Four Week "Cleansing" Plan

So you know how sometimes you feel unsettled and it's a signal that you need to make some changes? I think that's a regular occurrence for me especially around this time of year, when I am so sick of winter and also knowing that I'm getting dangerously close to the point where I really will be getting serious about my training.

I've been kind of a slacker this winter as far as my diet goes--too much alcohol (not that it wasn't fun!), too many treats, probably not drinking enough water and eating a little too richly for my needs. Also, I tend to get confused when I'm training a lot and get my carb balance all out of whack, and so nutritionally I'm probably not doing the best I can.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway, I feel fat. I've weighed myself, and you can only go so long in saying "maybe it's muscle." Maybe some of it is. Net net is I'm 114 lbs. and that ain't good for me. I should be 110-112, max. So this morning I decided it was time to bite the bullet and make myself a plan to obliterate those 2-4 lbs.

Step 1: Find out where the hell are those pounds. So I took all my measurements yesterday morning. Apparently, the excess is in my ass. Let's just say from about 2" below my navel to the top of my thighs, which is generally the belly/ass area. My chest measured about 1" larger than a year ago, but honestly I am not seeing any fat up there, so I'm going to say that's my lats building up from the regular chinups and more swimming with paddles, so that's good. But 1" there is not 1 lb. of muscle...damn it. For the sake of accountability, here are some comparisons:



Step 2: Fess up to nutritional changes I need to make to get myself back on track. Among those changes are less alcohol, no more candy or hard cheese in the house, eat more fruit and watch my fat intake. Fact is I know that if I just grab some fruit when I want a snack that it will pretty much take care of the rest. But I am also going to try and cut out some processed foods at breakfast and lunch (Power bars and Lean Cuisine) that aren't impacting my caloric intake, but it seems like a good idea to get back to more whole, clean foods there as well.

Step 3: While I'm at it, I may as well add some other things to my daily routine just to mix things up. So daily pushups, chinups, crunches and jump rope are being added. Why? Why not.

Step 4: Start tracking stuff. I haven't kept a detailed food log in years, and I'm not going to do that now, but I am writing down calories taken in. I'll weigh myself once a week and record that, too. Also check off whether I followed through on the other little things.

I officially started my 4 weeks yesterday. So far so good! I did some crunch variations this morning that I haven't done in a long, long time, and I really felt it in my abs, so that tells me it was time to mix things up. I know my body gets used to anything I'm doing, be it an amount of training, intensity of training, stretching routine, eating pattern--ANYTHING! It's maddening at times, but the fact is my (and maybe your) body requires me to constantly keep it on its toes.

I'm not going to change around my training plan--just adding some things here and there. In 4 weeks, my training volume is going to begin the big jump-up to get ready for Triple T (only 12 weeks away) and IMLP (21 weeks away). So it will be good to head into this build period feeling lean, mean and solid.

Next week I transition to strength maintenance, too, so all good in terms of ch-ch-ch-changes. I ordered some seeds and plants this morning, so psychologically, I am preparing myself for spring and all the changes that brings, increased training volume, mixing things up and hopefully a good season ahead for me. But at the end of the day, all this is about to me is looking and feeling good. The race results will be what they will be. As long as I have fun doing it, what more is there to do?

Oh, and I can always use a little...

I'm an "Endurance Specialist"

Last night I went to The Bike Shop to do a group trainer workout. The workout was pretty good, but not as intense as the one I did myself on Tuesday. That's OK, because I haven't given my legs a rest since Friday the 13th. Maybe I could have rode harder, but I paid attention to the % of FT that were being yelled at me, and so hey, 80% is 80% and not that hard.

Anyway, a group of us went out for dinner afterwards (me and a bunch of men--go figure), and there was a new guy present, and we were talking about riding (big surprise) and what we've done and stuff, and the shop owner, Rich, tagged me as "an endurance specialist." I've been called many things, but never that. I almost wish he had just said "Crackhead."

