Ride the Rockies Training Plan, Harder Edition

I tend to follow the "official" Ride the Rockies Training Plan even though I'm not doing the ride, but I found this one on Outside Magazine's website.

It's a harder alternative that includes intervals instead of just saying what distances to ride. It's also more intense in that you're riding nearly every day as compared to 3-5 days a week on the other plan.

I might incorporate some of these intervals into my rides, but I definitely won't be following this plan strictly.

Ride the Rockies Training Schedule

Here is a training schedule to prepare for a week-long bike tour held in Colorado every June called Ride the Rockies. Sometimes they take this page down, especially in the off-season, so I wanted to copy it here for reference.

This is what I generally use to increase my bike mileage gradually. I've never actually completed this entire schedule nor have I ever participated in Ride the Rockies, although I strive to do both. I think the farthest I've gotten is Week 5 or 6 before I start lounging, lose all my fitness, and have to start over.

When I do stick with it, I notice a HUGE increase in my speed. I also tend to incorporate sprints into the earlier rides (sprint every other telephone pole, or a long farm block) and in the spring I did a monstrous hill once or twice a week. So all that helped significantly.

I don't think I have time to add the hills right now because I've started running again twice a week, but we'll see. Also, with vacations, holidays, and winter weather approaching, I have no idea how far I'll get this time around.

All credit goes to the Ride the Rockies folks.

What do you mean I don't look Eastern European?

My bio professor wanted to meet with me and since it's a large lecture class, he just knows my name and not my face. I walked into his office today as planned and he looked at me funny, as if he wasn't expecting me. Finally he said, "How do you pronounce your last name?" I did that for him, and he still looked at me funny. He said something about me not being what he expected, and when I inquired further, he remarked that I don't look Eastern European and upon further questioning said something about me not having a thick accent.

Normally, this is not a big deal. But I'm insecure about my weight and assume everything has to do with that. When someone says I can't do something, I think it's because I'm fat. When they look at me funny, it's because I'm one of the few obese people in this town. When someone dismisses me and seems disinterested in having a conversation with me, it's my fatness pushing them away. You get the point.

So that's where my mind went as soon as he said I don't look Eastern European. I mean, girls from there are tall, blonde, and skinny. I only fit one of those stereotypes, and usually only in the summer when my hair has been bleached by the sun. I do have the high cheekbones and light eyes, but that's about it. And part of me (actually a large chunk of me...no pun intended) really hates the fact that I should be skinny because of my heritage but am not because I choose to eat lots of food and live the slovenly American lifestyle.

I get embarrassed when I'm back in Europe and people find out I live in the States, because I assume they think that I'm the stereotypical American. The thing is, no female in my family (extended or close, in Europe or in the U.S.) is thin. We all have curves, and we've all struggled with our weight. We're the child-bearers of the world and we won't die in a famine. At one point, my mom was super skinny but she was also anorexic and ended up in the hospital, so clearly it wasn't a healthy or natural weight.

I would love to be the Eastern European bombshell that my country is made out to be. A lot of people I talk to remark on how the women in my country are beautiful over-all, and it hurts me so much inside to hear that and know I'm the exception. I probably could be one of those girls. I don't know, I've never really tried. Hearing it today brought back those feelings of cultural insecurity not only with regards to my weight but also to the feeling that I'm letting my Eastern Europeanness slip away.

It's becoming hard for me to find the words to communicate with my brother in our native tongue and I trip up all the time when I try to speak with my aunts and uncles. It really scares me because I know I won't be moving back there anytime soon and my language skills are only going to get worse. I need to make an active effort in immersing myself in the language one way or another otherwise it's going to be lost for good. It's just hard and most of the time I don't have the energy to even try. It's a vicious cycle that is very similar to my weight-loss journey.

As you can tell, there are a lot of issues that were brought up with that one silly comment from a professor whom I never liked in the first place.

Salad

My schedule this semester is going to be interesting. The good thing about it is that I'm on campus at 9 am at the latest every day. Another good thing is that I'm done before noon every day, and if I don't feel like being a superstar and auditing a physics class, I'm done by 11. This is the perfect schedule to then go to the office and get a couple of hours of work in and still get home at an early time.

And it also gives me the perfect opportunity to bring my lunch to school and have plenty of time to eat it. I don't know how that last part relates to my schedule, but that was my train of thought at the moment. Mostly, I need to stop buying lunch on campus when I can bring something more nutritious and significantly cheaper.

And the perfect lunch that won't spill from my tupperwate into my backpack that also doesn't require immediate refrigeration is...SALAD! Actually, I came to the idea of salad because I'm in love with balsamic vinegar at the moment, but whatever. I need to eat more vegetables in general so this is perfect.

I was never one to like salad because I didn't think it filled me up enough (and I REALLY don't like lettuce). I still have that concern today so I turned to the interwebs for some answers.

After much searching, I found the sentence that somewhat summarizes what makes a salad filling. Essentially, what you need is a "little meat or fish, like chicken or tuna salad, or salads that incorporate hearty grains, or beans or pasta."

But my favorite was still the first result of my "filling salad ingredients" Google search:
Salads That Will Fill You Up on askmen.com

Yes, please! If it's good enough for a dude, then I think I'll like it. Here is my favorite of the four listed:

Filling salad 2: Niçoise salad 

Ingredients:
1/2 head Boston lettuce leaves
1/2 pound green beans, lightly steamed
1/2 cup vinaigrette (mixture of olive oil, the vinegar of your choice, and a squeeze of mustard)
Salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
1-2 red potatoes, peeled, sliced, and boiled in water until cooked
1 3-oz can chunk tuna or 1 cooked tuna steaks
3 hard-boiled eggs, halved
1 red onion
1 can of anchovies
1/3 cup small black Niçoise-type olives
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp shallots
1 tbsp minced fresh parsley

Directions:
Put the lettuce in a shallow bowl. Toss the beans with the shallots, a couple spoonfuls of vinaigrette, and salt and pepper. Baste the tomatoes with a spoonful of vinaigrette. Cook and slice the potatoes and arrange them with the beans, tomatoes and tuna in the center of the plate. Ring the platter with halves of hard-boiled eggs. Spoon vinaigrette over everything; scatter on olives, capers, parsley, and serve. This should make about three servings.

Fullness factor: The complexities in taste will trick your mouth into believing you’re eating a huge seafood dinner. The tuna, especially when using the tuna steak option, and hard-boiled eggs provide a heavy protein base. The salty anchovies and starchy potatoes make this a satisfying, well-rounded meal, but each ingredient is so simple and healthy on its own that you never end up veering into unhealthy territory.

I'm not a fan of anchovies or olives so those will have to be omitted, but other than that this sounds amazing. Now I wonder if cold tuna steak is just as good as warm tuna steak...

I found another version that added and/or substituted the following for the eggs and olives, for 2-3 servings:

6 cups mixed salad greens (instead of Boston lettuce leaves)
1/2 small cucumber, halved, seeded, and thinly sliced
12 small cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
4 ounces smoked salmon, cut into 2-inch pieces

Another option that was suggested by Wikipedia is canned tuna, so that may be my back-up plan.

