Adjusted Reality

…what personal bests look like:

The little free 5k this weekend?  The one we *almost* ditched because we didn’t feel like it?  Because neither  of us had trained for it (we had both run ONCE in the last 2 weeks)?

Both significant personal bests.  25:10 for me (which beats my PB ever by about 1 minute, my race PB by 1:21), and 32:16 for Zliten, which is at least a few minutes better than he’s ever done.  It was just the right morning, the right course, and I am so very glad we decided to go!  I felt like I was bookin’ it, but since I rolled sans garmin (or timing watch even) and there were no mile markers, I had no clue.  I think that might have even helped.  Just kept going as fast as I could and keeping green tank top girl in my sights.  I even kicked hard and passed her at the end!

The obstacle course part?  Kinda fail.  I finished the 5k, cheered Zliten across the finish line, and then walked up and found out my wave was starting THEN.  I was already totally wasted from the run but I gave it my all.  I rocked the sprint, the army crawl, even the rope wall, but I just didn’t have the hand strength to get across the longest set of monkey bars ever.  I’m a little pissed about that.  I LOVED me some monkey bars as a kid.   I knew my time wouldn’t “count”, but I continued through the rest of the 10 and finished in about 6 minutes.  Suck!  Oh well, I was so pumped about earlier I just didn’t care too much.

The price I paid for a personal best?  I really aggravated my heel again (boo).   I think it’s a no run week again, I’m going to really work on stretching it (I’m starting to think it’s a muscle thing, not a bruis-y thing), icing it, and look into getting some new shoes, maybe even from a for-real running store that analyzes my gait.  I would like to have healthy feet again that don’t wuss out after a 5k.

More of the normal Monday stuff soon if life doesn’t continue with the too crazy (writing this while loading up stuff at work.  Yeah.  It sucks.).  Anyone else race this weekend?  Any one just do something super awesome non-race-y?  Think I look fierce there (ROAR!)?

There are reasons I haven’t been around.

Pictures ganked from Zliten and B at work.  Hope they don’t mind. 🙂

It’s a hard life, I tell ya.  More soon.  I still have to get through a bunch of work stuff at work, explore a new place to try swimming, and the 5k race/gladiator games thing this weekend.  I think I might die by Saturday afternoon, but it would be a good death.

What’s up with you, bloggyland?

So, with my whole messy long diatribe of frustration, I ended up having a really nice weekend and am just feeling kinda better about the whole ball of wax.  I am still a little frazzled about the swimming thing, but since my goal is really just to finish the first tri race, I think as long as I can get in soon it’ll be ok.  I started this week feeling pretty good about the scale and am going to work hard to keep the trend going.  I did a few other things I’ve been meaning to for a while – gave myself a manicure and pedicure (a lazy one, but one at that), and finally got my beads out and tinkered with some necklaces and bracelets.  And, most dramatically – Zliten gave me a pretty snazzy haircut:

It’s short enough right now, so I’m going to forgo the salon until it get a little longer and then see what’s what.

So, here’s last week by the numbers:

Monday: 1550 in – 775 out (12 mile bike and 20 mins arc trainer) = 775 (major oops, but I really really wasn’t hungrier)

Tuesday: 1439 in – 0 out (day off) = 1439

Wednesday: 1459 in – 450 out (45 mins DDR) = 1009

Thursday: 1604 in – 444 out (35 mins elliptical, 15 mins abs) = 1160

Friday: 1780 in – 471 out (10 mile bike ride) = 1309

Saturday: 1593 in – 600 out (60 mins DDR) = 993

Sunday: 1600 in – 339 out (2 mile walk, 4.5 mile bike) = 1261

This is probably my best week besides the first one – no wonder I’m starting off the week in a good spot!  If I can navigate 2 days of social situations where the food presented to me is not really under my control, I’ll be in good shape.

More Numbers:

Average intake per day: 1564

Average output per day: 439

Average net calories per day: 1125

Deficit: 687 calories per day, or about 1.5 lbs per week

Weight this morning: 159.6 (-1.6 from last week, -3.4 overall)

I’ll take it.  Moving on…

This week:

Monday: 12 mile bike, 2 mile run as slow as I need to (breaking the heel back in slooooowly)

Tuesday: 30 mins DDR

Wednesday: bike ride of some sort

Thursday: 30 min swim, weights

Friday: off

Saturday: 5k race, obstacle course gladiator thingee

Sunday: 30 min swim, weights

While I would *like* to take more days off this week, it’s just not in the cards.  I have a stupid busy social calendar for this week – Tuesday we’ve got one of those yelp events downtown, Wednesday we have a work team building thingee of tubing down the river, and then the last night of trivia of the season.  And if I’m going to imbibe, I’m gonna have to burn at least a little both days, so it’s really like one workout split into two.  Or that’s what I’m going to go with, at least.

