Adjusted Reality

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

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Too much adulting, running away to the woods…

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On June 27, 2017

In Uncategorized

This week was *probably* the closest to a normal human adult type week I’ve had in years.  I didn’t like it at all.

Super serious workouts this week when this was the second most intense effort I put out.

Ok, there were some parts that were nice but it felt really weird.  I think I’m going to have to go run away and play in the woods for a while to make up for it.  Good thing I have plans to do just that this weekend.

Normally the workout section of my weekly recaps are big and detailed, but this week can be summarized with one sentence: I rode bikes for about two and a half hours.  Not very far and not very fast.

A few more words: I rode moutain bikes with coworkers and had a blast almost dying 20 thousand times on the beginner trails.  Note to self: ride mountain bikes more to assess whether the threat of death by rock or faceplanting into tree is real or percieved.  The rest of the week was my big red cruiser and bikes on the way to eat fried food and drink beer or bikes around the neighborhood dropping off books that were previously gathering dust to little free libraries to hopefully be enjoyed by someone else.  So, all sorts of super serious training.

I was super busy during the week and I can’t lie, I had thought about killing it with some training over the weekend.  However, my arm REALLY hurt from the tetanus shot and I stubbed my toe REALLY hard on my kettlebell Friday night, to the point where I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t broken and standing sucked.

Ok, ok, universe.  I’ll chill the fuck out.  I hear you.

This week, I’d like to get as many of these tests done as possible:

  • FTP cycling test (DONE)
  • 100m and 300m swim
  • 1 mile run test (max speed)
  • 3 mile MAF test (how long does this take at ~142 bpm HR)

If one or two had to go into early July I’m sure it wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would be nice to get some metrics.  I plan on doing these in controlled environments (trainer, treadmill, pool) to keep variables like elevation, activity pausing, temperature, etc, to a minimum.  I have four days before I go camping and I have four activities.  I think that will probably work out to get at least three of them done.

Then, while camping, the goal is to hike, bike, or run every morning before it gets hot and spend the afternoons playing in the lake.  That’s about as training plan-y I’m willing to get.

My dietary/scale type goals are going well and not so well at the same time.

It’s been a lot like this lately.

In the win column:

  • I saw a 182 on the scale for the first time since October (though it was an anomaly).
  • I’m feeling much happier with the way I look right now than I have at any point this year.
  • I think the new dietary changes I’ve been making have contributed to this and it’s incredibly encouraging to have a direction that actually seems to be working.

In the… not as win column:

  • I’m not all in yet.  I’ve been eating up leftovers which include things that are on the negative diet quality points.  I ate takeout twice on Sunday and both of these had refined grains.  I let my husband talk me into a giant non-whole wheat pasta meal last night (and felt crappy after).
  • Doing all this tracking is tedious.  It’s gotten to the point where tracking my food is pretty rote, but adding up the diet quality and metrics is getting tiresome.
  • I’m not magically 150 lbs yet.

I’m taking the next two weeks off, for the most part.  I’ll track my food while I’m not camping but I doubt I’m going to do it while I’m in the woods.  Thus, I’ll have incomplete diet quality scores for two weeks.  So, I’ll just resume all this silliness on July 10th and really go for it.  After a taste of how I was feeling (and how the weight is actually starting to come off), I’m sure it will be easy to be motivated to get back to it quickly.

However, I have data from last week.  Let’s see the damage.

  • Weight: 186 (-1.9) lbs <- this is GREAT but it also seems to reflect the weeks past rather than this week.
  • Avg cal per day: 1811 (+35) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -682 (-263) calories
  • Macros: 58 (+1)g fat, 170 (-13)g carbs, 90 (-3)g protein, 29 (+2)g fiber

DQ score: Monday: 16.  Tuesday: 9.  Wednesday: 5. Thursday: 26.  Friday: 22. Saturday: 5.  Sunday: 8.  Average comes out to approximately 13 (out of 32).

Yep.  Craptastic.  I did some really good things with incorporating healthy stuff in my day but ruined it with a bunch of fried food, refined grains, and beer.  There will always need to be room in my life for those things, but maybe just a little less while I try to take down these ~20 lbs I’d like to see gone.

And my doctor at my check up reminded me that more than 7 drinks in a week increases the chance for liver issues.  Ughhhhh.  My first thought was “you can pry my whiskey from my cold dead hands, lady!!!”  But, it would be good to figure out how to approach that number a little more closely most weeks without ruining my life (before it pickles my organs, apparently).

These are all things I will take super seriously starting the second week of July.

Last week was a doozy.  We did all the things.  It was exhausting.  We were productive over the weekend, and then we kind of crashed.

