Adjusted Reality

So, as part of my birthday celebration happy fun time, we signed up for the Urban Dare in Austin.  I’ve wanted to do it the last few years, but it’s pretty expensive.  This year, I said, fuck it, it’s my birthday.  I’m not going on vacation, I’m not staying in a hotel, I’m going to do SOMETHING fun, so this was it.

The weather was perfect as we rolled up to Mother Egans Pub at around 11:30.  We got in line, signed our waver, changed into our spiffy shirts, and waited around a few minutes for noon to get there.  Finally, we were told to go down the block to a field, and we had to play multiple choice trivia until we got it right.  We happened to be in the right spot even though we didn’t know the answer, and we got our clue sheet and were off.

And by off, I mean to the parking lot in the field furiously getting through the clue sheet using our phones to google all the clues and find the most efficient way around.  Where we spent the first 20-30 minutes.  Next time, we might spend a little less time prepping and just run and google at the same time.  Once we had all but one mapped out, we set out for the furthest north, with a quick stop on the way that was right up the street.

Clue #11 – Who dat – who dat – who dat gonna beat dem Saints? Nobody this year. Get your picture with a VW that has been transformed into a Saints helmet. (That would be the Shoal Creek Saloon, a place we’ve actually always wanted to visit – they are supposed to have GREAT food).

Then, on the way, we ran into a woman with a puppy, so we knocked this one out.  This lady was nice enough to stop but her dog really didn’t want to cooperate with crazy strangers wanting him to shake!

#5a – Get your picture shaking hands with a dog.

Clue #3 – DOUBLE JEOPARDY – First, get your picture in front of the store that rhymes with Roy Boy, and has the same amount of letters. Second – you much purchase 1 item and bring it back to the end of the race with your receipt. We bought a pretty little 20 cent marble.

We purchased our marble, got our pic snapped, and were on our way.  This was about 2 1/4 miles from the start.  Next, we hit the nearest clue, just down the street.

Clue #8 – He first visited Yosemite National Park in 1916 with his family, where his father gave him his first camera, a Kodac Brownie Box Camera.  He is world renown for his black and white photos of Yosemite and other major parks of the west.  Go to the park with his last name for your golfing challenge.  Fore! (Adams Park)

Here, we had to throw these two golf ball things around hurdles.  We both sucked pretty hard at it, but I sucked less, so after about 10 minutes I finished and we moved on.  We took a bit of a detour getting there so it was about 3/4 mile here.  Then we headed to campus to get the next picture.

Clue #10 – She said, “Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.” Get your picture with her statue (Barbara Jordan). Campus was WAY, WAY crowded that day with lots of kids, it was a lot of dodging and weaving because they were all taking their sweet time.

We continued around campus and finally found some people willing to help us with 5b:

#5b – get a picture of someone NOT in the race doing a cartwheel.  Someone we had asked before about signing a waiver or suing us if they got hurt or some crap.  Seriously people?  Thought I left California, ya know, the land of palm trees and frivolous litigation?

By the time we left campus we were closing in on 4.5 miles.  We had a crossroads – head southeast and hit the furthest east stuff first and backtrack a little north later when we headed west, or head straight south and have to backtrack a bit the other way.  We decided to head east, so off we went.  However, we had just gotten the 411 on the clue we couldn’t figure it out before (yay for nice people) so we stopped here:

Clue #7 – get your picture with the spirit of learning. Yeah, this one was freaking HARD to find.  It was in front of some teacher’s union building or something.  Did NOT show up on google at ALL.

We actually went a little too far east after that, and had to backtrack, but soon we appeared here:

Clue #1 – 59 year old Brent L. found a stash of dynamite in a shed on his 5000 acre ranch. Concerned for his family’s safety but not his own, the rancher removed the dynamite from the shed, placed it in a field of knee high grass, backed away about forty yards, and fired a shotgun at it. The dynamite blew up and the shrapnel hit the rancher in the head. The man was air lifted to the hospital, where he passed away. They give annual awards for this type of feat. Get your picture in front of the Pub that goes by this award’s name. (I did not even have to google this one thank you very much.)  I believe we were probably about 6 1/2 miles here.

