Adjusted Reality

I’ve had this window open for days and just haven’t had the motivation to write.  So here goes, this could be 50 words or 5000, but I’m giving an update tonight.  Prepare for rambles… while my blog posts lately have been just a little above Live Journal quality, this one may descend to the depths of “Dear Diary, I am a scatterbrain”.

I asked some of my artists to work extra hours this week to get a project done, so as a Producer, I have a conundrum.  It’s easy to say that if anyone stays, I should stay.  However, if I stayed when ANYONE stayed, I would rarely leave work and have a life, plus, by the time they’re working the extra hours, it’s actually my slow period and I’m really just moral support (there is NOTHING I can do to help these folks, I am no artist).  I’ve split the difference by asking my Associate Producer to come in a little early, and I’m staying a little late.  Instead of eating the crunch catered dinners, I run home and eat with Zliten, and head back to work for a bit.

It’s been nice to have the ability to have healthy dinners, but this means that ANY workouts have had to be in the morning.  And when I’m at work until 9ish, it’s not so easy to get up at dawn with anything but a scowl on my face.

So I’ve split the difference there too.  Monday, I did it with another epic bike/weights session.  Tuesday was v-day, so I actually was able to leave early (we did NOT make people crunch that day) and run outside after work.  My glute started to twinge a bit so I cut it short at 3 instead of the 5-6 I had planned, but right after work when it’s still light and cool enough is my FAVE running time.  Yesterday, I stayed up too late enjoying some v-day steak, lobster, baked potato, asparagus, wine, and vodka, so I took it as my rest day.  However, it sucks using up your rest day being a frikkin zombie and feeling all tired and hung over.

Today I had wanted to make up my swim/pilates I missed by doing a swim then group power, but I woke up at 6-something and scowled at the world, and figured I’d split the difference.  I went back to sleep and bagged the swim, but I got my ass out of bed for group power and DANG it was a great way to wake up.  So, I have a swim, a run, and some core work I want to get done (plus my race on Sun).  We’ll see if I can fit it all in.  It’s like a game of extreme tetris this week.  I’m accepting that I don’t have it in me to do 4 days of week for weights, so I’ll wait until 3 feels natural.

I am feeling a little down about the scale.  I haven’t been weighing this week and got on today – 180. 😛  I haven’t tried the body fat scale to see if that’s dropped, but seriously?  WTF.

Through some link surfing today I got onto Rachel Cosgrove’s site (pretty sure it was through m’lady Charlotte), and I think I may need to read her book for ideas, although I’m pretty sure the point that I’ve been able to surmise through her site is:

-Do lots of weights
-Make sure you fuel yourself with good food
-Make sure to have recovery food/drink with protein/carbs after your workout

At this point, I’ve gone through a lot of stages with this coming-on-3-years-plateau…

Stage 1: I get too hungry during race training and overeat.  I need to wait until off season to lose weight.  I will do this by cutting my calories really low (safe low, but low – 1200-1500), and doing shorter workouts. (this worked for very short periods and then made me miserable – both eating less and exercising less)

Stage 2: This sucks.  I want to race more.  I just need to make sure I train a lot and I’ll be able to outrun this weight. (not so much)

Stage 3: This sucks.  I’ll just be happy where I’m at for a while and keep training as long as it doesn’t affect me (then I gained enough for it to indeed effect me)

Stage 4: This super sucks.  I’ll just do short races this year.  I didn’t gain weight doing short races.  Also, let’s throw in a cleanse for good measure. (lost 5 lbs initially, then got it back plus some).

Stage 5: Started working with nutritionist.  Instantly FELT better while improving the quality of my food.  Gained 5 lbs.

Stage 6: Nutritionist has no idea why I’m not losing.  Cut grains to 1 per day.  No loss.

Stage 7: Nutritionist still has no idea why I’m not losing.  Going to calorie counting and getting super accurate estimates of what I’m burning so I can work on making sure I have a proper deficit.  No loss yet.