Turtle home!  It’s so much bigger on the inside…

Done:

  • Pop up registration
  • Trial run (I did literally neither of these things but took care of other things like groceries and errands and cleaning and getting poked with needles while Zliten was doing them so… win for both of us?)
  • Finished the shredding in the office.  And, as I said, we cleaned out the paperbacks on our bookshelf and donated them.  Baby steps.  The office may indeed get done this year!
  • Pick a weekend for our gameday potluck.  It’s on in about a month!
  • Bonus: measured the cabinets and discussed options for the kitchen with Zliten’s ‘rents.  They are SUPER AWESOME and are helping us with a lot of it and gave us some nifty ideas about moving around the pantry and they even gave us an estimated cost for the cabinets which seem super duper reasonable.  Will the kitchen or the office get done first?  Dum dum dum dumm…

Not done:

  • DDR Pad.  I stubbed my toe so I wasn’t *really* motivated to do this and didn’t get far enough into the office to find all the PS2 stuff anyway.  I *do* want to get this one done so I can have it set up for our next game night.

This week is a little different.  Before Thursday, the To Do list is:

  • Get all the things ready for camping and then get to the campsite and set up before dark and then exhale a sigh of relief because it’s been a lot of work to go on our maiden turtle home voyage!

Then, when we’re camping, we have all sorts of things we want to do but may or may not do any of them.

  • Every morning before the sun is too evil, we want to mountain bike, hike, or run.
  • Afternoons when it’s so hot we can’t even will be spent in the springs or the pool.
  • Other than that, we have all sorts of arts and crafts and stuff we’re excited to do including…
    • Painting minis
    • Painting our own camping mugs
    • I will for really real spend some solid QT starting my book.
    • Games!  We’ve got a really long game a friend loaned us we’re looking forward to trying and the normal dice games and Oregon Trail and stuff.
    • Get through the Big Yellow Endurance Book and How to Win Friends and Influence People and maybe start the next non-fiction book as well (as well as whatever fiction I decide to read).

Perhaps, if I’m inspired, I’ll write up some business plan stuff and plan out other book ideas and other things I haven’t thought of that will come to me on day 4 in the woods with no work and no internet.  However, I need to carve out some time for sitting in a chair with a beer quietly looking at a campfire or the stars, so I need to manage my own expectations on how many productive things I want to do vs how much time I spend staring off into space.

Losing the blues.

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On June 5, 2017

In Uncategorized

I’m done with the Ironman blues.  Hello from the other side!

Finally this week I came out of the fog.  I remember what it was like to be doing all that training, but it doesn’t feel wrong to *not* do it.  I still get to ride my bike.  We hit the pool once and that made me a happy fishie.  I laced up my hokas this morning for their intended purpose, and it wasn’t far and it wasn’t fast and it was kinda hot but it felt good.  I’m going to try to keep it to 5 hours a week, give or take, but I think both my body and brain are ready to be a super casual recreational triathlete.

It’s a good thing too, because I signed up for a race!

We do this one every year.  Last year I was about 3 months into offseason, I just bought my new bike that week, and I was just a minute and a half off my PR and my second best showing ever.  This year… I’m going to go in again with no expectations and see what I can do.  Go play triathlon hard that morning.  Maybe not even with a watch. All hippie-like without data (but I like looking at it later so maybe not).

So, this week I start with the swim/bike/run – yes all 3 of them in one week.  Here’s the plan.  It’s super detailed.

  • Monday – ran 2.68 miles
  • Tuesday – ride TT bikes at the Circuit of the Americas track for ~2 hours
  • Wednesday – ride bikes with the BSS crew
  • Thursday – probably be dead from all the exertion plus I have gaming so *priorities*
  • Friday – swimming, maybe in the lake
  • Saturday – short brick at Lake Pflugerville (probably 10-15 miles on the TT bike + once around the lake)
  • Sunday – go die somewhere because obviously I’ll be worn the eff out

After these two weeks I may just hang my TT bike and hokas back up for a while again, or I may continue to play triathlon at this low level for the summer.  I haven’t decided yet.  I should probably lift some heavy things soon (like at least my own bodyweight) so we’ll see how I want to prioritize everything.

Last week I was about 2 for 3.  I actually did 4 things (3 bikes, 1 swim).  I got 10k steps on my fitbit every day (technically minus Saturday, because it counted steps for a 2 hour bike ride, and I only really *walked* 7k but details…).  I did not wake up and do stuff because a) my back really wasn’t ready and b) I realized waking up in the morning and going cold to do some stretching without a warmup was probably not the finest idea ever.

I assure you that the second panel did not turn into the third, although I have threatened before.

My adventures in nutrition can be summarized thusly – I did really well all week.  Then I went and rode bikes for 2 hours kinda hard on Saturday and hosted a party with lots of food so I ate and drank a lot.  Then I resumed normality on Sunday and here we are.

