Adjusted Reality

Feeling a little draggy after a pretty amazing weekend, which included bikes in the sunshine, sportsball, an amazing Indian food feast with friends, video and card games.  Oh, and a few miles of running.  I’m glad that the next few days are fairly mellow and plans-less.  Even though I feel rejuvenated from the fun, not exhausted, I’m still going to need chill time and lots of extra sleep (hello 10+ hours last night).

Training:

Got ‘er done, even though it took a shit ton of negotiation during the last 5 or so miles.

Cutting my running down to 3x week and following this plan was absolutely the right thing to do.  My hip is not 100% completely happy, but it’s not bad, and it’s not getting worse, and I need to get a FEW weeks of training in before I taper, so I’m dealing with it.

I had a pretty spectacular tempo session Thursday at lunch on fresh legs.  That was fun.  I really enjoyed the perfect temps and sunshine and that my legs and lungs were just a-ok flying at 9-something pace for quite a while, even dealing with the hills.

My long run wasn’t quite as spectacular, but I put in the work and did pretty much exactly what I set out to do (first 10 easy, last 8 descending the pace to at least 11:30/mile total average), even if it took a lot of focusing on THIS IS WHAT IM DOING RIGHT NOW.

Last week, I took one extra day off – 5 days on instead of 6, and did one day easy instead of speedwork (I hadn’t yet started following the new plan yet), and I forgot about weights. Other than that, everything pretty much went according to plan… at least the new plan.

• Run 3-4 times this week.  Try to alternate days or give plenty of time in between runs and run as long as possible each time.
• Try to make one of those 18-20 miles if my hip agrees (or if not, as long as possible).
• 15 mins of bike/swim/stretch each day (at least on average).
  
• One bodyweight session.

This week’s schedule is actually less loosey goosey than normal, so the goals are pretty easy to lay out.  One speed session today, one tempo run Thursday, and finally putting up a 20 miler this weekend, plus 3 bikes or swims (30-60 mins at a time).  I’m going to keep that weights thing up there as wishful thinking, but it may be worth admitting defeat until next cycle.

• Monday: 55 min spin after work at home (check)
• Tuesday: 1 mile warm up, 3×1 miles @9-9:30/mile, .25 miles between each recovery, 1 mile cooldown before work or at lunch
• Wednesday: 30 min swim at lunch
• Thursday: 1 mile warmup, 5 miles tempo pace (9:30-10 min/miles), short cooldown at lunch
• Friday: 30 min swim at lunch
• Saturday: 20 mile run, no slower than 11:30 min/mile by the end
• Sunday: off (will be active that day hiking, but nothing formal)

Food/Scale

Oops, that was supposed to be grilled, not fried.  But it was yummy.

The end of the week went to restaurant land, and I slacked on even tracking over the weekend, which involved a lot of things that you would not put in the category of healthy.

• Continue tracking food and trying to hit the -500 calorie mark and keeping an eye on macros.
• Weigh a few times a week
• Happy hour after work Wed or Thurs (not AND), and Saturday evening drinks.  Das all.
• I have plenty of food at home.  Let’s try for THREE or less meals out this week.
• Moar snack veggies.  I’ve been good at keeping my calories under control but I could use an infusion of the good stuff in my life.  I bet I’d feel better.

I fell off tracking on Thursday night and was so busy all weekend I just never got back to it.  I can track from my phone though, so I don’t have a great excuse.  Just… I guess after being diligent for 5 weeks and seeing very little results made me throw a subconscious pity party.  Ah well.  Back to tracking because the alternative is just gaining more weight. 😛

There were more days of booze than there should be for an athlete.  However, I’m actually pretty happy because I didn’t completely overdo it any one day, so I guess that’s baby steps?  I think being a little less restrictive on the amount of days means I’m less likely to want to “get it all out in one night” and go crazy.

Went out 5 times.  That’s more than 3.  To be fair, 2 of those were Saturday after an 18 mile long run, and were plans with people, but I could have probably been a little more responsible during the week.

I’m going to keep it simple this week, especially because we’re doing this Stay-cation thing over the long weekend:

• Track all my food and stick to my macros/calorie range (-500 w/activity)
• Weigh a few times this week
• I’m not going to specify an amount for booze but it needs to not compromise my a) calorie count b) sleep schedule c) workouts

A few weeks from now I’ll be hitting this section hard, but for now, I just need to make sure I don’t gain the “marathon 5” I tend to.