And here's another "filling salad" simply because I crave BBQ chicken sometimes:

Filling salad 4: Barbecue chicken salad

Ingredients:
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1 can sweet corn, drained
1/4 cup barbecue sauce
2 tbsps nonfat mayonnaise

Directions:
Broil the chicken in your oven for 10 minutes on each side, or until juices run clear. Remove from heat, cool and cut into cubes. Toss together the chicken, celery, red bell pepper, onion, and corn. In another bowl, mix the barbeque sauce and mayonnaise. Pour over the chicken and veggies. This makes about four servings.

Fullness factor: When you’re craving barbecue but don’t want the calories or the hassle, this salad will really save you. In around 30 minutes, you can make as delicious a dish as most restaurants. It’s easy, healthy, and the chicken really fills you up. This is a salad any man can feel good about eating and not worry about looking like a rabbit.

A side note: you can substitute Fage Fat-Free Greek Yogurt for the mayonnaise and it will be just as tasty but much less calorific. In fact, Fage works as a substitute for mayo in all cases, except when you need to bake with it. In that case, I can't help you.

Oh, and all the canned stuff in these recipes can definitely come from non-canned sources, which is what I plan on doing. I'm just going to make something for dinner the night before that incorporates the canned ingredients and make them in excess for salad the next day (like corn).

This is the start of me trying to make my lunch from leftovers. It's a difficult thing for me to do since up until about a year ago, I never ate leftovers. They still gross me out, but I don't like cooking every day more than I don't like eating leftovers. Lesser of two evils, I suppose.

I've also found a great salad dressing from delish and Food & Wine:

Creamy Feta Vinaigrette - Serve with Mixed Grilled Vegetables
Brush thickly sliced zucchini, peppers, eggplant, and onions with olive oil. Grill until tender and browned. Serve warm, topped with the dressing.

Anywhos, for now, I have plenty of delicious meat from home to make some awesome sandwiches for the next week or so, but after that I'm totally making salad. Chicken or tuna salads are also on the menu for the colder months.

And lastly, I finally pumped up the tires on my junk commuter bike and they were at 15 psi. They should be at 65. That explains why it's been so hard to go anywhere. And here I thought I was just grossly out of shape.

P.S. In my search for delicious salads, I stumbled upon a blog that has some great ideas, called 101 Cookbooks. Here are the ones I'm planning on trying:

• Honey Balsamic Bean Salad
• Summer Green Bean Salad
• Orzo Super Salad
• Roasted Pumpkin Salad
• Broccoli Crunch
• Spring Panzanella
• Spring Wild Rice Salad
• Farro and Roasted Butternut Squash
• Red Rice Salad
• Ravioli Pasta Salad
• Roasted Beet and Blood Orange Salad with Spicy Greens

Bike gear ratios

On my triathlon support group someone asked about gear ratios and I wrote out this whole thing for him explaining how to calculate them. Since I'm afraid I'm going to lose my original chart and/or forget how to do it in the future, I'm going to post a copy here. This site may soon become a place I list nuggets of triathlon advice in addition to chronicling my weight-loss journey. Hopefully one doesn't take over the other.

George,

That gearing website is over my head as well but I once took a gear class/talk/thingamabob and they greatly simplified the whole thing for newbies like me. Essentially the guy taught us how to rank our gears from lowest to highest, across all three chainrings/cranks/cassettes/whatever they're called (the name escapes me now). Out of the 30 gears I have on my bike (3 in front x 10 in back) I was able to rank them in order and can now shift more smoothly in that I don't skip gears when shifting going uphill and get less tired overall.

Here's how...it involves a lot of counting the cogs on each ring, so beware. Unless you're a good Googler, that is.

1. Figure out how many cogs are on each of your rings, both front and back. Usually for the front that's given in the specs for the bike (mine's 50/39/30) and for the back they give you a range (mine's 12-27, 10 speed). You can either Google that particular cassette/rear gear rings by getting the name and range off the specs website for your bike or get on your hands and knees and count them all. I recommend the latter, but I know it's not always possible. Oftentimes you can also guesstimate the spacing between the gears in the back. Steve is much better at that than I am.
2. For each gear, divide the number of cogs from the front gear by the number of cogs on the back gear, and multiply the whole thing by wheel size. For the purposes of ranking your gears relative to each other, you don't have to multiply by the wheel size, since the order of gears comes out the same regardless. I still multiplied since it gave larger numbers and was easier to compare and rank them later. For example, for my fastest overall gear (largest front gear, smallest back gear) and what I thought were 26" wheels at the time, I did the following: 26*50/12 = 108 and do that for all your other gears as well. You don't have to convert your wheel size to metric. Or you can multiply by some random number to take care of the decimals. The important part is divide the front gear by the rear gear.
3. Remove two gears with smallest front/smallest back and smallest front/2nd smallest back, and two gears with largest front/largest back and largest front/2nd largest back from your chart, for a total of four gears removed. You should never be riding in those gears since in those combinations, the chain is diagonal across the gear rings which is not good for either or the chain and grates on the components. So avoid at all costs.
   
4. Rank your resulting numbers from highest to lowest, with the lower numbers being lowest/slowest gears (granny gears) and higher numbers being highest/fastest gears (downhills). So the granny gears (smallest front, largest back) would have low numbers and the gears for downhills (largest front, smallest back) would have super high numbers.
5. Write it all out on a piece of paper and tape it to your handlebars. It really helps on the uphills especially with knowing into which gear you should downshift so as not to skip gears. Makes the climb smoother and more effective, in my opinion.

Below is my gear chart. The multicolored chart and numbers are the result of the formula I mentioned in #2 above: wheel size*front gear cogs/rear gear cogs. And the bottom chart is the ranking of the gears from slowest to fastest (granny gears to downhill gears). As you can see, I've crossed out the four gears I mentioned in #3 that you should never use and didn't include them in my rankings.

The numbers for the front and rear gears correspond to the number of cogs on each ring.

I've taped a little index card with the bottom chart info on my handlebars and try to shift in order. It's especially useful on uphills when I feel like I'm shifting too quickly or the one I'm in is just a tad too hard so I downshift and all is well. It's taken a little getting used to in figuring out what gear I'm actually in to be able to see where to go next, and I still find myself looking back at my rear derailleur quite often.

So during normal flats or rolling hills I don't really stick with the gear chart too much and just do it by feel, and don't really care if I'm a little bit off. As you can see in the middle gears of the middle chainring, the numbers aren't that different (first chart) and thus changing gears from say a gear combo of 39/17 to 50/21 (ranking 13 to 14) is about the same as from 39/17 to 39/16 (ranking 13 to 15). Here is where having an accurate wheel size comes in handy because you can see that 13 to 14 is 60 to 62 (not sure about the units...inches, maybe?) and 13 to 15 is 60 to 63, so only a difference of 1 inch between the two results, but you're going from 13 to 15 in just one gear change as compared to 3 for 13 to 14. So in those middle gears sometimes it's not important to go in order since the differences are slight and you can skip a ranking without feeling too much of a difference in order to shift less frequently.

