Adjusted Reality

Consider this the most phoned in update ever, so I can continue to get one update per month out. Let’s go!

I spent most of August and early September eating and drinking my way through Vermont, Austin, Seattle, and Sacramento. I sorta kinda tracked my food, sometimes. To no one’s surprise, after I started weighing daily, I’ve noticed I’ve gained a few lbs this summer. I’m not upset about it. But I’m now I’m trying to reverse the trajectory – I am actively tracking each day, and this week I’ll really start to adhere to my limits.

October temperatures changing means getting out to walk more is much easier and also, it’s possible to do outdoor workouts that aren’t first thing in the morning, so I have high hopes my activity level will increase. I also plan to back off the prepared meals a bit. These meals are around 500 calories each (give or take), and with a 200-300 calorie breakfast, that’s what I’m trying to eat in a day before additional activity calories. That makes me cranky. That doesn’t satisfy me. I can make much more filling meals (read: tons of veggies) for fewer calories and can add a giant salad back to my afternoon snack rotation, so I should feel fuller and achieve more of a deficit without the grumps (or at least as many of them).

As for activity, not terrible minus a few hiccups:

I traveled for work (and then family stuff) Aug 29-Sept 4, so workout time was limited. I felt like I was coming down with something after we got home (and half the people we were around got sick too). My tactic was to aggressively sleep, which actually worked, and normal activity resumed the week after.

I feel reasonably good enough about my race prep the rest of the month though. I got two open water swims, both felt great (if not fast). I got two outdoor brick workouts on the TT bike, and the first one was a little dodgy but the second was great.

How did it go? This is what I posted on socials this weekend:

I slept very poorly the night before but my good sleeps this week and caffeine made up for it. That and the cooler weather (50s to start, OMG) meant I was raring to go!

The warm water felt sooooo good after freezing my butt off. I took it comfy and slow, finding feet to draft behind when I could. About the same pace as last year (2:15/100) but my heart rate was so much lower out of the water. I just felt refreshed and warmed up. I was able to jog up the hill and transition was almost a minute quicker than last year.

I have been wondering why my outdoor bike times have been slower recently and this week I realized I still had the emergency Gatorskin tires I bought in 2022 the day before the X-50 because my race ones fell apart and that’s all they had. Oops. This is what happens when Triathlon is an afterthought. My bike also hasn’t been serviced since then so this goes on the winter to do list.

Regardless, I had a very nice, smooth, no stress bike (albeit growling a bit at the speeds) where I felt super comfortable even on the crowded course and only sucked a little wind rolling uphill both laps. I finished right around last year’s time (18mph, 46 and change). T2 also went a little faster than last year and I definitely felt more ready to run.

My legs didn’t feel awesome but I let them get under me and warm up until I was clipping along decently. Passed @jetsers going the other way and he was looking strong too! Yay! With my lack of any speed training, I felt ill-equipped to really tuck into the pain cave, I don’t really know my limits right now and I’d rather finish strong than blow up. I tried to push the last half mile but I didn’t have much of a kick and finished pretty much exactly how I did last year – 32 and some change for 3.2 miles.

1:40:30 last year. 1:40:28 this year. I’m nothing if not consistent and hey, 2 second faster!

1:39:11 would have gotten me 3rd in my age group, I got 8th/22 instead. A properly serviced bike with race tires and/or a little bit more oomph on the run will get me there. Maybe next year!

A few days later, I feel the same way. Now that they don’t put age groups on the back of our calves, I have no idea who I need to run down so it’s back to competing with myself. That’s probably better for me in my current mindset and focus. I’m truly happy it went as well as it did, and I think 10% more focus on triathlon next year (a little more specific training and taking care of my gear) will help me close the gap. Instead of limping into and/or after the race like previous years, I was able to wake up feeling great the next morning and go on a 6-mile hike. Does that mean I could have pushed harder? You betcha. Does that make me sad? Not really. I don’t know where my edges are, and until I explore that in practice, I don’t want to extend beyond them and blow up.

Outside of triathlon, I’ve kept up with strength work since I’ve been back from Vermont. It’s mostly at home and I feel like I’m maintaining vs GAINS but that’s totally fine for my focus and the effort I’ve been putting in. In October, we’ll resume our gym adventures, longer hikes, longer runs, but I also want to remember that indoor bikes are a great way to get activity when I need something time-efficient for activity and/or when the weather sucks.