Next we headed on to the Austin Music Hall to take care of the next task.  Clue #6 was… Go to Killer Riffs for your bubble dare.  We had envisioned something like having to get in those big plastic bubbles or blow big bubbles with those life sized wands…nope.  One of us just had to cover a piece of gum in whipped cream, get it out without using our hands, and blow a bubble.  I did it because after more than 7 miles – hey – a little sugar sounded good.  Whip cream nommed, bubble blown, we headed onto the last leg.

Clue #2 – go to city hall and get your picture with the stinger.  Didn’t have any clue what this was before we got there, but it was EXTREMELY apparent once we approached it.  We found some people on the way to our next dare that said they were taking it down soon so we decided to run the next leg – probably about a quarter of a mile.
Clue #4 – Go to Woolridge square where you must perform 2 dares.  Well, we found Woolridge square, but it had been FRESHLY MANURED that day so it stunk like no other.  I felt really sorry for the volunteers assigned to that station all day.  The first thing we had to do was a wheelbarrow course – I volunteered to be the wheelbarrow, and was very glad for all the arm and core strength I’ve been working on lately, I didn’t even have to stop.  Then, we had to run around and find little markers with letters and numbers on them, and had to find the ones that corresponded to the letters in our word.  We got that done and headed on our way, breathing a sigh of relief…and actually fully breathing again because it didn’t literally smell like shit.

We noticed it was getting close to 4pm – which was 4 hours in.  We decided we wanted to finish before 4 hours so we decided to run the last legs.  We ran about another quarter of a mile and hit up the last stop:

Clue #9 – ROMAN MATH TIME: Get your picture with the orange and purple sculpture at XXXIV times XXIV Congress Street. (816)  This is my yaaaaaay we finished pose.  No time to celebrate though- we commenced with the running, about another quarter mile, and rolled up at Mother Egan’s again with a finish time of 3:59 and some change.  Hooray!

Then, there may have been some hard cider and chips with curry.

Total miles walked/ran: 8.62

Fastest speed: 7.3 mph

It was a lot of fun, I do believe we are going to do it again next year, try to run more of it together, and come up with some creative costumes like these gals, who won the contest.

Next up for races – 5k up in Georgetown (the little local 1 dollar entry fee one) next Saturday, and then Warrior Dash May 2.  Yay for 3 races in a row WITH Zliten!  Have you ever done an adventure race?

…’kay, not short like that toe, but whatever.

Life:

Every spring, it seems like things get crazy busy, and this is no exception.  Work has been for working very dedicatedly (yes, I made up this word).  I now have main things that take up most of my time, secondary things to do if I have time, and now tertiary things that are not a huge priority, but definitely help me be better informed and a better boss and decision maker for the game in general.  Ya know, fun stuff like actually playing the game.  I know, my life is sooooo hard.  While I’m not working more hours per se, each hour is action packed, and I’m a bit more mentally wasted when I get home – hence, less posts.

Plus – in Austin, you gotta make the most of every sunny temperate day by playing vigorously outside.  So, I’m out living, and when things calm down and heat up, I’ll write about it more.  😉

Workouts:

I’ve been lacking a bit of enthusiasm with workouts, but I need to remember that’s normal after a race.  Today, I do believe I am going to attempt to do hill repeats on the treadmill – which is also contributing to my lack of enthusiasm because I hate the hell out of hills.  I’m certainly not finding that I want to just lounge on the couch (well, any more than normal at least), but maybe 15 miles on every short week is a little aggressive.  Everyone needs some downtime.  I just need to make sure it’s peppered with some long and fast runs too so those muscles don’t completely atrophy.

Plan for this week:

Monday – hill repeats (1 mile warmup, 400m uphill/400m flat cycles, 1 mile cooldown) and legs @ gym

Tuesday – 30 mins arc trainer, arms and abs @ gym

Wednesday – 10k run

Thursday – DDR circuits w/full body strength (been a while, sounds fun)

Friday – all out 5k

Weekend – Birthday celebrations!

