Back in the saddle

I took the last month or so "off" from losing weight in that I only exercised when I felt like it instead of feeling the need to get 5-6 days of exercise each week. I still averaged about 4 days of working out during that time so it's not too bad. I was just sick of everything and didn't feel like pushing myself too hard.

During that time, I got pretty burned out about road biking and since that's been my most frequent form of exercise, it was clear I needed to continue with it otherwise I would stop losing weight. But I didn't want to ride anymore! A conundrum, I tell you.

So I took a couple of weeks off from the bike. And when I finally went back to it, I loved every minute in the saddle. I eventually realized that all the rides I had been doing were either balls-to-the-wall or insanely uphill. There were no "fun" rides where I could simply enjoy being on the road on my bike. Riding became a burden.

My first ride back was along the flats near my house at whatever pace I wanted at the time and it was awesome. I eventually returned to riding hills on Wednesdays with a group I'd been riding all summer. And even though we rode straight uphill for 6 miles, I had a blast, as evidenced by my genuine smile in the picture below.

I'm in the middle in the green.

During my break from riding, I did a bit of running to keep somewhat in shape. I went for a run with The Roommie and we averaged a 9:30 minute/mile pace for 3 minute run/1 minute walk intervals.* I didn't ever dread having to run once the walking part ended, which is a HUGE improvement in my run endurance and state of mind. I think I may actually enjoy running now. Eww.

I was also having some knee issues after an unfortunate game of kickball which resulted in cutting back on my exercise. Everything turned out to be fine and my doctor said I can exercise through the pain without messing my knee up any further so I'm back to full force.

In between the MRI scans and doctor's visits, when the prognosis for my knee wasn't clear, I stressed. I was worried that I'd have to either suffer through a season of rugby on a bum knee and thus postpone the hypothetical surgery until November, or I'd have to sit out the season altogether and have the surgery now. Since I've recently begun getting respect from the refs, I didn't want to disappear for three months and lose all that so I was stressing out a lot. I also couldn't really turn down a trip they had offered me to Minnesota since I don't know when that'll come up again. But all is well now.

As they say, "Everything works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out, then it's not the end."

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*I still don't like running for long periods of time, so when I do go for "long" runs I turn them into intervals. Instead of running straight for 3 miles, I run 3 minutes and walk 1 minute. This way, I have something to look forward to during the three minutes of torture.

Work, work, work, play, play, play

This weekend was crazy and indulgent. Here's a photo from Saturday night's party. I was in the White Trash group (more details to follow). And I won third place out of over 50 costumes. You would've never guessed that I absolutely hate Halloween:

Now onto the rest of the weekend.

I had this huge final report due this week so I was super stressed. And by "due this week" I mean I should've had it in about two weeks ago but had been slacking and not putting in my hours, so it got postponed a bit (I never said I was good with schedules...in fact, I believe that they don't apply to me). Anywhos, my boss finally asked for a firm deadline so I told him I'd have it done by Thursday. I didn't have it done by Thursday. I did spend about 8-9 hours on it that day, but by the end my brain was so fried I couldn't write another word. So I finished it on Friday and he seemed pissed. I'm also pretty sure it's not was he was expecting after I'd been leading him on about how much time I'm spending on it. So tomorrow (Tuesday) morning I get to get chewed out/possibly lose my job. AND I have to get up early to do it. Double whammy.

I may be being a bit overdramatic here, but he is not happy with me. Couple that with the fact that he's already running out of money and I may be out of a job by the holidays anyways, and you can see that I'm not in a good spot right now. I should be kissing his ass, doing everything and anything he asks for promptly and diligently to give him reason to fight for more grant money for me, or at least recommend me to other co-workers/collaborators, but I'm not. I kind of like the idea of focusing on school and being a college student again. I don't want to have to worry about putting in 30 hours/week in addition to two science classes and labs. But I need health insurance and I need something to put on my med school app. And research apparently looks good. I also need a good recommendation from my boss as well as a paper or poster or something to show for my year(s) of working there. Oy, so much to do, but so little motivation. And all that explains my sleeping problems. I'm generally a bad sleeper, but I haven't been able to fall asleep before 3 am for at least two weeks now and I'm absolutely exhausted.

But I'm digressing again. So Friday I was super tired and stressed and I just wanted to finish the damn thing. Once I did, I needed to do something for myself to get my mind off work. So, in true Boulder fashion, I decided to go on a bike ride! Instead of sitting in front of the TV or lying in a hammock, I went on a bike ride!!! I'm so proud of myself. :) It was so nice and amazing. Every time I get back on my bike I am reminded of how much I love riding and I wonder why I don't go more often. So I rode for 10ish miles on my favorite short route and it was awesome. Deserted country road along the country airport and the country schoolhouse. Just plain awesome. That is, until my seat came unscrewed. That was a shocker! I had installed a new one right before the ride to test it out and see how it felt (I'm still on a seemingly never-ending search for a "comfortable" saddle, and by comfortable I mean doesn't-make-me-cry kind of feeling). So I must've not screwed it on right or something because four miles from home in the middle of business park, my saddle came undone.

