Adjusted Reality

Page 97 of 219

Coasting

On July 27, 2014

Longer post with assloads of pictures to come, but… we are happy and fat and have returned back from vacation. Here is the abridged version…

We spent a weekend in Portland, it was a thing of beauty. Running and roses were first on the agenda.

Beauty is also in the beerholder (just not the after affects the next day).

Then, we moved onto the Oregon Coast for a few days. We found out that 50-something is actually a temperature in July, but swimming is possible with preparation in 55 degree water.

Then, we hightailed it to Northern California, for some family time. Water temperatures in the low 60s felt downright pleasant after Oregon! We enjoyed our morning runs on the beach each day, though we were scared of being pooped on.

Monterey Bay Aquarium was definitely a highlight of the trip. So many camera batteries died that day taking hundreds of pictures.

And now I’m enjoying one more lazy day before jumping back into real life – work, eating things that do not come from a snack bag or come in a bun, and training again. More on that later, of course, as well.

Captain’s Log: Stardate – Offseason

By Quix

On July 17, 2014

In Uncategorized

As I’m settling into the fourth week of no training schedule and long runs mean I added .15 to my 3 miles I ran Tuesday, I figured I should share what not-training means in my life.

Day 0:

Got 3rd place medal and grinned the whole rest of the day. Copious amounts of booze and tacos ensued. Fell asleep for like 12 hours.

Day 1:

The day started with leftover tacos, a massage (I rarely do them during season because it’s iffy how long I feel like poopoo kaka after, but it was GREAT to kick off a month of rest), and lunch (burger and fries) and a movie with friends. For dinner, we had pizza and salad and a little wine. Feeling fat, relaxed, and happy.

Week 1:

It feel AMAZING to not be training a bunch. Monday’s “workout” was walking the aisles at Costco (which ended up to be 2 miles by fitbit standards). We got in 2 3 mile runs outside at easy pace (11-11:30s per Zliten’s garmin – I haven’t worn one of those things since the race) and 2 weights sessions as my offseason promise to myself. We also finally quit our gym. It was oddly sad after 4 years, but I just cannot abide by them constantly cutting their hours.

I knew I needed to get a handle on my eating STAT without all my normal activity, so we kicked off chicken, rice, veggies week. It went well – I learned that it’s really my perfect food and rice products definitely make me feel less… heavy.

We also got our season passes to the new water park that’s 15 minute away. Spent Friday night there and lost the key to the car, and had someone break into the prius for the first time to rescue us. Fun (and expensive). We went back again on Sunday for a longer session and it’s definitely filling the swimming void in my life.

And… I got to be social! I fiiiiiiinally got to run my Savage Worlds story I’ve been working on for months. It was crazy, scary, and a lot of fun to stretch my brain in those type of ways that I haven’t in a while. I got to do ladies charity brunch (and finally had an excuse to wear my floppy hat), and we went to another movie and dinner with friends after spending the afternoon with my parents. The things you can do when you’re not exhausted by a 70 mile bike ride or a brick workout!

I also celebrated my seventh anniversary at work. Crazy! I had a five year plan to be in Austin, buy some real estate, make some money, and then get back to San Diego with money for a down payment on something bigger than a shoebox. Instead, I love living where I live, I have ZERO desire to move back to San Diego any time soon (though something a little more coastal would be awesome), and I’m pretty content with my job and the game I started on seven years ago at a no name company is a pretty wild success. Funny how things work out.

Week 2:

It was time to get a little more active. I pulled out my Dance Dance Revolution games and dance pad and holy WOW, it’s still a great workout. It took me a while to figure out what about it was so gooood, and I realized it’s a plyometric leg strength workout set to music that’s actually fun (aka – the opposite of box jumps). I’m going to try to keep a 30 min session on the plan once a week. That sluggish feeling I’m having in the legs on my tri runs? I think this will help.

We also hit up adult skate night. Its always a lot of fun, great cardio, and definitely works some different muscles than anything run/bike/swim/weights.