This should net me about 13 miles running, (with a practice 5k for next weekend), two cross training sessions, and two weights sessions.  Looks good to me.

Weight Loss/Food:

I had super salty chinese food yesterday (extremely low on calories but way high on salt) so I didn’t even bother with the scale this morning.  I’ll try tomorrow.  This week – simply put – I splurged a little.  It was my birthday.  I actually didn’t go crazy, but definitely wasn’t my normal version of healthy eating.  During this week proper, I plan to be an angel again, and then Friday/Saturday we have Zliten and friends birthday plans, and I will be reasonable, but reasonably reasonable, if ya know what I mean.

I was a little disappointed in how some of my clothing is fitting when I was attempting to get gussied up for going out on Saturday, so I definitely need to be vigilant and nip this extra 5-ish lbs in the bud sooner than later.  March is always tricky, but as long as I’m making some progress, I’m not worried about how slow it is.  Once we are over the birthday celebration part of the month, I’m gunnin’ for the low 150’s!!!

Ok, must run away and be productive now.  If I haven’t been by your blog lately, I apologize, and assure you that I miss you and wish I had 30 hours in the day.  So, I ask – what’s your birthday celebration theory?  Go all out and indulge, reasonably indulge, or it’s just another day to you?

The winter olympics?  I have to admit that I didn’t watch much.  Besides life being semi-sorta-completely crazypants lately, I just did not get into it.  First of all – I’m SO over winter.  Seeing winter sports reminds me of cold and snow and yuck, like it was outside.  I do like ice skating but I’m not a huge winter sports fan.  That being said – I definitely got interested in a winter olympics link that Cat sent me.

Yeah, it’s what you think.  Just a list of athletes and their stats.  But it definitely hit me how different the standards are for athletes and other celebs.  For example, Chemmy here, at 5’6″ and 154 lbs, would be slandered as a chunky chick if she were an actress or singer.  She’s just 1 lb shy of being in the overweight BMI category.  Yet, she is rocking the downhill skiing in 5 different events.  Yekaterina here, at 5’4″ and 154 lbs, is firmly in the overweight category.  She is actually technically more overweight than I am (*cough* once I lose the last 2.5 lbs and get back into my maintenance range *cough*).  Yet, she is a world class speedskater.

It’s really eye opening to see that I’m not really that far off.  From the height weight ratio at least… I don’t think I’ll be a world class athlete any time soon.  While I was able to pick out a few actresses and singers and such out of many many many, it’s really not out of the ordinary for athletes to hang out just at the top of normal or just into the overweight BMI category.  Right about where my body has decided to hang out.

So, I’m not saying that my body fat percentage is the same as theirs – but I’m always going to continue to work on my fitness and improving my diet to include more good stuff and less crap, but the gains now have become very very very small visually.  And that’s ok.  Especially if the number on the scale going down is no longer a factor.

…and that’s it.  Short and sweet today.   Do you have the makeup of an athlete?

I am a poster girl with no poster, fo sho.  Ok, so I guess it’s 32, and Baskin Robbins that has 31 flavors, but whatever.  You can see where I’m going with this.  Happy birthday to meeeee!

So 30 was scary as hell to approach.  I spent a lot of my 20’s fat.  I had convinced myself that 21 was about the best I would ever be, and it was all downhill from there.  Sure, I’m never going to make my debut on So You Think You Can Dance due to age requirements (and the fact that I’m about 15 years removed from doing any serious dancing), and I *might* have missed my ability to be America’s Next Top Model, but… what else am I limited to doing at 31?  I’m in the best shape of my life and busier than ever with good fun life stuff (notice the lack of posts lately).  I might not be completely done with weight loss, but I’m maintaining a healthy weight.

