Adjusted Reality

Tag: cycling Page 31 of 34

Chronicles of Summer

On July 5, 2016

It’s a little harder to love the outdoors when the heat index is trying to kill you on the daily, but I’m still doing my best.

Bikes:

Jul5-2

Friday morning bikey bike commute time!

It’s hot as balls outside (right now, it’s feels like 111!!!), but on the bike, it feels… ok. Until you stop. Then the heat comes crashing down on you like a flaming mack truck… but the actual biking parts feel great!

I’m pretty sure in 2015, I cycled outside mayyybe 15 times? I’d have to look it up, but it’s a decent approximation because during tri season I’d make sure to ride outside at least every other week on Saturdays and otherwise I wouldn’t. Well, I’ve done at least that many outdoor rides in the last month. Yay bikes! Yay playing outside!

Jul5-1

Tire, you’re doing it wrong…

In fact – this happened to us on Thursday, and we’re just getting it repaired now. We definitely keep a low mileage profile lately. Shame the insurance doesn’t really give discounts for not driving a car much. I think their lowest rate was for 10-12k per year. We don’t usually get half that, in fact, our 3.5 year old Xterra just hit 11k miles.

Holiday, Celebrate:

My fourth of July weekend was pretty badass. It started with an almost 2 mile swim and 4 mile run under the noontime ball of death. After recovering from the feels like 102-105 temps on that run sucking down liquids under the AC, we meandered our way into the Texas countryside to a friend’s holiday bash. That is, after a false start in which we forgot our food at home and had to turn around when we were halfway there. Oopsie.

Jul5-4

Oh no. Had to look at these views for longer. Aw, shucks.

After the mishap was rectified and we got our tent set up, we spent the evening grilling, drinking punch, catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, and tons of time in the pool. Since we were the most sober ones (???), we got recruited to run “front of the house” (aka, the smaller fireworks like fountains and roman candles) while the other guys put on the big booms further away. I’ve never done fireworks before, just watched. It was fun! We only had a few close calls, and everyone made it out with all eyes and appendages intact. Success!

Jul5-5

Since I was helping put on the actual show and not snapping pics, here’s some kids (big and small) playing with sparklers before.

We spent the rest of the night playing beer pong, chupacabra dice, and more pool time. And then holy crap it was way, way too late, so we crashed for a few hours in the tent before taking it all down again, and cooling off in the pool again before we headed home because the weather already wanted to kill us at 9:30am. Yay Summer?

Sunday and Monday were pretty mellow. We stayed around the house, slept, relaxed, caught up on class and chores, and other boring, responsible, but necessary things. However, for the first time ever, we made it out to our neighborhood’s parade and joined in with our bikes.

Jul5-3

T-rex appreciated that we made it to play papparazi.

Training Week One:

Last week was a pretty decent embarkation into an actual schedule. We aren’t popping out of bed at sunrise or anything, but it’s getting easier to set the alarm with something starting with 7. Doing the noontime or evening runs are killer, but 1-2 of those shorties a week need to stay on the schedule until I conquer the feels-like-hot-as-balls heat index shit.

Jul5-7

This is what happens when you’ve stopped sweating and start getting goosebumps on a run, but aren’t willing to see 11 min/mile average pace. 😛

Week one of training summary:

Monday: lunch swim (~1200m in 22 mins, a few fast 50s in there), PM weights (45 mins)
Tuesday: morning run (3 miles in about 35 mins), bike commute (~10 miles in about 45 mins)
Wednesday: PM brick with the BSS team (~13 miles in 44 mins rode, 1.7 miles in 18 mins ran)
Thursday: Heavy arms/abs, light leg weights (45 mins)
Friday: Bike commute (~10 miles in about 45 mins)
Saturday: Swim challenge (3000m open water swim), hot noontime run (4 miles in 43:55)
Sunday: NADA. Couch.

Summary: a little less than I had anticipated, I’m missing one 45 min trainer ride on the tri bike, but I commuted twice instead of the once I had planned. I’m a-ok with 7 hours of outdoor heat acclimation summer goodness.

Week two’s plan:

Monday: weights at home (30 mins)
Tuesday: 2 mile morning run, 20 min pool swim, return to endurance cycle class
Wednesday: 2 mile run AM, weights at lunch, recovery ride with BSS
Thursday: 5-6 mile run AM
Friday: 20-30 min swim (AM, lunch, PM, wherever it fits)
Saturday: 20+ mile tri bike ride, 1-2 mile brick after
Sunday: Probably NADA. Couch again.

