Adjusted Reality

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.

13.1.  And I’m ok with it.  A little bummed but ok.

This week I worked on another great week of nutrition, more calcium (I eat way more dairy than I used to, but even so, I resumed taking supplements), more potassium (a zico a day keeps the leg ickies away?), stretching, using my shockies (muscle stimulator), and getting good sleep.  I ate my normal pre race meal – steak, potato, veggies.  I slept as late as I felt like.  I read tweets and saw pictures about Houston Marathon Olympic Trials and got pumped.

Then I got out and did my own run.  Zliten and I started together, but agreed that if I felt like I wanted to speed up or slow down I would.  We got a mile in and just after that my legs felt zoomy so I took off.  I was feeling good at about 10:30s so I went with it.  Around mile 4 I realized I had forgotten both my nutrition and my sweatband (and it was hot-ish at upper 60s) so I stopped by the house and grabbed both.  Around 6 I saw Zliten ahead of me and picked up the pace to 9s to catch him.  I did about 6.65 and we ran together for a little bit and chatted, but then I felt zoomy again so I took off.

I got to the bottom of the hill and turned around.  My plan was to do a bunch of loops so I wasn’t going straight uphill for 2 miles but I lost it around 8.5 and walked.  That was when I made peace with my fate. I also couldn’t get the second gel down – it sounded gross and I felt full.  All I wanted out of life was some pretzels or something salty.  I ran/walked up to the house (at about 10.5) and stopped real quick.

I refilled my camelback, as at that time, I wasn’t sure how long I was going to go and was almost out, and mowed the fuck out of some tortilla chips (the first salty thing I could find).  After about 5 mins I felt better and headed back out.

I did another quick loop, and though I actually felt better, I decided to call it at 12.1.  I wasn’t mentally ready to do more.  While the “I don’t have enough salt” thing was a breakthrough to try to implement in the future, I had done enough wear and tear on my body by 10.5 that I didn’t think it was prudent to try to push through.

If I would have been aiming for 12 miles, I could have done it way faster and not walked, but the net with all the walking was 2:22.  About 11:40 pace.  Again, I finished with the feeling I could have done more after a rest and gone faster, but you learn something from every run.  And I learned a lot:

-More salt.

-More mid week miles.  I can rock a half and even PR on minimal training, but I think I need more miles under my belt or a significantly larger running level of endurance to pull of a marathon.

-More mental toughness.  This is the one I struggled with the most.  I didn’t feel like it was a good excuse, but after thinking about it, I realized you only have so much “give a shit” and I have run out for the season.  I am mostly succeeding at shutting out the thought of “wuss”, and have also mostly made peace with it.  I took a chance coming right off tri season feeling good and realized that you need some downtime.  Even if you don’t think you do.

-More love and reverence for the distance.    This was just a thing to do in offseason.  A step to ironman.  I need to pick this up when I either a) accidentally have the endurance (aka, after tri season this year) or b) when I really want it and am excited about it.

-A race that is more suited for me.  I hate hills.  I am trying to get better, but still a weak point.  This was one of the clinchers of not running 26.2 Austin.   A pancake flat marathon?  Might be good for that.  A hilly ass run?  Definitely not ready.  Thinking about RnR San Antonio because of this.

– I don’t just want to crawl across the finish line of a marathon, I want to finish strong.  I want to feel like I dominated that fucker.  I’m not there yet, so I don’t feel justified in trying to race the distance.

So all in all, I’m ok.  I’m about 15% bummed and 85% relieved.  As I said on daily mile, if you shoot for the moon and miss, you end up among the stars, and this is so true here.  I will run 4 halfs within 4 months (and would have done 5 if See Jane wasn’t cancelled).  I have never put in so many run miles in a season.  I have never felt BFFs with 13.1 the way I do now. 13?  Aint no thang, chicken wing.  I run it a little slower than I used to, but you can’t race every weekend.

And while that frustrates me a little that 13 is fine but I couldn’t do 20, it’s huge endurance in the bank for my real A race in October.  I’ll be needing to ramp up to 6-7 hours of ass kicking without a rest, and having a good handle on 3-4 hours running will be huge.  I will have a chance at attacking 20 miles again soon.