Once you get to the granny gears or downhill gears, the differences are much more noticeable. Going from ranking 3 to 2 (30/21 to 30/24) is 37 inches to 33 inches, while ranking 3 to 1 (30/21 to 30/27) is 37 inches to 29 inches, a much bigger jump and thus a gear you probably don't want to skip.

Also, on the uphills it's easier to know which gear I'm in since the terrain is not changing as often and thus I'm in the same gear for a longer amount of time, but also because the differences between the gear combos are so great that I can generally feel where I am on the cassette. Overall, this has been really helpful in getting myself to ride in the proper gear and thus making my riding more efficient and smoother. I would highly recommend making a chart of your own.

Nifty little calorie cycling site

I've always wondered where people get their calorie cycling numbers, and now I've found it!

Here is not only a calorie calculator, showing your daily needs depending on activity level, but also giving some insight into what you should be eating and when with regards to calorie cycling.

My results are as follows:

And as you can see from the very bottom of the image, you can also calculate macro nutrient ratios (carbs, protein, fat) depending on you daily calorie intake.

Here's a snapshot of that:

Pretty nifty site. I don't really need the daily calorie thing since I have a GoWear Fit that tells me exactly how many calories I burn a day. But it's really nice to see how I should be calorie cycling for those inevitable plateau weeks. And the macro nutrient breakdown is really interesting.

Feeling discouraged yet again

I just got a text from The Roommie and it's somewhat disheartening:
"This is the most awkward proctor's night. The coaches are talking about recruiting another loose head and none of the team is talking to me. :("

Let me translate. Proctor's is a dive bar next to our practice field, and loose head is the position both I and The Roommie play. I actually only started playing loosehead about a month ago because my usual position is now occupied by one of the coach's favorites. Well, that's not entirely why she's starting all the time, because she is fairly good. But the fact that she's known the coach for eight years and moved out here to play for her sure doesn't help the situation.

Anywhos, I'm discouraged by that text because it's sad to hear you suck. Like, really suck. It's also another confirmation that I'm a huge outsider on this team, as if trying to hang out and talk to people but getting ignored instead wasn't indication enough. But that's a story for another day.

So I feel as if my plan to get super fit and super strong for the upcoming season is not going to be enough to get a starting position. At all. I just feel like all this is hopeless and I should just quit and wallow in my misery like I have been doing for years now.

But then I have to remember that this summer's plans are not just for rugby. Getting fit is not just for rugby. I've wanted to be thinner way before I started playing this sport so my goals shouldn't change just because there's a small kink in my plan for world domination. Well, at least on the rugby pitch.

And even if I'm not a starter on a super awesome team, I will still be thinner and fitter and (hopefully) happier. That, and I can't predict how good I'll be 50 pounds lighter. I mean, I was an All American (Second Team, but All American nonethess) when I wasn't exactly "thin" for my height. So who knows what will happen when I'm actually fit?

Blast from the past: 165+ pounds of awesomeness.

My whole goal for this summer was to come back in August and have everyone say, "Wow." I want to blow their minds by my hard work during our off-season. I want to show them what kind of rugby player I can be when I don't have all those extra pounds of padding weighing me down.

So let that be my motivation. Regardless if I make the starting side or not, I want to know that the only reason I didn't is because my skills aren't as good as someone else's, and not because my weight is slowing me down. I want to realize my full potential. Is that too much to ask?

Tough Mudder Austin

I can now say I'm a Tough Mudder! The "race" was so much fun and I had a great time in Texas. Below is the race report/summary I wrote up for my tri group. It's super long, as all my race reports tend to be, but I think I outdid myself this time. This one is more of a summary and since the race was 10 miles long and had 19 obstacles, pardon the length. I'm also not in Austin anymore. I fell asleep to a cloudless and starry Texas sky (wish I could say sunny, but we left at 4 am) and woke up to sleety, dreary Colorado. It was weird to see that out the airplane window this morning. Anywhos, now it's pretty and snowing, which makes it even weirder to be writing about my sunny weekend. Trippy. I'll stop babbling. Here's the report/summary:

Tough Mudder Austin

10 miles, 19 obstacles

 Paige, TX

29 January 2011

Greetings from Austin, Mojoers! I just finished "running" the Texas Tough Mudder course yesterday and have the black and blue legs to show for it. I don't really have a race report (or any pictures this time around, bummer!) but here's a summary of the event and a lot of reasons why you should do it.

(L to R) Me, Maggie, Bondy, pre-race and clean

The theme of the day was, "Hey, Army guy" because, 1) there were a lot of muscular military men around so why not try to get their attention, and 2) I needed a lot of help because I have no upper body strength.

The event began with the national anthem prior to the start of each wave, during which many people stood at attention, pretty neat to see. Then a quick summary of the spirit of Tough Mudder and lastly, a recitation of the Tough Mudder code, which is essentially, this isn't a race but a team thing, help each other out, don't complain, and some other things like that.

The course was on a motocross track so the first few miles and the last few miles wound around, going up and down what used to be jumps and the spectators were able to wander between the different obstacles and take pictures of their people participating. It's pretty cool that they did that, and also explains why there's a $15 spectator fee.

The first three or four obstacles (here's a link to the race course) were all mud ones (including a muddy ice bath) and variations of the "Kiss of Mud", which we had to do two loops of. Not hard in and of themselves, but going up and down those motocross jumps was really annoying and tiring. And it didn't feel like we were making any distance but rather running around in circles for a few miles.

Then came a water crossing which was COLD and through an uneven and muddy lake floor, so we kept tripping and falling into that frigid water, which prepared us for the event I was most looking forward to: Walk the Plank, where you jump off a 15 foot platform into freezing cold water. But first you have to get onto said platform, which was one of the hardest things I had to do all day, and where "Hey, Army guy" came in quite handy. I was then literally forced to jump by the guy at the top (you want me to jump where?) and almost had a panic attack when I hit the water.

"Hey, Army guy!"

Bondy jumping. It looks a lot higher from the top.

O.M.G. That water took my breath away. I was underwater for what felt like forever and seriously thought I would pass out before I got to the surface (seemed to be a theme for all the Mudders I talked to afterwards). Once I did get some air, I briefly thought about asking for help getting me to solid land because I was so frozen and freaked out, but didn't want to be "that girl". Instead, I just kept repeating "Oh my God, oh my God" and slowly waded to the bank. The guy who we'd been running alongside for the first 2-3 miles had jumped right after me and needed a very long breather to calm himself down, so it was nice to see I wasn't the only one having an issue with this obstacle, especially since I jump off things into water all the time and never have a problem with it.

Next was a long swim through freezing water (about 50 m), which wasn't too bad because I was already numb from the long swim to get to Walk the Plank, and then more going up and down motocross jumps and running forever but seemingly getting nowhere. Those mile markers couldn't come fast enough!