I’ll probably bike commute one or two of these days as well (maybe Thursday and/or Friday), and with that, it’s looking like about 9 hours of goodness. It’s a little jump from last week’s schedule, so if something falls off, it probably won’t be the end of the world.

Food stuff, scale stuff:

Jul5-6

Pork + udon noodle soup + onions and cilantro = love. Stir fry accompanies this for extra veggie love.

Holiday weekends are always rough to be super healthy awesomesauce, but I didn’t do too badly.

I made a big batch of pasta veggie salad to bring to the party, as well as a lower calorie drink option (vodka, diet sprite, diet juice punch). I ended up eating a SHIT TON of queso and chips too, but I looked at my calorie burn that day and my -1000 number to hit was about 2500 calories. Thank you, return to training. So… I think it worked out okay.

I had some stomach issues on Sunday, and couldn’t keep food down, so while it’s not the healthiest way to maintain your waistline, it did keep me from overeating. Or, errr, eating more than maybe 500 calories of the simplest digestible foods, I’m ok with that not happening again for a long time.

Monday, I ate pretty well, and batch cooked some food for the week and oatmeal fruit bars. I switched out the fruit for just peaches and used butterscotch chips instead of chocolate, but… they rock paired with some greek yogurt for protein. It’s nice to have something different for breakfast for a change!

I didn’t actually track my calories (back to it today), but my weight is about where I would expect it to be with that time of the month it is. If all continues to go well, I predict July to be the month of 170-something, even on the mean white scale.

Speaking of mean while scales, we got some body fat calipers to play with, and while the scale measures me at something stupid like 41% body fat, the calipers have me more like ~25%, which puts me somewhere around the healthy range for females in their 30s. Which sounds more reasonable. While I am not a size 0 or anything, I am pretty fit and carry a lot of muscle, and don’t think I’m almost 50% body fat.

This week, I don’t have a whole lot of crazy going out planned, and a lot of good food ready made at home, so I expect it to be a pretty successful week on the “noms” front.

Jul5-8

On that note, I’ll leave y’all with our “trash panda” making off with Nacho Cat’s food, and bid you a lovely (short) week!

Numbers Don’t Lie

By Quix

On June 23, 2016

In Uncategorized

Eating foods:

June23-2

Spinach and chicken enchiladas after a long hot bike ride…

I was getting a little down on myself this week because I’ve stopped making progress with #projectraceweight. I’m so glad I’m tracking against calories burnt on fitbit. Previously, I would have just been like “WTF is wrong with my body, I’m defective, it’s not fair, yadda yadda”. Now, I look at fitbit, and I’ve been over my (-1000) calories most of the last 7 days. That’s data that makes sense. I can roll with that.

It’s going to be interesting transitioning back to training a little bit. In theory, I just need to continue to watch the numbers, but there will be some point where I’m just too hungry to keep it up and I’ll have to eat more. That’s fine. I’ll figure it out as I go along. All I know is that whether I’m using -1000 or much less of a deficit per day, I won’t be arbitrarily aiming for some calorie count no matter what my activity level is like I did last year. That way lies fatness.

In terms of diet modifications, to maximize my performance at the lowest calorie intake is to be smart about my macronutrients, most of all carbs. But not in the way I bet you’re thinking.

I suck at pure carbs. I want my sugar to have fat in it too. Chocolate. PB+J. Pretzels and cheese. I know fat is also essential, but it’s very easy for me to hit my range and pretty easy for me to go over when I’m eating more. On 1200-1500 calories, I’m good (typically) at hitting my protein and fat macros, so with more activity, I need to increase pure carbs.

One of the best ways for me to do this is to fuel my workouts well. I have a mental block against this for some reason. Gels and sports drink are only for long, hard efforts. Fruit is something to be limited. Jellybeans rationed. The odd thing is that when I actually do properly fuel my workouts I feel great, and actually end up eating less overall throughout the day. But my stupid brain goes: “hey, this isn’t a race, just underfuel a bit now and we’ll binge on some french fries after instead because that’s way more fun than stupid GUs”.

While it kills me a little inside to suck down 2.50$ packets of stuff that doesn’t taste very good on just your average Wednesday workout, I can be better about bringing stuff like dried mango, jelly beans, etc, things that hit that magical 25g per ~100 calories. And the pros keep pushing the lowfat chocolate milk recovery thing, so maybe there is something to that. I may give that a try on workouts I have access to a fridge directly after.