I’ve been wracking my brain as to what is the difference in between who I was back then and who I am now diet and exercise-wise.  The only two real major things I came up with is:

-I eat slightly more, but WAY WAY WAY WAY better quality food.
-I did weights religiously.  At least working over my whole body 2 times per week.

I’ve cycled now from “exercise is what will keep me fit” to “80% of weight loss is in the kitchen” to “weights are the key”.

While I’m not going to get to half ironman fitness with weights alone, I think I can accept that stealing some time away from the cardio for weights will not do bad things to me.

So, while I’m not going to drop the cardio, I am going to make the priority getting at least 3 days of weight training per week over anything else (at least 1 pilates/crunchtime class or core work, 1 heavy lifting/group power day, and 1 other strength day of my choosing).

Now, it’s time to go find my “thermometer jeans” and see where I’m at mid-April (8 weeks).  I’ll take pictures.  It will be humblingly fun…

Geez what a crazy crazy CUH-RAY-ZEEE week.  At least Zliten sent me random flowers for no real good reason.

Work-wise, my assistant person is out so I’m doing two people’s jobs at a crucial part of the milestone so that’s always fun.  Tally of how many weeks I kept my mellow from my extended break…5.  This week I got my frantic back on.  Oh well, time to plan a vacation, right?

So, this is where I was supposed to be tapering for my OMG FIRST MARATHON and now, not so much.  Now, the focus is:

a) calorie deficit.

b) lifting heavy things

c) short and intense cardio

d) preparing for being an adult

So what have I done?

2364 burned

1389 eaten

975 deficit

(30 min eliptical + 30 mins crunchtime)

Tuesday:

2894 burned

1403 eaten

1491 deficit

(5.4 mile run – 55 mins)

Wednesday:

2627 burned

1777 eaten

850 deficit

(30 mins – 9 mile bike hills + 50 mins pilates)

Thursday:

2865 burned

1999 eaten

866 deficit

(4 mile run 43 mins)

Friday:

2460 burned

1414 eaten

1046 deficit

(30 mins weights)

Saturday:

3903 burned

2702 eaten

1201 deficit

(10 mile run, 2 hours)

Sunday:

2322 burned

1841 eaten

481 deficit

(rest day)

So, for all intents and purposes, I should be well on my way to losin’ it.  Not so much. I’m a lb up.  Sticking with it for a while but really, we’re stumped.  Even if the ratios are a bit off, I should be down a bit. /sigh.  My miraculous wondrous body.

My huge non scale victory is that I will do 4 strength sessions this week without dying.  2 mostly-core classes, and 2 arms-and-legs heavy lifting.  I’m sore in an awesome way.  I look forward to my guns and leg definition resurfacing.  Perhaps this is the missing link.  Really, fitness gods, I’ll do whatever you want… just direct me there, kthx.

Other than finding that my capacity for recovery is better than I though, it seems to be making me faster even on sore muscles.  Bonus.  I logged my best hills bike session in a long ass time and a really great couple of sub-10 min mile runs.  They are taking more effort than they should but I’ll work on that.

Been a while, and I really don’t have much time to chat but I wanted to check in between the hustle and bustle.

First of all, the bodybug is fascinating.  I love being able to look down at my watch and see how many calories I’ve burnt already, how many steps I’ve taken, and how much activity I’ve had.

For example, the watch currently says 2223 calories burnt.  It’s 6pm.  I’m overachieving.

However, I’m not sure how much I believe it.  It seems like it’s overestimating my calorie burn.  I’ll believe it when I see progress like I should with what I’m doing… I’m on track to be about ~7000 calories deficit by the end of the week (and that means I should be 2 lbs down).  This week is hard to judge because it’s all crampy/bloaty happy fun time, but math dictates that I should be soon.  Because instead of losing weight since last week, I’m up 3 lbs.