I know right now I’m as trained up as I need to be for a half that I’m not trying to PR.  I’ll be cutting my long runs to what I have prescribed for Zliten through Austin (8, race, 10, 8, race) and then see where I go from there.  I have a 10 mile race I’m looking at in April, and there’s really not time to lose much run endurance between then and ramping up for tri season.  I’m still looking into training plans and coordinating my strategy through October, but I don’t see dropping much below the double digis any time soon minus a possible intentional brain/body break after Austin for about a month.

Also, most importantly – I successfully set out a plan and coached and supported Zliten to expand his runs from 5k to 13.1. He actually ran the distance last weekend strong.   I am a proud wife!  I thought it was a little ambitious but now he’s running longer distances like a champ!  I have no doubt if we set out together to train for something, we’ll get there. (It also makes me think I might consider getting my first level coaching license but that’s another tangent…)

My brain is already going 1500000 miles about the training plan for tri season in a completely different way than I was for this marathon, so I know we’ll get it.  We registered for the Texas Tri Series, which is May super sprint, June sprint, July sprint, August sprint, Sept olympic, end of Sept half iron.  We need to pick what we race and what we run, and set our sights on hitting that half IM.  It will be a challenge (considering my swim and run are there right now like a champ, but I need to add TWENTY MILES to my bikeness), but I think we can dominate.

So, whether it’s the safe choice or the wussy choice or whatnot, it’s been made. 26.2, we’re a missed connection right now, but I’ll catch ya later.

2012 has really started off opposite of most of last year. Let’s look at 2 of my major goals:

1.  Lose weight.  More specifically, 1600 calories on all days but long run day.  No sugar.  Mostly organic.  Keeping the ratios pretty even.  Basically, good, clean eating. For most of December, I struggled HARD with 1600 calories.  This week, I rocked it out of the park.  To the point where some days, I was eating more at night to get to 1600 on purpose.

While I don’t necessarily think that I should be shoving food down my mouth if I’m not really hungry, I want to get good data if I’m losing at this calorie range and not just my normal TRY TO EAT AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE without going insane and then get frustrated. So yeah – no sugar.  Very little nutritionally void food.  Mostly organic/good quality.  Only out to eat 4 times last week.  Around 1600 each day, 2400 on long run day.  I feel so much more fabulous than I did this time last week.

Weight is 178, while it’s up from my last official weigh in, is actually down from the damage I did on vacation.

2.  Marathon Training Most of 2011 (at least the last half), it was all about “my training is going awesome but I can’t get my eating habits together”.  Sadly, I’m just about opposite this week.  I missed one workout (my swim – not critical, but still, not good).  I had to take my 10 miler at planned marathon pace down to 6 miles due to time constraints, and worst of all – I couldn’t get my long run done – I only did 14.5 instead of the 15 minimum I had required, and the last mile + of that was walking.

Now I’m in a bit of a pickle.  My goal was the Austin Marathon in 6 weeks.  I have thus far done one terrible 18 miler with much walking, one 16 miler, one 15 miler, two 14 milers, about 5 half marathon distance runs, and probably another 10 double digit runs.  My during-the-week training has been spotty as well. Most importantly, I’m not having success with my longer-than-half runs, my calves, hammies, and glutes seize up like whoa and running is painpainpain no matter how slow I take it or how many walk breaks I give myself.  If I simply was undertrained and was feeling good during runs I’d probably go for it, but this feels like there may be a problem.

I’m trying to remember how getting from 10k to 12 miles felt, but I really break down somewhere after I hit double digits. The super frustrating part is that I remember some of my long runs for halfs I really trained for wasted me for the whole rest of the day, maybe 2.  While I’m in major pain during the latter halves of these runs, after I walk, stretch, and get some food in me, I’m feeling great and could probably finish the mileage.  Either I’ve somehow lessened my ability to tolerate pain and uncomfortableness, or this is worse.

This week I’m loading up on potassium and calcium, and will attempt to take in more calories before and during the run, and see if that gets me through the 20 miles.  If not, then I have some hard choices.  Enter the proverbial pro/con list.

PRO running 26.2:

-I set the goal, I want to follow it through.

-I have a month set aside to rest and recover.  This is the right timing in the year with my other goals I want to accomplish.

-It’s one step closer to ironman.  If I can’t run a marathon, I will never do an IM.

-I want the silly little decal on my car.

-It’s proof that I can indeed do anything I set my mind to.