This week’s tally:

  • Weight: 187.4 (-1.6) lbs
  • Avg cal per day: 1732 (+17) calories
  • Avg deficit per day: -838 (+35) calories
  • Macros: 56 (+2)g fat, 164 (-12)g carbs, 93 (+3)g protein, 23 (+1)g fiber

So, besides a little extra fat (still within the acceptable range), everything is going the right way regardless.

Last week’s goals:

Continue with Week one goals.  Track and maintain a deficit.  Water.  Try to keep the alcohol consumption to reasonable levels. – Check.  Saturday was a little out of hand but in the grand scheme of the week it all normalized.

Fruits and veggies. – Check.  I went back and could count at least 5 fruits and veggies every day.  Thursday was pushing it a *little* bit including celery from the wings we split but if you’re counting 5 average per day over the whole week?  Nailed it.

Protein.  – Better, but not quite 100g.  I went up to 93g from 90.  When I eat more, this is effortless.  With smaller calorie counts, this takes some planning and perhaps a snack with protein because I’m just not making it some days.

This week’s goals:

Continue with previous goals.  Track and maintain a deficit.  Water.  Try to keep the alcohol consumption to reasonable levels.  Five fruits and veggies per day.  This is a reminder to not regress.

Protein.  I need to watch this carefully.  On nights where I’m having some adult beverages I should skew towards things that are carb-light, and have quality protein and fiber instead to make my macros.

The tally.  Now that my appetite is back to mortal levels and I’m used to not having a food orgy every day, it’s time to START working on my diet quality (the word of this season is baby steps).  Not doing anything this week, except trying to make good choices.  Next Monday, I’ll add up my DQ score and see where it’s at in comparison to where I was a few years ago.

I did some things besides swim/bike/run/eat!  #offseason is glorious.

It’s so weird.  During periods of heavy training, I’m like, what the heck do I fill my life with on the weekends if it’s not either riding bikes for 6 hours or running 20 miles and then laying exhausted on the couch watching Netflix?  Just laying on the couch watching Netflix sounds rather dull without the bikes to tire me out first.

Then, I remember how awesome it is to have some spare mental and physical energy on the weekends.  It’s the worst when you’re recovering because you feel tired without the fun and endorphins, but then once that breaks… HALLELUJAH!

Here are the things I did this weekend:

  • Had two glasses of wine on Friday because I had calories left and I could.
  • Rode my bike with friends for 2 hours.
  • Went out to lunch.
  • Actually died on the couch for a while watching all the 2017 IMTexas videos to try to catch ourselves in them.
  • Picked up the house and prepped for the party.
  • Hosted 11 people and had a fantastic time.
  • Read a few chapters in the Big Yellow Book and finish section 1/3 (and some in my fiction book as well).
  • Did laundry and actually put it away the same day.
  • Cooked a BUNCH of batch meals – curry turkey with brown basamati rice and veggies, shepard’s pie, chili.
  • Went for a walk.
  • Watched a movie.
  • Painted some minis.

…and I was still in bed early enough Sunday night to wake up and run this morning and I feel refreshed and happy instead of overwhelmed.  Glorious!

My goals were:

Find a non-fiction book. – Check.  However, I had just started the new Argonauts book and I’m into it so I’m waiting until I finish it (certainly this week) to start reading How to Win Friends and Influence People (in the Digital Age) – figured I’d start with a(n updated version of a) classic.

Find office chairs.  Check.  600 bucks later, we both have seats we’re happy with that we can sit in for a while.  They’re worth it.  I sat in it to paint for about 2 hours and I didn’t want to die like I do in any other non-couch chair in the house.

Host people without stressing out. Check.  We spent maybe 2 hours cleaning and prepping simply because we effed up with the timing and didn’t schedule this on a cleaning service week, so next time should be even simpler.  There was plenty of food and drink without me going overboard.  We all had a blast playing games.  This will happen again soon.

Life goals, super check.  This week has a few more extra curricular activities, so I am picking one thing that will be a time commitment (Sunday), and the rest should be low hanging fruit.

Find a doctor and schedule a check up.  I have no idea why I’m putting this off.  Actually, yes I do.  This is definitely the year to get my blood drawn and I probably need to recover my account info for the login and the UHC website is confusing and blah blah blah.  Get over yourself and DO EITTT, woman.

Dance dance.  While the next two weeks I’ll probably err on the side of spending my energy doing triathlon stuff, I purchased a DDR pad a few weeks ago and I’d like to get it set up and working BEFORE I really want to use it (and get frustrated that I’m spending my play time getting it set up).

The Office, round 2.  Zliten thinks we can get at least through Step 3 this coming weekend in a few hours.  I’m cautiously optimistic.

And on that note, off to do all the things I can do with a brand new week!