I had planned to swim Sunday, but I just didn’t feel up for it that day.  Consuming about 50% of my (too low) calories the day before in alcohol did not a happy Quix make, and I’d already moved my ass that day with a 2 mile walk and 4.5 mile bike ride, so I called it even.  I was going to go Tuesday but I forgot about the event.  So now, it’s Thursday and damned if I can keep doing this another week *grrr*.  I WILL SWIM!!!

Other than that, looking forward to doing the 5k race and obstacle course thing – apparently it’s a contest that’s also a tryout for American Gladiators?  Not as if I have the stuff to make it, but hey, I’ll give it a go.  It’s a very running lite week, and I don’t think I’ve ever raced a 5k with this little training the weeks before, but it’s a good experiment.  Maybe I’ll be so rested that I’ll PR!

Goals for this week:

-Be strong and consume reasonably through Tuesday and Wednesday.

-Get a mother fucking swim in this week.

-Continue this nice little second wind I’ve caught.  No more 160s!!  Roar!

-Ease back into running slowly and don’t hurt myself.

What’s up for you this week?

So I wrote this long ass rant earlier about how I’m feeling like a failure lately.  It’s a little too whiny and negative to really post, but it helped me get some messy subconscious stuff out and visible to me, and I wanted to share my thought process when I work through a negative emotions day:

Problem: New Years Resolutions: fail.  I have not had one weigh in with my maintenance range.  My half marathon goal got trashed by a nasty cold, and I’m not doing a marathon now.  I haven’t touched a book, or been writing other than the blog.

Solution: Allow some things to slip to the back burner.  New accomplishments at work were something I hadn’t even anticipated making strides with this year.  I chose to not do the marathon of my own volition and instead chose a very worthy alternate goal, an olympic triathalon, which sounded like much more fun to train for and just about as badass on the proverbial athlete resume.  The book thing?  Also kinda fallen by the wayside with work.  I have doubts about how kindly my company would take to me being a published author while employed there, and I think the urgency there was a desire to find some way to support myself in lieu of my current career.  Now that I’m lovin’ it again, sadly, it’s going to go back to someday.  And that’s ok.  There is a reason for all of it.  I’m not just a worthless slob.

Problem: And let’s elaborate on the weight thing.  I am killing myself here and I’m barely in the 150’s.  Before I ditched the scale a few weeks before the half, I was around 157.  Then all of a sudden I woke up 2 months later at 163.  I cannot fathom how I gained SIX lbs.  And as much as I have an ethos of trying to forgive and move forward, I just can’t here right now.  And my friends – losing 10 lbs is SO MUCH HARDER than losing 100.  At 100 to go, you obviously have a lot of changes to do that make sense.  Y’know, not washing down your double cheeseburger with a chocolate shake and eating veggies instead of french fries.  Losing 10 lbs is hard because I don’t have easy big changes to make.  It is really one little decision that tests my willpower and resolve after another and another.  It’s tiring.  And frustrating because I’ve seen all these numbers on the scale before.  So it’s not like *woohoo, a new low* it’s *oh, I’m here again…* which is not nearly as exciting.

Also with the appearance, I am really frustrated with half my closet not fitting right.  Never thought 5-10 lbs would make that much of a difference, but it does.  Some pants that fit fine before give me a pooch.  So I can only wear them with looser shirts.  And some shirts that were perfectly fine in length are now too short.  So I’m back to wearing my size 8/10/12s instead of my 6/8/10s.  It makes me mad because I have worked SO HARD to earn the right to have a closet full of clothing that fits me and looks good.  I guess I just can’t have nice things.

Solution: I just gotta keep on keepin’ on.  I will continue on with my current plan.  It’s slow going but it seems to be working on a month by month view.  To appease Zliten (and to combat my crazies) I will try to whittle my exercise down to 5 days per week of training, and request that one other day we do something cool like a walking adventure or skating or climbing or something active.  So bike/swim one day, weights/swim one day, long bike one day, long run one day, bike/run one day, I guess.  All I’m missing is one session of weights and I can just wrap those around some of the other workouts in 10 – 15 min segments.