Looking back on days where I’ve done a good job, in 1200 calories, I can get all my protein, all my fat, and ~100g carbs. Every 100g carbs is an extra 400 calories. So, that means, on days when I have 1600 calories to eat, I can consume about 200g carbs. When I have 2400 calories to eat, I can consume about 400g. This is generally the LOWEST recommendation of carbs for an endurance athlete. So, starting next week, meal and snack planning will be more crucial than ever, and I’ll be working to earn those carbs!

Riding Bikes:

June23-1

Evilbike lost her horns (her clip on aero bars)! She’s now a true road bike again!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to formally announce that I’ve done my first group ride since February… and it was SUPER FUN and not really scary at all. It was the beginner ride, so people were a little more courteous, and also we were only 7 (and then 6 after a rider dropped to go home), so it was less crazy than trying to keep 15-20 people together.

The pace was relaxed. Not agonizingly slow (though I heard we went a little faster than normal since we all weren’t actually beginners), just a nice cruising pace winding through lots of neighborhoods on the north side of Austin I never knew existed. Definitely recovery ride territory, it was easy peasy minus the 95 degree heat and a few steep hills. I’m still terrible at clipping in, it takes me at least a few tries and typically looking down to fumble with the pedals to do it, but the most important thing is I feel confident unclipping. That makes everything else okay. It’s something that will come with practice and I’m alright practicing when I’m not terrified of going down on a busy road in front of a car.

We had so much fun playing bikes we decided even though it wouldn’t be the most convenient thing, we bike commuted today, and there will definitely be a destination bike ride or two this weekend. Bikes are habit forming substances! I’ve come so far since THIS GIRL a few months ago, wanting badly to spend more time outside on two wheels but having no idea how to accomplish that because bikes were scary. It took practice and doing stupid stuff like riding around my block 20 times stopping at every stop sign to practice unclipping, and going from 2 bikes to 6, but I’m going to say… mission accomplished.

I still have so much room to grow. I need to start riding over 20 miles at a time again. I need to become a little more fearless during descents. I need to really nail down the position in my TT bike. I need to get stronger on the bike so my watts are higher than my heart rate again. I need to figure out what to do with the readings I get on my garmin from my nice, expensive vector power pedals that for the last year, I’ve looked at, and went, “ooh, neato” and summarily moved on.

However, these are all things that will come more into focus when I start specifically training, which is next week.

The Plan, Man:

June23-3

I don’t have any appropriate pictures to go here, so have one of Zliten and Donna watching TV instead.

After one more weekend of sleeping in, playing on the cruiser bikes and in the water, I plan to get myself moving in the direction of actual, intentional sessions this week. It’s a small jump from what I’ve been doing – looking to do about 7 hours a week (BUT I’m not counting commuting/cruiser bike miles just like I don’t count walks in my training hours now).

I’m building the first month of training on these assumptions per week:

2 sessions of weights per week are non-negotiable. At least one needs to be at the gym with heavy weights.
2 swims that are at least 20 mins long. At least one must have an element of speedwork in it.
At least 10 miles of running per week, hopefully increasing this every week. Once a week off the bike.
As much cycling as possible.
- Alternate weeks of Tuesday pain cave/Wed recovery ride week 1, Wednesday brick ride week 2, rinse and repeat. I’m hoping to be able to attend both after I’m more in shape, but two hard rides in a row sound bad to me right now.
- At least 1 ride per week on the TT bike, either outside or on the trainer.
- I’d like to have done a 30+ mile ride by the end of this block.
- Bike commutes as often as possible with everything else going on.
Either a pretty significant (50%) recovery week on week 4, or a decent recovery week (60-70% of normal training) on week 3, depending on how I feel.

And, as a refresher from the nutrition section:

Sticking with the current calorie deficit unless it proves problematic.
Attempting to curb my appetite the rest of the day by fueling my workouts well. This will also help me maximize my carb intake at the right times.
Watch my calorie qualities after longer or harder days. Food splurges and alcohol splurges on different days (pizza OR beer, not pizza AND beer), not the same.

…but, like I said, a few more days of play. Off to play bikes and hit the lake right now!