As much as everyone cautions against daily weighing, I think its the right thing to do for me.  I fluctuate so wildly, it’s hard for me to see a trend unless I’m on top of it.

This is my life in numbers…

Saturday:
2108 burned
1313 eaten
(795 deficit)
Sitting on my arse, running errands

Sunday:
4292 burned
3078 eaten/drank
(1214 deficit – this was HARD to accomplish – I was shoving food in my face to get even here…)
Half marathon day (2:27 running), errands, drinking and merriment

Monday:
2364 burned
1389 eaten/drank
(975 deficit)
Work, mellow eliptical (25 mins), crunch time (30 mins)

Tuesday:
2894
1403 (/shrug, just didn’t feel like eating more)
(1491 deficit)
5.4 mile run (55 mins), work

Yesterday:
2627
1777
(850 deficit)
50 mins pilates, work, 30 min bike

Today so far:
2040 burned
~950 eaten
(1090 deficit) (I’ll be closer to 500-750 by EOD, workout’s done and I haven’t had dinner)
4 mile run (43 mins), work

Notes:

Unless I’m really either trying to a) earn more calories to eat more/increase my deficit or b) specifically use it as a recovery workout, there is no point in mellow cardio like the eliptical.  If possible, I might as well save my time and skip it and lift weights.

I burn more calories at work in the average hour than I do at pilates.  Rethinking that 50 mins in the morning as well, at least every week (it does hit a lot of muscles differently than I would throwing around dumbells).  I think I could get more done lifting for 30 mins and doing 30 mins of sprints.

Busting my arse on the bike for 30 mins burns less than an EZ run for me.  Like WAY less.  Sucks I still need to do it.  A lot.

I’m pretty sure my swims will burn next to nothing.  It might be best for me to limit swimming to just maintaining my fitness (1-30-45 min per week) until I’m deeper into tri season.  I can already swim the distance I need to swim for the half iron without feeling taxed, and while I wouldn’t mind some specific training to get faster at it closer to race day, I’ve got all the base swim endurance I’m concerned with right now.

So, we’ll see.  To give myself the best chance of success even if it isn’t accurate, I’m trying to get closer to 750-1000 deficit per day, which is still non-harmful if it’s not overestimating.  My guess is that it’s *fairly* accurate for living/breathing/moderate activity and overestimates vigorous aactivity (aka – 700 calories for my 4 mile run or 2500 calories for my half marathon), so on highly vigorous days I’ll make sure that my deficit is high.

Continuing with the good, as organic/home cooked as possible foods (as to not fill my calories with junk), and I completed January about 99% no sweet treats.  I’ve lapsed the last two days (a milky way mini and 4 jelly beans yesterday, a mini brownie and mini cookie today), but it’s time of the month and I’m gonna put the smackdown back down.  I found some fabulous 150 calorie a PINT vegan “ice cream” with all natural ingredients that I am loving, plus dates as a sweet treat, plus I found that fage + a squish of a fruit punch mios (water flavoring enhancer with artificial sweetener but whatevs) = tastes like trix yogurt.  Yummmmm…

Second of all – 3M.

I just don’t have that much to say about it (well, compared to my two part epic Kerrville Sprint Tri recap – and that race was even shorter than this one…), but here goes.

I loved the mostly-downhill course.  I loved that it ran through hoods I knew and loved.  It was c-c-c-old to start but I’m lovin my arm warmers and new super warm but not-too-hot running tights.  It started in the upper 30s and ended in the 50s, and my gear set up was:

-adidas wool wicking headband
-Kerrville Tri tech tee (short sleeve)
-ARC race crew tech long sleeve on top
-adidas arm warmers
-crappy cheap compression shorts
-mountain wear tights
-compression calf sleeves
-nike dri fit ankle socks
-my old Asics.  (I regretted this halfway through.  They are more busted than I thought)

I considered a jacket too – and I could have used it before we started running, but didn’t need it on the run.  I pulled down my sleeves around mile 2-3, and pushed my sleeves up and down the whole race depending on how the wind was hitting us.  I wore the shorts more because the tights tend to be lower cut on my waist than for heat, but it worked.

