Adjusted Reality

Tag: running Page 15 of 50

Off with her head.

On August 30, 2017

Some weeks, you just feel… off. Mentally and physically.

Then again, any week you can feel “off” and still ride 100 miles on Saturday is a win in my book.

Starting last Monday afternoon, I felt… weak. Tired. Not sick, not exhausted, not hurt, just not myself and extremely unmotivated. Definitely the kind of feeling I could push through, but probably not a great idea on race week. I wanted to make sure I save some give-a-shit for the weekend, because riding 100 miles on an empty motivation tank would have been rough.

I started out the week strong with a swim on Monday morning, and did end up prioritizing my 2 sessions of weights, but all I did besides that was a 20 minute easy spin on the trainer.

Oh, and rode for 100 miles/7 hours over the weekend. But still, much less than I had planned – 9 hours total instead of the probably-too-much that was scheduled. Obviously, things worked out the way they were supposed to since I had a pretty great ride.

Onto the next, right? This week I’m splitting the difference between “I just finished my long race” and “it was just a relaxed pace 100 mile ride”. I don’t have huge plans to kill it all week, but I’m also not sitting on my ass drinking margaritas.

Here’s what I’ve planned this week but at any point I could just… not…

Monday: played DDR for about 30 minutes. Legs definitely weren’t quite as springy as normal!
Tuesday: ~2 mile lake interval run. Walked to the lake by work and ran around it 6 times, alternating fast and recovery/steady. Legs still didn’t feel great but maintained low 9s for fast and high 10s/low 11s for recovery.
Today: swim and weights
Thursday OR Friday: brick session in the pain cave
Saturday: riding to the BSS social ride and then home (about 40 miles)
Sunday: off
Monday: (bonus long weekend) bike and swim adventure (about 40 miles)

The next two weeks I’ll be focusing a little more on FAST (with some long-ish ride miles to stay in shape for Livestrong 100), and then a mini-taper to see what I can do at Kerrville Sprint in about 3.5 weeks.

I have not been able to get enough pizza lately, but with #projectraceweight in full effect, I’m making them on whole wheat/corn tortillas instead.

When you get that icky fatigued feeling, the last thing you want to do is go hungry and maintain huge deficits. So, that’s what I did NOT do this week. My numbers are a step back for sure but I will stand by the food I put in my mouth because I shook off the… off… without getting sick or injured and succeeded where it counted.

My body just felt INFLAMED last week and recovered just in time to get another dose of it in the shape of a hot, 7 hour bike ride where I was constantly dehydrating and rehydrating myself. So, my weight averages are probably going to suck for a little while. Sigh. One step forward, two steps back. We’ll get there someday.

Weight: 187.9 (+2.6) lbs (to note, this would be 1.3 lbs down taking out the two days that weirdly swung up 4-5 lbs for no reason).
Avg cal per day: 2582(+615) calories
Avg deficit per day: 567 (-254) calories/Garmin average deficit: 167 (-371)
Macros: 81 (+14)g fat, 244 (+54)g carbs, 109 (+3)g protein, 28(+3)g fiber

At least all the numbers make sense. I let my fat and my total go up, my deficit go down, and my weight went up. Everyone has crappy weeks and this was one of them. How about the quality numbers?

DQ score: Monday: 22. Tuesday: 16. Wednesday: 29. Thursday: 14. Friday: 19. Saturday: 12. Sunday: 3. Average comes out to approximately 16 (out of 32).

Obviously the average went way down for the week… but it’s better than when I first started tracking it. I’m doing much better with eating the right stuff but only moderately better at avoiding the wrong stuff… let’s just say there was a little too much booze and a few more refined grains/sweets/fried food than normal. So far, so good with eating the right stuff this week, I’m hoping to keep that trend up so the important thing (weight) will start trending down again.

I cannot wait to go see all the fishies and take pictures of all of them and eat yummy food and dive until I’m so exhausted I can’t even with myself anymore!

Getting ready to ride 100 miles and camp kind of took over our lives last week but I was able to get some things accomplished.

I made a valliant effort, if I do say so myself, at finishing my fourth chapter in my book in a short amount of time. I’m pretty close. Since I had a goal of four chapters in August, and I still have a little August left, my plan is to finish the last bit of this chapter today and spend some time Sunday working on the next.

I’m over 20k words and counting! It’s not quite as prolific as when I did NaNoWriMo way back in 2009 (I think I got to something like 30-40k in a month before I quit), but that also kind of burned me out of writing. This pace is brisk but I’m still feeling stoked to make progress. So it’s perfect!

I downloaded the preview of the Brene Brown book, but I haven’t had any non-falling-asleep reading time. This week, for sure.