 

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Bikes to nowhere, adventure snorkeling, and local beers – Liberty of the Seas

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On May 24, 2017

In Uncategorized

I do love cruises, but they have a history of doing bad things to me.

In 2011, my back went out and I got a nasty cold.  In 2013, I injured my knee and I got a cold the last day.  2014 and 15 I did it to myself with a half marathon and marathon the day before the cruise. 2016 my body was totally healthy, but I discovered over spotty wifi in Belize that my company had done layoffs that day.  While I look forward to these vacations, I also am always wondering what bad thing is going to happen.  While it was annoying to have a cranky back through most of the vacation, it was definitely a MILD annoyance compared to some years…

Sunday’s drive was fairly uneventful minus a 45 minute stallout in traffic around Houston.  We got to the pier, everything seemed chill, we got in a short line to get on board and… technical difficulties.  Their internet was out so the security photos weren’t being sent up so things were taking a long time.  We got put in a line and then sent back to sit down and then another line and then as we got up to the end we were told to sit down again.  We’re on about hour 7 of not eating anything so we’re cranky and we decided we weren’t getting displaced in line again so we just stood there.  And stood there.  With heavy backpacks on… (foreshadowing…).

Finally we got on board and lunch (food was glorious) and went to the mandatory boat drill and since we were signed up for late dinner this time, we had a few hours to kill.  I asked Zliten what he wanted to do and he really wanted to hit the gym, so we rode bikes for 30 mins and stretched.

Then, we watched the boat sail away from the hot tub with some frozen mojitos.  This really started vacation.

We drank some wine and got dressed up for dinner.  Since it’s the same boat, around the same time of year, it seemed like the menu for the week was pretty much the same.  Last year, I had seafood spaghetti with oysters, scallops, and shrimp.  Guess what I had this year?

We called it an early night and retired back to the room to read books and sleeeeep.

Monday was our first day at sea.  We slept until we woke up without an alarm and still hit breakfast.  I kept these small and had a little corn beef hash (my cruise treat), some fruit, and a few potatoes.

We met my parents for cards and played a few rounds.  Then, we did another 35 mins on the bike and stretched before we got hungry for lunch.

The afternoon was for the pool, and a few drinks, and more lounging until we had to get gussied up for formal dinner.  We clean up alright.

After dinner, we headed up to the disco and spent the evening talking to random people and drinking a lot of Crown Royal on the rocks before some late night snacks and bed.

Tuesday was sort of a repeat of Monday, except a little less sleep and a weee bit of hangover that went away rapidly and my back felt SUPER out of place.  Fancy that, running around all evening in heels + lugging around a heavy backpack for hours + cruise chairs/beds not being super comfortable didn’t do me a world of good.

Anyhoo, we were up in time for a quickie breakfast of relatively the same thing.  Cards with the ‘rents.  Bike and stretch (and stretch and stretch and roll).  Lunch.  Pool.  Pretty sure there was a nap in there somewhere.  Dinner – one of my favorites from last year, crab cakes and cilantro cod.  Sleep early because the next day we arrived at our first destination!

Wednesday is when vacation really, for real starts for me because it’s time to go hit the beach for a few days instead of just look at it, but also it’s half over.  Boo.

Started out with a *slightly* larger breakfast since we were playing in the water all day.  We rode past this sweet lighthouse on the way to Tabatya Beach and then all of a sudden we were there.  This place was amazing, and I’m not even showing you the underwater photos yet.

We spent over four hours snorkeling the huge mass of reef (reefs?) around the beach. The last time we were in Hawaii, on one of those hawaii boat charters, we’d spent a whopping two full days in the water.

I’ll do a play by play of all the fish pictures once I’ve processed them, but for now, you get THIS happy fish after those four hours, what sounds like a totally mundane but actually super amazing lunch of bbq chicken, rice and beans, and coleslaw.  And a mojito.

We hit a bar right at the port on the way back to have a few more drinks off the ship (read: WAYYYY less expensive) and enjoyed the view before we hurried back to play cards with the ‘rents.

This is my dinner face (and wearing one of my favorite necklaces to boot), but I didn’t stay up much after that.  I’d say I’m old but I’m really just a fish – playing in the water is ALWAYS going to win out over just about anything else ever and I had two more days of that planned.

Thursday was a little nerve-wracking.  This was the day that got ruined last year by work news.  However, it was a different port and we had different plans, so I was excited to try something new.  Speaking of something new, I found stir fried veggies at breakfast.  It sounded like an odd thing to eat in the AM but they were actually really frikkin’ yummy so maybe I’ll start making breakfast stir fries… hmmm.

We taxi’d out to a beach called Yaya.  Apparently you needed reservations, so a nice older gentleman escorted us to a different area called Carribean Life.  There were no lockers and we were a little nervous about leaving our stuff there, but hey, stuff can be replaced and adventures can’t, so off we went into the water.