This one was all about Zliten.  While I probably dragged him a little faster than he wanted to go at times, I was running with him to motivate him on his first half.  While he kept protesting that he had set his sights on a 12 min/mile half when he got himself into this mess, I reminded him that he is a much better runner than he expected (than both of us did, actually), and we maintained around 11 minute miles the whole time (pretty much hit the splits even the first 3rd, exceeded in the middle, and slowed a bit at the end).

I told him that I would run his pace, but I also made it clear that we were going to race this race.  If he could chat with me, he was going too slow.  The dear he is, he couldn’t really talk but he made sure he said a breathy “thank you” to all the volunteers and police that were helping out with the race.  I did the same but since I was running fun-run pace, I was giving the horns, slapping hands, smiling, dance party karaoke USA with my tunez, and just having an awesome fun run (I’m sure the spectators thought I was nuckin’ futz at times but whatevs).

It was good practice in my “every race is not an A race” quest.  I didn’t taper, I weight trained twice last week, I ran/biked/swam like normal, and it was no big d.  And it was still fun.  It’s making me excited for a full on goal race where I can really open up and see what I can do, but being a little hungry is a good thing.

We finished in 2:27 (11:05 min/mile pace for 13.25 miles), and then drank champagne!  It was a glorious day!  Zliten definitely raced it because he was super dead that day, and took Mon/Tues to recover as well.  Huzzah for him!  He has earned the 13.1 sticker on our car! Next stop, 70.3…

I felt good enough the next day to do a mellow elliptical (wasn’t ready for normal sprint Mondays) and crunchtime class, and I definitely felt a little tired, but was good and recovered by Tues morn’s run.

Last Week’s Workouts:
Monday: 3.6 mile run – slow with .1 mile fast strides (37 mins)
Tuesday: 40 min bike hills (12.4 miles)
Wednesday: Pilates AM
Thursday: 5k run AM (29:43), half IM swim PM (1.2 miles in 43 mins)
Friday: off
Saturday: off
Sunday: 13.1 3M Race!

This Week’s Plan:
Monday: 25 min eliptical/30 mins crunchtime
Tuesday: 5.4 mile run outside (55 mins)
Wednesday: 59 mins pilatespilates, 30 min bike hills (9.05)
Thursday: 4 mile run outside w/Zliten (43 mins)
Friday: lifting heavy weights/off cardio
Saturday: 10 mile long slow run w/friends at Town Lake
Sunday: off

Still determining the plan.  On one hand, I should really start getting used to 2-a-days and 6 day weeks with baby workouts spread out more (like this week) I know I’m going to need for half IM training, on the other hand, I feel like I should enjoy my time now and not stress so much about getting in enough bike/swim training and concentrate on fast short runs and weights.

It’s all a lot to ponder.  For now, I’ll just do what I can without my inner child whining and my outer child (Zliten) whining. 🙂

So I got my body comp test yesterday, and I can’t lie – it was depressing at first.

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt for me.  I have convinced myself that while my weight was higher than it should be, I am a fairly muscular gal.  I must just be bucking the trend and I’m fine, right?  Not so much.

34% Body Fat.  Anything over 32% is considered “obese”.

It doesn’t help that their scale weighed me 2 lbs heavier at 180, which just inched my BMI to obese.

I was in an awesome mood yesterday morning, let me tell you.

A half marathoner, triathlete, eater of as many healthy foods, and rocker of worlds should not be obese.  And I was.

I met with the nutritionist today and she told me not to stress so much about the numbers.  She was happy with a) my BMR at 1672 was pretty great for my height and b) I have 118 lbs of lean mass.  She said her goal for me was to even increase the lean mass more – up to 120 at the next reading – while working to decrease the fat.

