austin. We woke up after a fantastic night of pre-race sleep in our own bed (which was incredibly novel), did our usual morning puttering even got our mile walk in and then when we went to load up Truck Truck? Dead battery.

We had driven it the day before, so no indication anything was wrong. We had parked in the middle of the driveway, so the Pruis was trapped in the garage. Our portable car battery charger was in the truck… but hadn’t been charged for months. We put it in the charger and put in a call to roadside assistance and the wait for both were too long. So, I had my fourth DNS (did not start) since I started racing in 2009.

If this was an A race, I could have found a way. I could have run over some bushes with my car. We could have called two Uber XLs. But this one wasn’t. I was bummed to see I probably could have secured second or third in my age group, because it’s always fun to hear your name called and get a shiny piece of plastic to randomly validate your triathlon worth. But I signed up because it was close, and I wanted some motivation to keep training once Kerrville was canceled. Mission accomplished there, see above.

While we both felt the pull of the couch after 2 hours of waiting for a jump, we took our race day caffeine and headed to lifetime north and did our own little triathlon instead.

Great swim. I usually take this easy in practice but gave it some gas. 2:07/100m is decent for me these days!

I chased the pace too hard on the bike. I really wanted to see 20mph, and I was so close, but I faded from 19.9 to 19.7 in the last 10 mins because I backed off knowing I had to run.

The run sucked. I cooked too hard on the bike, and I paid for it. I just couldn’t accelerate much past 11-minute miles which is fairly easy pace for me these days. It was what it was, and I didn’t quit. Like I wanted to at half a mile in. And a mile in. And a mile and a half in. With one mile to go I was resigned to my fate and even sped up a bit, but I’ve had so many way better runs with less perceived effort. Bleh.

I feel like I pushed myself about 90% (if 100% is a race where you fall down just after the finish line), so a solid effort in spite of the circumstances. No medal or t-shirt but I’ll live to race again. Next month, even, on a race that starts on a waterslide!

After the race, I plan to keep at it. What I’m doing is working, and while I probably can take a week lighter/recovery at some point, I need to make sure I’m ready to ramp down the eating that week as well to not stall THAT progress. And I’m not sure that’s going to happen this month.

#3 Adulting:

I nailed my two softball goals:

  • Hang my art in my (at work) office that is sitting in piles.
  • Return any of the sports bras I ordered from amazon that don’t work.

This month, I have a few more very easy goals because we are already entirely booked up for the month

  • Hair appointment after the race, I’m sick of the grey streaks and forever wearing it in a knot.
  • Dr. appt for a check up sometime later this year
  • Return any of the second batch of tri kits and sports bras I ordered from amazon that don’t work.

I would say put up Halloween decorations, but they’re already done! One perk about not racing Kerrville is getting a jump on spooky season. We are supposed to get back with the financial planner and have that on the schedule in Nov. Maybe at some point we’ll do big adulty things but for now little adulty things are really all we can manage and that’s ok.

#4 Hobbies:

Seattle Trip was awesome, and I am going to do a whole blog post about solo sightseeing adventures.

Book 3 is in the can! Well, first draft and first edit pass that is. Next step is giving it a little space, and doing a kindle read and making notes. I’d like to finish that in October.

Still picking at the guitar on days I’m at home. I remember most of the chords for most of the songs and can usually play a song or two before my fingers hurt. Baby steps. Hopefully we can restore the electric at some point (just takes time and prioritizing it and haven’t done that) and then I’ll play more.

I took most of the month off photo editing to focus on book editing (and frankly, a lot of reading to disassociate from stress), but back to Bonaire. October goal will be to work on it, I don’t think I’m going to finish the whole trip, but maybe halfway?

Krause Springs painting is done. Next painting (maybe Seattle skyline?) has, uh, white paint on it. Maybe it will even get a second color this month? (or maybe not)

This month has a lot of social events and an unexpected travel to a conference (so TWO trips out of town), and I may need to tolerate a little more staring off into space vs being creative to keep myself sane.

Still haven’t locked in the November camping trip but we have a bunch of places we’re looking at. Hopefully will book that soon!

#5 Work Life Balance

Ehhh. Let’s get the big October projects done and dusted and perhaps I can relax a bit. I am doing a pretty good job at drawing work boundaries when my partner in crime lets me 😀 but occasionally I’ll have some (usually unnecessary) angst the night before something I think is going to be a thing, and very very very occasionally I’ll get the 2am thinkies. I feel like I’m not perfect, and not as detached as I want to be sometimes but compared to the average professional human that deeply cares about their job, I am probably a model student.

Alright, October:

  • Eat a little less daily
  • Keep doing sporty things and enjoy the race. Next year may be the year to take this ish seriously.
  • Hair and Dr Appt
  • Return things I don’t want so I don’t get stuck with them
  • SPOOOKYWALKS!
  • Survive the social craziness
  • Book 3, guitar, Bonaire editing
  • Did I say SPOOKYWALKS? 🙂

Looking forward to a fun, productive, active, and hopefully COOOLER month!

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