-It’s going to be HARD.  I haven’t done a race that’s really hard besides the arbitrary standards of time I set on myself for a long while.  Since my Olympic tri in 2010 for sure.  Everything else has just been either chasing a PR or for fun.

-5 hours of running is a good experience if I want to consider 6-7 hours on my feet for the half iron and/or century

-Not doing it after I said it so publicly feels like giving up.  I’m convinced y’all will think just a tiny bit less of me if I wuss out on this.

-I’ve been training for it since October.  If I wasn’t going to bother, I should have spent the time resting.  What a waste!

-This would be false start #2 for marathon training for me,  I’d like to see it through.

-I’m not trained up for a half marathon PR right now, so what’s the point of even running it?

CON (running 13.1):

-Supporting Joel to the finish line on his 2nd half marathon

-Running a distance I know literally is just another weekend jaunt and I can move onto other things sooner than a long marathon recovery.

-Another lesson to myself that every race is not just about Quix PR’ing it.

-Less chance of hurting myself means I can start tri training earlier

-I hate training in the cold, less time I have to be out during crappy cold weather! (Yes, I would much rather heat train – I’m silly like that…)

-Getting as comfortable as I am with double digit runs and running 4 halfs this season is still a huge accomplishment.  I’ve always run 13.1 miles and threw a fit and stopped running for a month and taken 6 months to even want to attempt a long run again.  A double digit run is now just another Saturday now.

-I will have another chance at a marathon in the fall.  After I run the half iron in October, I can bank on all that stamina and training from the summer and probably do the same thing I did with the olympic and the half marathon 6 weeks later in 2010.  Also, RnR San Antonio is perfect weather, a nice fast and flat course (which Austin isn’t), and I really liked it in 2010. (However, I was considering banking my endurance and doing a century in October.  Can I do both?  Will I be so OVER training by October that I don’t want to do any of this? Will taking the pressure off myself earlier in the year help lengthen my post season motivation?)

-I don’t feel ready for the marathon.  I’ve never entered a new distance feeling as if I had so far to go from training to race.  I don’t feel as if I have earned the right to do it.

-Unless the nutrition really is the key and I have a stellar 20 miler this Saturday, do I really want my first marathon to be mostly memories of being in pain?   Maybe it’s worth a few false starts to grow more comfortable with longer distances.

-Will I really feel accomplished and worthy of calling myself a marathoner if I just drag myself across the finish line in what feels like not a respectable time?  I don’t want to just finish a marathon, I want to run a marathon.  I’m not sure if I can do that yet.

-I don’t really have love and passion for the distance.  It’s really just a stepping stone to do something more (Ironman).

-If it was between a marathon and a tri, I’d have dropped the race like a hot potato.  This really is because I feel like doing this is the most efficient use of my time to improve for tri season.

-If I just make this call, all the stress about training schedules goes out the door.  I can start ramping up my biking and swimming NOAWWWW which is all I wanna do.  I am the sick puppy that wants to go out and buy my trainer NOAWWWW (yes, again for emphasis) and cycle through movie and tv marathons.

-I may just have to accept the cold hard fact that 178 lbs is heavier than my body wants to be to do the miles in a manner which does me proud.  Not that I’m an advocate of waiting until you’re perfect to accomplish your goals, but doing this after taking off 10-20 lbs later in the year (please, let that be reality!!!) might be a game changer in terms of how the miles feel to me.

So in summary, I have a lot of thinking to do.  Most people I’ve talked to say to not do the marathon, but I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m being weak willed about it and trying to cover it up by making it sound like I’m making the smart choice, and really, I just need to push my boundaries and buck up and do something REALLY HARD.  I may be longing for tri season and not feeling a lot of run love right now, but isn’t that always the case for me knee-deep in a running training cycle?  Right about now all I want to do is anything BUT run (but then the light at the end of the tunnel appears near race day and wheeee!!! the love returns in spades).

So yeah, my thinker is going overtime.  I’m also trying to think of what is best for weight loss, but it seems like my eating is pretty well in check and once I accepted that training more != the ability to eat crap and/or not be stringent on how many calories I’m taking in (make sure it’s an appropriate level), I don’t think it matters either way. So, if you were in my position, what would you do?  Will I regret the race I ran without full and complete feelings of preparation, or will I regret not taking the chance?