So to contrast the negatives, I can toot my own horn that I have more purely lean mass on me (118 lbs) than the bottom low weight for my BMI (my range at 5’5″ is 115 to 150 lbs).  At the bare minimum 10% body fat for women, I’d weight about 130 lbs.  At a very athletic 20%, I’d weigh 142. At 120 lbs of lean mass I’d be 132 and 144 respectively.  I think 144 and 20% body fat is a great long term goal to work towards.

How are we going to do this?  It’s time to recreate the past, my friends.

Step 1: No goal races in the first half of this year. I always have to balance my training and eating with what will get me to my A race.  Being in the negative with the calorie intake is always scary when you’re trying to train for max effort, and tapering means a LOT less activity than normal + cutting any weight training.  So, I’m going to take that out of the equation.  The one *sorta* exception will be my 10 miler in April, but really, I just want to run that one as hard as I can (and the best way for me to run harder will be to take off weight).

Step 2: Change my training program.  I will craft my training around lowering fat, increasing muscle, and we’ll see how that goes when I toe the start line.  I’m not doing anything in the first half of this year I can’t do with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back.   This means no tapers, less steady state long cardio, more HIIT, more lifting heavy things/crunchtime/pilates.  I am giving myself one day per week to do a 10 mile run to keep my run endurance up.

I will be putting in some long slow bike trainer time, but I expect most of that will be the calorie burn equivalent of a walk, so they don’t really count until I really start going more than a coasting pace.  Same with fun bike rides around town.  This is the stuff you file under “being active” not really “working out”.

Step 3: Figure out all the math to get to a calorie goal and stick to it. This is another thing I did.  I hit a certain amount of calories on average per week.  When I did that, I lost.  I eat WAY WAY WAY frickin’ better than I used to (looking at some of the days of food consumption from 2008 when I was losing weight I wanted to a) gag and b) pass out from exhaustion from eating way too little volume because it was all junk food), so I’m pretty sure I’ll have less energy issues like I used to.

Nutrition lady person says 1672 (BMR) + Activity calories = Total expended.  For example, today would have been  1672 + 235 (for 50 mins pilates) = 1907 is my total expended for today.

Total expended – total intake should equal 500-700 (so the goal is a 500-700 calorie debt PER DAY).  Or, in more simple terms, 1000-1200 + activity calories = what I can eat per day.  With today’s example, I would take total expended (1907) – total intake, and get =500-700.  In this case, it would be about 1200 – 1400 (since I wasn’t super active today).  Looking at it another way, 1000-1200 + 235 is about 1235-1435.

Today, I’m at 1237 after dinner and not feeling 100% satiated, so I’ll look for some sort of snack later that keeps me under 1400.

She said to pay STRICT attention to getting lots of nutrients/good food on my true rest days when I do nothing (1200 cal).  I have a feeling this is going to be motivation to take less 100% sacked out on the couch days anymore and spread things out a little more.  I’m fairly certain actually learning how to do some active recovery will do me good.

Step 4:  Get accurate estimates of how much I actually burn during activities via Body Bug. She’s loaning me hers that she doesn’t use to try for a few weeks so I can get a more accurate estimate of what I burn during different fitness activities (NOTE: LMAO of how bad this first draft grammar is and leaving it for posterity because it made me giggle – enjoy!).  If I love it I’ll buy one, but if I don’t, at least I’ll have a pretty good baseline to estimate from (which means you know I’m going to have to try to hit just about every type of workout I might do in the next few weeks… no complaints here!).