While it’s not quite a To Do (since it’s a ta-DONE), I’m excited to say that we’ve booked our winter vacation and we’re heading back to Bonaire. Checking out the prices for everything, and all things being fairly equal, I’d rather spend a week rolling out of bed and diving in the most beautiful place ever from the shore in my backyard than an all you can eat/drink luxury resort or a cruise or something.

So, here’s the non-training highlights for the week and long weekend – it’s a lot but also mostly fun stuff!

Today we’re showing a friend around our gym and taking a new class! She may get a membership! It would be fun to have more gym friends. Then… attempting to finish up chapter 4.
Thursday, we will likely be spending lunch picking out our kitchen cabinets and counters, and then D&D game night.
Saturday is Labor Day grilling and (card and board) game night at our house.
Sunday’s goals are making progress on a non-fiction book (Daring Greatly or something else) and starting (and attempting to finish) Chapter 5.
Monday – we want to do something involving water. We had originally planned on tubing, but I’m not sure I want to chance it with all the rain. Instead, I think we have a bike adventure and hit up Barton Springs and Deep Eddy and maybe a few places for snacks along the way.

I’m excited! Fun stuff is fun! What amazing things are you doing over your long weekend?

Coming ’round the bend

By Quix

On August 21, 2017

In Uncategorized

It’s the little things and a few moments in time and measurements in fractions of inches that are going the right way that give me hope that maybe my crazy plans are actually working.

It’s exhausting work chasing this guy down….

Saturday, we did a slightly longer version of our Pain Cave brick workout from last week. 20 mins warmup, 6x 5 mins steady on the trainer/.25 mile on the treadmill at somewhere around 5k speed, 15 mins cooldown.

I can tell you how things didn’t go as planned that day. I was tired and didn’t set an alarm and woke up after TEN AM. The treadmill crashed down off the two by four it was propped on and scared the ever living crap out of me on the second interval. I’m still getting used to my husband on the treadmill about four inches from my face when I’m on the bike.

However, I can tell you sometime about interval four I felt my legs start to do the sling shot thing. Instead of taking effort to move my gams from being extended behind my body to bent in front, at that particular pace and time, it was happening via momentum. Not every time, and especially when I was just trying not to fly off the treadmill into all the hazards elsewhere in the room, but one part of fixing my stride clicked for the first time… at least in years, before I knew what good or bad running stride was, and maybe ever.

I logged 3.5 miles last week at an average pace of about 9:20/mile. I’m starting to see dividends in my stride and hopefully this continues.

Also, I lived one of my worst biking fears on Wednesday and it wasn’t that bad. I totally misinterpreted the world and instead of staying put when an ambulance was coming through a busy intersection, I clipped in and started to go. Once I realized what was going on, I fumbled and didn’t get unclipped in time and went down RIGHT into the righthand turn lane from the lane heading straight. It was not the nicest commute in the world but my big girl pants were firmly on, so I got up, rode to work the rest of the way, and rode home. I’ll probably be a little more cautious on the bike for a bit because I am skittish, but I think I will survive.

Other than that, it was a great week, I hit everything I planned to do.

2 swims
2 bike commutes
1 run off the bike
1 brick workout
2 weights

7.25 hours total. One key was that I hit the swims in the morning. We’ll see about changing that up once my schedule clears up a little, but once I’m heading home, it’s REALLY hard to motivate myself to take that detour to the pool.

This week is pretty mellow until Saturday, the ride I have been training for, Hotter’n’Hell 100.

1 swim (DONE)
2 weights (with my NEW PLAN)
1 run off the bike
2 bike commutes OR one bike commute and one morning ride (depending on how time crunched/tired we are).

…and obviously riding bikes for 100 miles on Saturday. I expect it will take us somewhere between 6-7 hours of riding time, and we’ll have 4-5 hours of training on Mon-Tues-Wed and then two days off to rest up.

It’s weird to have a goal “race” that’s not really a race, but just sort of a morning/afternoon party on bikes, but after all the super serious Ironman prep earlier this year, I’m so so so so so good for it!

The iguana and I had very similar dinners that day… we’re both on #teamlotsofveggies

Here we go. Numbers and stuff…

Weight: 185.3 (-2.1) lbs
Avg cal per day: 1967(-191) calories
Avg deficit per day: -821 (+102) calories/Garmin (538)
Macros: 67 (-13)g fat, 190 (-29)g carbs, 106 (-1)g protein, 25(-7)g fiber

Alright, alright, alright. Finally some progress. It’s always darkest before the dawn, I guess. Obviously, there’s still room to be better, I actually overate on Saturday, not just my -1000 calories in fitbit, but my actual calorie burn +200 or so, but throughout the week it evened out.

Just for funsies, I’m going to put the garmin stats on here as well. As you can see, it’s a difference of about 300 each day, so while on Fitbit, it looks like I should be losing almost 2 lbs per week, on Garmin, it’s got me right around the 1 lb mark. Hopefully averaging these out over the next month paired with my average weight loss, I can decide which one seems more accurate in the long term.