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon

By Quix

On June 22, 2016

In Uncategorized

The last few years, I’ve ended offseason with a race. While I’m not *quite* there yet, this was definitely what you would call a “rust buster” as in I haven’t raced a triathlon in about 9 months, since my disastrous Kerrville Tri cramps-n-crash-n-burn. It’s always exciting to toe the line (or the beach in this case) with more questions than answers. How is my base fitness (aka – what’s left after slacking for 3 months)? How is my mental game? Am I healed or is there still residual ick in there? Can I handle my new bike well? Do I remember how to pee anywhere else besides a porta potty?

June22-3

Spoiler alert: I peed in the lake.

Saturday was an epic family cookout. Normally, I’d be worried about being on my feet so much, but I am used to the 10k++ steps per day and don’t have a lot of residual fatigue, so it was fine. I slept well this week, but I slept terribly before the triathlon. Not for any real reason, I just kept waking up because Zliten was fidgeting (usually I sleep through any of that like a rock) and my book was interesting and I’m not used to an 8:30pm bedtime.

Race morning alarms are what they are, so at 5am, I was up and at ’em. I had a belvita with some almond butter and grabbed some caff chews for later. We puttered around all morning, I didn’t get a warmup run but I did get a warmup swim, and I porta pottied like a champ and peed in the lake. I went from wheee, we’re doing a race… to WHEEEEEEEEEE! RACE!!! over the course of consuming my caff chews, so all was well with the enthusiasm. I sent Zliten and Matt off to race, cheered them into T1, and then five thousand minutes later, I tucked into my wave and got going.

Jun22-1

I call this one Sunrise over Expensive Bicycles.

Swim:

I sized up my wave and thought… ok… I can take most of these ladies on the swim and bike at least. I lined up close to the front and found a lane and swam. I intentionally kept it about 3 gears below redline. I’m not swim trained right now, and I had no idea how taxing a the full race would be on my endurance at this point in time, and the last thing I wanted to do was blow up. I concentrated on smooth long strokes, avoiding ALL THE FUCKING PRICKLY PLANTLIFE (and failing), and staying at the decent-effort-but-not-gasping pace.

I’d say I did well. I ended up getting out of the water 5th in my age group, and besides a slight rookie mistake of not swimming in far enough, I’m happy. It’s an average time for me for this race, about 15 seconds off my best, and that’s all I can ask for at this moment in time.

Swim: 11:28/500m (it was long – I came out with 600 yards). 5/21 AG

T1:

I navigated the barefoot rocky run with reasonable fearlessness. My new aero bottle FELL off my bike when I unracked, I fumbled with one of my socks for too long, and my bike was not in the best position in transition (longer run in cleats than normal), but all in all it didn’t suck too, too badly. I’ve had way worse first transitions of the year.

T1: 2:53

Bike:

leahbike

Coming in smiling on the Death Star, so you know it can’t have gone THAT badly… thank you Pat McCord for photographing us all!

I got out and had some n00b moments with my clips (my new cleats just aren’t playing nice with my pedals, or I’m just bad at clips, or both), and then got going and ahhhhhhh. When you don’t have to stop or dodge traffic or anything, this bike is like BUTTER. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass. Since I swam well, I only got one or maybe two people in my age group here, but being in one of the last waves means (glass half empty) dodging around EVERYONE and (glass half full) getting the rush of passing so many people.

Everything went well except for a few things. One – this girl and I were going about the same pace, and I could tell she was a newbie (a very fit newbie but a newbie). I would try to pass her, get a little ahead, but she would stay on my wheel and not fall back. Typically, you leapfrog with someone your same pace, they pass you, you recover a bit, pass them back, then later they pass you, etc. It’s nice. This was not.

Second – new bike had me all kerfuffled. I totally forgot how to eat even though I have this sexy aero bento box full of gels. I meant to take one around halfway and I didn’t. I thought I drank my full bottle of Scratch because I couldn’t get a sip and I drank less than half. No matter how I adjust, the aero position hurts my arms (all over this time, not just the delts like when I rode on the trainer) after 10 or so minutes and that was even with playing with all sorts of position changes.

Lastly, the traffic closures were a joke. There was a good few miles in the middle where the cars were ducking into our lane and forcing the cyclist either on the very edge of a rough country road with lots of potholes and bumps or crusing slowly behind them. It was a huge buzzkill when all I wanted to do was FLY on the Death Star. If I was smart, I would have used that time to take a gel but… hindsight is 20/20 and it’s hard to remember to be smart when you’re angry.