We did some small adulting tasks this month. Does cleaning out the beer fridge count? Well, we did that. We also finally replaced our dryer after 2 months of air drying our clothes. Next month, we have some bigger stuff to do:

• Joel’s dresser drawer broke the night before we went to Vermont. It’s still just sitting in the closet, making pretty much all of it unusable. We need to see if we can fix it, if not, purchase a replacement. This entails a lot of unearthing of said surfaces due to stacked shelves so it’s a bit of a project.
• We need to start part 2 of the great office move/situation. We need to clean out both offices of non-office things, figure out how to get a murphy bed installed so it CAN be a place to sleep very occasionally but is normally usable space, and a lot of other logistics. This is the big fall project.

As for fun stuff

• I’ve finished editing the two camping trips earlier in the year and am next moving onto the next two small projects (random stuff from earlier in the year hikes and Seattle/Sacramento). That will leave me with JUST Vermont to do in later months.
• I am making great (if not consistent) progress in my book. I’m about 22k words already, even though I haven’t had time to work on it each weekend. This one is about where in the campaign I went from “eating snacks and cracking jokes” to “Captial I” Invested once the campaign went to a setting that was familiar to me (and made my brain start turning in a lot of different ways in different aspects of my life).

I’d like to set a goal to pick up my guitar this month again before I forget how to play it. I haven’t been painting and while I’d be sad about that, writing is taking most of my hobby time, and that’s OK! I shouldn’t chide myself for how I spend my productive hobby time (as long as I’m spending it doing something creative vs just doomscrolling). I’m behind on travel blogs but if it’s between that and being motivated to do book stuff, I’ll always do book stuff.

So, October!

• Track food, weigh, and actually stay under my calorie range. Trying to get back to cooking more so I can accomplish this better than small/not-filling healthy prepared meals. This is actually my biggest focus this month so I’m bolding it!
• Lift (back to the gym!), hike, run, stairstepper, and bike when it sounds fun/convenient for exercise. Go do some longer hikes this month to assess if we can reasonably be ready for a 25k next month.
• Progress on the adulting list (Joel’s dresser, start working on the great two-office set up project)
• Write, pick up my guitar and tune it, and keep editing photos

Hanging on to my goal of at least one post a month, just barely.

But, we here, even though time feels like it’s racing past faster than ever. So, let’s catch up.

July – she was a strange one. It had lovely points, like Krause Springs, multiple long hikes at McKinney falls, and cooler weather than normal so I was still very happy running and walking in the outdoors. Normally by July it’s full-on summer (read: 105, feels like the center of the sun) but it waited an extra month and I am thankful as heck for it.

However, I also had a week where I was sure I was getting sick (and turned out to just be bad mold allergies), and I was dealing with an interpersonal issue that was really frustrating me (not anyone close to me or family). A bit of vagueblogging here – but you know when you’re so frustrated with someone you consider doing what’s necessary to remove them from your life? Of course, the easy way is just to ghost them, but when that isn’t really possible without consequences you don’t like, you have to step up and wear the big girl pants and deal with it. July was about feeling the frustration come to a boiling point, and finally dealing with it.

The effects there included some over-indulgences. I finally fell off tracking instead of just tracking late. I stopped tracking daily on July 19, and I picked it back up, ironically enough, on August 19. So, a full month off. I have also been VERY lax about tracking my weight, I shouldn’t even hazard a guess, but if I did, I think I may be 1lb up since the beginning of July. With what I’ve been putting in my stomach, I don’t think it’s unfair. I earned it. 😛

Here’s the activity calendar. Note there’s a LOOOOOOT of walking here that doesn’t show up except in the totals. Most days have a walk, in fact, I hit a 1-mile per day 30-day walking streak over vacation. Yay me!

I didn’t do the BEST job at keeping up with weights (more like 2x week than 3 on average) and you can easily see the week I thought I was getting sick (July 22) where I didn’t run but once. I mean, I went seven miles because it was a nice cool day and I felt good again, but I was doing a better job earlier in the month to be more consistent. Still, 7-11 hours of activity per week is not shabby.

Let’s all laugh at the idea of adulting in the hot summer during a month when we were particularly stressed out and move on. Oh, wait, I think we cleaned off the spare bed in Joel’s new office. That’s something! Check!