This week included fourth of July celebrations, including staying up WAYYYYY too late the night before, a crab boil at a friend’s house with a bunch of gamers – so we played games (munchkin and quarkle, I won both because that’s how I roll) and drank some beer. We had intended on watching the fireworks at the water park from the lazy river, but you couldn’t actually see them there and it got cold (??? – I remember a 4th a few years ago where it was 106, at fireworks time it was 75 degrees…) so we watched dry in the parking lot. On the drive home, it was fun to watch the various displays in neighborhoods.

We spent the weekend building an outdoor cage for our iguana (it’s SO CLOSE to done, but we measured the doors wrong) and getting into a new (for me) game called Clash of Clans. I’m kinda hooked. I got eaten alive by mosquites, but it was nice to have some outdoor patio time. This month has been pretty amazingly temperate for July in the ATX. I went down the scary scary waterslide on Sunday and felt pretty proud of myself.

I ate like a decent human being, but there certainly was a lot of booze.

Week 3:

Took runs into the treadmill this week because my sleep schedule has adjusted itself to the point where it’s hard to get up before 8:30am. Legs actually feel pretty speedy in the AC. Still keeping up with the weights as well and lots of DDR on other days to try and stave off the blerch.

I’ve given up on tracking food. I decided I didn’t want that headache. However, I have stayed really low on the sugar and wheat type carbs so I’m happy about that. Not a whole lot of junk food, just trying to let myself continue to adjust to not eating crap, and allowing the booze cruise to continue as I feel like it since that will be not nearly as frequent once we’re training 10+ hours a week. Also, it’s been the exception and not the rule, but we’ve checked out some new restaurants (new bbq place was tha bomb, though this was Zliten’s plate, not mine).

My pants feel a little tight some days, and the scale hasn’t been super nice, but it’s the kind of weight that just needs a serious week or two of being good to shed. I’m not worried.

More weekend busybodying ensued. We did the water park Friday night, packet pickup Saturday afternoon, a casino party Saturday night (I stayed away from the paid games but I WON BEER PONG! I feel so early 20s again), water park again on Sunday afternoon, and fancy dinner and a jazz concert at night.

Also, Orange is the New Black was discovered and my sleep schedule got even more fucked up. I can’t think of the last time a show made me stay up until 4am on a school night MULTIPLE TIMES.

Week 4:

This week has been getting ready. Getting ready for a release at work. Getting ready for an adventure. I got to run in the rain. I worked up a sweat playing a video game. I have felt a little hermity on social media as well as social life I think simply because I have been so social. I never have considered myself an introvert, but I do definitely miss the time practicing endurance sport because I am so within myself. Rummaging around in my own brain, seeing what’s there.

I’m on the edge of being mentally ready and excited to jump into the next 4 months or so of building up for a 70.3 and a marathon and I think one more week will only push me over the cliff. My legs definitely want to run more, and next week, I’m going to let them (no plan, no specific pace but exploring pavement and trails and beach). I kind of want to see my bike again and I think pedaling a cruiser up the coast will only remind me of evilbike love. I’m ready to go play in the lake and go back to bodies of water with lap lanes along with the water slides. I think I’ve split the difference and have taken a long enough break to be ready to rock, while also not completely let myself go (we’ll see).

Reminding myself there is a place in my life for moments to go out with friends all weekend and stay up late engrossed in a TV show and spend the weekend building a project is good. It helps me put it in perspective – I like indulging in other aspects of my life, but I do miss the training when it’s gone (even if it takes a few weeks)! I make the choice to train this hard because I love it, even if sometimes I dread a specific workout or think longingly about my friends who’s idea of a long workout is an hour spin class three times a week, I make the decision to prioritize that in my life. Except for the periods of the year when I don’t.

One more offseason update coming whenever I feel like it (because that’s part of offseason), and then I’ll start talking about late season ’14 goals and plans.

I’d Rather Be Terrified Than Bored

By Quix

On July 10, 2014

In Uncategorized

So, so busy with work, and I’ve learned that if I don’t fill my life with training, I jam pack it with other things, so this whole free time thing I thought I’d have? Yeah… not so much…

However, I wanted to pop in and share a few offseason things.

Lessons a water slide taught me:

We obtained a season pass to the water park approximately two weeks ago and have gone four times (and plan on five and probably six this weekend). It’s not the largest park but it has a wave pool, a lazy river, and about 10 different slides to go down. This is where my inner child comes out to play, I can’t be stressed or sad or down at the water park.