It definitely was a trying year in some aspects.  I had a lot of dues to pay at work, and things looked pretty grim for a while.  Financially, it was rough being a 1 income + unemployment household for half of it.  There was a lot of other stressors as well.  However, we are bouncing back nicely.  I’m coming into my own at work, good things are afoot.  We are now a 2-income family again and though it’s not what it was, but it’s getting there.  The iguana is healthy again.  Things are settling down.  I’m finding less days like this…

So let’s recap – some big things I did at 30:

–Got married.

-Ran 2 half marathons.

-Ran 4 other races – two 5ks, one 10k, and one 5 miler.

-Took 2 lovely vacations to Vegas, and visited New Orleans for the first time.  Much drinking ensued!

-Maintained 100+ lbs lost for an entire year.  I’ve stayed within about 10 lbs in my 30th year.

-Really learned to love being outside and active.  2 and a half hour run, bike ride, or hike?  Sounds like a great way to spend a sunny afternoon.

-Like, ate brains and stuff.

-Attempted to write a novel during NaNoWriMo.  Failed pretty horribly.  Trying to figure out WHAT is blocking me there but it is definitely not flowing.

–Worked through a lot of mental stuff.

-But realized that, hey, I’m pretty awesome.   Not as awesome as this guy, but still.

So what’s up for 31?

-Continue to work to achieve balance in my life.  That means making work more of a priority, but not enough that it eats my life like before.  That means fitting in marathon training, but sticking to a program that has me 3 time a week.  That means getting stuff done, but taking time for fun.  Also meaning having fun, but trying to not incapacitate myself the next day so much.  Spend as much time with my Zliten as possible.

-Run a marathon.  14 miles was tough.  I have to add 12 more.  This seems very daunting, but so did 13.1 last year.  And I’ve got 8 months to train.  I can do anything in 8 months, right?  After I do that, I want to think long and hard about what races I’ve enjoyed most and let that guide me in what to do next.  I don’t see myself becoming a marathon-ER, but I would love to do the distance at least once in my life.  But who knows?  Ultras next?  Qualifying for Boston?  The Olympics? …heh.  Most likely – triathalons or some sort of martial art.  But we shall see.

-Try to make the most of every beautiful weekend day possible.  Definitely continue the adventure races and outdoor fun when the weather is nice.  It’s funny, I used to be white as a ghost in San Diego (like, the  most beautiful weather ever) because I never went outside, and now it’s March 2nd and I already can’t help but have skin color cause I spend so much time outside.  Bikes and kayaks and canoes and windsurfing and scenic runs and hikes will not be able to run and hide from me once the weather gets nice again.

-Remove the 5 or so lbs I am over my maintenance range and hang there for a while.  Work on lowering fat and increasing muscle.  Really get comfortable here and see if I want to take the weight loss thing any further next year or if I can learn to be happy here.

-Three planned vacations – South Padre Island in early summer, Vegas in September with friends, and a cruise this winter with my parents.  No honeymoon in Europe just yet, probably late next spring/early fall.  Hey, we waited 2.5 years from getting engaged and 10 years to get married – we just don’t do things quickly!

-Try to figure out this writing thing.  I made the resolution to read and write more, but I just haven’t *done* it.  At all.  Like right now, Zliten is in bed reading and I just haven’t been able to do it.  I haven’t touched my novel.  I just can’t grasp in my head how to incorporate it in my life.  I’ll get there eventually.

-Do something with the house to improve it’s value.  Pick a big project like our drafty ass 1960’s windows or our white counter that stains on contact with a drop of crystal light.  For sure get our heater fixed/replaced.

…and I’m sure I’m missing something, but I’d like to be to bed while I’m still 30 tonight.  **grin**

So – what has been your favorite age so far?  How was your 31st year?  What do you want to accomplish by your next birthday?

This week started out so well…

I lost 3 lbs in 4 days.  I was doing really well with my calorie counts.  I wasn’t touching sugar.  I was BACK, yo.

Then, we had company fun day.  Company fun day was pizza and bowling.  I planned accordingly by eating a BIG SALAD before we went, allowing myself ONE piece of pizza so I didn’t feel deprived.  That went fine.  Then there was cake.  Without thinking, I got a tiny piece and started munching on it and then realized – oh crap – no sweets.  I only ate half but still, it sucked.