I was able to finish Krause Springs photo editing the day before we left for Vermont, but I absolutely did not touch my book in the month of July. The Muse was a little apprehensive about my mood and decided she would maintain her distance. I did read a heck of a lot, tearing through a 9 book Superhero series called “Wearing the Cape”. I started the first one on the July 4th camping trip and finished the last one the first day of our Vermont trip August 1st. We also were engrossed with all the Olympic coverage when we weren’t traveling, so a lot of my leisure time went there.

Let’s talk about August, since it was sort of a turning point. A transition, if you will. And I have yet another trip to go on so it will probably be a little bit before I get back here so consider this a 2-in-1 monthly recap.

I had a very lovely Vermont trip. The cooler weather was amazing. The hikes were gorgeous. The towns were adorable. There’s nothing more than I love getting out into nature and also exploring a town on my own two feet, and we did so so so much of that. I will certainly make a post about this one – I’m wildly behind on my travel blogging and I may start skipping some of the shorter camping trips to places I’ve been before – but Vermont was worth it, even if I get to it months later.

I did actually try to track a little starting at the beginning of vacation. I made it four days, and I was very much over every day. I could have made better choices, but Stowe, Vermont seems to focus on really good “bar food” so I had lots of sandwiches and burgers and fries and beers and the like. To say we stayed active was an understatement with about 30 hours/60 miles from Aug 1-10 alone of tracked activities, but I’m pretty sure I still outpaced my burn with my consumption.

That also is considering Tuesday, Aug 6th, we climbed a mountain and I sprained my ankle as we started the descent. That’s a story for another post, but thankfully it still held my weight (was just a bit unstable) and I made it down on my own accord and was able to walk after. The next day, it was pretty darn sore so I was able to slowly walk to lunch and dinner (about 2 miles total), but that was it. After that, it felt better, but only had about 3-4 miles per day on it before it got really sore during the rest of vacation. Different than the 10+ miles most days that we were used to, but we made it work.

It was perfect timing that my training focus when I returned from vacay shifted to triathlon for the next 7 weeks. On Monday, August 12, I started a bike streak (since I couldn’t run yet). I stopped that bike streak 5 days later when I forgot you needed to build up saddle toughness to bike every day. I haven’t been on a bike in months. My arse really hurt! However, I’m at 105 miles biked in 2 weeks – hitting 5 days per week. Four days on the trainer each week at 30-40 mins a pop, and one slightly longer outdoor bike on the weekend. My ankle is healed enough that I actually ran my first mile off the bike today – in 9:19! I haven’t run that fast in forever.

Swimming has been a challenge. Last week, we packed for swimming on the way home on Tuesday. That didn’t happen. Nor Wednesday or Thursday. It took us ’til Saturday to actually make it to the gym (but hey, one swim down, and somehow it was faster than normal after roughly 6 months of not swimming?). This week, I resolved to do better. I walked to the closer gym with the crappy pool Monday. It was closed – someone threw a rock through the window and there was broken glass. They assured me it would be open the next day. I figured it would take a bit longer and gave them ’til Thursday, where it still wasn’t fixed. I did weights and the stair stepper instead, so it wasn’t a wasted trip, but still frustrating when the process of just getting to a swim is a big chore. Drove to the nice gym again today, and wouldn’t you know it? I had another lovely swim in my favorite pool, it’s just a level of oomph I can’t find to get there during the weekdays. If I can make it to the pool once a week, I guess it’s better than nothing.

I’m back to 3x week strength and plan to maintain that even if I’m mostly doing it at home vs the gym for a bit. I plan to get back to sessions with the Squat Witch a little in Sept and hit it hard in October and beyond.

In September, I need to hit some race prep milestones:

• I need to ride my TT bike outside. I’d like to do this twice, in the kit I plan to wear, with a brick run at the end. I’m super skittish on this bike since I’m out of practice so it needs to be early in the morning on a weekend with no traffic.
• I need to open water swim with my swim skin. Ideally twice as well.
• Not race prep, necessarily, but get some faster intervals in on the run (now that I’m sure my ankle can handle it)

And, after September 28th, we shall go back to hiking, running, and strength as the primary workouts to train for fall trail races and winter road races. I DO see the value in a 30-minute trainer ride that takes 35 mins total to execute, instead of a 1 hour+ walk to burn the same number of calories. In lovely weather, when I’m not imminently training for a race, and I have the time? The walk will win hands down. If time or weather is a factor? Biking is fine. I get to watch a Bloodbowl game. It’s not the torture I had built it up to in my mind since I’d been away from it for so long.