We made it through all the slides but one – and it’s a doozy. You start by ascending six stories up. Then, you step onto this clear plexiglass platform and a clear “coffin” closes around you. There’s a countdown and then the plexiglass drops out from under you, and you shoot straight down those six stories, hoping you don’t die, and also hoping that you don’t get a free chlorinated enema.

I had no interest in this slide, but Zliten decided to go ride it. I told him to go without me. I sat at the bottom of the slide for about two minutes, and then ascended the stairs, waited in line with a bunch of other scared people, climbed on that plexiglass (and started to climb off but stopped myself), listened to the countdown and screamed my ass off when that plexiglass dropped me.

And, yeah, it was terrifying, but it really wasn’t so bad. The antici…..pation was the worst part.

And, I learned that I remain the type of person who would rather be terrified than bored. And I like that.

Case Study Two: Roller skating

I used to love roller skating as a kid – besides my bike it was actually a main form of transportation for me, I didn’t just do it in a rink, I skated all over town. I got pretty good and tricksy on my four wheels – while my friends were rollerblading, I enjoyed the stability and front stopping of my skates and could do some jumps and spins and the like.

Of course, I hung up the skates when I started seriously doing gymnastics, and I’ve only just started getting back on skates occasionally in the last few years at adult skate night.

It always takes warming up (holy crap, how did I ever use these things), to feeling decent on my feet, to feeling fast and nimble going forward (so it’s time to start being silly and dancing while skating), to feeling brave enough halfway through the night and go backwards. Then, I start the progression again of feeling awkward, to ok, to pretty good and then backwards skate is over and I turn back around.

By the end of the night I’ve gotten brave enough to do some eagles around the corners, maybe a shoot the duck, and maybe even some spins.

Could I enjoy a night of skating forward, slowly? Maybe. Probably not. Because I know I can do more. Going backwards the first time or doing the first trick is a bit scary, and I know it’s above and beyond the requirement to have fun at the activity I’ve chosen. However, to me, it’s boring. And I’d rather be terrified than bored.

Also, my choices for activities show that I’m about 11 years old, but we’ll leave that one alone this time.

The Chicken Rice Veggies Experiment

By Quix

On July 1, 2014

In Uncategorized

You guys, I have been having SO MUCH FUN being a normal person for the last week. I haven’t really missed training yet, and that’s definitely a sign that it was time for some offseason.

However, one part of my offseason promise to myself was that I would work on cleaning up what goes in my piehole. Case in point – within 36 hours of the race finishing, I had eaten a burger and fries, pizza, and (unhealthy) mexican food. It was bad, y’all. I knew I had to get my shit under control or the severe lack of calorie burn would bloat me up real quick.

Zliten was feeling it too and jokingly said he was going to just eat the penultimate (non-paleo/non-low carb) diet meal of chicken rice and veggies all week. Well, I thought about it, and it was an interesting challenge to make that boring meal fun while still keeping it healthy.

So, starting Monday, we did three meals a day of chicken, a rice product, and veggies. Snacks could be chicken, a rice product, veggies, fruit, or nuts.

I also endeavored to:

1. Not have more than 3 serving of rice products per day (not too many carby things even if they were rice things)

2. Try to stick to brown or complex carb rices.

3. Try to keep the sauce calories low-ish if possible.

Here’s some of the food.

I had a lot of salads. This particular one was from Whole Foods, but salads are great snacks and foods. Below was a chicken tzatziki + veggie wrap in a brown rice tortilla (I had that twice).

I also had some wine this week, and it made me remember, I really do quite like wine. I have been beer beer beer for so long, I forgot. And, it’s grapes, so it’s fruit, right?

Moar salad, and while it looks like not chicken rice veggies, it totally is. Those are chicken onion meatballs with brown rice pasta in tomato sauce.

A cornucopia of chicken rice veggie – another greek wrap, veggie chips (not 100% healthy but definitely enjoyed a few servings as a salty snack), dried coconut, rice rollers (not brown rice, but a nice treat with puffed rice and a tiny bit of cane syrup – only 45 calories and a GREAT vehicle for sun butter), grilled chicken with parmesan garlic brown rice and raw carrots because I was too lazy to cook veggies.