I hammered the last few miles in and when I looked at my garmin for the first time, I was actually rocking some really great speed. I stayed in aero A LOT more than I did on the other bike, and I played with all my shifters, and while my quads and my arms ached, the rest of my legs felt way fresher than normal.

Best bike split on this course ever. This year of bikes is starting off well and going to be the best! Fourth in my age group and I was REALLY close to catching third.

Bike: 45:25 (garmin said moving time was 44:48 for 18.8 mph) for 14 miles 4/21 AG

T2:

Everything went according to plan except the jerkhole next to me had racked his bike right on top of my shit (and he had plennnnnnty of room) and my stuff was all in disarray. Not my best T2 ever because of that, but this is pretty decent considering what I was working with.

T2: 1:42

Run:

Here is where it shows I have not been training. With the swim and the bike, I don’t lose fitness really quickly and can almost pick up my training right where I leave off. With the run, if I take more than a week or two off, my running paces significantly fall off and take a while to come back. I haven’t run much in 3 months. I knew this, and while I was hoping for magic race day miracles, I was planning for reality.

When I got going, I saw my pace was about 30-60 sec off what I would expect if I was trained. No big deal. I ignored it and kept trying to reel people in and keep my head positive. After a mile, I checked in and yep, pace still the same, effort still feels about what I’d expect racing a sprint tri in the deathly heat (feels like upper 90s at that point), so I switched over to heart rate to monitor that instead.

It was a little on the low side (171), so I worked on shoving it up to where I know I can maintain without redlining (175) and then put on my cruise control. It was maybe one quarter of a gear harder than I was going previously. I didn’t have much else to give. My pain cave is shallow right now.

The run was kind of a blur. I remember dumping all the water over my head to stay cool and catching Raul about half a mile in and chatting for a sec, and kind of zoning out in the middle watching the little number on my watch, and then switching over to total time near the end and seeing if I could will myself to catch my PR of 1:30:30. I sped up a little, I passed a few people, and then last year’s time ticked by, and I threw my bottle at Zliten when I saw him because I was done with it and then there was the finish.

Run time: 30:32 for 3 miles (garmin showed it a little short with a 10:29 pace) 9/21 AG

Overall time: 1:32:01, for 5/21 (top quarter) in my age group. Top 30% of all females. Solid top half overall because dudes are stupid fast.

June22-4

All done! Time to go drink beer!

Do I wish I could have pulled out a PR? Always. But I had no business expecting it and I’m not disappointed finishing with my second best time in six years completely untrained. I love the bike PR and how I felt out there. I’ll take the swim. I know I have to work for the run and I haven’t been doing that. I’ve ran 36 miles total since the marathon. Yes. My mental game’s on point – I kept my head on my shoulders and didn’t blow up mentally or physically. I made mistakes in transition (or had them made for me) but I remembered how to do all the things. All in all, I am THRILLED with the day I had.

What’s next? One last week of doing whatever, and then we start some actual intentional sessions with some work spiced in. Nothing drastic, but it starts looking like a training plan instead of a social calendar. My next race is on this course in August, and I’d love to annihilate all my paces here.

Footnote: there’s a reason I’ve been avoiding these hard efforts for months. Y’all, I was SO HUNGRY. I could not stop eating for 2 days. If I’m going to try to continue to pursue this #projectraceweight thing a little further, I need to be REALLY smart about what I eat on days when I have long or hard efforts.

So I’m racing a triathlon in a few days…

By Quix

On June 17, 2016

In Uncategorized

This weekend is my first triathlon of the season and also my first race in 2.5 months. I am now officially 3 months into the #projectspring plan, which means minimal training. It’s a very weird feeling this year, normally this race is the end of things, one more hoorah before I take some time off. This year, it’s as things are ramping up a little. That means there are a lot of different expectations (or lack thereof) on an untrained body vs a body that’s super trained and straddling the line of fitness and burnout.

LakePf

Last year, this was the face of the start of #offseason.

Day before/pre-race/nutrition plan/gear:

We’ll be grilling and celebrating Father’s Day with the ‘rents on Saturday, so it’s not the normal steak-n-taters, feet up, relaxing time. However, it’s not as if we’re walking around Disneyland all day or anything, and we have a lot less accumulated fatigue to worry about. What worries me the most is the sleep – midnight is generally bedtime for me these days, and if that holds true, that means very little sleep the night before. So, I need to make sure to get really good sleep the rest of the week and also try my darnest to be in bed and relaxed early on Saturday night.