And I began despairing. I called anyone I would think who could be out of work to drop off an Allen wrench or something. That didn't work out. So eventually I started pedaling home, out of my saddle the entire time. That was painful. Oy. Not even a half mile down the road I found a coffee shop/bike shop and they fixed it up for me. But my great ride turned bleak for about 15 minutes there.

Anywhos, the rest of the weekend wasn't so good exercise or weight-loss wise. Right after the bike ride, I went to happy hour with my brother and his girlfriend and ended up drinking way too much booze of all shapes and flavors. Saturday we had a themed flip cup birthday tournament/party so that also involved a lot of PBR. I was supposed to have a soccer game on Sunday but it got canceled so I spent the entire afternoon either watching football or asleep on the couch. It was glorious.

As for food, I ate about half a container of raw cookie dough. Ugh. What was I thinking? I need to start logging my food again because that makes me realize how many calories I'm putting into my mouth and for the most part curbs my impulse appetite. That, and it's a pain in the butt to input every single bite of food I take and that's usually enough to keep me from snacking on things. I'm obsessive like that. I need to know the weight or amount of everything when I write things down, which I guess is a good thing.

It's a new week and a new mission: Run three times. I really need to get myself in shape enough to run 10 miles on January 29th. More on that later. This post is already too long.


218.5 on Friday. No weigh-in today. Waiting til Wednesday for the beer water weight to go away.
Bike to school: Up and down Folsom (3 miles - 320 calories - GWF on left calf)

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.

Tri training

This triathlon is approaching very quickly and I am so totally not ready for it. I think I've managed to go running twice and swimming about three times in the 8 weeks of training I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah, right. And my first tri is about 5 weeks away. Ay ay ay. I'm so not ready for this. In fact, I don't think I could run three miles, let alone six in June. Time to ramp it up and get my butt into shape!

It's just so hard to find the motivation to workout EVERY SINGLE DAY! When I get a nice workout in one day, I feel like I'm set for at least a day of rest. But nope. That's not the case at all with these tris. I can't turn back time so I guess all I can really do is start today and get some runs and swims in.

So off to the pool I go. Maybe.

I'm set

I think I've decided for sure to postpone the triathlon training for a few weeks. Vegas doesn't seem possible financially and mental health-wise, so for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to be a quitter and put off yet another thing I set out to do. Yes, I have no motivation.

Part of the reason (besides not wanting to blow $400 on something I have no desire to do) I'm backing out is because I'm just not accustomed to working out 6 times a week. Right now, there are so many things I want to do and have been doing that I don't want to have to worry about making up a workout because I needed a break or spent the day snowboarding. I'm not opposed to going to the gym/for a run/bike ride 6 times a week. That's cool, although I know I'm going to have to work up to it from about the 4 days of exercise I currently get, most of them not at the gym and not structured, but rather random sports/classes with friends. But the main point is that I'm too stressed out by this, logistically and monetarily, and therefore it's not fun.

Someone on 3FC said somewhere that motivation doesn't necessarily come before action and therefore one should force themselves to work out even if they're not motivated. I should really abide by that since it would make this Vegas training possible. I'm just not willing to do that quite yet. I don't want to constantly feel behind on my workouts and worried that I won't be able to finish the triathlon solely because I have other things going on in my life, such as soccer, or snowboarding, or broomball. Or a night out camping. The triathlon was supposed to be something that I did for fun and to give me a varied but structured workout plan that I could follow. Instead, it's this big ball of stress. And when I feel like I can't do something or have any sort of doubt in myself, I cave and quit altogether and think, "I may as well not even try." That's been the case here. I feel so overwhelmed, and I absolutely hate that feeling. It's also not very conducive to being positive and training hard to have fun. So yeah, I quit. At least for a little while.

Life is good :)

This week has been really active and stressful for me. Ay ay ay. I could write a novel. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I've been really serious about food logging and GWF stuff. I've also tried to do some strenuous activity everyday, partly because I really need to get my butt into gear for this triathlon, but also because I'm just sick and tired of being fat!

I've been really good, too, about what I put into my mouth. Since Sunday (I know, not that long, but I've just really started...again), I've kept my calorie intake below 1800 calories, with the exception of last night, but that's a different story that I'll mention later. AND I've had at least a 500 calorie deficit every day (again, except for yesterday). So this is awesome!