Then the rest of the day sorta unfolded as a comedy of health errors.  We were at one of those big fun centers which had rock climbing (yay!) but they weren’t open until 4pm (boo!) and it was only 2:30.  After a game of laser tag with half the company (yay – and I actually worked up a pretty good sweat), I still had an hour to kill, so we played a card game, and I grabbed myself one beer.  Then, I went to go rock climb, and they said that if I had ANY alcohol that day I couldn’t climb (I mean, come on – one corona – it’s practically water), so I went home and quickly did an arms and legs circuit and called it + lazer tag my workout for the day.  And then a little more drinking ensued.  Adding up my calories the next day, I was at about 2k.  Oops.

Friday I was mindblowingly grumpy and tired and HUNGRY after work and we went to a buffet where I ate very healthy, but just way too much.  I ate 1k calories there, and 800 calories the REST OF THE DAY.  Again, oops.  If I had been better the day before I wouldn’t have worried about it but another high calorie day in a row was no bueno.

Saturday I did my long run, so I expected to eat a little more.  I actually honestly didn’t eat that much – I had about a 300 calorie breakfast, 200 calorie snack after the run, maybe a 500 calorie dinner, 500 calories of alcohol and maybe 500 calories of drunken munchies.  Considering I burnt about 1600 and ingested about 2000, I’m not really complaining.   And I didn’t even do too badly – I ate a tiny little street taco and some beet fries – it’s not like I had a super sized jack in the box combo or anything – but in a perfect world I might have moved the eating earlier in the day.  C’est la vie.  When my run ended around 5pm and I just can’t eat much before it, it’s NBD.

Sunday, I had a CRAVING.  One of my biggest comfort foods.  And I had to have it.  Everything in the house looked like crap.  So I leveled with myself.  I wasn’t going to head to Denny’s and get myself a club sandwich and fries, but I was going to recreate it at home.  We had some plain white bread left over from the roomies so I toasted 2 slices instead of 3, piled on turkey and pre-cooked bacon, added the lettuce and tomato, and used light mayo.  I got some really good quality oven fries.  Instead of the 1100+ calories it would have cost at Dennys, I’m clocking it at just about 600.  And my craving was totally satisfied.  Bonus!

Then, my Zliten hadta have some BBQ.  We tried out a new place, and I got brisket (though I had to throw half of it away because it was sooooo fatty), turkey (best turkey ever), and these really adorable tiny sides of coleslaw and mashed potatoes.  I’m thinking this was also about 700 calories max.  I munched a little in the evening, but mostly veggies and fruit (there may have been some bagel chips but whatevs).  The day in total was probably about 1500-1600 calories.

So, by the numbers eating-wise:

Average per day: 1657

Goal: 1500

Difference: 157

This week I was actually kinda dragging hiney on the workouts a bit.  The runs I rocked like a hurricane, but I just am in this weird state where I’m RESENTING cross training.  I’m kinda bored with DDR, I’m not ready for Jillian’s 30 day shred pain, I don’t seem to make it to the gym to do the arc trainer… I don’t want to run 5 days a week so I’ll have to figure something out.

Then again, last week was weird and my cross training fell on a) Snowpocolipse Austin so I didn’t want to go to the gym and then b) Fun Day Fiasco where my plan got ruined by one stupid little beer.  Should I have bucked up and done what I needed to do anyway?  Yeah.  But considering I’ve got the routine of “get off work at normal time, go to gym” down pretty well, I’m not too worried going forward.  I am successfully incorporating more strength work into my days so I’ll take that as a bonus.