This was not the most ideal place to snorkel.  We found some reef in the two miles-ish we swam, and saw some cool stuff like a giant pod of squid.  However, we spent maybe 20 minutes snorkeling and the rest of the time swimming (transporting ourselves).  Sometimes fighting some decent current.  Sometimes hurrying through boat lanes to make sure we didn’t get squished.  Adventure snorkeling!

After that, we were ready for refueling.  Local beer (Corona, LOL).  Pico.  Guac.  Chips.  Chicken tacos.  It was all really great and fresh.  There were ladies offering 20$ massages on the beach and with my back all sore, I took advantage of this.  She worked on me for an hour and twenty minutes.  I was super relaxed by the end.  And… I can say I got topless (very carefully without ACTUALLY exposing myself) on a beach in Costa Maya Mexico!

There was a swim up bar in a giant pool at the port, and I made Zliten get in with me for about 10 minutes.  Because there was a pool and I was there.  Next time, I’ll definitely take more advantage of it.

We played cards around 5:30 and then went kinda casual for dinner and after another sun baked, salt-crusted, fishy type day, we hit the hay pretty quick.

Friday was diving day!  Wheee!  We skipped breakfast so we could sleep in and still make our diving appointment.

We ended up the only two people signed up, so we had a private dive for cheaper than the ship prices.  Score!  And…we saw not one, but TWO turtles!  And lots of other cool stuff.  Day = made.

Our plan was to take advantage of Playa Maya, but we left the dive boat later than expected and the all-inclusive price wasn’t really worth the 2-3 hours we could spend there.  So, we hit Senor Frogs and had our first meal of the day: we split nachos, chicken tacos, and had giant margs and maybe a few shots poured in our mouths.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on deck and marveled that this is probably the most sober we’ve ever left Cozumel (read: not falling down), so we had a *little* more to drink to make up for it.

We fancied up for the last formal dinner.  Richard brought me two lobsters because he is awesome.

Then, we sort of flitted around the ship.  We lost 30 bucks in the casino SUPER quickly so we left.  We then hit the disco and actually danced this time!  We lost our seats from dancing so we went to a different bar and found a completely abandoned comfy lounge.  Then we found out bars were closing so we got munchies at the cafe and went to bed.

Saturday is always the saddest day at sea since you have to leave the next day.  We skipped breakfast again to play cards with the fam, hit lunch, and then decided instead of all the crazy things we wanted to do (gym! waterslides! mini golf! rock climbing!) we instead promptly took a 1.5 hour nap and then went and swam and read by the pool until it was time to play cards again.  I think I ended up with about a 7 and 5 record for wins and losses.  We all did pretty well trading off with the wins.

I honestly didn’t write down the food I ate as well as I did last time, but I do remember this amazing appetizer (that I didn’t snap a picture of) – scallops with chorizo in a cauliflower puree.  Sounds weird but it was amazeballs.  I got a tandoori chicken salad with yogurt dressing that was amazing, and we split a bunch of desert around the table and the key lime pie and cheesecake were the best!

After dinner we did the packing we had put off, picked up our formal pictures (for the relatives), read books and fell asleep.

Sunday was fairly uneventful.  We actually slept until the last possible minute to leave the room, splitting a protein bar instead of one last breakfast orgy.  I was kind of sad but also after eating ship food for 7 days I was kind of ready for something different.  We drove home, hitting a little rain but otherwise it was fine, picked up our leezard, grabbed some BBQ, and binge watched Kimmy Schmidt season 3 while sipping some high class tequila and orange soda dranks because VACATION WASN’T YET OVER DANGIT.

And then it was.  D’awww.  The end.

Once I process the other cameras pictures I’ll put up a fishy highlights post and add them here as well.

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Invisible Things

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On May 8, 2017

In Uncategorized

If something exists that bothers me, but I don’t really want to prioritize doing anything about it, I can usually make it disappear.  This works on objects, like the dirty half spilled cat litter box in the garage that had been sitting there since when it was cold enough to put the cat inside at night.

Lumpy space princess is not a good look for me.

This also works on mental things as well – for example, during heavy training cycles, I can almost completely ignore the emotional attachment to what’s going on with the scale.  Once you remove the “so there’s a few lumps but we’re going to go bike 100 miles today so who cares?” aspect about life, it’s really hard to not look in the mirror and be really negative and nasty to myself about it.  I’m trying to be patient, I’m trying to be kind, but everything just feels so far away from where I want to be right now.