So while January has been sort of a bust for weight loss (I’m really sick of seeing 178), I’ve really gotten my shit together.  No/very little sugar.  Very little eating out.  More like 95/5 healthy/not healthy food.  My calorie goal has gone from a challenge to me needing to eat more most days.  I’ve gotten my weekend head in check and realized that when I was losing I never used to imbibe alcohol and eat high calorie food on the same day (or if I did, I VERY VERY carefully planned for it).  I’m just one of those unlucky people that no matter how great or crappy I eat, it really and truly matters how much goes in my cakehole (pertaining to weight loss, I can tell you I FEEL much better eating good stuff).

So, let me lay it out for you…

Next Week’s Plan:
Monday – 30-45 mins bike hills, crunchtime (food goal around 1400-1600)
Tuesday – group power or my own lifting for at least 45, 30 mins HIIT (short intervals) run (food goal 1550-1750)
Wednesday – Pilates, 30 min swim (food goal around 1400-1600)
Thursday – group power or my own lifting for at least 45, 30 mins HIIT run (food goal 1550-1750)
Friday – off/mellow (food goal 1200 + any activity)
Saturday – 10 mile run (food goal 2050-2250)
Sunday – off/mellow (food goal 1200 + any activity)

The calorie goals are from my own estimations on how much I *think* I burn for each activity, and once I play with the body bug, I’ll have a better idea.

It took over 6 months to exhaust other options, but we have determined that my body must need balanced equations to make the scale come down.  I’m ready to let science be the win.

Questions of the day: What does your strength routine consist of on a weekly basis?  What is the one most important thing you did to lose the weight?

I can’t lie, as the days go on, I’m feeling a little more let down about my marathon decision.  It’s still the right call, and I still have two half marathons in the next month so it’s not like I’m taking my toys and going home.  There was the buildup and release, but it was 6 weeks early and not full of happy “I did its”.  I’m having a little bit of negative thought rolling around in my head.  The things I need to remember are:

-I will have done 4 half marathons this season.  The first one I did this season was half marathon #4 ever.  So I more than doubled the amount of 13.1s under my belt.

-More importantly, I have maintained a double digit base long run for 6 months now, relatively injury-free (one minor injury that just needed rest).

-It didn’t take a full blown illness or injury to knock me down.  I listened to my body and mind made the right decision at this time.

-I am still awesome even though I am not marathoning in February.

However, this brings the focus to two other areas of my life:

1.  Weight loss.

This is now my biggest focus.  I’m considering this my “race” that I’m in training for as of today.  Now, this is the biggest endurance challenge I have ever taken on.  My previous training has been 5 times a week, an hour to four per day.  Now, I have at least 3 critical sessions per day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and there is never a day off.  I have to learn how to manage my “pace” of consuming calories to sustain me until the end of each “session” or day.  It’s on.  If I can do nothing else but take off 20 lbs in a safe and healthy way before tri season really starts, that will be the best way to increase my pace.

Being that the marathon is off the table, I have lost any excuses.  I can do 10-12 mile EZ training runs with little to no fuel.  The scarier prospect is parties and dinners out and not having the self discipline to really keep my calories where they should be while eating the good and healthy diet I’ve come to know and love with over the last 6 months.

My nutritionist and I are a bit at odds with how many calories I should intake, especially on long run days, so I’m going to get an advanced body comp test next week (I will definitely blog about that once I get the test and the follow up) to get a more accurate count of how much I burn per day.  I love numbers, so I’m all for it.  More importantly, I can know for sure what I need to do to make the scale move.  If I am just unlucky an efficient machine and only burn 1300 a day or whatever, I just know I need to eat less.

Right now, just putting my head down, convincing myself that weight loss is better than ice cream and french fries, and keeping at it.  The absolute worst I could do doing what I’m doing is uh be the same weight and super healthy and feeling great.  So, really, no loss there even if there is no loss, right?

2. Tri season:

The biggest focus here right now is not getting too ahead of myself.  I’m really going to have to hold myself back and not go full into training mode for a while.  I have to remember that a) I have the swim already for the half iron and b) if I just maintain double digis, I have the run no problem.  It’s just about adding a few (ok 20 or so) miles to my bike, and gaining the endurance to put it all together.