Eventually we headed out for the long run out into the cow pastures, during which I was somewhat grateful the sky was overcast because it was getting a bit warm, and the mud was starting to harden on my face, hands, legs, and pretty much everything. It was getting annoying. As soon as we'd all started to warm up, we came across another freezing pond we had to swim cross (the designers of this course are EVIL) and more mud and tunnels to crawl through. All that was followed by even more running through cow fields and Texas hunting grounds. Eventually we headed back towards the motocross track (or at least it seemed like it) but in fact we criss-crossed through the forest/shrubbery and across more creeks and ponds for a couple more miles. That water was so freaking cold and the miles seemed to drag on forever. Maybe it's because I'm slow runner or something, I don't know. But 10 miles is far.

Oh, and during that run, I think they wanted to keep us on course, so they set up signs that said "Beware of velociraptor! Stay on trail." And then a minute or so later you'd stumble upon a large metal cage with a kid-sized stuffed dinosaur inside. These people are creative!

We hit civilization (that is, the spectators/the motocross track) around mile 7 and were greeted with a substitute for Fire Walker, which got canceled because there was a no burn order in place. I'm kind of glad because this new one rocked. It was a smokehouse with a deep mud pit inside, but you couldn't see anything and just slid into it without realizing what was happening. All you could see was outstretched arms reaching over the edge on the other side helping people up the slippery and muddy slope. And then we emerged to be photographed by spectators. It was kind of nice to do something they didn't see. Like it was our own little thing, and it turned out to be one of the favorites of a lot of people I talked to later. And looking back on this obstacle, it's kind of weird that we had no idea what was in that house but we climbed in blindly, as if it was normal. That could be an interesting case study into the kinds of people that sign up for these kinds of events. End side note.

The best picture I have of me and the mud (mile 1.5-ish).
Not quite as impressive as what came later in the race.

More running ensued, including the most frustrating part of the course: the Mud Mile (The Trenches on the map). I have no idea where they found so many types of mud, or consistencies for that matter, but I was impressed. This thing was so frustrating because all you did was go into a super thick mud pit, stumble out sliding all over the place, only to go into another mud pit not even two feet away. If this thing had indeed lasted a whole mile, it would've really sucked. But I think we only did 10 of these or so...enough to be coated in about an inch of mud head to toe. And this is the time I was most bummed that my camera had crapped out. There are no words to describe the amount of mud covering us. It was like we’d taken a bath in chocolate, it was so thick.

One of the funnier aspects of the race was the Hold your Wood obstacle where you carried logs a quarter mile or so. The macho military guys of course grabbed the largest trunks they thought they could carry, while the smarter groups of us took the dainty logs more suitable for a medium-sized fireplace. Not even halfway around the loop, the macho dudes had dropped the logs and were rolling them up and over the motocross jumps. Suckers!

What I like to call The Cramp Mile came next where most people started developing calf cramps. It was like a minefield with people stretching on both sides of the trail, which led us to The Underwater Tunnels (in zig-zags, of course, because Mudders don’t take the direct route…that would be stupid). The barrels holding the whole structure afloat had started to blow away so they closed it right before we "got" to do it, but the swim across that frigid lake was hard enough for me, especially since next came The Ball Shrinker that drained any sort of upper body energy I had left.

And the sign in front of this obstacle? "We could've made the obstacles wider but getting you wet and cold is just another way we break you." It worked. By that point everyone was so exhausted and tired and wet and cramping that the last thing we wanted to do was go back in the water. But the next three obstacles were water-based, and by that point the spectators had gathered around them and were taking pictures and oohing and aahing whenever someone wiped out. I was super jealous of their warm and dry clothes, as was everyone else, I assume. I remember someone pulling out an orange and I kinda wanted to grab it from them. But that wouldn't have been very nice of me.

The monkey bars were impossible for all but a few super buff guys (they were sloped UP! Who does that?!) and Twinkle Toes (balance beam in the water) wasn't my thing, so I spent a lot of time in the water during those last couple of miles. Last was about a half-mile run (seemingly the longest part of the day) and more water in the form of a spider net, where we got passed by a couple of dudes in thongs. And I'm not talking about their shoes. My friend was preparing to head up the spider net, until they cut in front of her and she decided to wait a bit for them to get over. Interesting people do these kinds of races...

The organizers saved the best for last. 200 feet from the finish line was the Electroshock Therapy, which consists of an evil contraption of live hanging wires, some of which carried a sizeable shock. All this was over a mud pit so you were bound to get shocked, lose a shoe, and fall on your face...in front of a large crowd of spectators. Yup, they were standing there three-deep in some places heckling us to run through. Like, we'd stop in front of it to catch a breather and the crowd would heckle for someone to run through. And if you got shocked, you could hear the crowd cheer/laugh/enjoy themselves. It was weird.

The ungraceful person that I am, I totally got shocked, then wiped out, then some dude ran into me, and I got shocked again. Ouch! And then I ran across the finish line, got handed a bright orange headband, a heat blanket, a beer, and a whole bunch of nutrition products. Not a bad end to the race.

Trying to get warm post-race (L to R: Me, Maggie). P.S. It's 70 degrees outside.

We didn't hang out much at the after-party because we just wanted to get clean and warm. I had on sweats, a fleece, a jacket, a heat blanket, and a beanie and I just couldn't warm up in the 70-degree weather. I think I was just super tired and hungry and needed a nap. So we headed back to the hotel to get clean and try to wash some of the mud out. Then we headed out to downtown Austin to hit up the bar scene (that's a story for another day…that town is very interesting).

The tub after we tried washing our clothes in it.

Being from Boulder, a town where everyone and their mother does extreme sporting events on a weekly basis, having completed something like a triathlon or Warrior Dash (Tough Mudder's little brother) isn't exactly unique. When you tell someone about it, they just shrug their shoulders as if it's something they planned for their afternoon workout. Austin, on the other hand, is much different. Or maybe it's a Tough Mudder brotherhood kind of thing. I'm not sure. Regardless, it caught me off guard.

At the bars Saturday night, whenever we ran into a Tough Mudder, we became instant friends, going back and forth talking about this obstacle or that obstacle, and how hard this part was or the unpleasantness of that. It never got old. All their other friends (and especially girlfriends) would get annoyed and try to get their attention again but no luck. It was really fun to hear from a whole bunch of different people who did the race and commiserate about our collective tiredness, bruisedness, and cuttedness.

Speaking of tiredness, I forgot to mention its close cousin: soredness. On Sunday, me and my friends really could've used a walker. We definitely looked like we were walking with one. My left hip flexor and right ankle were extremely sore, places I've never hurt in before. So with both sides in pain, I had a weird limp going on. And every time we got up from sitting, we'd forget that we were sore and spring up like we do normally. Big mistake. Then all three of us would stop mid-stance and groan. It was especially funny seeing us walk up to a stair. We'd all pause, look down, grumble, look down again, and eventually hobble down. We all kind of did it in unison and everyone had the same reaction. It was hilarious to watch, but it also hurt to laugh. Oy, I should stretch next time...

My legs on Monday, 2 days after Tough Mudder. At least I wasn't limping anymore.