And oh, the patience part of it is SO HARD.  At least when you’re doing a super tough multi-hour run, you have the direct power to progress it forward.  You’re doing something.  Right now, my body feels and looks like such a mess in so many ways it’s just not cool and the BEST thing I can do isn’t something, but NOT do something.  I can NOT eat a bunch of crap and fill it with too much alcohol.  I can NOT just jump back into multi-hour efforts and keep my workouts short.

That’s ok, I thought, I’ll just convert all that volume over to speed.  Short and NOT so sweet.  Then, I tried to do a splash and dash at the gym expo thingee and I was busting ass to keep my run speed in the 11s for 1 kilometer.  ONE.  I’ve ran marathons that felt less difficult at about the same pace.  In fairness, this was after a little man kicked my ass in 45 minutes with some drumsticks in a class, I did a 750m all out row (3m13sec, not bad!), and then tried halfheartedly to do some standup paddleboard yoga on shaky and tired legs, but STILL.  I honestly thought my garmin was broken.

Scenes from #pureaustinexpo17 – I want that bowl for breakfast EVERY DAY.

So, I really did spend all my cash on race day and now I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I need to calm my shit if I ever want to have a savings account again.  This is SO different than last year’s offseason where I didn’t want to touch a bike for 2 months, I am just so mentally fired up to DO STUFF that it’s excruciating that my body is taking so long to get with the program.  I’m unfairly comparing myself to where I was last year this time – after two months of offseason.  I’ve now just passed two weeks.

One of the coaches at our gym also did IM Texas and looked at us crazy when we told her even the little we’ve been doing.  She said she’s on pizza and beer for AT LEAST another two weeks.  So, fine.  I’m done with the pizza part of the equation, I need to watch what I’m eating because I refuse to gain any MORE weight, a reasonable, healthy human amount of light-moderate activity sounds like where I’m at right now.  Walking for an hour.  Riding bikes to work or on our recovery ride.  Swimming a lap or two around the lake.  Paddleboards and kayaks.  Lighter strength workouts.  Longer and harder efforts and I need to take some time apart, for our own good.

And I need to have faith that my body will let me know when it’s ready for more.  It’s killing me to have my season end just as tri season is ramping up and watching my teammates and friends crush races just stokes the fire to get RECOVERED already and back up and out there.  However, Saturday taught me it will not end well unless I give myself the time and space to do this the right way.  It’s just hard and I feel like such a weenie.

At least I’m an Ironweenie.

So, last week I did these things:

  • One rowing/weights/stretching session (45m)
  • One 18 mile BSS ride (1h30m)
  • One mile swim in the lake (30m)
  • All the crap at the expo (2h30m)

I also walked at least 10k steps each day (an average of about 14.6k actually).

This is definitely the maximum effort I want to be at right now and I’ll probably be dialing it back a little bit this week.  I’m not going to put up a plan because I’m not there yet, but I’m sure I’ll ride bikes a bit, I probably won’t be able to resist the lake being perfect right now at least once this week, I’ll continue to completely ignore running (we’re definitely not on speaking terms after Saturday), and if I feel good later in the week, some light strength work.

Let’s also talk about the realization about how that silly little sticks class kicked my ass.  Of course I’m probably not going to do stuff like that regularly during season, but it opened my eyes a bit.  Ironman training makes you super strong in so many ways, but it makes you so WEAK in others.  If I want to be a more well rounded human and overly stronger, more stable, and functional athlete, I need to do things besides all the miles of run/bike/swim.  To that end, I’m hoping to incorporate some of those types of activities that move my body in different ways over the next few months.

With the nutrition side of things, I’m feeling kind of the same way.

At least I’m cooking up some real foods now that have plants in them, so that’s a step in the right direction.

My mind is ready to cut calories down because oh my stars, I’m ready to start trying to shed some of this unfortunate weight, but I have to make sure I’m allowing myself to actually recover as well and trying to completely underfeed myself would not help me accomplish this end.  I started tracking my food last week, and it went… okay.  I managed to keep approximately a 5000 calorie deficit per fitbit with minimal pain and suffering and my weight stabilized at 189.5.  My appetite is beginning to behave itself, with moments of rebellion.

I’m trying to stay away from a barrage of junk food, drinking plenty of water, and actually quite trying to slowly replace all the carbs all the time with more fruit and veggies, starting with snacks.  I’m back to desert being described as something you have a small amount once or twice a week vs multiple times per day.  I’ve had the same bag of pretzels for two weeks now and there are no other salty snacks around.  My meals are similar, but I’m only eating three of them per day and I’m trying to gravitate towards the more filling ones for the calories because other than plant type snacks, that’s it for the day.

The last thing on the list is our friend alcohol.  I was actually able to celebrate Cinqo de Mayo with tacos and margaritas (homemade for both so they were lower calorie) for the first time in years because I didn’t have some sort of crazy training reason I had to be up super early.  It’s been nice to have a glass of wine here, a beer there, and not worry about how I was going to utterly fuck up tomorrow’s training.  If I actually want to make weight loss progress, I’m going to have to ration this eventually, but we’re still in the “hang loose” phase of this particular adventure for another few weeks.  Track and healthify the food, but enjoy some drinkies.