In my head, I really really could justify this early stop of marathon training and call it the beginning of tri training.  However, I have to remember that mental burnout was a major part of my crash and burn this winter.  My goal is to be so hungry to be on an official training schedule and race by the time April comes around that I have at least 6 months of major give-a-shit left.

My Zliten does have his own free will that he exercises at times to my disdain, and one of his 2012 resolutions was to do 2 races a month (or 24 this year).

Twist my arm.  Ow.  Not more races.  Oh no what will ever I do having to do more races.  *worstfakepoutever*

So, I have no disillusions that I can race hard that much, so I’ll pick my battles and find some interesting races that are just for the experience to fill in the gaps.  There are a lot of cycling races that are really just timed supported rides.  Oh gee, oh no.  A timed supported ride when I am looking to ramp up my biking.  How ever will this fit in with my goals? *secondworstfakepoutever*

I’m not entirely sure I want to pack in more than the 6 triathlons I’m signed up for, but I’m definitely looking into some duathlons, swimming races, aquathons, and early season indoor triathlons.

So, it’s not so much trying to find races, but more trying to decide between which fun thing I get to do every other weekend or so.  2012 is going to be awesome!

So far, here’s what I’m signed up for:

Gorilla Run, 5k Jan 22, Austin TX (signed up)

3M Half Marathon, 13.1 – Jan 29, Austin, TX (signed up)

Austin Marathon, 26.2 – Feb 19, Austin TX

Austin 10/20 10 mile run – April 15, Austin TX

Texas Tri Series: Rookie (May 6), Pflugerville (June 17) (4 more here, I just haven’t officially plunked down the cash just in case, but I HAVE registered for the series.  In light of that, I also plunked down the cash to get my USAT license for the year.  I feel like an official athlete – Chrissie Wellington, watch out!!!)

Some potentials for the first half of the year:

Feb 25/26 Indoor Tri (Sat in SA, Sun in Austin, 1o min swim, 30 min bike, 20 min run as far as you can go)
March 3 Sombrero Beach Run 15k race (birthday weekend trip to the keys hehe, I can dream, right?)
March 11 Blue Norther Duathlon 5k run/14 mile ride/5k run
March 24 Rosedale Ride 20/40/60 mile cycle
March 31 Jailbreak adventure race 5k
March 31 Spirit Reins Ride/Brick 62 or 44 mile bike, also a supported 5k/10k run if we wanted to make it a brick after
April 22 Iron Striders Duathlon l 5k run, 25 mile bike,  5k run duathlon
April 28 Red Poppy Ride 30-100 mile bike ride
April 29 Tour De Pure (free, 8 hour supported ride around town with challenges, sounds cool)
May 19 Congress Avenue Mile one mile balls to the wall – could be fun! 🙂

I’m still doing some digging and refining, but I think after Austin 10/20, I want to chill on the run races for a while.  Maybe do something early summer as a tune up so I don’t totally lose my half marathon skillz .  However, I can’t think of a way to get to be a better cyclist than riding with other people pushing me to go faster/longer.  Although, as I dig for races, I totally reserve the right to change my mind.  I also really want to do a swim only race at least once, I’d love to be all, “what did you do ths weekend” “I ran a 5k, what did you do” “I did a 5k too, but I swam it..” heh.  My best so far is 2.2 miles in 75 mins, and one of these days, I’m going to see if I can do more (need to find a time the pool is SUPER dead and just say I’m swimming until they kick me out, heh).

Anyhoo…Ever had your body composition tested?   Any races I should check out?  Is Zliten crazy for wanting to do 24 races?  11 in 2010, 18 in 2011, this year is just going to be epic-er.  Seriously, if you hate race reports just stop reading this blog until next year…

As you can see, these are the closest to pouty pictures I have over the last few years.  I really, indeed, do have the worst fake pout ever.