So, how about quality?

DQ score: Monday: 28. Tuesday: 25. Wednesday: 18. Thursday: 30. Friday: 27. Saturday: 6. Sunday: 20. Average comes out to approximately 22 (out of 32).

I’m going to guess that this, the low 20s, is the approximate DQ threshold where I start to lose weight (as long as my calories are in line as well). I’ve cut out a lot of the negatives (switching refined grains for whole the majority of the time, eating fruits and nuts instead of other snacks, really thinking about sweets or fried food) and working on adding the positives (getting my required 4 servings of veg per day).

I suppose the despair last week and the relief this week is finding something that works that I can also live with. Yes, I’m pretty certain that giving up all “negative points” foods and alcohol and I would lose weight. I could probably do that for a couple weeks (while being a shut in) before I rebelled and went on the biggest battered-fried-dipped-in-ranch-frosted food bender with a bottle of whiskey. I do moderation much better than abstinence.

I’m aware that I can’t indulge every time there is a reason to indulge and get to race weight. I’ve passed up work pizza and cake this month. I’ve stuck… reasonably well to the alcohol in moderation thing. I’ve gotten comfortable with my weaknesses and starting purchasing pre-made salads to bolster my weekend veg content, making healthy deserts that include sunbutter to get some nut action (heh, heh), and keeping more accessible fruits around so it’s just grab, wash, and go. The sugar cravings are MOSTLY held at bay with energy balls and some dark chocolate on occasion. Oven fries, garlic pistachios, and popcorn are almost as good as fried fries and chips.

So, let’s say I find the balance and it’s indeed that 1 lb per week. That’s about 30 weeks until I hit my goal. Give or take a few weeks for holidays/vacations where maintaining is just fine, thanks, and I’ll be at my raceweight for my 39th birthday. That would be a heck of a gift to myself, especially if I can do it while still stopping for a beer on the way home from bike commuting on Wednesdays as long as I also don’t eat the fried pepperoni pizza eggrolls from the food truck outside.

Yes, I used this picture before. Imagine it just as dusty, but the bookshelf organized and the rest of the room you can’t see in serviceable shape!

THE OFFICE IS DONE, Y’ALL!

I didn’t actually take a picture of it because, honestly, it doesn’t look impressive. When I gave up perfect for good enough, it meant there’s still crap on the shelves in the corner and there’s still a table with stuff on it and four monitors underneath and I still need to hang some degrees and certificates. But, it meets all the criteria. Everything has a place and the things that were elsewhere in the house that were supposed to go there are in there. The closets close. The floors are clear. Most importantly, the desks are clear and we have workspace.

I am proclaiming it done, and for the first time in many, many years (maybe since we moved in), we have four usable rooms with a purpose. This means, as I have promised my husband, that we are taking the entirety of September off house projects (while we gear up for the kitchen remodel).

I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve been able to sit down, write, and have it flow. I’ve got the rough draft of three chapters written. About 16k words. I’m not so naive that I think it will continue like this forever, and I’m not entirely sure what I’ll think of it once it is done, but I’m writing a book. I’m about a quarter done. Even if it’s a big pile of dog mess at the end, I’ll have done it. And I’ll know what to do better next time. If I can write a crappy book in three months I can write a not-as-crappy book in another three months and then maybe a decent book in three MORE months and by the time a year is up, I have a shit ton of words and maybe something worth publicizing.

Other stuff I did or didn’t do:

Put together my weights plan – YEP!
Go shopping – NOPE! I planned to ride my bike but it was literally feels like 110 when I was set to ride up so I took a nap (heat is EXHAUSTING) and we took an Uber instead.
Download a new non-fiction book – KINDA. I’ve got the preview. I’m going to decide whether it’s worth 15 bucks to me, but if it is I’m going to do it. It’s just a little more than a movie ticket and will occupy my time longer. I want people to pay me as an author, so I shouldn’t flinch about the price of a book I actually want to read, right?

And now, it’s a new week. What’s up?

Racing HHH100 and camping this weekend. Do all the things to prepare, and go have fun!
Finish chapter four of my book. This is potentially dicey due to it being a short week filled with out-of-town prep, but I’m going to go for it. Hopefully, it flows and I can at least make some progress.
Decide on the book and either download it or pick something else off my list (and read, obvs).

And, on that note, off to do the things that make the stuff go!

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Second verse, same as the first…

By Quix

On August 16, 2017

In Uncategorized

Whew, what a week. I’ve been trying to put this one together for four days. I sort of feel like this is one of those COPY PASTE weeks, nothing crazy new and innovative, so let’s just get on with it so we can get back to life, liberty, and the riding bikes, yeah?