Life:

Go Broncos!  We may not be that into football but we wore the right colors at least. 🙂

While I had a few holes in the training and food parts, I actually had a pretty fabulous week.

The first part of the week was relaxing, and then we were super social and I didn’t hate it at all!  I hung out with 4 different groups of friends and family peeps.  I got to check out THREE new restaurants.  I’m in such a better mental place than I was a few months ago, because this was all FUN to me, not an experience to endure until I could get to my couch.

I also got to play some video games, ride my bike in the sunshine without any attention to anything but happiness watts, and color a bit more.

We started a little bit of the ground work on the kitchen remodel.  I have a bit of an idea on colors, scope, and we’ve talked to the handy side of the family and asked if they’d help with oversight or babysitting contractors.  I don’t think we’re getting much further until we’re willing to go price things and we’re not there yet.

• 8 hours of sleep most every nights 
• Relax as much as possible.
• Maybe start scoping out things for our potential remodel project?

Worst was 6.5 hours one night, made up with 10 hours the next night.  Overall, I’m sitting pretty with no sleep debt.

This week, this is just kind of a list of the fun things we’re going to do as part of a staycation:

• Happy hour at Copper Lounge Thursday
• Eat pho with friends, walk to a movie matinee and dinner out Saturday
• Go to Enchanted Rock and grill up a great dinner Sunday
• Do something touristy downtown on Monday
• Do absolutely NO chores starting Saturday morning until Tuesday.
• Get 8 hours of sleep every night

The theme this week is work hard, play hard, sleep hard.  Heck yes.  Bring it on.

Holy crap, January is gone!  Being that it’s my least favorite month of the year, I’m ok with this, but how did that happen so quickly?

Training:

The goal was to take a stepback week the week of 3M Half, and then hit it hard and use the race as a kickoff to a high mileage week.

That is so not what happened.  Monday, and then again Thursday, I had to go to the chiropractor to get my hip adjusted.  She asked me to lay off running for a few days each time, which ended up being the whole week.

I am SUPER torn on how I feel about this.

It’s definitely a setback to have had two low mileage weeks in a row, and seeing the “last year this time” facebook posts about 20 and 21 mile back to back long runs are making me incredibly anxious because I’ve only done a 14 (13.25 of it racing), 15 and 17 mile treadmill run since my last 26.2.

On the other hand – my legs never feel this fresh at this point of training, and my brain doesn’t feel overloaded with miles and I definitely don’t feel unfit.  I just need to go out and rock a 20 mile run either this or next week (with a high double digit run the other weekend day), and then start shutting it down.  This could be just what I need to show up at the race fresh and excited to test myself instead of injured and burned out.

I didn’t completely sit on my ass last week.  I did 3 bike rides, and two swims.  And one of those swims was pretty epic.  I decided to take (most of) the time I was going to dedicate to a long run and swim it out since the chiropractor said easy bikes only but whatever I wanted to do in the pool.  I decided to take that advice to the letter and see how long I could go.

I had no real business doing this because I’ve swam less than 3 miles COLLECTIVELY since Kerrville in September, but I figured I’d give it a go.  I brought all my pool toys, a bunch of snacks and drinks, and set out to bring down the house record of 7k or let my arms fall off trying.  This was set by Zliten last year while he was too injured to run… but he had swam every day leading up to the attempt.

I alternated 1000m freestyle with 1000m of drills (fins, paddles, pull, and kickboards) and got myself to 7300m (7125m adjusted for funky pool size), and claimed the distance PR (in about 10 mins less than Zliten did it as well, natch).  I took liberal breaks and went pretty slow (just over 2:00/100m), but I didn’t find myself getting tired, my arms were just too sore to keep going by the end.  I expected them to not work for days, but beyond the initial ache the afternoon of, it just got better and didn’t even bug me the next day.

What can I say?  I’m a swimmer.  I’d do this stuff all the time if I had all the time in the world.  However, considering my limited total training hours for the week, when I’m not injured the time is better spent on a bike ride or a run.

Anyhoo, last week…

• Make my hip feel better.  Run when I’m ready/when the chiro says its ok.
• Cycle, swim, do weights that don’t make it cranky, and/or stretch every day from now (Thursday) until the end of the week.

Solid.  This week, I’m finding my hip is not yet all the way better but I’m going to work with it the best I can.