Thing is, sure I like endurance stuff. A LOT. But I still love my strength and other stuff, and pre-triathlon, I was into volleyball, softball, stair climbing and other assorted nonsense. I guess maybe being labeled made me think about what I'm doing, do I still like it, is it time to make changes, all that stuff. Yes and yes.

What's funny is that even as I write this, I want to do a really, really long training day. Why is that? I was telling someone about my 2008 birthday workout, and I really enjoyed that except for the fact that I was working that day, too (if I didn't work that day I would have done more). I really like hiking in the mountains, too. And then someone mentioned Italy. I really want to spend a few weeks there riding in the mountains (OK and drinking wine and eating great food).

All of this points to changing things around next year. For now, I'm sticking with my plan to try and knock out a few good triathlon performances. Yes, I have a fairly rigid training program, yes I should probably mix things up, and that's where I think dropping some races from the calendar may come in. Or not.

A lot of this is prompted by being absolutely sick of winter, long pants, long shirts, coats, hats, gloves, grey skies, indoor workouts. The idea of a 5-hour bike ride is intoxicating!

Weekly Workout Totals 02/16/2009-02/22/2009 and stinky race

First about yesterday's race...I had a bad day. I sucked. I should have had the volunteer write "loser" on me before I started. I did have a good swim, and felt really strong there, no doubt from using the paddles a lot, so that was the silver lining. When I got on the bike, the thing felt way harder than it had 2 weeks ago, so either the thing was miscalibrated...or...I just sucked. At any rate, I was demoralized and figured why bother trying to push it much on the run. I was in the elite women's wave, so I got passed plenty of times, but there was one woman who was slightly ahead of me for quite awhile, and at least I got psyched to finally pass her and lap her. When it was finished, I just about puked, so I'm going with the bike being off, because it sure felt like I had pushed some serious watts. Oh well...I still won my age group, but I'll call this an ugly win. In 2 weeks, I am going to do everything I can including taking a day off before the race to see what I can give. Some of this is just my body adapting to the sum total of training I've been throwing at myself, and I can't expect to be on every time, but still it was a pretty dramatic degree of suckage compared to 2 weeks ago.

Every time I've done this series, I have one off race, so this was it, but it was still a good day. I got to watch some other people I know race who did really well, and hey, a bad day racing is still better than a good day working, right? Plus, I couldn't do my long run right there at the club where the race was held, so I had to drive home and fire up a treadmill on my Y. My race was at 10:05, and I started running again at 1:25, had a short massage in between, but still man, did it feel NOT GOOD to run later! I could feel all the lactate (or whatever it is, depending on who you ask) in my legs, and it was just torture to keep going. I wanted to stop so badly, asking myself why the fuck am I doing this to myself? A normal person would just have gone home and taken a nap or at least put their feet up. But NOOOOOO....the voice in my head that knows that it's better to suffer like this now in training because it will toughen me up for the stuff to come, namely Triple T, Horribly Hilly, Rockman 1/2 Ironman and IMLP all in the space of 10 weeks. So I had better be plenty tough to not only withstand all that but also try and do well at each of them. At least once every 5 minutes I told myself that I had done enough, but then I would tell myself that I could make it through another 5 minutes, and so I kept going and got in 1:20 more of running, and I thought about stretching a little bit before I went home, but that went out the window as my body was screaming for calories. I went home and drank some Endurox and made some guacamole and did some dinner prep and washed the dishes and then I finally got around to some serious stretching around 5PM and my body was so thankful for that, and I knew I would feel like I'd been pretty well torched this morning.

I was pleasantly awakened today by a male cardinal singing right outside my bedroom, and I just laid in bed with my eyes closed listening to him sing, and thought what a nice way to be woken up (not that there aren't better ways--there are--but still) and how that bird's song is a surefire sign that spring is just around the corner (I saw a robin last week, too), and I kept laying there for a few minutes assessing how my muscles felt, and not too surprisingly, I felt like I "did something" the day before. I got out of bed, made some coffee, and thought about just taking a rest day, but again, the point of what I'm doing now is to get up and do it again, repeat weekly, and force the body to adapt. I only swam for 1/2 hour, and it felt absolutely wonderful to be in the water, and I could tell the swimming was helping to flush some crap out of my system.