My Saturday was better than your Saturday.

Second verse, same as the first… bikes are rocking my world and I actually kind of appreciate my commute now on bike days because it’s a great way to wake up in the morning and unwind in the evening. The only time I really get *over* biking is on the fourth hour of six hours of riding when it’s over 100 degrees and I need fuel badly. And then, after a quick stop, I perk up just fine and it’s time for more bikes. Yay bikes!

Swimming is my procrastination sport right now. It’s so easy putting off actually going to the gym with extra hours at work so I didn’t go. At all. I figured out the way to fix it is to make myself go in the MORNING and I’ve already gone once this week and even did some (simple) sets, so that’s an improvement already. My paces are definitely not where they were, and my body feels… clunky… in the water, but it felt nice to be doing it. I know it just takes me about a month of going regularly so hopefully this week is the start of that.

It feels weird to be taking the minimal approach with running, but my average paces were in the 8s and 9s last week (let’s hush that it was 2 miles total). I’m not sure how long I’m going to give myself at this low volume, but I’m enjoying the fact that I can actually run fast again! Hopefully this translates to fast and LONGER once it’s time to train for the half. It’s been a while since I’ve had the luxury to run so little so I’m enjoying it, especially because it’s hot as balls out there.

Soon, I need to start lifting heavier objects than myself. It’s definitely getting easier and I’m doing this in the right order per my personal training training, but if I want to GET STRONG I need to lift some iron. Or at least some rubber (use the bands).

Last week:

Ran 2 miles
1 stretching, 1 DDR, 1 strength session
About 10 hours of riding bikes (185 miles)

For a total of about 11.5 hours.

This week’s plan is much more balanced:

2 swims (1 done)
2 bike commutes (1.5 done, and I don’t have *too* much choice but to complete the other 13 miles unless I take an Uber home ;D)
1 run (DONE)
1 brick workout
2 weights (DONE)

7-8 hours planned (so it should feel like a rest week, heh).

Proof you can find something non-reprehensible for Chinese food!

Food. Oh food. I’ve made some strides here but it’s my Kryptonite with a capital K. I was talking with someone this weekend and how UNFUN it is to lose weight with restricting eating vs being healthy and active. Bah. Can we just train for Ironman again instead of this crap?

I’m frustrated and not seeing a lot of progress here, so let’s just run the numbers and move on.

Weight: 187.4 (+0.2) lbs
Avg cal per day: 2158 (+293) calories
Avg deficit per day: -719 (-269) calories
Macros: 79 (+21)g fat, 219 (+25)g carbs, 107 (+0)g protein, 32(+5)g fiber

As you can see, it is not my finest week. Quality numbers below.

DQ score: Monday: 27. Tuesday: 26. Wednesday: 32. Thursday: 20. Friday: 22. Saturday: 4. Sunday: 26. Average comes out to approximately 22 (out of 32).

Well, here we go. First perfect score (Wed). Actually six really good days and a Saturday that included a lot of junk food. Because what I put in my mouth seems to take about 3-4 weeks to reflect in my body, I’ll get back to you next month on how this is working… but I’m actually pretty happy with how the averages worked out.

Look at my pretty pretty pain cave!

Here’s where everything is roses – I’m actually doing really well at making progress with my To Do list. Y’know what helped? Making a monthly plan for the rest of the year with the big items. When I keep freaking out about all the things I haven’t done, I can remind myself that it’s slated for another month and it makes me feel immensely better.

I’m two chapters down in my book and into my third. I am super excited about this. Forcing myself to write, and not just write, but write THIS an hour a day has been a great exercise in just fucking starting something. I have no idea if it’s any good, but even if it’s bad I’ve written about 13k words of bad and any writing is good writing for a rough draft and practice.

I’m worried that it won’t be terribly interesting to anyone or have a broad enough appeal, but I also remember I spend a lot of time reading about military things (because they happen to be in space), which I’m not inherently interested in, in and of itself, but put it on a spaceship, and give it some action and snappy dialogue? I’m in. So, the goal is to write it all out and THEN decide if it’s interesting enough for someone who isn’t me.

The light is at the end of the tunnel with the office. I think giving up the idea of it being PERFECT and just settling for it to be relatively organized and useable was a great decision. We’re at the point where we have just a few tasks left to call it done.

My jobs this weekend: organize the bookshelves, sort out the hats (doesn’t everyone have a hat wall in their office?), and shredding
Husband things to do: store the cables, figure out a solution for the file cabinet being full, go through his last bag o crap, put things on printer desk on corner shelf.

At that point, we just need some help hanging a whiteboard and then the office is now… an OFFICE! And the dream of four usable bedrooms is realized! And we can move on from house organization crap for the rest of the year. Is there more to do? Always. But I’m so done with it for a while. Next offseason.