And bourbon. Which, I thought was cheating but it’s actually made from corn, so its sort of a veggie in the way that wine is a fruit. Right? Actually, one reason I went SO diet clean was I knew I wanted to celebrate offseason with a few drinks, so I figured it would balance it out.

Going out with chicken rice and veggies actually found me some pretty great meals.

Chicken tortilla soup and salad bar at Whole Foods
Chicken salad w/brown rice at Chipotle
Chicken+veggie tikka masala w/basamati rice at Naanful
Chicken and broccoli with brown fried rice at Shu Shu’s.

What did I learn?

Chicken, rice, and veggies is pretty much the perfect food for me. Expanded out to brown rice pasta and brown rice tortillas, I really had no want for anything besides brown rice bread (and honestly, with the tortillas, I was ok) and some variation in protein (fish a few times a week, and beef once or twice) would have been nice, but I was just fine, thanks.

It’s hard to say exactly why, since it was such a stark contrast to the crap I was eating the week before, I was not training, and sleeping a lot, but I felt REALLY GOOD.

Also, I think a little LESS fiber did me good. I tend to eat a lot of fiber when I’m eating a high volume of food and then I feel bloated.

I tried to track my food, but I only made it through to Wednesday. Oops. Baby steps. I definitely am back to eating 90% good stuff and 10% other stuff, so that’s something.

Going forward? It’s obvious to me that I do better structuring my meals with a protein, a healthy carb, and a veggie instead of eating crap like burgers or pizza. Duh. It helped me detox the sweets – I only had one sweet thing all week and it was half a pancake and it was amazingly sweet and awesome and tasted like a treat, not an all the time food. I want it less. Fruit is a treat too. More duh.

This week I plan to vary up the protein sources, and not strictly avoid carbs besides rice (beans, I have missed you!), but I plan to stick with the brown rice pasta and tortillas instead of whole wheat ones – I think they taste better, actually. I’m going to try to go with only one carby thing per meal, especially while I’m not training so much.

If I had to pick one meal for the rest of my life, chicken rice and veggies wouldn’t have been the first thing that came to mind, but it would certainly do me well!

Question of the week: What healthy food would you eat for the rest of your life if you could only eat one thing?

Gatorbait Tri

By Quix

On June 25, 2014

In Uncategorized

Maybe it’s a lot more about what goes on in the noggin’ than you realize.

I went into this race with just about the opposite outlook of last weekend. I didn’t have any goal times. Truly and honestly. Sometimes I say that when I actually do have secret goals, but for this day I simply didn’t. I just wanted to have a fun day. I knew that I was definitely past my prime this season, and I just wanted to have a positive last day of being a triathlete for a while.

I slept an average of 10 hours per day this week and did one hour on the trainer, 30 mins in the pool, and a 30 min run. I was trying to save every ounce of juice/motivation/oomph I had left. Finally the day before the race I finally started feeling a little “oomph” again and excited for the race, which was a good sign. I hadn’t felt anything like that since the X-50, so there’s that.

We drove up the afternoon before, got our packets (cool shirt – I have named it Gatorboobs), ate dinner at Denny’s (club sandwich, with whole grain rice and a salad – asked for no mayo, got extra mayo, was too hungry to send it back and ate it anyway), located the race site, drove the bike course (gorgeous! scary hill!), and then settled into the hotel to try and sleep.

I kinda had the shittiest night of sleep ever (the freeway was SO LOUD for some reason), but I still woke up feeling ready to rock (thank the dear fluffy lord for all that sleep I got this week). Normal bathrooming, purple stuff for caffeine, a cliff mojo pb pretzel bar, and the show was on the road.

Transition opened at 5 and it was open racking, so while Zliten wanted to be there by 4:30am at the latest, we compromised and ended up there at 5:10. Now, at 5:10 at Pflugerville, the place is frikkin’ hopping. 5:10 here – we were the fifth car parked and actually ended up as the FIRST TWO people in transition.

Well, considering we podiumed in overall transition punctuality, the rest of the race was gravy, right?

All the normal things followed – it’s sort of become an involuntary rhythm now.