• Run 3-4 times this week.  Try to alternate days or give plenty of time in between runs and run as long as possible each time.
• Try to make one of those 18-20 miles if my hip agrees (or if not, as long as possible).
• 15 mins of bike/swim/stretch each day.
• One bodyweight session.

I ran yesterday, and it was glorious, but my hip was definitely cranky to start (but then went away), and then sore later, but not unreasonably so.  I don’t want to tax it too much and start running every day, but I’d like to get some runs in for this little race I’m doing in less than 5 weeks if it would be ok with you, mister hip.  😛

The next two weeks will be peak weeks (i.e. – whatever miles I can get out of my body safely), then we’ll start the taper process.  I may handle my taper a little differently this time since what I’ve been doing lately seems to not really have worked that well, but I have a few weeks to decide.

Food/Scale

• Continue tracking food and trying to hit the -500 calorie mark and keeping an eye on macros.
• Weigh a few times a week
• I am “on notice” with the booze – I went a little crazy early in the week.
• Transition to cooking food rather than relying on takeout so much.

I’m thoroughly frustrated with the scale not moving much but if I focus on hitting goals, I’m doing pretty well.

I have all sorts of home cooked food prepared for the week.  However, I can tell that I haven’t been eating like my normal self for quite a while, because kale chips + broccoli and cauliflower for dinner ended up being a fiber gut bomb.  Six months ago that would just be normal.

I didn’t have drinks until Saturday, and I had a reasonable amount and hit my calories just about exactly, so that was a good thing.

I kind of lost track on Sunday night of my food, I was cleaning out my pantry and freezer and ate so much random stuff.  Pretty sure I was over on my calories by a bit but it’s going to be hard to exactly quantify things, so I’ll make an estimate and enjoy the first full day off both work and training since forever and move on.

This week, I want to just keep on keepin’ on.

• Continue tracking food and trying to hit the -500 calorie mark and keeping an eye on macros.
• Weigh a few times a week
• Happy hour after work Wed or Thurs (not AND), and Saturday evening drinks.  Das all.
• I have plenty of food at home.  Let’s try for THREE or less meals out this week.
• Moar snack veggies.  I’ve been good at keeping my calories under control but I could use an infusion of the good stuff in my life.  I bet I’d feel better.

Life Stuff

It was a pretty mellow week and weekend and seemed to be just what I needed.

• Get 8+ hours sleep every day this week (so far so good minus Tuesday night’s 6 hours).
• Grocery shop and batch cook for next week over the weekend.
• Do something fun over the weekend that isn’t just the G-rated version of Netflix and chill.

I technically only got like 7.5 hours on Saturday night, but that was because I couldn’t fall asleep right away, not because I was being dumb.  Rested, check.

We resumed our Friday night grocery grab, which is GREAT because I actually cook, but not-so-great because we pretty much HAD to go out to dinner or we would have been added about 50$ of groceries and been HANGRY at each other all over the store because swim + groceries + dinner time = no bueno.

We took advantage of beautiful patio weather to hang out with some friends and neighbors Saturday… before we tucked in to watch movies.  Perfect balance.

This week is mellow during the week (so far, with plans at least) but super busy this weekend with a family visit, a movie with friends, and then a superbowl party.  So, the goal is to retreat as much as possible and get good rest in so this weekend won’t throw me for a complete loop.

• 8 hours of sleep every night
• Relax as much as possible.
• Maybe start scoping out things for our potential remodel project?

And, that’s a wrap!

These last two weeks FEEL like they have been a big ol’ ker-flop of failing of adhering to plan.  However, it’s not all bad.

We joined a tri team this year and got some official team schwag!  Wheee!

Training:

• Normal run Monday, Tempo Tuesday, then initiate mid-week taper week.
• 3-4 miles on Wednesday and Thurs, 1-2 miles Friday and Saturday.
• Run 13.1 miles hard on Sunday.  I’m not going to be upset with myself if I don’t make it because I’m training for a marathon, but I’m going to go for a PR (sub 2:08). About 30-35 miles total.
• Continue with 15 minutes non-running per day (bike, swim, strength, stretch, walking, etc).
• One weights session (two preferred), but no weights Friday or Saturday (and no heavy weights).

Early last week, my hip started to hurt.  Not enough to cut the streak, but enough that I cut most of my runs short to try and preserve myself for Sunday’s race.  I still was able to get 26 miles total, which isn’t too far off.

I did well with including short cycles, stretching, swims, or walks most days.  Weights didn’t happen though.

I didn’t quite hit 2:08, but I got close, and I raced hard, with my head on straight, and put up a legit effort.