Just a few words on calorie input/output – I’m back to tracking and that’s going… okay. I will try to do it while I’m away, but not stress about it, and then when I’m back from my trip, I’ll actually work on balancing the bank account with daily activity and what goes in my mouth. Like, daily. Instead of catching up a few days later.

Adulting will resume later. This is about the time of year it falls off and that’s ok. We accomplished the big important things and when things slow down and it gets cooler closer to the holidays, we usually do another big push. I have projects I’d like to get done and I need to schedule some checkup type doctor appointments, but that’s a fall problem.

I am very pleased to report that I’ve started Book #3! And… in 2 writing sessions, I’ve knocked out over 12k words. This one is just flowing well, and who knows – I might actually meet my goal to have it done by the end of the year. I haven’t made final first-pass edits to Book #2 and that’s okay, I’ll save it for when I get stalled out on this one and need a way to distract myself.

I haven’t been motivated to paint anything, and I have just barely started the project to organize and edit all the smaller trips and day hikes from earlier this year. I realized the latter is because my bluetooth mouse has become unreliable and you just CAN’T edit photos without one. So, another one is on the way, and perhaps that will pick up soon.

So, September. What’s up, ninth month of the year (how so fast?)?

• Survive/enjoy the upcoming work trip
• Track food, like, for reals, to reinstate the habit and weigh myself to get some current metrics
• Triathlon training and race prep and go race with joy and fire!
• Keep chugging along through Book #3’s crappy first draft
• Work on photo editing the little projects

Hopefully in September’s recap, I will have better metrics to show and not just excuses. By October, I have no excuse to have excuses… hopefully.

Sometimes the minutes go slow…

(smiling because I’m NOT on the torture device…)

…especially when they’re on the Stairmaster. If you ever wanted to make 10 minutes last forever, there you go. But the months go fast. I can’t believe we’re over halfway through 2024 and almost halfway through July! I definitely am not quite exactly where I planned to be 6 months ago but also, the view ain’t too bad, so I’ll call it even.

How about them sporty things?

I’d say with my renewed goals (running, walking, weights as priority, biking and swimming on the back burner) I did pretty great!

• Running: 40 miles/10 hours
• Walking: 60 miles/21.5 hours
• Weights: 12 sessions/6.5 hours
• Other Cardio: 6 sessions/1.5 hours (mostly the dreaded stairmaster…)
• Biking: once/7.5 miles (in between runs for triple bricks)
• Swimming: hahahhahaah ok, moving on.

This month I’m giving myself one more of these run/hike/walk/lift/stairmaster at the gym months before I do a short sprint triathlon training block and race Kerrville. I signed up last night. When I reframed it as not the thing I need to do all year long but the thing I was going to do from mid-August through the end of September as a training block to mix things up a little bit, it sounded fun instead of tedious. So, we’re going to get out for a swim a week, do some outdoor rides and bricks, and go see what the 45-49 age group has in store.

After the race, I plan to return to run/hike/walk/lift/stairmaster, pushing miles on foot to get stronger and racing road and trail races over the fall and winter. Which I definitely am. We repeated the same course as the race last month whilst camping and my climbing pace on the big hill that almost killed me was much better. I could keep up with Joel. Screw you/thank you Stairmaster, my frienemy.

Speaking of frienemy, shall I introduce you to the scale? Spoiler alert, July isn’t looking much better either.

Insert my inane whining about how it’s hard and age 45 feels like it upped the degree of difficulty to lose weight and its unfair I burn 3000 extra calories a week and there’s no way I shouldn’t be seeing better progress with how I normally eat. And then I realize that I’m tracking food days later (right now I’m 5 days behind, oops) with probably significant levels of error to the point where it’s not worth doing the “add the calories up” thing I’ve done in months past. Hot pockets have become a normal breakfast food, we’re taking a bit of a break from prepared healthy meals so there’s been more random frozen and air fryer food even if I have been able to keep takeout and restaurant meals to a minimum and many other sins and failings in my life right now. So, I’ll stay true to my word and not be pissed I didn’t lose weight because I didn’t try really hard.