Belvita breakfast cookies and chocolate almond butter is my new race day breakfast tradition, so I’ll be sticking with that. For caffeine, I’ll probably go with purple stuff – it makes me pee a lot so it’s bad for running races but perfect for tris because the world is your bathroom if you need it to be so. I’ll take a few chews for pre-race, because breakfast to race time will be somewhere between 3-4 hours (grumble grumble 3rd to last wave grumble).

During the race, I’ll give myself the option of caff chews or a caff or non caff gel on the bike, and stash a gel in my pocket in case I feel awful right out of T2. I’ll do gu brew or heed on the bike in my bottle. I’m debating on the merits of carrying a frozen bottle on the run, and whether it should have water or sports drink. Water is better for dumping on your head. I might need the salt, sports drink has it, but can get sticky. The temps will determine what I do here.

This is the first race I’ll be doing with my super pro looking set up. Team race kit, aero helmet, new TT bike… I’m excited to at look fast, no matter where the actual numbers end up!

333496_10150973399544450_1197894477_o

Not my pro kit, but this tri makes me jump for joy!

Swim:

I definitely have endurance here, but I’ve lost a lot of my speed. I’ve swam speedwork in the pool the last few months a total amount of ZERO times. Also, we went to go do recon at the lake last week and HOLY HYDRILLA! The lake zombies and plant monsters are out in full effect. I’m hoping they’ll cut a path, but it’s likely it will end up being an out and back like they do for the August race. Those usually end up long, crowded, and kind of scary (chance of head on collision with a stray swimmer is high).

I’m going to try to go out a few notches above a paddle, but I don’t want to be shelled getting out of the water. I don’t expect a personal worst here, but I definitely don’t think I’ll be breaking any records.

T1:

First tri of the year usually means fighting a lot of transition gravity. Hopefully being a familiar race venue will help. I have new gear, but that shouldn’t mean much because it’s new versions of the same stuff I had before. Sock shoe sock shoe sunglasses helmet bike go.

Jun17-1

I can’t believe I still wore a camelback 3 years ago… *blush*

Bike:

This leg could be very interesting. My bike fitness is the LEAST in the toilet of all the sports, and I have a shiny new TT bike. However, I’ve definitely not been training like I normally am at this point of the year, and I don’t really know the ins and outs of riding the Death Star yet. Everything could click and I could have an awesome PR here, or I could feel weird and awkward and my legs don’t show up and I’m rolling through this race about 16 mph.

Depending on how things feel, I’ll push the bike REAL HARD and try to hang on for the run or I’ll take this easier and hope to make up some time later with fresher legs. Honestly, if all goes well, my race strategy will lean towards the first choice because it involves finally getting to open up on my new toy.

T2:

Same as T1. If I can, I’ll spin a little easier before dismounting (though the last part is a hill :P), and just remember the run starts the minute I leave my bike. Shoe off, shoe on, shoe off, shoe on, helmet off, race belt on, visor on, grab bottle and RUN!

Run:

I always like to leave a window open for good things to come in, but I would be absolutely SHOCKED if I could PR this leg of this race right now. It would be 100% mental fortitude, not due to any amount of physical conditioning I have on the run right now. I may get some advantage from riding my new bike, but I doubt that will make THAT much of a difference.

No matter what – I’ll run as hard as I can for three miles, because that’s pretty much the only way to pace a sprint triathlon.

Jun17-2

At the end of appropriately pacing a sprint triathlon.

Overall, I’m looking at this as a test to see where I’m at right now, physically, sure, but mostly mentally. How do I feel in the morning? Am I excited or just want it over with? How do I feel reaching past the point of comfortably hard? Is it like “fuck yeah, let’s dig at that pain cave floor” or still a bag of “nope nope nope nope nope”?

If I’ve learned anything in the last few months, it’s that you can’t force enthusiasm as much as you might try. At the finish line, whether I’m chalking up a new personal worst or busting out a crazy great race, that’s just where I am at this moment in time. Unicorns or not, it’s totally ok. I’m excited to toe the line to find out.

Becoming the storm

By Quix

On June 9, 2016

In Uncategorized

Monday, something clicked about one mile into the Monterrey Bay (treadmill course) run. Studying the bio-mechanics of the body for Personal Training class made me think about extending my hips. I found that by throwing my legs backward with a little more force to force more extension, I was able to go from 11 minute miles to 9 minute miles with very little extra effort. It was harder on the hills, and I really had to concentrate on it so I didn’t just dangle my legs like I usually do, but it felt good. Powerful. Like the limiter is I need to work on my hamstring strength (totally doable) vs somehow make my lungs not gasp for air sub-10 minute miles with my current form (a lot harder to imagine).