As for the food?  I’ll just keep taking stabs in the dark until I find the magic formula.  And not deviate too much from what I’m doing because it’s going (painfully slowly) in the right direction.  Then I will sell it and be rich!  Muahaha!  And really?  I need to remember that as frustrating as it is to me, 10 lbs is really and truly cosmetic.  Wah me, I’m a size 8 not a size 6.  Some of my XS shirts don’t fit anymore.  It’s not the end of the world.  I’m going to keep on towards it, but sheesh, not something to get my panties in a wad about.  Easier said than done, but here’s hoping.

Problem: I’m frustrated because I haven’t tackled the “finding somewhere to swim” yet.  If it were completely up to me I would be at a different place every day or 2 checking out pools but there is only so often that work/other obligations/can drag Zliten with since he’s joining up somewhere too.  I think it will probably be next Tuesday before we can make another attempt because we have other plans and priorities.  So my lovely idea to swim twice this week?  Absolute fail.  And getting access to a pool is going to cost us a lot, not to mention lessons… it just feels overwhelming.  Running was easy because all I need is shoes.  Biking, I’m getting over the whole “need Zliten to go with so I feel safe” thing and also getting over my hatred of gym bikes.  But of course, the swimming thing is what I need to work on the very most, and I don’t have a way to do it.

Solution: This Sunday if at all possible (I think I found a loophole in our schedule) I want to check out the Y up north that supposedly has an awesome lap pool and evaluate whether it’s worth the drive 2x week.  If not, next Tuesday begins the gym-ocolypse to see if we can find a good home that’s not too pricey.  With a nice pool.  That maybe offers lessons so we don’t have to spend an extra 50 bucks a month on that.  Argh!  I don’t know why this is stressing me out so but it is.  I just have to take solace in the fact that I was able to rock the full distance of the swim for the tri on my first… try (badup, ching!) so I should be ok in a pinch.  It’s really a priority when I go from sprint to olympic but that’s 2 months from now.

Problem: My hair is repulsive right now.  It’s at a really bad length where it doesn’t look good no matter WHAT I do with it.  I haven’t been bothering washing it more than once a week because it really doesn’t matter, it looks gross either way.  And I seem to be putting off and subconsciously scared of doing something about it.  Y’all, I’ve never been to a salon.  Maybe supercuts here or there in a pinch, but my hair has been tended to by my mother, and then by Zliten.  And I’ve had the same haircut since I was 14 – shoulder length or longer, all one length.  I am really wanting something *different* but terrified to go somewhere hip that will do something that requires a lot of maintenance and doesn’t work for working out.  Or that just looks god awful.  And with all this talk about pools costing a ton of money, I don’t want to spend 100 bucks on a haircut.  But I told myself I was going to not do the Zliten cut this time, I was going to do something different.  So here I sit.

Solution: First step – Zliten is cutting my hair tomorrow.  Asking for it a little bit longer than I really want it so I’m still motivated to go get it styled eventually, but if it’s really making me this unhappy, I need to deal with it.  And since I’m obviously not mentally ready to let someone else touch it yet, forcing myself into it is not the best idea.  It may be such a minor thing to y’all, but it has big significance to me.  Even when I was at my fattest, I was the chick with the cool long hair.  Now I don’t care for it to be long anymore, but I’m so afraid of getting a cut that makes my face look rounder.  Or ending up with something so high maintenance to make it look decent (hi2u late 90s jennifer anniston cut that looked HORRIBLE and took forever to grow out) that I just look like dog poopy for months.  Any of you girlier girls out there, I need HELP here.  What would you suggest for this mug with naturally wavy hair?  I just can’t do the “get up and style my hair” every morning thing – so it has to be get up (maybe put some product in, and possibly brush it) and go.

Problem: I’ve come to terms that I AM actually pretty bitter about the half marathon earlier this year.  Training so precisely and so hard for 3 months just to get sick sucked balls.  Plain and simple.  I want revenge.  I at least want a PR.  I mean, I’m terribly proud of my level of fitness that I could even consider running 13.1 miles hacking up a lung with a sore throat, and even come within 3 minutes of my previous time, but still.

Solution: The marathon I was going to run in November has a half.  I think I can do it with less training – especially if I’m just coming off training for an olympic tri – I’ll have great endurance and pretty fresh legs.  If not, I’m targeting a weekend of crazy – half marathon trail run one day, duathlon the next (with a campout in the middle).  That’s a special level of hell I will just be proud to finish.  It’s been the year of non-traditional road races so far, it might just continue.  But I need to rock another half marathon soon.  It is inevitable.