I went snowboarding today and somehow managed to be on the slopes until 4 pm. That NEVER happens. But I was so dog-tired at the end that I don't think I'll attempt that again. However, it was a perfect day and restored my love of being in the mountains. Last season, I was so over snowboarding that I didn't even want to get a pass this year. But finally I decided that if I didn't, I'd regret it, so I caved and forked over the money. Not only was it a great idea happiness-wise, but also weight-loss-wise since now, at 10:54 pm, I've burned 3810 calories. The day's not even over yet! And having only eaten 1709, I have an over 2000 calorie deficit. It may even be too big, but I wasn't about to stuff myself after working so hard all day. (I even turned down the chips and cookies at lunch in the lodge!) The deficit can also be attributed to Irish dance class, but that was only 250 and for an hour, so it's mostly snowboarding.

I'm pretty sure my perfect day had a lot to do with the mountain, which I'd never snowboarded before. The runs were perfectly steep and groomed, the weather was amazing, and it was just generally awesome. My only gripe is that my friends decided to climb up this hill for some better powder. Eww. I totally was not feeling the climb (at 11,500 feet!), so I thought the ride down would make up for my misery. NOPE! I fell and got buried in the powder, so I couldn't get up. No matter how hard I worked, I wasn't getting anywhere (I'm pretty sure some significant calorie burn happened then). At one point I was willing to throw myself at a tree so Ski Patrol could whisk me away, but I finally unburied myself and got down to the bottom of the run, praying that the next stop would be the lodge. I was so drained!

Anywhos, that's that. I got home, went to Irish dancing class (the first one of the session), and realized that a long, hilly bike ride + a full day of snowboarding should NEVER be followed by Irish dancing. Ouch. I'm going to feel it tomorrow.

Back to yesterday...

A friend is visiting for the week and yesterday we decided to hang out, have some beers, and play board games. Of course "some" beers turned into 5 beers and my will-power greatly diminished and I ended up stuffing my face with Cheez-Its and corn bread. Oy. And that is how I ate over 3000 calories yesterday. Epic fail! But I figure with all the hard work I've been putting in, one night of having fun and letting loose is not going to kill me.

I'd been wanting to weigh myself in the last couple of days, but I'd always forgotten to in the morning, essentially putting if off to the next day. Well, I remembered this morning, but because of all the water weight from the beer binge the night before, I was up a pound. Eww. I know that's not accurate because when I weighed myself two nights before, I was down a pound (at the end of the day!) so I have to wait for all this alcohol to leave my system before I can get an accurate weight. Unfortunately, tomorrow we're going to a concert, so Saturday's weigh-in is also tainted. Maybe my body can recover in two days and tomorrow will be good. Hopefully. I haven't looked that closely into how fast my body processes alcohol water weight. Now's a great time to start, though.

Ok, I'm rambling. I think I've covered all the topics I wanted to talk about and then some. Sorry for all the technical and detailed calorie mumbojumbo, but I'm really proud of myself and wanted to jot it down somewhere.

One last thing...

The one thing that I've been slacking on is the triathlon training, and that's also the one thing that I can't afford to be slacking on. Today was supposed to be a run day, but after the day's activities, I'm pooped. Maybe I can double up my workouts tomorrow by making up the running bit and doing the swimming as scheduled. The only real problem is that I've been putting off running for months now and it just so happens that the day that I go snowboarding is the day a run is scheduled. Coincidence? I think not!

Since I was gone all day, my roommate who I'm supposed to run the triathlon with in April, got in a huge workout, both running and swimming, even though she didn't have to do the swim part today. I'm super jealous because she's already in better shape than me (and much skinnier so she has less weight to carry around) and now she's getting extra workouts in. And I don't even wanna run this damn thing! I mean, I do wanna do the tri, but not this particular one. It's SUPER hilly (this guy who's a coach and major veteran said it's tough but doable...not something I wanna hear for my first attempt as couch potato to triathlete) and I'm so not prepared. I went on a bike ride the other day, rather flat and nothing compared to what we'll be facing in Vegas, and my average speed was 10.1 mph. At that rate, it's going to take me 2.5 hours to do the bike portion alone. That doesn't include the swim or the equally hilly 6.2-mile run. I keep telling her this but she says that I should stop looking at the posts and elevation profiles and just do it. Umm...I'm being realistic here. There is no way in hell I'll be able to finish this thing and I'm not about to go out there and fail. So that's been a sort of spat that has hampered my progress. My heart's just not in it and so I have no desire to even train. Ay ay ay. The stress...

I said I'd finish up about 3 paragraphs ago, so night!