(scenes from a random Wednesday off when it was cooler and rainy last month)

So, this month, I want to eat better quality foods that make me feel good. Moar veggies. Whole grains and stick-to-your-ribs carbs even if it doesn’t seem like it means anything. Vary my proteins – I’m on all chicken all the time pretty much rn, so I want to eat more seafood and find ways that I can get a little more lean beef in my diet since Joel isn’t eating it but once a week anymore. All in all, sort of half-assing it intentionally and doing the best I can to at least not gain weight.

Adulting… yeah. Adulting didn’t happen except SOME of the box pile in the garage. I did manage to do a little closet cleanout to help unearth the pile o stuff on the side of Joel’s new office, but I definitely didn’t do the painting and hardware thing I wanted to do and I just don’t have high hopes for it this month either. For some reason (the reason is probably the heat!), I’m much less productive here in the summer.

July, I did/will do some other things. I finally got all my financial stuff in one place and confirmed I’m still able to retire at 55. 9 years and 8 months to go! We planned and booked trips and things and the rest of the year looks like:

• Vermont in August. Let’s go hike somewhere cooler and gorgeous!
• PAX in Seattle and quick trip to Sacramento to visit the aunt in law in September
• Kerrville Triathlon end of September
• (planned) Great Springs Trail Half Marathon October 12
• (planned) McKinney Falls Camping? November
• (planned) Wild Hare 25k Trail Race November 15
• Carribean Cruise December

Busy/fun/exciting stuff!

Fun stuff is going well. I finished my second revision pass on my book, Joel read it, and I now have feedback to incorporate. I’ve shared with a few more people too, but since most people don’t read multiple books per week on a good week like we do, I’m sure it will take a bit to get more. The goal is to finish the feedback this month and then next month start on… book 3!

I finished the Seattle photos, I finished the Arch photos, and now I decided since I’m going to work on the trip I just took (Krause Springs) and see if I can get that done by the time I’m off to the next adventure (not likely).

So, like, second half of the month.

• Eat good food, track stuff even if its later, don’t gain weight
• 3xweek weights, run, hike, walk, torture device (stairmaster)
• Krause Springs photo editing
• Incorporate book feedback and prepare for book 3
• Don’t let the turkeys get me down
• Get ready to go climb mountains!

Sounds fun, let’s go.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s been reading this blog I’ve been in a bit of a rut.

I mean, it’s not all bad. I’m running, I’m hiking, I’m training strength regularly and upping weights. Sometimes, I get on my bike when there’s not another better option. Logging 8-12 hours a week of activity isn’t shabby especially when I can scroll back to 2020-2022 and see my average at 3-5. I’m not fast at anything right now, but I feel pretty fit when I can go run 4-5 miles on a random Tuesday if the weather isn’t trying to kill me with oppressive heat and go hike for 3-4 hours every other weekend and still walk the next day. In the five weeks around May, I went ~133 miles and only about 8 of those were cycling, so MUCH ambulation at varying paces.

I’ve logged my food every day, to some level of accuracy. I haven’t been mainlining deep fried bacon wrapped cheese sticks dipped in ranch (sometimes, a cheese stick or two in the air fryer with yogurt dressing… but you know what I mean) or other disgusting food in mass quantities. I’m just not being as diligent as I have been in the past. I’m not losing weight, but I’m not gaining. Admittedly, I’m not trying really hard. I want to want to try really hard, but if I’m being honest, I’m more motivated to whine about it than do it. And that’s not fun for anyone involved.

Work is being work right now. I’ve oscillated in my seventeen years of employment with my current company between feeling true gratitude someone would pay me for the cool things I get to do and leaving each day not sure if I want to come back for the next. I’m somewhere in the middle right now. This is okay – it’s actually quite excellent for work/life balance after quite a few years being megamaniacal about all the things. However, I do kind of live for being ALL IN on something in my life and this isn’t it right now. It feels like that recovery period after the Ironman, where you can’t fathom how you were riding bikes for 100+ miles and doing 20 mile runs even though you were totally doing that ish every weekend before the race. Now, it’s difficult enough to do a light 30-minute jog and you’re still giving your bike the side-eye as it sits alone in the corner of your room, where it’s been since the race weeks ago.

Looking at my life from the outside, one would see me as a highly successful, motivated, well-rounded and really productive person. And it’s not that I’m not – but none of these things have the SPARK right now. They’re not THE THING that wakes me up in the morning, excited to go make progress on some new, exciting, scary, challenging goal. I need at least one of those in my life or I feel adrift.