Now the biggest To Do with these rooms is to continue to use them on an ongoing basis so they don’t become places to dump junk again.

And I did these other things:

Plucked my caterpillars and gave myself a pedicure. I is a girl again instead of a hairy beast with claw-toes.
Finished How To Start Up which was actually a FANTASTIC read and I feel like I actually have more specific directions with what I need to think about and learn going forward.
I looked up cabinet organization, and there’s a lot of really cool stuff at various prices. At this point, I’m going to need to really think about what size my cabinets will be, and what needs to go where before I jump on anything, so that might actually be kitchen 2.0. Or at least further in the planning.

What’s on tap this week?

Finish the office. Finish. the. office. It’s awesome to be able to say that. Let’s see if I can check it off next week!
Chapter 3. Third verse, same as the first! I’m picking them not in chronological order, but in order that I feel like I have something to say. So, at some point, this will get harder. Or I’ll just keep writing it and it will flow and be done and I’ll be the first writer ever to write a book draft with no writer’s block. Yep. I’ll ride that wave of naivety happily until it comes crashing down. Yes, indeed.
Download and start a new non-fiction book. The one I had on my list next is Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, and it’s hardcover price for the kindle. I’m having a block on spending 15 bucks for the book in digital form. Either I’m going to get over it and buy it, buy the paperback instead and deal with it being paper (harder to read in bed which is where I read most of the time), or move onto something else.
Shopping! I happen to have to be at the Domain for a birthday party, so I’m going to head there a little early to see if I can find anything new and exciting to put on my body.
Put together a weights plan for the next month. I’m past the foundational fitness part of the year and I should move onto a bit of hypertrophy (actually lifting slightly heavier things than myself).

So, my question to y’all is: Daring Greatly/other Brene Brown books – a must read or overrated? Do you have something else I must absolutely read first that is life changing? Hit me up in the comments.

Everything is not awful!

By Quix

On August 9, 2017

In Uncategorized

I feel like the mojo is flowing a bit. I can’t really put my finger on it exactly what changed from “OMG EVERYTHING IS AWFUL” a few weeks ago, but I’ll take it.

Bike commuting is serious business. Oh wait, no it’s not.

Training feels back to normal-ish. No, I’m not hitting every session I want to, but it’s about prioritizing right now, and the important stuff is the bike. I’m training to survive 100 miles on it two times in the next three months, and also, it’s the longest leg of the triathlon so therefore the most important. I’ve spent about 6.5 hours cycling per week in the last month. I’m having the most fun with it, so we’ll call this my cycling year.

That leaves 3.5 hours or less to try and cram in weights, running, and swimming, because I’m trying to not dip into double digit training hours too often. Especially this month where I’m also putting in extra hours at work. Don’t want to send myself to the looney bin for no reason, but DANG it’s hard to do all the things.

I’ve been riding long about every other weekend. This keeps things fun because riding bikes all over is super awesome, while also preventing being stressed about having to spend all day EVERY Saturday dedicated to bikes like during IM training. I’m hoping that a year of longer rides under my belt will make it easier to ramp up for the next 70.3+ race, and I can definitely say this is the first year that the idea of riding 60-100 miles every 2-3 weekends for the next few months doesn’t sound extremely daunting.

I’ve gotten to the point where running a few miles doesn’t quite feel like death anymore. Instead of doing the normal thing I do at that point, which is pile on the miles, I’m stepping back and doing the opposite. I want to do quick half miles and miles off the bike. I want to do intervals where I bust ass on the treadmill and recover on the bike so I don’t have the opportunity to run with bad form. I want to run at paces that encourage efficency and good mechanics, not force me back into the marathon shuffle. I want to sub in Dance Dance Revolution for some run time to build back the muscles that do hops and jumps and make my feet move quickly. It’s a weird leap of faith but my running is SO back at square one I almost have nothing to lose.

Swimming, we’ll be BFFs eventually. With work moving, it’s no longer a viable strategy to go at lunch and with extra work hours, it’s really hard to drag myself to the pool at 7:30pm or 7:30am. I’m trying to make it once a week, and from now on, make some of it count with a little speedwork even if it’s just aqua-fartleks in the lake (that sounds even dirtier than running fartleks).

Last week’s totals:

2 bike commutes – 3h45 for about 50 miles
1 open water swim – 16 min/800 yd
1 30 min dozen + some weights session
1 quickie brick (10 min bike/1 mile run/5 min bike/.5 mile run)
Jack’s Generic Tri.

6.5 hours total. Story of my life: wanted to do one more swim and run, but either lost motivation, energy, or willpower. It’s all good. We’ll call it a mini taper.

This week’s plan:

2 bike commutes (ONE DONE) + a ~80 mile long ride Saturday
1 quickie brick (DONE)
1 pool swim with some toys and speed sets
2 strength sets (ONE DONE)
Try to run a little mileage anytime I get a chance. Even if it’s half a mile. Just to practice my stride.