June9-1

If you ride your bike and don’t take a selfie, did you actually ride your bike?

Also, this week, I just feel like I’m ready to fly a little faster. Tuesday, I had some thinking to do and my bike to ride on country roads. Let me tell you – after riding in town for months, being able to ride for 10 miles with two stops was BLISS. I also found an effort, a zenned out thinking pace with legs pumping and breath just on the edge of aerobic, where I was able to generate some decent power and a speed that is decent, dare I say, not completely laughable for a short trip that included the three ~~bitches~~ sisters hills twice.

I’ve seen this quote appearing in my social media feeds a lot lately (I remember it coming from THIS LADY but I’m sure I’ve seen it a few times elsewhere). Sometimes the universe puts in front of you exactly what you need rolling around in your brain.

Storm

I also love this one as grammar… enthusiast?

Your

But that’s not here nor ~~they’re their~~ there.

I’m at that weird place where I’m no longer hiding inside from the rain. I’m not yet one with it, but I’m feeling the rain on my skin and thinking… yeah… I want to go there.

So far, the first quarter of thirty seven is either doing or setting myself up to do things that range from slightly intimidating me to holy-shit-this-is-terrifying stuff. I mean, some of them are little in the grand scheme of things, like riding a bike in traffic or actually digging under the hood and fixing my website without throwing a bunch of money at it, but these are still things I was not willing to tackle even a few months ago because they sounded… hard.

However, there’s bigger stuff. Some things are uncomfortable, like returning to taking classes while being fully employed and also training for races. Some things are scary, like actually taking the time off to heal my body and mind this spring and losing ALL THE FITNESS and then plunking down the money to race 140.6 miles next year. Some things are utterly terrifying, life direction changing, true ventures into the unknown, the kind of thing where even the beginning acts of planning cause both extreme fear and excitement at what could be.

They say every 7 years or so, you go through a big change. I’d say I was a completely different person on my 30th birthday than I was on my 28th. New town, 100+ lbs lighter, new job, new priorities. Unless my crystal ball is completely wrong, I think at age 39, I’ll look back at 37 and go… huh, that was me? Crazy!

I do well with inertia. Once I get the ball rolling, I am pretty great at keeping it in motion. However, I resist change, the start of motion, by digging in my heels and hunkering down where I’m at no matter how bad it is. It can be a boon in endurance sports, but sometimes it’s not so good in life.

fine

For example, the haircut. I knew it was looking really raggedy. My long hair was up in a messy bun about 80% of the time. But it was what I was used to, even if it was ratty and gross, so it stayed until I was practically dragged into the salon chair.

At first the shock of losing about 50% of what was on my head was terrifying. Within a few days though, I loved it and I had no idea why it had taken me so long to take the plunge. It’s different, for sure. It’s harder to put up for workouts, and I cannot go more than two days without washing it or it’s greeeeeasy. However, I can roll directly from wet to looking really good by the time I get my coffee in the morning without doing anything and that is EVERYTHING to me right now.

Such is life. Generally, once I make the leap, I’m so happy I did, but getting myself there is such mental gymnastics. Sometimes it takes the universe (or someone else) smacking you on the head saying “this isn’t fine, as much as you want it to be” and “to resist change and growth means the slow death of your soul”.

A storm is approaching. The air pressure is just different these days. Even if I just try to hunker down, I don’t think I can avoid it, I don’t think you can tell the weather to cease to exist. I can go inside, I can put on a raincoat, I can tolerate the raindrops, but I think the way I really succeed is just to BECOME THE FUCKING STORM. Embrace the things that are terrifying. Hold them tight until we know each others innermost fears and desires. Right now, I need the crazy eyes and the bezerker battle cry. I need to channel all the volatile, relentless, and brutal energy of the tempest to not only allow the crazy into my life, but chase it down and pin it to the ground.

So, watch out sunshine – this storm is coming.

Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: cycling Page 31 of 34

Chronicles of Summer

Numbers Don’t Lie

Lake Pflugerville Triathlon

So I’m racing a triathlon in a few days…

Becoming the storm

About Me

Search

Pages

Archives

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Login