Anywhos, I'm hoping the Colorado Tough Mudder will have the same kind of camaraderie, but I think its location deep in the mountains and lack of a central bar scene near the event will probably cut down on chance meetings in the bars afterward. Also, I imagine the kind of people running the CO race will be of a different kind than the military men that dominated this Texas race. We have a lot of individual athletes in Colorado (making it hard to recruit rugby players, among other things) so I don't know how the group mentality thing will go. But I'm hopeful that we'll at least get some Air Force men and/or other fellow rugby players out there. And about that bar scene issue, I'm doing the Sunday run so it'll be a bit different since I'm sure not a lot of people will go out that night.

As for the strange state of Texas, I'm seriously considering going down there again to do this thing because I had such a blast (and I think my friends are in as well!) and they have a good number of non-elevation related and just plain fun obstacles, so we'll see. It's also nice to have a "race" in the middle of winter to look forward to instead of training for months on end without anything to test yourself with.

As a parting thought, here's a little story about people not understanding us Tough Mudders:
I was taking a cab downtown Saturday night to go out to the bars and got to talking to the driver about having just finished Tough Mudder. He hadn't heard of it, so it was kind of hard to describe. Then he asked a question I honestly didn't know how to answer: "What's the motivation behind doing this race?" Uh...I don't know. I kind of blubbered through an answer involving road races are boring and he seemed to get it, but not entirely. So yes, I don't know what the motivation is, besides the fact that it's pretty awesome and something that will test you in ways you didn't think you would be tested.

In short, DO IT!!!

And here's a link to their events, which are all over the country, and even across both ponds, up north, and Down Under. Now you have no excuse.

As a parting shot, here's part of why the Tough Mudder folks are so awesome. Besides the fact that their info packet says to bring a "Hydration system - FILLED WITH WATER, not cerveza", it also states that they "DO NOT recommend you buying a brand spanking new pair of kicks for this event;
shoes get muddy, because you are running through mud. At Tough Mudder, all shoes go to heaven (or get recycled and delivered to starving/shoeless children in Africa)."

So here is said pile of donated shoes:

(All images of course map and obstacle descriptions, i.e. those not featuring me or my friends or shoes, are copyright and courtesy of Tough Mudder 2011 and can be found in their original, intact version here.)

It's a "not me" kind of day

It's my friend's birthday today so she invited me out for Happy Hour to celebrate, and I was kind of worried. Part of the reason is because calorie counting is super hard when out at a restaurant (I have no idea how many calories the dishes have) and it's also so easy to over-eat with the tiny portions being passed around everywhere. Ay ay ay!

In preparation and anticipation, I did the second day of C210K to try to get at least a little bit of the calories burned off, even if it was about 200 (if that). It took a lot of motivation to get out the door today since it was way cold and way snowy/icy. I'm hoping that those are the reasons I was so slow but I'm pretty sure it was my lack of happiness about being outside. Recently I noticed that the more excited and/or happy I am about running, the faster I go. And the more I don't want to be out there, the closer my jog resembles a walk. It's funny how much attitude changes my entire run.

Anywhos, I finished fine and got ready to head out for Happy Hour. In order to try to stick to my drink-only-once-a-week rule, I told myself I wouldn't have anything tonight and celebrate for many people's birthdays in style on Friday. And since I'd been so successful on Monday turning down a beer at the bar, I figured it'd be a piece of cake. But then the waiter came around as soon as I sat down and asked what I wanted, so of course I caved and ordered a red sangria. BUT, I only had two, which is somewhat of an accomplishment because I probably would've had another at the end of Happy Hour if my voice of reason hadn't kicked in.

Even with just those two drinks in me, I got the usual insane urge to stuff myself with corn, or wheat, or something equally non-nutritious. So I headed down to the grocery store to pick up my favorite corn flakes (after months of searching, I finally found the perfect natural corn flakes that taste so delicious). I hit every red light and had to wait for pedestrians at practically ever turn, so it took forever and I was getting impatient. And just a block away from the store, I turned down the wrong street. Grr! At that point I realized it's not worth it and I should go home. So I did. I guess I didn't need those corn flakes after-all, and same goes for the pretzels that are sitting in a bag in my room. Looks like I really am making progress here.

And now I'm going to do something equally "not me" and head to bed a little after 8 pm. So goodnight!

The scarlet letter

I put my GWF (GoWear Fit) back on tonight. As I was doing so, I looked at it with a feeling of disgust, as if it was some kind of scarlet letter that tells the world I'm on a diet. And I hate that feeling.

Here's what it looks like (I'm neither one of those ladies, btw):

Granted, I don't wear it hanging out like that and generally try to hide it under a longer t-shirt sleeve, or put it on my calf if that's not an option. But, even though it's not visible, I hate pulling my arm back whenever anyone wants to touch my arm, in fear that they'll find out I'm wearing it and have to explain myself. I hate trying to hide it under everything I wear. And I hate its unpredictable beeping that interrupts conversations.

But as much as I hate it for those things, it's still pretty amazing. It works for my weight-loss style and personality in that I can look at the data and know exactly how much I'm losing (or gaining) on a daily basis. There's no guesswork with this thing and I don't have to wait for the weight fluctuations due to female issues as well as alcohol or salt consumption to even out on the scale. I know exactly how much I weigh daily (or should, at least) and that's really nice to see on a graph, as are my daily burns.

In short, it's awesome, even if I have to get over the social stigma I feel when I wear it. I wear this cloak of denial, acting as if it doesn't bother me that I'm obese in an overly active and health-conscious town. But by putting on the GWF, it's like I'm admitting it and that makes me feel super vulnerable. It doesn't help that I haven't lost a significant amount of poundage so it must look like I'm one of those fat people that gets gadgets or puts on a front that she's losing weight when in fact nothing has changed. Argh! I hate it.

But I'm hoping that this will work. It did last summer when I was serious about tracking my calories and getting my workouts in. I just need to get off my butt and get a routine going again.

Speaking of routine, school begins next week so it'll be nice to have something scheduled every day of the week and something to get up for. Maybe then I won't be going to bed at 4 am and sleeping until 2 pm like I have been this week. I essentially sleep through the entire day since it's winter and dark all the time. And I'm back to the problem of not having the motivation to get off the couch once I sit down on it to work, which is why I'm going to start running and swimming in the mornings.

And on the subject of swimming, I'm going to have to get all my motivating words together to get to my first swim team practice at 10:30 tomorrow because I know I'm not going to want to go on my own for the first time. I figure once I rip off the band-aid, the rest of the times won't be so bad. I'm just so embarrassed of my suckage. I don't even care about the fatness in a swimsuit part. I'm just a terrible swimmer, mostly just out of shape but also embarrassingly slow (I don't think I can even do a proper flip turn). So since it's a beginner's session, I hope I won't be the only one that's new. I'm sure they get people like me all the time. At least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself until I get in the pool and there's no going back then.