The bike miles are going to take up most of my training time this week and that’s totally alright. Next week will be more balanced.

Last week has been brought to you by the letter B – bourbon, bowl of veggies, and bikes. Much more of the bikes and bowls than the bourbon…

This is the first week I can really say that I feel like I’m hitting my stride here as well. Since it’s still the part of the process where I’m establishing habits, I’m just going to repeat my August goals here:

Eat a giant rainbow salad every day (even weekends) to get my four servings of vegetables easily.
Eat fruit and nuts as snacks instead of crap (and on weekends, BEFORE I reach for anything that’s crap).
Aim to get my diet score over 20 every day (even on the weekends).
Measure out my drinks BEFORE I drink them at home.
PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I PUT IN MY MOUTH ON THE WEEKENDS.

I was not perfect, but I was much, much better than I have been in years. Let’s roll with the numbers and see how I did.

Weight: 187.2 (-1.5) lbs
Avg cal per day: 1865 (-226) calories
Avg deficit per day: -988 (-26) calories
Macros: 58 (-20)g fat, 194 (-8)g carbs, 107 (+1)g protein, 27 (-5)g fiber

There was a little guestimation on my part here. My fitbit decided to die Sunday and also I got a little lazy about tracking food over the weekend, and the length of time is inversely proportional to the amount of little bites of food here or there that I remember to track. Also, interestingly enough, garmin runs my calorie burn for the day about 400 lower than fitbit, consistently. So, I’m thinking that being just a little over 1k deficit on fitbit is probably no big deal and I bet with the way I actually lose weight, the garmin numbers are more accurate.

So, that’s quantity. How was quality?

DQ score: Monday: 30. Tuesday: 25. Wednesday: 24. Thursday: 26. Friday: 24. Saturday: 19. Sunday: 13. Average comes out to approximately 23 (out of 32).

I’m super excited about all this. When you focus on eating good food all day it’s pretty easy to get these up numbers up there. I’d like to thank giant mixing bowl sized salads for keeping my veggie count up, popcorn for being an awesome whole grain snack, and alcohol for understanding we need our boundaries. We can still be friends, I just need a little space.

This week’s goals are try to do as good or better than this week. So far, it’s looking solidly in that zone.

Look at this beautiful usable room!!!

I just want to give myself (and my husband) a huge freaking fistbump about our accomplishments this week:

Second coat of paint and trim on the shed. (DONE)
Put all the things in the shed that need to go in the shed. (DONE)
Clean up the workout room now that the only thing left in there is workout things. (DONE)
If I have not heard back from the doctor by Friday call and get my internet chart thing set up. (DONE)
Spend at least 5 hours focused on my book this week. (DONE)
We also squeezed in some fun stuff – gaming with friends and we saw TWO movies (Wonder Woman and Valerian) before they left theaters. They both rock. I recommend!

I didn’t touch the shed myself but I did other chores to free up Zliten to be able to work on that, so it works and I’ll count it. There are probably other things we can find to go in it, but all the things that were in the way are now in there away. We took about an hour on Saturday to finish the Pain Cave and it’s now awesome and useable (did our first workout in there yesterday and I’m loving it). Now, it’s time to focus on the office.

I got my e-chart set up and realized I really don’t have time with work and training this month to make it into the doctor’s office during business hours without it being a huge drag. So, I’ll set up an appointment for sometime next month when I’m working less. Still, I put my big girl panties on and called and now never have to talk to anyone ever again! Wheee!

Most importantly, I finished the rough draft of one full chapter of my book. I’m actually probably the most excited about this. If I can keep up the momentum, I’ll have a full rough draft done in 3 months. That wouldn’t suck at all. Obviously, I’ll still need to edit it and then figure out what the heck to do with it, but we’ll let winter me figure that one out.

So, let’s roll. What’s on tap this week? Because I have an entirely jam-packed Saturday planned (80 mile ride, social bike party, comedy show), I know I need to keep this reasonable.

Body maintenance – I need to pluck the caterpillars, and redo my toes.

How to Start Up – I started this book and I am SUPER excited to read it but it’s not something I can fall alseep to. I need to carve out some time that’s not 30 minutes before I need to be zonked.

Remodel research – I keep saying I want “Ikea Style” cabinet organization. I should look into exactly what that means and costs. I should probably consider the rest of the plans as well. October will be getting here sooner than we think, and it’s pretty much our window to get this done this year.

Chapter 2 – I’m hoping to have the same progress – another chapter’s rough draft – done this week. The ball is rolling and I’d like to keep it moving along!

Office – we’re going to hit it hard next weekend, because it’s either then or over Labor Day and I want to reserve September for FUN STUFF because it’s been a summer of chores, feels like. However, bonus points to any work we can get done this week. If I can manage to keep Sunday’s other to dos to a minimum, we can get a little done here.