Bring most things to transition, rack bike.
Bathroom
Lay out transition stuff.
Run warmup, take some pictures
Bathroom
Finish set up, dork around a bit
NEW: test water to determine if I want to wear wetsuit. Decide to go without.*
At last possible moment, go back into transition and fill bottles (try to save as much ice as possible) and turn on garmin.
Usually at the lost possible moment – this time, right before seeding – bathroom again.

*The water temp was 77, and it was the first time in the history of the race it was wetsuit legal. I waffled back and forth and decided to go without it. I never get hot in my wetsuit, but I don’t think I’ve ever swam in over 75 degree water, and they weren’t providing help out of the suit, so I figured the time I’d save would probably be eaten up getting the suit off. Not a lot of people wore them so I think I made the right choice.

Soon we were lining up and trying to seed ourselves and I tried to find around 2:15/100m (there was no signs). I saw two other people in my age group in front of me, so I knew there were at least three of us, and knew who to look out for… Soon, it was my turn and they took down my number and said “Ready, Set, Go”. The lack of airhorn was kinda anticlimactic but I’m sure we would have gotten sick of airhorns every 10 seconds or so.

Swim:

Time trial starts are the bomb diggety. Besides the running start into a very rocky lake (ouch ouch ouch), it was so nice and not washing-machiney even if they didn’t get the seeding right.

I felt very strong, though I spaced out during part of it and realized I was just going cruising pace during the middle. Oops. Passed a lot of people though. The only annoying part was the last ~200m, I was finishing the same time as the last sprinters, who were doing things like backstroke and breaststroke and swimming two wide talking to each other (???).

I thought I was closer to 32-33, but heard from people the swim was long. I’m ok with it. I left the water feeling warmed up and refreshed.

Swim time: 35:50 (2:23/100m) 3/5 AG

T1:

Did the big girl thing without my sandals (3 for 3 this year), and only regretted it a little once we got to the pavement. Rolled only with my bike shoes, socks, helmet, sunglasses, and garmin – yeah, I took the time this time to put it on my wrist in transition. I asked for the 910 for Christmas this year, which means probably end of the year tris I’ll chance taking this one in the water, I just don’t want to have to replace it right now. Totally uneventful and quick.

T1 time: 2:03. 2/5 AG

Bike:

This bike course was definitely not for being super fast. Quite a few decent hills, and one killer hill (called heartbreak hill). It was an out and back, so I figured what I have to struggle up, I get to bomb down later, right?

First 3 miles was really for spinning out the legs, then some good climbing miles 4-6, got up said evilevilevil hill (owowowow) without having to dismount and walk up (though I really wanted to – and I saw lots of people doing it), but I wasn’t prepared for just how shredded my legs would be after that. It took me the next mile or two to be able to handle shifting out of granny gears. The hill repeats I’ve done on the trainer definitely helped here, but I just can’t simulate 50% grade (not really) or whatever this crap was.

On the map and driving the course, the back half seemed easy, but I was flying a little less than I expected (probably due to shredded legs). I finished the killer hill at 13.3mph average (yeah…) and made a goal to get to at least 15 by the turn around. I only made it to 14.5. And then… the headwind. Oops. Yeah, guess that super happy fun time bomb-the-second-half party was not going to happen to the magnitude I wanted. Ah, well.

I alternated between head down and working and just in sheer awe of how damn pretty the scenery was on the way back. Stupid, stupid gorgeous. It was impossible to do anything but smile on that course even going up and down crazy hills.

When I finally got to the downhill, THREE cars pulled out in front of me, so I freaked out and rode the breaks down the first half until they were gone. I still got enough speed to scream like a little girl. I have yet to turn on my garmin again, but Zliten clocked 36.2 mph down it. Yikes.

I found myself really dehydrated through the bike. I drank my full aero bottle by mile 9, and finished my downtube bottle before 20. I ate half a pack of chews and just couldn’t fathom anything else that wasn’t liquid, so that’s the end of calories. Definitely not enough. I really need to remember to go for jelly beans when I can’t stomach anything else (since thats what I use as indoor bike fuel, I’m pretty sure I can get those down when nothing else works).

I was ready to be off the bike once I got to transition, but I was pretty happy with the ride. ~16 mph on a hilly course is not too bad for right now, I’ll take it.