Sunday was a full on triathlon with volunteering, cleaning up, and a movie.  T1 was chillin’ on the couch with a beer and T2 was dinner and some wine.

My mood and energy level definitely perked up a bit this week.  There was gaming with friends. We went to go see a movie (Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – which I HIGHLY recommend and think might be my favorite Marvel movie so far).  We volunteered at Rookie Tri.  We had an early Mothers Day celebration with the in laws after busting our butts at the expo.  The week before, I think I left the house ONCE on Saturday for a few hours but that was it for plans besides a recurring date with my couch and netflix.  It was exactly what I needed, but it’s too pretty outside to make a habit of that!

We also reached the advanced beginner level of adulting!  I didn’t get that haircut, but I was able to finally CLEAN THE EFFING CAR and we got it washed and I’m dropping it off tonight to be serviced.  We finally made a Costco trip, and bought and installed outdoor lighting we’ve been talking about forever.  Additionally, we did a pretty good job picking up of the house, and cleaned out and blew the leaves out of the garage.  We cooked garlic shrimp pasta with asparagus and spinach, cilantro cajun turkey with rice and veggies, and chicken tacos.

Next week is all about moi.  I can’t do much about my body feeling lumpy, inflamed, and bloated, but I can make myself the best version of me I can.

  • Haircut!  …and after I get it done, consider using hairdye for the first time in about 15 years.  Part of the BLEH I look terrible is my hair and the cut will probably take care of it, but part of me isn’t sure about the Frankenstein’s bride thing I have going on in the front with the grey streak.
  • Pluck my eye caterpillars.
  • Redo my toes and maybe even my nails.
  • Pick up after sun care stuff, because my beloved Clinique is almost out after 4 years of using it…

Maybe more if I get antsy but I’m definitely not ready to graduate to Intermediate level adulting just yet.

 

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The Aftermath

By

On May 3, 2017

In Uncategorized

The week after the Ironman was not quite what I expected.

Always expect margaritas though…

I expected to be more tired and sore.  Not to say that I wasn’t, but it was maybe like third-or-fourth-worst-sore-marathon level and not get-me-a-wheelchair level.  Steps were hard for about 2 days, but that was it.  I was more mentally out of it… the day after, I spent 4 hours sitting by the pool kind of staring off into space, not reading, talking much, or anything, just sort of existing.  The extreme tireds caught up pretty quick once the caffiene in the coca cola, the race excitement, and the booze benders wore off.  I have spent quite a few 12 hour+ nights in bed with reading and sleeping combined.

I expected to spend the week sort of in a happy, post-IM bubble.  The day we got back, we had to say goodbye to our little old man schneider skink Lump.  It wasn’t a surprise because he’s not been doing so well, but he went way downhill while we were gone and it was time.  That, plus a bunch of other shitty shit happened last week and I felt like I needed a do-over.  However, the weekend combined leisurely lunches out, getting a few things done that were nagging at me (but not too many things so it didn’t feel like a hassle), and a whole lot of vegging on the couch binge watching Netflix.  We finally drank our post-race champagne on Sunday and I wore my damn medal and screamed YOU ARE AN IRONMAN a lot.  I felt redeemed.

I expected to be a LOT hungrier.  I definitely didn’t limit my portions and may have wanted a full ‘nother meal after my reasonably sized lunch two days after, but I felt less compelled to eat like an asshole because Ironman training actually let me kinda eat that way already.  I actually had vegetables and fruits last week in decent quantities.  By three days out, I split a burger between two meals because it was too much food.  I know when I nail my nutrition in training I’m way less hungry afterward, so this is perhaps confirmation I did just that at the race.

Plenty of foods but I wore my wetsuit and my bike helmet as well.

I expected to want weeks away from my goggles, my bike, and my running shoes.  We rode bikes with the group on Wednesday and it felt good, but 18 miles was PLENTY.  We swam with the tri team in the lake on Friday, but once around the quarry (750m) was enough.  25 minutes on the cruiser to lunch and groceries on Saturday in the heat and the wind tuckered me out.  The will is there, but the body is definitely saying that short bouts a couple times a week are the way to go.

I expected my knee to hurt more.  It’s not been completely pain free, but since the day after, it’s hurt less than any point 2 weeks before the race.  I have no idea what brought it on, like AT ALL, and I have no idea why doing an Ironman made it feel BETTER, but I’m still giving it enough space (read: no running or heavy lifting until after vacation) to repair itself.