And now, time to stop writing about doing things and go do things. Novel concept, eh? What is YOUR absolutely most pressing thing on your TO DO list?

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Jack’s Generic Sprint Tri – All I do is pass pass pass no matter what…

By Quix

On August 8, 2017

In Uncategorized

Three and a half months after IM day, my body is finally starting to feel like it’s ready to do just a *little* more than play triathlon.

But just a little.

At first I had no expectations, and figured it would just be a repeat of the lack-of-fitness-show in June. Then, this week, I was able to hold some 8s on my garmin for just a little while on a run, and my brain clicked over to perhaps believing that there was maybe possibly something in there. But still, no expectations. Because half a mile at 8:24 and 3 miles on gravel after killing it for 40 minutes on the bike are definitely different animals.

I pretty much did the normal stuff the day before. Panera for lunch, a movie (Valerian – it’s super fun – go!), a pre-race swim, packet pickup, and then we picked up meats from Stubbs for dinner to go with mashed potatoes and veggies. We also received a couple of packages from some custom hat manufacturers that we’d bought some hats from. We were on our feet a *little* more than we would for a B or A race and finished up some chores so we could completely relax after the race.

Saturday was an awesome day and also it enabled us to completely slack on Sunday after the race without feeling guilty about it. Win!

I didn’t sleep amazingly – fell asleep around 10-10:30, and woke up from about 12:30-1:30 for absolutely no reason. 5am came pretty early but after some green tea and peppy music, I felt pretty great.

We got to the venue a little later than expected and ended up parking at the end of Egypt, but luckily we had our handy dandy cart to haul our gear and BSS had a team tent at which to drop off our non-transition stuff. We did the quick version of setting up transitions, skipped the warmup run due to time (would have had plenty of time if I had a second pair of shoes, which would have been NO problem with the team tent, I’ll remember that next time). We hit the porta potties and missed the 3 minute window for the warmup swim. 0 for 2 on warmups. Oh well. I probably walked a few miles that morning, and that’s plenty fine for me.

After cheering EVERYONE ELSE into the water, I lined up with the caps that were my color. I thought I was in the first third, but after people filtered in from the sides, I was probably bringing up the last third. D’oh. Also, as it was my turn to go, I realized I didn’t have my watch set for multisport, so I ducked behind a few more people and got it set up and then I was running into the water like I was on the set of Baywatch and my race started!

Swim:

My lack of paying attention screwed me here. I ended up running into the water and passing people before I even started swimming. Then, it was just like body body body bodies everywhere. And a lot of them were either not swimming even remotely fast or breast stroking or side crawling. Yes, it was totally my fault for not having confidence in my swimming abilities and also not paying enough attention to the lineup, but it sucked to be dodging people doing the backstroke before the first orange buoy.

Once things cleared up a bit, I felt like I was doing alright, just about like I had at Lake Pflugerville, but I looked at my watch about 2/3 through and it was 8 minutes in. Not great, but I was finally going with the current so I didn’t worry about it. Then, I got caught behind a gaggle of really slow swimmers near the exit chute and I was actually literally stopped for a while waiting for people to move. That sucked, but there was no way around except REALLY wide or over people, and I’m just not that much of an asshole. I took it as some time to breathe and rest, but it really did tank my swim time/pace.

Not my absolute worst here but definitely sucks that I was a full TWO MINUTES slower than last year. For the record, my garmin registered almost 600 yards, which is 2:15/100m which is more like what I felt like I was swimming. Seeing how much I had to dodge people, I’m really going to blame my positioning for most of it but some of it admittedly was fitness.

In summary, I need to have confidence that my swim is better than I think it is relative to other people and also it’s time start doing sets and drills in the pool again. For realsies.

Swim – 12:34 for 500m – 2:31/100m (17/39 AG place)

T1:

Because I was so… rested coming out of the swim, I actually PR’d my T1 at this race. At this point I really think the only way I could get much faster here is to improve either my actual running speed or the speed I’m comfortable running barefoot.

T1 – 2:42 (15/39 AG place)

The aftermath. Barely got down any liquid, but that’s probably ok on a ~40 minute bike.

Bike:

And then I got to the mount line. And there were literally 20 people crowded there trying to clip in. My sub-par swim, starting so far back, and being in the last wave had messed up my positioning here too. I’m not the best clipper-inner, but I’ve been getting better so I confidently walked one step over the mount line on the LEFT side away from everyone, clipped in easily, and then went about dodging everyone else wobbling away down the street.