Bike time: 1:32:27. Official results clock me at 15.6 mph, but for 24.5 miles (as the race advertised, and my garmin got AT LEAST that much), it was 15.9. Counting it. 4/5 AG

T2:

I’m not sure what wizardry happened here, because I actually had a fail – the bike racks were a little short, and had issues getting my bike back on it and ended up having to fiddle with that a bit. Everything else went super quick though and I was out and running in no time flat. No gravity there!

T2 time: 37 seconds!!! 1/5 AG

Run:

Got on the run and I had some legs, but not super fast ones. I decided not to freak out about what the watch was saying (high 10s) and just run. We started up a huge hill, then two dam loops.

Out was a flat but extremely rocky for the first half of the loop, down a steep hill, and then a long, gradual uphill to the turn around, and the the opposite on the way back – a gradual downhill which was a nice relief, but a steep uphill I walked both times. There was no point not to, I got winded power walking it, and then the relief of the flat again.

The scenery there didn’t disappoint. To one side was this gorgeous greenbelt, to the other, the gorgeous lake. When I could take my eyes off the rocks for fear of tripping, it made me happy to be running there.

I finished up two loops, holding a consistent pace. I couldn’t get my leggies turning over any faster, but I wasn’t dying to slow down. I was hoping I could do the last part a little faster and gain some ground there, so I just maintained. I kept looking for the girls I had seen earlier in my age group – one was a little less than half a lap ahead of me, and I saw someone with a 39 on their calf blow by me the first lap and I couldn’t hang. I figured at that point I was out of podiuming because if I saw two people in my AG that close, there had to be someone who had, like, already finished before I got off the bike.

Nutrition note: Had a half strength gatorade in my handheld and probably put down 3-4 cups of cytomax on the course (between my mouth and on my head). Cytomax is nasty but it kept me going. I was super thirsty off the bike and finished my handheld by mile 1.25 and lost time because I filled up every aid station, but it kept me vertical and running consistent pace, so, it was worth it. I had chews but couldn’t even. Again, I should get this figured but I don’t think it was much of a factor unless I could get my stomach to tolerate a dose of caffeine early on the run, I didn’t feel HUNGRY or unfueled.

I thought the last mile was a loop around the parking lot, but it was a loop around the PARK – through grassy areas where we had to follow cones since there was no path. My poor little brain was so confused it was all I could do to not get lost, playing the game – where’s the cone, where’s the cone, where’s the cone? It was marked well – it was just the end of a 3 hour effort, y’know. Once I hit the sweet pavement again I accelerated a bit and then I could see the finish and I passed a few people on the way and then we turned in and the finish line was there and I crossed and was SO HAPPY.

Run time: 1:02:28, 10:35/mile, 4/5 AG

They let me sit for a second (I couldn’t quite brain how to get my safety pin holding my timing chip on) and gave me a water and then another and then I went and cheered other people in until Zliten finished and we checked results and OMG I got my first podium in a triathlon in which I was not 3rd of 3 by like, an hour.

Total time: 3:13:23, 3/5 AG

Transitions count people!!! Also, it was definitely a close one for my AG placing. 1st beat me by 10 mins, 2nd beat me by 3 mins, and I beat 4th by 1 min (5th was like me at my first Olympic tri – over 4 hours). I could have fathomed being in any one of those spots depending on what sort of day I had, and I’m very happy with 3rd. Love these tiny little races where I get to feel like I have a chance to actually race for a medal, heh!

Really, really happy with this. My goal was to go out and have fun, and I so did. Plus, I had a pretty dang good race result and even got a 3rd place to boot. This was the perfect way to slide into offseason, feeling like I was completely and totally happy with the last race result, and no regrets about the day (or need for immediate vengence). I kinda liked racing back to back weekends, and I’d consider doing it again.

And now… offseason. I’ve been not-an-athlete for about 3.5 days now and I’m loving it. The most strenuous thing I’ve done in the last few days is walk the aisles at Costco. I know the hunger will come back, but for now, I’m enjoying being a normal human.

Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Page 97 of 219

Coasting

Captain’s Log: Stardate – Offseason

I’d Rather Be Terrified Than Bored

The Chicken Rice Veggies Experiment

Gatorbait Tri

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