So, I went and walked/ran in the woods on June 8th for over 5 hours in 90+ degree heat, completing a half-marathon distance in like 4.5 hours (5.25 hours with stops) with 1400 feet of ascent. And this is just the beginning, hopefully.

I’ve always been a little ultramarathon-curious, but it’s never really come up to the top of the bucket list as it’s – in theory – the antithesis to the training I did. I’ve been focused all these years on getting faster and playing to my strengths (flat races in cool weather). Heat ruins my mood really quickly. I suck at running hills. Up is hard and demoralizing for me. I am not the most graceful with uneven surfaces, and that’s putting it kindly. Earlier in my life, the idea of going for a 3 hour walk in the heat ON PURPOSE FOR FUN sounded terrible (still does, but I’m choosing the suck so it feels… better?). Running trails would leave me frustrated with the slow time/pace so I stuck to roads to soothe my little ego.

So, it’s time to attack some of my weaknesses and pursue something new. Time to suck at something new for a while so I can get better at it. I’d like to progress towards traveling 50 kilometers on my own two feet in one day. I want to do the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in one day. And I have no qualms personifying this meme…

I would be perfectly happy to wander in nature for 10+ hours while gorging on whatever food is available (chips now fuel my long workouts, not gels) and collect my medal at the end or limp to the North Lodge and die, or whatever,

That takes care of the training goal. It’s a long hill to climb (literally!), something new to learn and sink my teeth into. New gear, new races, DFL finishes will be with pride as I learn to be a badass in the wilderness. It will be really fun and challenging and difficult, but I’m looking forward to figuring out how to not die on the ascents (and tiptoe down the descents) and be more capable and confident running on rocks and managing all the craziness that comes along with long days again (without having to deal with all the swimming and biking gear). I still have love for triathlon (maybe just… long distance relationship status right now) and have some hope this will shore up some of my weaknesses there as well. And I’m guessing this will all translate to some really nice gains once it gets cooler and I do some road running races as well.

Even if not, I’m going to try something new that seems like it will fit pretty well with my lifestyle right now. I need a different type of pain cave right now. Let’s effing go.

Now, there’s the scale. I ended April at 183.7. I also ended May at 183.7. I think I may need to shift my focus here as well. I still need to track, otherwise I get… forgive the pun… way off track. But I think I need to give myself the month, hell, maybe even the summer, and stop half-assed trying to lose weight. Either I need to focus on it or not. And I’ve proven to myself that it’s not in the cards right now, for whatever reason. So, this month, my goal is simply not to gain weight and try to enjoy healthy food again (read: ALL THE VEGGIES).

I’ve kinda stopped the constant meal delivery of Snap and Factor because we were just going UGH at them. I have more than a few in the freezer because they were about to expire. I want to focus on varying my diet, making some delicious yummy food that’s not the same 10 meals over and over, and getting a lot of veggies, lean protein, and good carbs that fill me up and make me happy. This week we have some grilled al pastor for tacos and enchiladas and grilled chicken for pitas, wraps, salads, or whatever. Hopefully, that fixes that rut.

In terms of hobbies, the only one I’m really trying to push on is my book, since I’m still really motivated there. I have finished my edit pass, and ready to read it, I’m just giving it a little space first so I can be more critical. After that, I think it’s time to start book 3 (maybe next month?). I also woke up in the middle of the night at one point and put together some notes (let’s not call it an outline yet) for the whole series, so at least dream me isn’t in a rut and trying to be productive!

And, adulting gets to go last. I adulted enough in April/early May with the bathroom. Mostly everything is put back and organized. I haven’t touched paint or hardware but maybe I can get that done this month. We did get Joel squeezed into the guest room and a nice new adjustable desk, and we’ll probably keep it there for now. It’s been pretty cool to be able to leave the gaming stuff up on the dining room table and we may play some longer games (a turn or two a night) because of it! Also, the pool is open and lovely. So, mostly done what I meant to do.