Apparently morning people have it made

I absolutely love mornings, and if it weren't for my obsession with sleep, I'd most definitely be a morning person. Lately, well, prior to going home for Thanksgiving and losing all motivation to exercise, The Roommie and I had been getting up in the mornings to go for runs. Although I'm not a fan of running and definitely don't like getting out of my toasty bed to go out into the freezing sunrise (you'd think those two would be complete deal-breakers), I really enjoyed getting my exercise out of the way and the resulting feeling of being energized for the rest of the day. And having already been up for a while, I was much more likely to eat breakfast, which has been a problem for me for years.

And now, there's an article in the New York Times, called "The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast" which mentions a study published in The Journal of Physiology that suggests that exercising intensely in the morning before breakfast has greater health benefits than exercising after eating or not exercising at all. As the article states, "working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet [which are increased insulin-resistance and storage of fat in the muscles]. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight."

Granted, it was done on 28 healthy men and they did high intensity workouts ranging from 60 to 90 minutes, neither of which apply to me...or most anybody else. But the take-home message is that "exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates."

BUT..."Exercising on an empty stomach is unlikely to improve your performance during that workout."

So for me, that's good since at the moment I'm just running to burn calories and get my butt off the couch. I'm not trying to improve my time, per se. Rather, I'm going to the ability to complete some sort of mileage and my workouts aren't nearly long enough to cause bonking due to exercising on an empty stomach.

Yet another incentive to start getting up early again, I suppose.

I'm just going to ignore the part that says, "The researchers also don’t know whether the same benefits will accrue if you exercise at a more leisurely pace and for less time than in this study." And stick with the commentary of Leonie Heilbronn, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who has extensively studied the effects of high-fat diets, regarding the study: “I would predict low intensity is better than nothing.”

Breakfast challenges

I've started participating more in the forums on the 3 Fat Chicks forums recently because I feel like I need to be more involved that way to keep reminding myself that I need to make smarter decisions about food and not just write it down and say, "Oh shucks, I probably shouldn't have eaten that extra brownie, or had that extra beer."

The support on there is really amazing and I've learned so much about so many people and the struggles we all go through, as well as the ups and downs. Now I don't feel like a failure every time I slip up, or even due to the fact that I've been "losing weight" since freshman year of college (that would be September of 2003) and instead have gained over 50 pounds. So yeah, 3FC is cool.

BUT, I often find the challenges don't really apply to me or go along with what I need and want. If you can't tell from my blog entries over the summer and my recent sign-up for a 10-mile obstacle race (I don't expect you to because I'm sure no one actually reads or follows this blog), I'm a pseudo-masochist. I play rugby after-all.

Most of the challenges on 3FC, however, are weight-loss challenges. Like, "20 pounds lighter for New Years'", for example. Maybe I should get more intense about my weight-loss, but at the same time, I'm more so trying to change my lifestyle one step at a time instead of losing weight quickly and focusing on the numbers. I'm not ragging on these kinds of challenges at all. I think they're great. They're just not for me because they bring out the unhealthy I-need-to-lose-weight-fast-no-matter-what-the-cost part of me, and that usually doesn't last very long. I mean, look at my weight-loss history. I've been a yo-yo dieter and it obviously hasn't worked.

So, if you're still with me, the point of this entire entry is that I finally found a challenge that's perfect for me! It's a streak-based challenge where you pick something you will or won't do every day for 21 days and stick with it. If you mess up, you start the counter all over. Here is the "Every-Day" 21-Day Challenge explained even better.

Long story short, I've never been a good breakfast eater. I prefer to skip it and sleep in the extra 10-15 minutes. Always. The only time I eat breakfast is when I'm home and my mom makes it for me as soon as I wake up and I have nowhere to be so I can get up and eat as late as I want.

So my challenge is to eat breakfast every day. And since I've joined the thread, I've kept with it. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that the thread is THE ONLY reason I've kept with it, since I think 7 days is the longest I've ever gone for eating breakfast. I even got up a bit earlier today to pour myself some cereal before school. It's so weird. But I love it.

Since I've got the breakfast thing mostly down, I'm going to work on sticking to my exercise plan daily since this 10-mile race is sneaking up really fast on me and I've been slacking too much lately. So wish me luck!

And you should join the challenge as well. It totally works!

To Belize or not to Belize...and oatmeal

Honestly, I don't know what to do. About a month ago, I posted about being excited about going to Belize for a month in May and June, but the more I think about it, the more unsure I am. Above is a photo of the orphanage at which I may (possibly) be staying. It's pretty cool and warm and pretty, and especially more appealing now that there's snow on the ground over here. The other option is to head to Poland to visit family and go on a sailing trip, assuming my friends aren't getting married/otherwise occupied like last year. It's way more expensive but I think I'd enjoy it slightly more. I'm also kind of bummed that this much-needed long vacation will interfere with my tri schedule for the summer. So I need to take that into account. May is the perfect time to get out of Boulder, but it's also the prime tri training month. And I'm most definitely not taking my bike to Belize, or on a boat. That's just stupid.

In other news, the 7:03 morning run on Tuesday turned into the 7:45 morning run on Tuesday (that's how long it took me to get out of bed...yup, 45 minutes). But once we got outside it was so beautiful: The birds were chirping, the leaves were falling, and the sun was peaking out from behind the clouds. Absolutely beautiful and peaceful. The run itself was pretty hard even though it was just 2 minutes of running at a time. My legs felt heavy, but I didn't feel the urge to quit and ran everything without even thinking of stopping. So I'm getting back to my original excitement of C210K. Woohoo!

And I'm really glad we went before work, because within a half hour of us getting back, the skies had turned gray and it had begun to rain and sleet. And that continued all day, with the rain eventually turning into hail and then snow. Wow, great timing!

When we got done with the run, I had an intense craving for oatmeal, which never happens, and have been eating it for breakfast ever since (a whole three days). I think it's just the perfect food for this weather...comforting and filling.

I've been trying to find various takes on the classic oatmeal, since it's so bland just by itself. I always microwave it using milk and not water because I have an aversion to making anything on water, including hot chocolate...it becomes so watered down and tasteless. And oatmeal needs all the flavor it can get, so I also usually add a couple teaspoons of brown sugar to sweeten it up. So far I've had the following:

Banana and Brown Sugar
- Mix 1/2 cup oatmeal and 1 cup 2% milk and microwave for 3 minutes
- Add salt and brown sugar, to taste, and a small banana
- Nutrition info:
  Calories: 393
  Fat: 8 g
  Carbs: 74 g!
  Fiber: 6 g
  Protein: 9 g

- I should probably eat less of it and not use 2% milk, but with a goal of eating 1600 calories a day, this fits perfectly into my breakfast allotment of 400. I'm surprised the banana is so calorific and only contributes 2 g of fiber.
- Substitute water for milk and you cut out 122 calories (271 total). But I need my daily dairy otherwise my life is not complete.
- And 74 g of carbs?! Uh, oh. 