I expected some weird body stuff, but not quite what I’ve experienced.  I still feel like a bag of water, literally almost sloshy, STILL a week and a half later.  The inflammation is real with this one, and this week I’m going to take steps to actually try and FIX it instead of probably aggravating it more with junk food and drinking beer and whiskey like water (and forgetting to actually drink water).  I’m hoping its working it’s way out because I have to pee like ALLLLL the time and it’s getting old.  Also – doing an Ironman makes you hair grow.  Literally.  I had an INSANE amount of stubble on my legs the day after, like a week’s worth, and it had been 2.5 days.  Weirdest thing ever.

I might have bought all the merch like I’d never be back but… hurrrr…. I  *really* want to do another one after I get all some of my life shit together…

I expected to be more one-and-done, or at least not wanting to do another one of these for a long time, but then again, I haven’t at any other race distance so I’m not sure why.  I really do feel a draw to do this one again.  That finish line is addictive.  Not next year because I have other priorities, but maybe 2019?  2020?  Definite possibilities.

I expected to have a little more oomph to get stuff done last week, but I always expect that and it never happens.  I was lucky to just do a basic level of adulting.  I might be an advanced beginner adult this week.  I’m adjusting my expectations here and I’ll work on getting to the intermediate/advanced level (read: the big to do list with appointments and house stuff and other projects, oh my) once I’m back from vacation.

So, it’s been about a week and a half.  I am definitely feeling a little of the post Ironman blues because I had absolutely zero things scheduled starting April 23rd.  This was totally intentional for a lot of reasons, but I expected to welcome the break a little more than I actually am right now.  It is completely unreasonable, but I kind of wish I was ready to jump on the swim/bike/run train.  The Ironman marketing team are evil geniuses because today I got an email telling me to NOT let my training die and sign up for IM Boulder this summer.  Argh, yes, that sounds great!!!

But no.  I need to face some other things.  As weird as it sounds, it sounds WAYYY more comfortable right now to jump right back into 12-15 hour weeks and ignoring the rest of my life.  Hopefully, that will pass soon as I remember what it’s like to have my identity not tied to Ironman for a while. As I get over the hump of “I’ve eaten healthy and counted calories for 24 hours, why have I not lost 15 lbs yet?”.  As I remember that it’s actually pretty awesome to just be a person who is active for the fun of it (and maybe sometimes to earn a little extra food) and not just because it’s on the training plan.

So, week one was really just surviving + a small amount of activity.  How about week two?

Definitely bikes.  Because always bikes.

I’m back to tracking food and weighing myself.  No specific calorie goal this week, just get back in the habit and try to keep it reasonable for my activity level. To be honest, I logged my weight the last three mornings without my glasses on so  I couldn’t see it, but I ended up checking it out today and it’s not *quite* as bad as it could be (189.8 which is about 3lbs up but also 5% more bodyfat/bloat than a month ago).  It’s time to shift my eating to mostly fruit and veggies and lean proteins and some grains and eschew the things that have fake orange coloring and come in a plastic tub or crinkly bag.

Water, water, water.  I know this will help with feeling like a water weenie, it’s just haaaaaaard when I don’t really focus on it.  My goal is to have four 24-oz Polar bottles independent of anything I drink while/directly after exercise.  So far this week I’ve done pretty well.

Still on the “whatever, whenever” plan but I’d like to do some of these things:

  • Ride bikes with friends.
  • Get to the lake to Sup or kayak or even maybe swim.
  • Foam roll and stretch a few times.
  • Spend 15-20 mins doing some bodyweight exercises 1-2 times this week
  • Attend the Pure Austin Expo and play.
  • But most importantly, 10k steps per day.  I slacked on it this week.  I need to be taking my 2-3 walks per day at work and maybe one in the evenings if I don’t have enough steps.

In terms of goals and to dos, I’d like to do a little bit more than surviving I did last week:

  • Get a haircut.  It’s time.  I waited until after the race so I didn’t have to worry about an awkward cut that wouldn’t ponytail, but I am definitely in need of my annual shearing.
  • Clean out the Prius and get it washed (or wash it ourselves).  It’s been on my list since January, and we did the Xterra last weekend.  It would be nice to tick this one off the list so we can…
  • Schedule an appointment next week to take it in for it’s 60k service.  It’s only 2k overdue. 😛
  • Gaming on Monday, early mother’s day on Saturday, volunteering for Rookie Tri on Sunday.

Since I’m still operating at the advanced beginner level of adulting, however, I’ll cut myself some slack if I don’t get to everything.

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About Me

I'm a video game producer and a lover of anything game related by trade.  I'm a triathlete by hobby.  I live for being on or in the water as much as I can - scuba diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, water slides... you name it.  The dichotomy between my outdoor and indoor realities are interesting, but they're all mine!  Longer version here...

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