June is already 1/3 done, but here’s what I’d like to do with the rest of it:

• Keep the activity up and not be super picky on what I’m doing, just that I’m doing it. Weights 3x week. Try for at least 2 runs per week. Triple brick workouts sometimes because I can stand the heat better in 1-2 mile chunks. Lots of walks. Long hikes every other weekend or so. We’ll get more serious about this closer to the next race (end of Sept if I race a triathlon, mid-October if I skip it) but for now, move my arse and lift heavy things.
• Track my food but not be as limiting (or at least pretend to try to be limiting). Use a little meal delivery as some easy options but get back to cooking healthy food atop piles of veggies like I used to eat more often.
• Read my book, revise one more time based on my/Joel’s feedback, and start book 3!
• Finish Seattle editing (yeah, my softball didn’t even happen) and start the Arch
• Hardware/paint on doors, and break down the box pile in the garage for adulting

I think it sounds doable! Let’s see what happens, shall we?

My partner in crime, Joel, recently had a change in medication he takes at night. The instructions say, “don’t take within 2 hours of eating and don’t eat for 1 hour after taking it”.

Apparently, no one follows this rule. He questioned his doctor about it, and she said she just stopped mentioning it because no one follows directions. He then asked if it made the medication more effective, and she said yes. So, he (and I, most nights) now no longer eat snacks after dinner besides a small piece of dark chocolate.

Doesn’t make a huge difference for me, calories are calories and count the same at 9pm as they do at 9am, IMO, but a huge change for someone who doesn’t. He started making more weight loss progress all of a sudden and noted that his garmin weight graph for the year was starting to look like an inverted batman, like this steep drop off with a few peaks and valleys but overall heading in the right direction. Can I be thrilled for him and also similarly frustrated for me? Oh, to be a dude and able to eat +500 calories per day… sigh…

I also failed to remember that my progress seems to always follow about 3 weeks behind my habits. While I am not looking at a full inverse batman myself, I’m actually getting my shit together. But also losing my shit a little bit. Maybe let’s go reverse order and talk about the things that are making me crazy first.

Adulting:

We are currently now 3 weeks into our bathroom remodel. The full contents of two bathrooms and a large vanity are strewn all over the house, and somehow, we can’t find anything anywhere. The lovely people who did all the work are done except for some shelves on the work order that didn’t get put up (Monday!), but it’s a huge relief after fifteen workdays of contractors in the house, loud noises to the point I could barely hear meetings some days, bad smells but thankfully not to the point we couldn’t sleep, and playing the “which bathroom can I use” game (and sometimes, especially last week, the answer was none and I did the camping alternative of peeing behind the bush in the yard). I don’t mean to complain as I realize it’s a privilege to be able to do this at all, and especially the full-service version where they are doing everything for us, but holy heck, I am more than ready to have my happy little sanctuary back to the place where it’s all mine (and Joel’s) and things are in the right places.

It’s definitely caused us to be short tempered, easily frustrated, demotivated, and just plain cranky. Week 2 was peak pissypants party time for me, last week was Joel’s. At least we took turns so we could talk each other down, but the spoons, they went rather quickly these weeks. Week 2, I logged an absolute GOOSE EGG in terms of workouts besides walking. I mean, I still logged 5 hours/12.5 miles of walking, so it wasn’t nothing, but zero bikes, runs, swims, weights, or elliptical. That hasn’t happened since Covid. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t injured. I was just so far at the end of my rope I couldn’t manage to do anything but amble. But at least I did that.

The end is in sight, though. My first steamy jacuzzi tub (hey, we had the wiring from the 1968 jacuzzi tub, we may as well use it) was divine. It is super amazing not to be grossed out by mildew and crumbling tile when I shower in the morning and instead smile at my very nice new bathroom. All that’s really left is to put everything back together. And that starts today.

I will also report taxes are done, we paid less than expected, and our consulted noted that we shouldn’t need to pay quarterly or do anything different than withhold a little more. So we shall.

Getting ready for pool time is already in progress. The pump did an oopsie and reverted all our hard work back to brown pondwater. Something in there is broken, we need to buy a new some-hundred-dollar-doo-dad and for now have resorted to chlorine instead of saltwater so we don’t hatch millions of mosquitos from our backyard.

I knew we’d be very much over responsible things in May, so I already kind of pre-planned a month off. In May we will:

• Put away all the things from the bathrooms back in the bathrooms but take one more pass on better organization
• Repaint all the doors in the house while we have the nice white paint out and replace hardware and hinges.
• Get the pool working on salt again so we can get in it
• Joel can start planning for his office move but that’s not yet

Weight Loss Goals:

Here’s how it’s not so bad. While I didn’t fully make up for March’s indiscretions, I did reverse the trend.