After the swim, I was not about to get stuck behind people. I tried not to be a jerk about things, but I had this song in my head by mile .5 (with the lyrics “all I do is PASS PASS PASS no matter what”). The great thing is that it’s a huge confidence boost to zoom past hundreds of people in the first few miles and get passed maybe 3 times by dudes on the Olympic with 7% body fat on bikes that cost twice what mine does. The not-so-great thing is that it was due to my placement, not my awesomeness. The worst is that I spent probably half the first five miles over the double yellow line. Sorry, but I’m not sorry. I wasn’t the only one doing it and there was no way around it.

After fighting the wind and crowds, there was a nice tailwind section where my speed climbed and climbed and I saw 20 mph average right as we turned back into the wind up a hill. I decided I my goal was to keep from losing more than 2 mph as long as I could without spiking my heart rate too much. We got one more nice tailwind down a hill (wheeee!) and then turned into a wall of wind (ooof).

I got down into aero as teeny tiny as possible, and then found the BIGGEST guy going right about my speed. I did my best to stay legal on the crowded course, but I’m convinced I still got some drafting benefit even the required 5 lengths behind with his size. I wasn’t keeping the 19-20 mph I was before but I was holding 16-17, and slightly uphill and into the wind? I’m happy with that.

My garmin read 18.5 mph average on the actual moving parts once I unclipped and rolled into transition, and I will absolutely take it. I felt very confident and capable on the bike, even though I’ve only ridden it twice inside since the last race. Not my best on the course but I think my second best. One of these days I’ll crack that 20 mph average, but maybe not at Lake Pflugerville for a while with the hills and the wind.

Bike: 42:45 – 18.1 mph (7/39 AG place)

T2:

Luckily, it was not as crowded on the way back into T2. I did my thing with the quickness and was out on the run with no fumbles. Best here by 6 seconds!

T2: 1:30 – 14/39

Run:

I got out and running and… while it felt terrible it didn’t quite feel as terrible as last time. I didn’t want to concentrate on pace, I just wanted to concentrate on quick feet, like my really great run on Friday, so I switched my watch to my cadence and heart rate screen. It stayed at 176 (88 cadence) and 172 HR and I just could not shove it up any more. So that’s where we lived.

The first mile ticked off at 10:53, and while that in and of itself was not terribly impressive, it was about a minute faster than the first mile six weeks ago and my legs felt significantly less like lead bricks. Someone in my age group passed me and I considered trying to go with her, but she was moving VERY quickly and I just didn’t see it happening. Yet. Maybe by Kerrville I’ll have the mojo to run someone down again.

The second mile was about the same as the first and then all of a sudden we hit the wall of wind. Again, just like the last race, I felt I was running standing still, but with signficiantly better stride. I knew the wind was rough when my last mile was the slowest paced. My garmin showed the course SIGNIFICANTLY short, but my Garmin also has a habit of sandbagging me, so I’ll say while this definitely was slower than 9:58/mile pace, it probably wasn’t the 10:56/mile my watch showed.

Run – 29:55 – 9:58/mile (20/39 AG placement)

One day we’ll get a full team picture. This was not that day. Photo care of team captian Claudia!

Total time: 1:29:29. (10/39 AG placement)

Here’s the skinny. If you want to bump up your placement, get better at the bike. The average of 20+15+7 is certainly not 10 but since I did well on the bike, that’s where I placed.

Also, there was some majorly stiff competition. I would have needed to place 10th OVERALL of 186 women to snag third in my age group. I placed 43rd, so top quarter, at least! I was in the top half overall both genders. Oddly enough, if I would have stepped up and did the Olympic, I’m pretty sure I would have snagged 3rd out of 5th in my age group, from times that I’ve posted recently. Ah well. No regerts, right?

I’m definitely not back at peak form but I’m showing improvement. And that’s what’s important. I’m going to stick with my bike focus, because it seems to be both improving my bike and also improving my overall endurance without all the pounding of running. I’m also sticking with playing Dance Dance Revolution plyometrics because it seems to be helping my running form.

Obvs, these guys do not need the plyometrics because they have the HOPS and also they both had pretty great days!

While I’d like to actually run more, I think it may actually be helpful to run less and let my legs forget the marathon shuffle. I have run almost nothing (about 22 miles) in the last six weeks, but I improved my run by over 2.5 minutes on the same course. And, swimming. I have no idea why I’m not into it right now, but one sport has to be the red headed stepchild, and I’m sorry, swimming, you’re it. I really do need to focus a bit better when I do get to the pool, but at this point, I’m going to ride bikes and hope for the best.

Super thanks to all my Bicycle Sport Shop teammates, it’s always a blast to race with you! I mostly signed up for this race because FOMO, and had a pretty solid day.

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Adjusted Reality

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

Tag: running Page 15 of 50

Off with her head.

Coming ’round the bend

Second verse, same as the first…

Everything is not awful!

Jack’s Generic Sprint Tri – All I do is pass pass pass no matter what…

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