Cinnamon Apple (and Brown Sugar)
- Mix 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 cup 2% milk, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1 diced apple (preferably McIntosh) in a bowl
- Cover and microwave for ~5 minutes
- Add salt and brown sugar to taste
- Nutrition info:
  Calories: 399
  Fat: 8 g
  Carbs: 77 g
  Fiber: 12 g!
  Protein: 9 g

- Same calorie concerns as before. Could be 277 calories without the milk, but again, I need dairy. And I don't mind eating a hearty breakfast. It keeps me from snacking until lunch, so I save many calories in the long run.
- 1 tsp of cinnamon has 4 g of fiber!!! I've been working on increasing my fiber intake lately (I don't eat nearly enough) so this is a HUGE selling point for the cinnamon apple oatmeal. And it's so freaking delicious.
- Again, so many carbs! Apparently an apple has 21 g of carbs, which is way too much, and the oats have 27 g.
- I'd been eating 3/4 cup of oats with 1.5 cups of 2% milk, which gave the whole meal 536 calories and 97 carbs, but I figured that's just too much. I was full for about 4 hours after eating so I took that as a sign that my breakfast was just way too big. So I'm going to try this 1/2 cup of oats thing in the morning and see how it goes.

Runner's high? Not quite...

Within the last two weeks I've really started following the Couch to 10k (C210K) program. And surprisingly, I've stuck with it! Although I couldn't really run this weekend because I was resting my ankle (the one I drunkenly injured almost four weeks ago), I really wanted to get out there. Today, on the other hand, I had no desire to go, but I had to.

You see, I'm doing the Tough Mudder: Austin race on January 29th and it's going to kick my butt if I don't get training. And since I'm essentially going from sitting on the couch to a 10-mile muddy obstacle course designed by British Special Forces, there is some fear and fire under my butt. So I've made an effort to get out there four times a week, minimum.

(The C210K Program is designed for three runs a week, but I don't have enough time, that is weeks, to finish it and get up to 10 miles by January 29th, so I decided to amend it and run four times a week instead. Shouldn't be too much of a biggie and hasn't been so far.)

My only issue so far (besides some lack of motivation) has been the ankle injury and now possibly knee pain. I don't know if the knee is due to compensating for the ankle or a nagging, recurring old rugby injury, but it has me somewhat worried. It could also be my shoes, which are fairly old and have taken their share of abuse, so I'm going to go to the running store this week and get fitted for a proper pair of shoes. I figure with my crappy ankles and surgically repaired knee (the gifts that rugby keeps on giving), $100 is not too bad of an investment in new and good running shoes.

Another problem could be running on concrete, which I've read is REALLY bad for your joints, so I may switch to asphalt (that is, the road) as often as possible. Lately I've been running up and down our quiet street, so I should be ok with cars, but I don't know what I'll do once the distances pick up. I've read that grass is supposedly perfect as a running surface as are trails, but I don't trust my ankles that much yet. I should work on strengthening them when I'm at home watching TV.

Wow, now I sound like an injured train wreck. It's actually not that bad, I just like to dwell on things.

As for eating...well, I haven't been doing too well. BUT, I also haven't been eating out nearly as much. I've just been cooking and eating enormous portions of beef stew and burgers, which is not so good for the calorie intake. So even though I've been burning a minimum of 2500 calories daily, I still haven't lost any weight. That could be because I've been drinking a lot lately and thus getting way more calories in that way as well as holding on to water for the daily weigh-in. So I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow and see where I'm at. Hopefully it's less that 217, because that was my weight a couple weeks ago and according to my GWF, I should be down at least a pound or two.

So here's to hoping!

Breaking the cycle

Lately I've been a huge sloth. I've gained about 10 pounds in less than a month (eww). I get winded when I walk up a flight of stairs. And I sweat profusely all the time. I am disgusting.

So of course I come to this blog, post something inspiring, and hope it works out. But I usually quit a few days later. I don't know if this will be any different. But I'm tired of being ashamed to look in the mirror or dreading dressing up because I don't look good in anything. I'm also tired of being single and not having anyone interested in me because I live in the thinnest city in America (no joke, we really are). I know that if I had a stellar personality or some confidence then that would all change, but I don't have anything to be confident about so that option's out the window.

Ok, enough self pity. The motivation I'm going for right now is feeling comfortable living in a bathing suit again since I'm heading down to Belize for the month of May and maybe June. It's not set in stone and the closer it gets the more nervous I am about the whole trip, but I'm determined to make it all work out because I'm kind of wishing I'd gone this summer and May is a great time to leave Colorado.

And although I've said this before, I'm one step ahead of myself in actually making this work since I already printed out a workout calendar as well as started planning my meals for the week. So at least there's progress. Oh, and I've been biking up that dreaded hill to work a couple times a week so there's some exercise there, even if I've only done it two times. You gotta start somewhere :)

The only thing holding me back from going on a run in the next few days (which I want/need to do but at the same time don't want to do) is a monstrous bruise on my leg that hurts even when I walk. I've been limping around all day. And I'm no pansy. This thing is a deep purple and about the size of both of my palms. Yeah, I don't take care of myself real good.

So I may start the push-ups again since that doesn't involve jiggling my legs. I thought about a swim, but then I remembered how bored I get every time and end up quitting early. And now a bike ride idea popped into my head. So I guess I'll be doing that tomorrow. Probably a short one (10-15 miles) to get myself back into biking shape.

Ok, so here's the plan:

Tuesday - 10 to 15 mile ride

Wednesday - Bike to school/work then maybe run afterwards if leg is feeling up for it

Thursday - 10 to 15 mile ride

Friday - Bike to school/work, run afterwards

Saturday - 10 to 15 mile ride (faster)

Sunday - Venus Women's Ride/hangover recovery

No official weigh-in this morning, but 222.0 at the end of the day. I hope that goes down by morning.

Bike to work: 17th Street hill...not nearly as bad as Folsom: my lungs didn't hurt for hours afterwards.

Breakfasts, lunches, and bike rides galore!

I haven't done too much since getting back to Colorado, besides Warrior Dash, of course. I was sooooo sore after that "race" that I could barely walk. Apparently I shouldn't be running down mountaintops without properly training beforehand. Oops.

In other news, school has started and I'm slowly starting to figure out my schedule. I finally have some human interaction during the course of my day, which is super nice. Yesterday (Wednesday) was my super long day, beginning with 2 lectures then an hour break for lunch and then 4 hours of section and lab. I woke up late so didn't eat breakfast and it wasn't looking like I'd be getting home for lunch. So no food til 5 pm?! Not gonna happen.

I decided to go to the campus grill/cafeteria and ended up getting roast chicken with potatoes and peas. That was heavenly. I also sat down next to a woman from the English department and we had a nice chat. I want to keep doing that (having lunch with someone) but I don't want to spend so much money every time.

And that's what brought me to looking into getting a snazzy lunchbox and packing a nice nutritious lunch for which I've planned ahead. From this other blog I read (Adios, fat pants!), I got a few websites dedicated to packing healthful lunches into Bento boxes, essentially lunch boxes with compartments that fit in very nicely. So I've been looking over them and I think I'm going to start small and plan a multi-colored, veggie-filled lunch once a week and build up from there.