Racing real hard on Sunday also tends to mess up my next week, plus, my chiropractor popped my hip REALLY hard on Monday, and she asked me to lay off running for a few days.  So, I really haven’t done much this week and I’m having another one of those arguments with my brain.

Irrational brain: “Your hip isn’t too bad, just run on it, maybe it will feel better”

Rational brain: “And maybe it will nag me for the next 6 weeks… that’s never happened before, hmmm?”

Irrational brain: “You haven’t run for 4 days, you may actually die from this”

Rational brain: “And I ran every day for 28 days before that.  Life will go on”

Irrational brain: “OMG we’re so behind, how are we going to be Woodlands ready?”

Rational brain: “One unplanned week of low/no mileage is not going to tank a marathon.”

Irrational brain: “You haven’t run a 20 yet this cycle and you’re running out of time to get 2 of them in”

Rational brain: “Actually, I’ve run two 20 milers and a 26.2, plus a 17, 16, 4×15, 14, 11, 2×10, and lots of other miles in between.  Even if I skip this weekend to heal, I’ll have 3 more weeks to get in long runs.”

I know in my rational brain that I’ve trained sufficiently for a marathon.  It really depends on whether or not my head shows up March 5th.  The way to make sure I FAIL at that is to push through a minor injury and equate running with (unnecessary) pain and burn out quicker.

Also, I’m doing things like sleeping 11 hours last night for no real reason.  My body is craving some respite.  So, I’m going to force rational brain to win out and rest as much as needed, so this week is like…

• Make my hip feel better.  Run when I’m ready/when the chiro says its ok.
• Cycle, swim, do weights that don’t make it cranky, and/or stretch every day from now (Thursday) until the end of the week.

That’s it, that’s all.  Hopefully I can sort this out this week and be back at 100% by next week.

Food:

Breakfast.  Like errryday.

• All Most lunches and dinners are healthy take out my normal pre-race lunch and one meal after the race Sunday.
• Continue tracking my food, attempting a -500 calorie deficit, and sticking to my macros EXCEPT for Friday and Saturday (eat what I burn, push the carbs a little more).  Post-race, I’ll give it a go to keep a deficit but that’s optional too.
• Continue to track weight.
• No booze after Wednesday.

I actually did pretty well here.  I’ve gotten accustomed to the -500 calorie deficit, and it felt decadent to eat up to maintenance calories two days before the race.  I splurged and got a sandwich one lunch, and we got italian one dinner.  I was within my calories both day, so I’m calling it a-ok.

I haven’t hit the scale every day, but a few times a week for sure.  Sadly, it’s not moving much, but I am feeling like I look better in clothes and things are a little less jiggly. If I’m remembering correctly, that is usually the first step in things going the right way, so hopefully the scale will follow soon.

• Continue tracking food and trying to hit the -500 calorie mark and keeping an eye on macros.
• Weigh a few times a week
• I am “on notice” with the booze – I went a little crazy early in the week.
• Transition to cooking food rather than relying on takeout so much.

Same ol’ same ol.  I may have had a few more glasses of wine this week than I’d like consoling myself over my running break, so I need a few days off of that (even if I’m still not running).

Better late than never (from two nights ago).

Life:

• When I put my laundry away, set out 3-5 things I’d like to wear over the next week.
• E-cig only twice next week and not any for the three days leading up to the race.
• Continue to wash my hair at least every other day (and always on bad allergy days).  Keep laundry basket out of bedroom and wash it once it gets full.
• Gaming during downtime at work, coloring at home.
• Exchange my Christmas gift at the outlet mall.
• Clean out workout room and build shelves.

With life, I did so/so.  For some reason I was feeling less fancy and didn’t really think through outfits for the week and just chose stuff at random.

I picked up the e-cig more than I wanted to.  Life goes on.  We’ll try again next week.

I neglected to color last week but I’ve already rectify that this week.  We’ll get to the shelves… someday.

This week, I’m pulling back the goals a bit and just going to give myself a break and not try to do anything really productive or crazy.

• Get 8+ hours sleep every day this week (so far so good minus Tuesday night’s 6 hours).
• Grocery shop and batch cook for next week over the weekend.
• Do something fun over the weekend that isn’t just the G-rated version of Netflix and chill.

I feel pretty draggy this week, and I know the worst possible answer to that is to load up my to-do list.

On that note, off to take over the world, or fall asleep trying…