By the days:

Monday: 6 mile slower tempo run @ 57:50 and legs at the gym – 844 calories burnt

Tuesday: crossfit 30 minute workout (full body), yoga 20 mins – 328 calories burnt

Wednesday: 3.5 miles with a timed mile in the middle (7:07!!  fastest mile ever!!  and so close to under 7 I can taste it!!  I like exclamation marks!!) and abs. – 532 calories

Thursday: lazer tag and an arms/legs circuit – 452 calories

Friday: off

Saturday: 14 mile run @ 2:37:34 (yep, fastest mile and longest run within 3 days – I love it!) – 1607 calories burnt

Average burnt per day: 537

So – the final totals:

Calories in avg per day: 1757 (+100 adjusted for my horrible tracking skills)

Calories out avg per day: 537

Calories per day: 1220

…which is right on the money, actually.  And it shows, as I am down 1.8 lbs today from where I was at last Monday (162.2, and today, I’m 160.4).  I expect that this trend will continue.  The only snag – it’s my birthday Wednesday, and we’ve got plans to go out to dinner that night proper, and celebrationses going on Saturday.  As long as I confine it to those two days and be good the rest of the week, I should be ok.

Last Week’s Goals:

-Taking it one week at a time (food). Check.  I was a little bummed until I did the numbers.  This week is a completely different animal and different approach.

-Average of 1500 calories per day.  Exception, Saturday.  See below.  Not quite check, but it worked out with the increased activity.

-No sweets this week besides sugar free popsicles and fruit.  Not that I expect to be giving up my 1-2 hershey kisses every few days forever, I just need to detox.  Almost check.  I violated this rule for half a slice of cake and a few creme de menthe hershey kisses (yeah, um…yeah).  Not bad, but not great.

-Sticking to the food plan I made, and stick to healthy snacks of veggies, fruit, pistachios, and beef jerky.  Check up until Friday, then it fell apart.  Need to do better.

-Taking it in two week chunks (workouts).  I’m modifying this a little bit.  I’m not going to be able to long run for a few weeks due to schedule commitments, so it’s short distance training (for an upcoming 5k) and strength until the end of the month!

-Trying to NOT get lazy like last time and decrease my mileage to just about 0.  Total check.  I’m loving the running, cannot foresee that changing.

-Continuing with 3 runs per week.  One short speed run, one medium non-lazy run, and either a loooong run or another medium, slower paced run.  This week, I started with a 6 mile run around 9:40 minute miles, Wednesday I plan on making a stab at a 6:50-ish minute mile sandwiched between warmup and cooldown miles, and Saturday, I want to get out and attempt 14 miles (no matter the speed).  I am considering this pre-training for the marathon by getting used to being on my feet for a long time.  Total and complete check!

-I plan on alternating high mileage weeks (like this week) with extra strengthy weeks (next week).  On a super strengthy week, I plan to try to do 3 full body strength sessions, whereas on super mile-y weeks I’ll do 2.  I will figure out the particulars of this next week.  Will alternate according to schedule, will probably do loooong runs on average every 3 weeks.

-Two cross training cardio sessions of at least 30 mins.  DDR, arc trainer, etc.  If it’s super mellow like biking or walking – at least 60 mins.  Err, sorta check.  It was ok this week due to almost 3 hours of running Saturday, but on non-long run days, I must do better.

This week’s plan:

Food

-Really watch it the rest of the week, with planned splurges Wednesday and Saturday.

-No sweets beyond popsicles and fruit except Wednesday and Saturday.

-Since I’m not long running, try to go as low as possible (while not driving myself batty) on non-splurge days – 1200.

Workouts-

-Three runs – one speedwork, one tempo, and one easy.  Still figuring out the mileage but want to try and come in around 15 for the week.

-Weights, weights, weights.  One body part after each run, then at least 2 days pushing everything else hard that I didn’t ruin the day before.  I want to be SORE by the end of the week (in a good way).

-One cross training session = adventure race and dancing on Saturday.  That totally counts.

-One cross training session – at least 30 mins of arc trainer.  Since my other day is loosey goosey I want to get some good calorie burn here.

And, I do believe I’ve prattled on for long enough.  I’m seeing that my proverbial dance card is a lot more booked lately, so I will update and blog as I can.  I have a lot of good topics in queue, just not enough time to hammer out posts.  It is good to be busy though!

What are you up to this week?  Can anyone assure me that 31 isn’t the end of the world? **grin**