Like this, from Basic Bento:

The next step is making breakfast as well, but I think that may be a once a week kind of thing. The same goes for biking to work/school instead of driving a few blocks and walking up that dreaded hill. But if I'm doing this once a week, what do I do the other days?

No weigh-in. Waiting on my beer water weight to go away. Perhaps tomorrow.

Nada either. SLACKER!

Warrior Dash!

Today was a really fun race that I had been looking forward to for a while. I even scheduled my California vacation around it, and had to cut out an extra weekend of fun on the beaches to get muddy. All in all, it was definitely worth it.

And now some photos...

Before the race, sparkling clean (I'm on the left in the brown shirt and my roommate's on the right):

Directly post mud pit:

 The last sprint to the finish, through fire, of course:

All in all, it was a really fun race but I thought it was a bit too easy obstacle-wise. I felt like it wasn't much of a challenge, excluding the long hill we had to run up, but that was just an endurance challenge and not a how-do-I-get-around-this-obstacle challenge. A little kid would've had no problem completing every single one of these obstacles, which many did. I was looking for a bit more of a challenge...not that my heavy and out-of-shape butt could've handled something more extreme, but details. And this is how Tough Guy comes into play.

Because of the relative ease of Warrior Dash, now I'm definitely set on Tough Guy UK: The World's safest, most dangerous taste of mental and physical pain, fear and endurance. It's a race held in January in bloody cold England that has some serious obstacles and some serious tests of inner strength.

Check out this appropriately titled ESPN review: Death Race 2007

So if I ever find myself in England (or even Europe) in January, I'm totally doing this. But I'm not flying across the pond for the sole purpose of putting myself through hell. At least that's what I say now. We'll see if that changes.


No weigh-in. Too early to even think about it.

Warrior Dash: 3.27 mile "run" with 12 obstacles

Kickball

Today was amazingly successful extra-curricular-wise but completely and utterly unproductive work-wise. I got up at 1:30 pm without having woken up any earlier, which is weird. Usually I wake up at least twice in the morning and choose to sleep in more. Today, it was straight through to 1:30. I guess I was tired. After I finally dragged myself out of bed, I watched some TV, messed around online, and did absolutely nothing productive until kickball.

I'd been worried about the team I started having too many people (we have 24 on the roster, with a max 10 people allowed on the field at one time...so double) but only 12 showed up which is PERFECT! Next week there'll probably be more but it seems like everyone is receptive to sitting out an inning or two in the dugout. And this way I don't have to worry about people not showing up and us having to forfeit, which is awesome. So yeah, that went well. And we won 16-4.

The other awesome accomplishment was that I didn't have a single beer, even though I was the one that bought it and brought it. I figure it's not worth the calories and it's not like I get a buzz after two or three, especially since it's PBR. And if I stay after the game and get drunk, I just want to drink more and eat more and it all goes downhill from there. So I can have a good time while drinking water (great for today since apparently I was also super dehydrated) and not have the temptation of a 30-pack overwhelm me.

The second kickball game was the same with regards to abstaining from alcohol, so all is going well. Now I just have to continue this trend for longer than a month. Piece of cake, right?

Beaming with pride

I'm getting much better at this self-control bit. My calories have been within range and I've been moving around a lot, which gives me an over-1000 calorie deficit. It's probably not that good of a thing since I heard at that point your body goes into starvation mode, but I just can't make myself eat 3000 calories in a healthy way. So I've been hitting 1800-1900 lately and hopefully I don't hit a plateau this early in the game.

This weekend was very busy for me. Well, Sunday was. I was very proud of myself on Saturday because after we came home from the bars, I only ate two pieces of chocolate and didn't have any more beer! Usually, I would've inhaled the whole chocolate bar and probably drank myself into oblivion. But, I came home, logged the beer I drank at the bar and the two pieces of chocolate I ate at home (I'd been craving brownies all day and was too drunk to drive to the store to pick up brownie mix so I had to settle on chocolate). After looking at my calorie totals for the day (2239) and getting my burn totals from my GWF (2382), I decided I can't afford any more junk calories and went to bed instead. It took a while for me to get to that conclusion...there was probably a 5-minute internal debate going on about how I don't want to go to sleep but would rather eat and drink more. But reason and weight-loss-will-power won out and I went to bed. Good thing, since I had trouble getting up the next morning. I don't even want to know what a couple more beers would've done to me.

The next day, Sunday, I subbed in goal for a friend's soccer league. Apparently I played really well and they'll definitely invite me back if they need me again. Yay! And a bigger yay is that I burned 800 calories during the 1.5 long game. 800 calories! Standing in goal! That's awesome. I didn't think that was going to happen. Apparently warming up and diving around and punting all the time made a huge difference. So yeah. My GWF rocks.

My endurance, on the other hand, does not. The few times I had to run after the ball, I got so ridiculously winded that I am incredibly worried about the running part of the tri. I think I'm going to try to get at least three runs in a week no matter how much I hate it. There's no other way to get in decently good shape in four weeks. All I need to do is be fit enough to run three miles in four weeks, and six miles in eight weeks. Totally doable, right? WRONG! But I'm definitely going to try.

Then there was Pound & Round Softball in the evening (I know, I was super busy) which involves playing softball with a tennis ball and drinking heavily. Last week, I was pounding back beers the whole game, but since I decided to only drink once a week and Saturday was the day, I limited myself to only drinking when I was on-base and it was worth something (major difference between P&R and real softball is if you finish a beer while on the bases and cross home plate with an empty can, the run is worth two points). And since our team needs all the help it can get, I figured two beers is a sacrifice I can make. So yeah, go me for having self-control.

In short, this weekend was very successful when it comes to will-power and getting active. I didn't really miss much of what I didn't have, which is great, so I need to continue this mindset. I have two games of kickball tonight, which are beer-filled events, but one or two beers totally isn't worth it, so I will refrain. Should be easy enough, right?

In the pool

I decided that I needed to get back into tri training so I hit up the pool for the workout scheduled for this week. Luckily, we're in a recovery week (as if the past 7 weeks of sitting on my butt haven't been recovery enough...) so the swim was fairly easy, relatively speaking of course. I got in all my intervals and all that and finally figured out one of the drills that my mentor has been talking about. Eureka! The only hard part about it was that I had to consciously think about what I'm supposed to be doing instead of swimming mindlessly. I guess that's what drills are for, though, so at least my improving.

My 100 yard times weren't too bad. In fact, they're getting better except I can't keep up that intensity for more than one 100-yd interval. And even so, I'm sloooooooow. And I know this because I stalked the results of 2008 and made an Excel spreadsheet and everything! No wonder Maggie makes fun of me. Haha.

But yeah, as I stated in my previous post, I'm terrified of the Olympic-distance triathlon. I honestly don't think I can run that far. I mean, I can probably walk to the finish and all, but I don't want to be the absolute last person crossing the finish line. I don't care if my time puts me last or whatever. I just don't want the race organizers to be waiting on me to finish in order to clean up the course/hand out awards. That would just be too much for my confidence and I don't think I would ever do a tri again. The end.