9 Months to Tri

First of all, congratulations to Brett. New job, new baby on the way, and now a new racing business. We’re hoping him all the best out there in Arizona, and can’t wait to get out there and run with him in the 100 degree weather. What? Who said that?

As for me, its been 22 days since I’ve made an entry. Things have not been up to snuff for a while now. I just weighed in at 268 lbs., and I’ve missed both my 8 and 9 month weigh-ins (which at this point have been reduced to weight and push-ups). I’m still not doing the 12 minute run, which I probably could, except that I’m staying away from the treadmill as I’ve been advised to do so from my doctor, my physical therapist and even Garrett and Mike from the gym have agreed it would be a bad idea. And there’s no new body-fat monitor, so that’s still out as well.

Anyway, after weighing in at 268 lbs., I spent a lot of time thinking about where I am now in my training as regards to where I was 8 months ago. Its not great, but its not unrecoverable, either. I think. Before we get into it, don’t worry. Nothing horrible is going on. There’s nothing here that I’m crying for help with or anything like that. Its just life, and the way life can sneak stuff in on you when you’re not paying attention. Or, sometimes it doesn’t so much sneak as pound you over the head, but you know what I mean. Happens to all of us from time to time.

My Head

The first thing I’ve come to realize is that when I first started I was highly focused on the training. It occupied a large portion of my thinking, whether I was training or not. Perhaps artificially so. For the first month or three, it was new and exciting. For the next three months, it was winter and what the heck am I going to do anyway? But then there was this stupid knee problem, and a number of things I’d either been putting off or just plain ignoring started to exert pressure on my time and attention at home, and of course not to mention the changes at work. Not that I wasn’t busy before, but some of these are just more mentally draining than others, and my head, as they say, simply isn’t in the game.

Also, where before I could at least make the 10 hours/week to get to the gym or pool, it seems to be difficult to squeeze even 6 hours in a week these days. I’m not sure I can say I’ve made it to the gym more than 3 times in a week for over a month now. When you factor in drive time each way, showering, changing and exercising: 2 hours = 1 workout.

Now I’m about 2 weeks away from when I’m supposed to be running a race, and I haven’t even picked one out. My head is so far removed from the goal, that it feels like it sneaked up on me. Its hard to hit a goal that you aren’t really shooting for.

My Training

Working out has become something of a habit for me, which is nice. Its the habit that’s kept me going. Its no where near enough, but its better than quitting cold turkey. I come to work every day with my gym bag packed and ready to go. I’m still making progress on my cardio, though I’m wondering about my weights. There’s no doubt in my mind that I can finish a sprint triathlon. The question is whether I will finish it strong, or jogging in at a turtle’s pace.

So, what have my workouts been like, lately? I’m not sure I can really answer that well, since I really shone new light on my situation this week, and surprised myself. First of all, my workouts this week were Wed, Thurs, and Friday. I think its the first time in a long time I’ve worked out 3 days in a row, and I’m really feeling it. In fact, I’m in a bit of shock that I can’t remember the last time I felt this kind of sore. It hasn’t happened recently, and it should be happening more often.

Anyway, weight days have been reduced to 2 sets, rather than 3. Its the only way I can finish and get back to work in 2 hours. I’m really thinking I need a new routine, though, since I feel like I’m going thru the motions at this point. Maybe I’ll hit Mike up for a new one after the race. Last thing I need is to start bashing on muscles that haven’t been worked in a while just before a race. Swim days haven’t really changed much over the past 8 months. In fact, yesterday I got in just under a mile in about 30 minutes. I was really sore from the weights the day before, tho, and it took me a quarter mile before the stiffness left my arms and I could really open it up. And today, I did 12 miles on the stationary bike and then ran 2 miles. I hate the stationary bike. I need to just start riding my own in. There’s a serious comfort factor, and a bike is supposed to sway a bit from side to side as your weight shifts with the pedaling. This bike just causes pain in places it shouldn’t and is unnatural. Also, while you can make the resistance go up and down, its just not the same as a road changing its grade as you ride on it. However, the 12 mi ride and 2 mi run is a new personal achievement.

My Nutrition

Like the workouts, a lot of what I’ve been practicing has really started to stick as habit. That’s good. When was the last time you’ve had someone set a steak in front of you and been disappointed that it wasn’t a nice piece of salmon or tilapia? 9 months ago I would have watered over the steak, but now I yearn for fish. Chicken however, doesn’t hold that much sway. I’m sure I’d take a steak over chicken, any day. And the occasional cheese burger attack still occurs, though less every month.

However, I’m not focused on the nutrition right now. I’m coasting. And any racer will tell you that if you’re coasting, you’re slowing down. I’ve noticed that. An extra cookie here. An extra helping of mashed potatoes there. Did somebody just open a bag of Doritos? It does seem related to the keeping of a journal, but not entirely, as I’ve noticed that my journal entries have progressively gotten worse, too. I’ve seen it in the numbers as I’ve put back on roughly 5 lbs over the past 2-3 months. I’ve run into this problem several times before. See, I get working hard, and my calories go up to compensate. Then, I stop burning, but don’t scale down my eating to match, and now I’m taking in way more than I need, and I put on weight. 17500 calories worth of weight actually. While I was still working out 4-5 days per week, I was maintaining. Once I slipped below 4 workouts per week, the weight started creeping back on.

Here’s a numbers game:

1 lb of body fat = 3500 calories.

I burn just over 1000 cal/hour when I run.

I have to run 3.5 hours to burn 1 lb of fat, and that’s assuming I’m taking in 3500 calories less than I need, otherwise I don’t actually burn any fat, I just burn the calories I’m taking in.

The Project

Finally, its not just the workouts and diet that have been affected. It probably took me a good half-hour per day to keep track of my food intake. Seriously. It seems like a small thing, but remembering to stop everything and write down what you’ve just eaten is kind of this horrible burden when you’re really busy. Its 3-4 hours/week of your time and mental energy. I could probably do it privately in a notebook easier, but I was trying to do it as a companion to this blog, which meant I had to find a computer and log in every time I wanted to record something.

And blog posts take time. This one will probably take 60 - 90 minutes as I sit here and try to formulate what I want to say. So, when time started disappearing, so did blogging. After all, blogging one hour every 3 weeks certainly takes less time than blogging a couple times a week. Though, updates once a week would probably be all I really need to do.

The Future

I’m not sure this is the way to go, but this is where I think I’m at. Summer is crazy. The kid is out of school. We’re all over the place on the weekends (even if its just in the back yard). I want to do this run, and set up another one for mid to late September. I’ll regroup in October and see what’s coming up next.

Further nutrition training will probably have to wait until October. Unless someone feels like making me a menu that my wife will actually cook, I think I’ll have to continue coasting thru the summer, but I will be paying more attention to calorie intake.

My ideal workout schedule for summer will be M-weights / Tu-Bike & Run / Wed-Swim / Th-weights / Fri-Bike & Run. This will change based on weather forecasts and the like, but there it is.

I’m going to keep weekly blog posts, probably at least thru my September race, but I might switch over to either a paper food journal, or an online journal that does more than takes notes. Not sure yet, but the electronic one I’ve got now obviously isn’t working, since I feel its more a drain on my time and returns very little.

Well. That’s my plan. Let’s see how it goes.

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