My trend weight today is 183.7, which is just about where it was at my lowest in March before the bloatening started. I feel like I’m behind, because I was making such great progress before, but I suppose in my goal to lost 12 lbs this year, I’m only 0.3 behind (my start was 187.4, I’m now at 183.7). So, instead of trying to set some crazy goal in May, I’m simply going to aim to catch up for the year. I’d like to have a 182.4 by the May 31st. Extra progress is appreciated, but not required.

Sporty Things:

After finishing the Cap10k, I realized I was without any other race plans this year and without a whole lot of enthusiasm. I’m stuck in this place where:

• I am not enthused about triathlon this year. It’s not to say I won’t do one late season, but I’m just not enthused about any of my options early season. The Memorial Day race is crowded and inconvenient. Pflugerville quality has declined over the years. And I’m just not motivated to go crush on my TT bike or swim. And I’m also not in a place where I just feel like participating.
• I am REALLY enjoying walks and hikes. I mean, I spent 19 hours going 50 miles this month.
• Walks are truly the best way to lose weight (if you can walk enough and eat the proper amount of calories). When I walk, I don’t get extra hungry. Run, bike, swim? NOM NOM.
• I am going to need motivation here soon. It’s so pleasant to go for a walk from October to about April/May. Over the summer it sucks. And I tend to pull back on my overall activity because of it.

Couple this with my discovery of the Texas Trail Series. I’ve always been a little ultra-marathon curious, and this definitely isn’t that (yet?) but I think I want to spend some time this year walking (and who knows, maybe running some? I’m still running! I just don’t want to run a whole 13 miles on a trail yet.) for a morning on a gorgeous trail with aid stations and a party at the end. This is probably the first thing that’s sounded fun to me.

So, we’re planning to sign up for the one in June, and see how it goes and decide whether it’s a one and done and we should just go back to doing Sprints like other years, or whether this is a new adventure. Or maybe even both!

For May, I am splitting the difference.

• Weights 3x week. It’s okay I took a week off, but that shouldn’t happen again for a while.
• I would like to swim a few times. I want at least one to be in the lake. Even if I don’t triathlon this year swimming makes me happy and stretches my body out in ways nothing else does.
• Running 2-3x week. I keep trying to convince myself I want to try to claw back to my pre-pandemic 5k time of sub-27 mins, but I know the pain to get there and not sure I’m ready mentally and I’m not sure as it’s getting hot is the best time either unless I go train inside, which also sounds BLEHHHH.
• Biking 1-2x week. Mostly for activity/calories. IDK why because I used to absolutely <3 bikes, but I just can’t get myself excited about going fast or going far. We’ll roll with it for now (or not roll with it? hah) and maybe I’ll be back to bike adventures and chasing people down someday.
• MOST IMPORTANTLY: make a weekly schedule instead of “do some stuff”. If I don’t follow it 100% whatever but I do much better with a plan.

Notice I’m not talking about the hip. 🙂 A week of reset was actually quite nice and it seems to be *knock on wood* happy and well-adjusted again.

And finally… Fun Stuff

After a nice long push to get the first pass edit done in March… I am going a lot more slowly now. Did I need a break? Maybe. Did I have fewer spoons the last few weeks to do something like this rather than something mindless? Also maybe. However, I’m almost exactly 50% of the way through now and the latest material (which I spent more time on) seems to be going quicker than the first ten chapters (which I think I edited very very quickly). I’m excited to get through this and give it another read. Then? Not sure if I give readers a chance to read and move onto book 3 or noodle on this one more. Now that I have the goal to write the whole story before I publish, I know I’ll have a final edit pass over the whole enchilada, so I’m less concerned with it being perfect, while also simultaneously wanting to go tear book 1 apart again. 🙂 Goal for May is to finish the edit pass, read it, have Joel read it, and incorporate our feedbacks.

My final Paris pictures are edited and public. <3 That was such a lovely, exhausting, wonderful bucket list trip. Next up? Seattle from Sept 2023. I only have a few hundred photos there so it’s a softball goal for May, which is perfect!

So, May. Let’s be better than April, shall we?

• Walk alllll the miles, weights 3x week, short runs 2-3x week, and the rest, que sera, sera
• Keep doing all the things to summon my own inverse batman on the scale
• Put all the things in the bathroom back, paint some doors, change some hardware
• Finish edit pass #2 and read and fix things
• Edit Seattle Photos
• Enjoy camping next week and prioritize time to relax