There are a couple more personal things I’ve worked through too and have a plan for.  It was a very productive thought day (and a very productive day at work, apparently I can have deep thoughts and crunch numbers in spreadsheets really well together).  So my take on negative thoughts: have ’em.  If you’re upset about something, be upset.  It’s healthy to be unhappy about things that aren’t right in your life no matter how trivial they are.  But make them a call to action rather than an excuse to wallow and be destructive.  In a former life I might have berated myself for being too much of a wuss to get a haircut.  Now I realize there are only so many scary things I can take on at once without breaking down, and this is not something to get upset about.  Make a to do list, and check them off as you can.

Your turn.  What’s got your panties in a wad?  What’s your plan of action to restore happiness and harmony?  If nothing – how do you plan to accept yourself as is?  And pleeeeease, who has suggestions about the haircut thing?

So I keep seeing this everywhere, and have to have a quick mid-week rant about it.  “Who works 40 hours anymore?”  “The 40 hour work week is dead.”  “9-5 is a myth.”  I’m even getting outsource quotes that assume a 50 hour work week is normal.  This keeps getting thrust down my throat by articles, billboards, on the radio, on the TV… and I know what they’re trying to do.  They’re trying to get the overworked, underpaid sheeple out there to nod and commiserate together and hopefully purchase whatever product they’re selling that is being touted to make their poor, busy lives easier and more efficient.  I get it.

However, I must ponder: what the fuck is the problem with having a life, an identity, and time outside of work?  Is it horrible to put in a good quality 40 and then enjoy your life?  Is it wrong to associate myself with adjectives such as athlete, wife, and friend as well as producer?  Am I somehow less of a good person, a good employee, and a productive member of my company because I come in, get everything done with quality and quickness, and then leave work at a normal hour, after my 8 are up, and get on with my life?  I have used VPN (connecting from my home computer to my work computer) once in 3 years here.  I have checked my work email a handful of times from home, but I refuse to have it pushed to my cell phone so I see it all the time.  I just prefer, whenever possible, to keep work and personal life separate.

Sure, I work extra hours when the job commands it. But I ensure that the numbers that form in the employee time tracking software are worth it. We work on the core hours philosophy – you come into work sometime between 8-10am and you put in your 8 hours (so the entire company is there from 10-5).  It seems to be a very Austin thing.  I’m typically a 9-5:30-er, or 10-6:30 if I work out in the morning (I take a very short lunch break since I usually bring mine, or if I don’t, I run out and back quickly).  Some days I’ll have a meeting at 9am and then have to stay until 7pm because something broke and we have a release to get done.  It happens.  However, that’s the special exception.

I never used to be like that.  When I was a wide-eyed, newbie designer, I was so thrilled to be able to do something I loved, I was at it every hour I could be.  I stopped going out, I stopped playing games, I stopped doing anything but thinking about, talking about, and doing work.  I could not imagine a life where I was not so immersed in this wonderful thing I lived and breathed.  I spent 2 years that way.

Work time was awake time.  I got up, slammed a lo-carb monster energy drink, went into work at 945 am, drank massive doses of caffeine to stay awake all day, and worked until I got dragged home by Zliten.  Then after/while I consumed random fatty greasy takeout, I loaded up either my email, the game, a document, the design tool, or a combination of all 4.  I’d continue until I was too tired/burnt/uninspired for the night, and then drink and smoke cigarettes and zone out in front of the TV (still probably mulling over conundrums from work that day)  if I hadn’t worked to the point where my eyes were actually drooping and it was just bedtime (read: after 2-3am).

One day, late 2006, I woke up and realized that I couldn’t keep on that way.  I was pouring my heart and soul into something that just didn’t have the funding and manpower to flourish.  I also was tired, burnt out, frustrated, moderately mentally unwell, and had gained another 30 lbs on top of the 70-80 extra I was carrying around.  I had gone from making an attempt at eating well and exercising, as misguided and short-lived and horrible vicious-cyclical as they were, from just saying, fuck it, I’m putting all my eggs in this basket and working to be the youngest, most successful, brightest lead designer/producer in the world and take this little game that could and turn it into the comeback story of the decade.  But as much as I wanted it with all my being, no matter what I did, it was outside the locus of my control.

In 2007, I started instituting a policy for myself of the 40 hour work week.  I came in at 945 (yeah, what a weird start time, I know…), made a huge deal about being efficient during my day, and left on time and did not work from home.  I simply made sure that I scheduled myself and my team reasonably and didn’t do the “oh crap, this won’t fit this release but I really want it so I’m going to work extra to do it”.  It was either cut it, or extend the date.  Oddly enough, I found that I got so much more done during my 40 and was so much more productive and alert during the day because I was refreshed and well rested, I was able to get almost as much done as my 100 hour weeks, and I was picky about what I did and what fell by the wayside.  Priorities, I know – what a concept.  It was so successful that neither our customers nor management noticed or cared.