The next item on my agenda for today was a :50 run, and of course, my legs were protesting violently to this possibility, but I told them to shut the fuck up and I was going to run. I decided to don my compression socks, because I knew that if I looked like a complete and total dork that I wouldn't cheese out on the run, I mean how lame would I look if I only ran for like 20 minutes? I can't say the compression socks made any difference whatsoever, but just knowing they were there acted like a whip to keep me going. I actually had a pretty decent easy-ish run, although when I was finished I immediately went home and jumped on a conference call and my body was screaming for more calories, and luckily I could throw something in the microwave while I was listening in on the call, and then I had 5 minutes in between calls, so I got my shower in, and I'm laughing at how this is what I choose to do.

This stuff is so conducive to flip flopping mental states. This morning I was chatting with a friend at the pool about how it feels really good (to him and me, at least) when we are just really fucking tired from a good day of training and whatever else life has thrown at us. I've figured out that for myself, when I am in that tired state, there is nothing else I can think about but how tired I am, and that frees my brain to let go and really relax. I mean like I know I was watching the Oscars last night, but I don't remember a whole lot about it because I was so wiped out and it felt so good and I didn't really care who was winning or what the award was for and even though my own race sucked, I HTFU'ed and ran afterwards. So in one day I started out optimistic, felt bad that I performed like a total loser slacker, but then kept going and got that end of the day bliss that makes all of this worth it.

I am really nobody in the big scheme of things, but this is what I choose right now for myself. At least a few times every year I run into someone I haven't seen for awhile, and get asked the question, "Are you still doing all that hardcore training and stuff?" And now I just smile at them because what I'm thinking is asking them about how great is their life is and how do they feel about their choices? It's almost as if people expect you to just fall down and give up, and what the hell, is that the norm? Oh yeah, that's right life is hard. It IS. I'm not in it to win an award, but I am in it to LIVE IT and I intend to keep doing that. Pushing myself makes me feel alive; being exhausted after pushing myself makes me feel alive. Sure I don't have to outrun bullets or survive horrid living conditions, and maybe that's why I choose this for myself because I DO have it easy relative to a lot of people. I just really, really like feeling alive. I love moving around, I love the sun shining on my face, tending to my little piece of land that produces so much incredible beauty for much of the year, tuning into the nature that is presented to me, enjoying good food and drink, putting in a good day's work, and maybe, just maybe putting a smile on someone else's face or getting them to think about what they could do to enhance their own life.

I'm rambling, but I get to that every now and then just so I remember what all is swirling about in my head. Life is good. No--life is great! I am once again back to feeling like problems are just small things, and that is the best part of all of this. I am really looking forward to riding my bikes outside soon enough, but also sinking my hands into the dirt in my yard and seeing what I can make grow and give me pleasure there. I guess I'm a hedonist of sorts--I love the beauty of nature, and I love colors (duh) and tastes and smells and sounds. I think we were given our senses and neuromuscular system to experience and enjoy everything around us and not taking advantage of that seems to me a grand waste of a life.

Anyway, here's what I did last week:

Weekly Workout Totals	02/16/2009-02/22/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by the coming of spring!
Swim:	7850 yards (4.46 miles) in 2.75 hours; 19% of weekly workout time; approx. 962 calories burned Canadian: 7178.04 meters
Bike:	Approx. 101.02 miles in 5.63 hours; 39% of weekly workout time; approx. 2812 calories burned; Total TSS=295 Canadian: 162.58 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 28.12 miles in 4.33 hours; 30% of weekly workout time; approx. 1956 calories burned Canadian: 45.25 kilometers
Strength:	1.87 hours; 13% of weekly workout time; approx. 468 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 133.6 miles in 14.58 hours; approx. 6198 calories burned Canadian: 1.25 kilometers
Sleep:	7.61 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.78 hours. Massage: 1.25 hours