I can’t say that I had much of a life right away, due to the shell shock of not to be tied to work 24/7.  I did start eating better, and exercising a little.  It was cans and packages filled with way too much salt, and maybe burning 100-200 calories extra 3 times a week, but it was a start.  I watched a lot of TV.  I played some games.  It also made me well aware that I needed a change.   It’s harder to see your life, sanity, and health crumbling around you with those blinders on, but once you have time on your hands?  It’s all you can do NOT to want to evolve.  Could I have done it in San Diego?  Sure.  But it seemed like it was time for something drastic.  Jumping in the proverbial deep end.  I applied everywhere from Australia to Vancouver and the rest is history.

At first, once I moved to Austin and started my current job, I was hoping to have something to sink my teeth into as deeply as my past.  It just wasn’t there.  The oddity of having a fully staffed team, and the phenomenon of only having to do ONE person’s job made it so that I came in, did my work, and left on time (like I said before, unless I had to be there late to support others, which was definitely the exception to the rule).  I sort of resented it for a few months and then it hit me – I really and truly could have a life here.  Not only was I able to start having a social life with friends, but I could work on personal goals as well!

It really could have gone either way.  At that crucial point in my life, if I would have found a job that was a lovely sinkhole of time like my last one, perhaps things would be different.  I might be on this list.  I also would probably be pushing 300 lbs and cried when I saw the picture with my profile.  Marathon wouldn’t have been part of my vocabulary.   I’ve made peace with that choice, and realize that it was absolutely the right one.  So, I’ll take the extra few years I need to get on there and enjoy the fact that I can still tie my own shoes.  I may not be terribly influential at 30 but perhaps by 35 you can say you knew me when…

So enough about me.  As a manager, I occasionally have to ask employees to stay late, work the weekend, or otherwise cut into their personal lives.  Our company ethos is to work 40 hard and go home, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.  Some things I’ve found:

-Blanketly keeping people for extra hours no matter their workload just makes people extend their workload in the hours they are required to work.  As in people will generally get the same amount of tasks done in an 8 hour day as a 10 hour day unless REALLY, REALLY ridden hard.

-Giving people 10 hours of work and telling them they can go home once its done usually results in a really productive 8 hour work day.

-Productivity definitely goes down the next week after one weekend day worked (slightly), and definitely after both weekend days (significantly).  It’s rarely useful to have employees working over the weekend both days unless absolutely necessary, and definitely ONLY if they have a specific task they need to finish up.

-People are much more willing to work extra hours if it’s to achieve a short term goal (aka, putting in crazy hours a few days before release) rather than a long term goal (working Saturdays for 2 months to hit a goal).

-People are much more willing to work extra hours if it’s communicated properly that their extra hours are changes/last minute additions/fixes/etc for the good of the project rather than scheduling mishaps, intentional overscheduling, or other mismanagement.

-People that have to monitor their emails, or do work from home outside of work hours aren’t QUITE as prone to burnout as if they have to be in the office extra hours, but it’s still there.  Probably at about 50%.

And since I’m all about helping, here are some productivity tips (some which I have slacked on lately):

-Get a feel for how you naturally work and work with it.  I’m a sprint worker – I finish tasks quickly but I also need mental breaks in between.  I also do better when I spend the morning on mentally-light tasks and get to the deeper stuff late afternoon (when I’m more up against a deadline, I focus better).  Some people work steadily all day and just need to eliminate the distractions I need.

-Make a to do list last thing each day of what’s up for tomorrow.  If I don’t have one, I spend much more time unfocused and continually think “what do I need to be doing?” and I find that writing it out right before I leave takes about 10x less than when I come in that morning and have to remember.

-If you find you’re putting something off, really ask why.  Sometimes you need time to mull a decision over, which is valid.  Sometimes, you’re just putting off unpleasantness, which is bogus.

-If you’re feeling really unmotivated, make yourself dedicate the next (15 mins, hour, etc) to the task at hand and say no matter the progress, you can take a break after.  9 times out of 10, I’ll just end up finishing my task instead, since starting is the hardest part.

So now, I’d like to hear from you.  Are you part of the “live to work” crowd and stay glued to your blackberry at all hours?  Have you made a conscious decision to have a life and pursue personal goals and interests outside of your career?  When do you resent and when don’t you mind putting in a little extra effort at work?  How do you stay productive and motivated?