Grr…my plan so far has been so-so. It has been great working out at the Faclonbridge O2 Fitness gym in the mornings before work. That idea is great. But I have not been doing so good on the eating side of things. A 45 minute workout just doesn’t burn enough calories to allow me to eat as much as I want to. Especially with holiday goodies (or crappies) tempting me! I really need a 2 hour workout every day! Argh. I wish my body wasn’t so damn efficient. I will keep plugging away at it.
In an effort to get back on track with my weight and exercise, I have resurrected my diet blog. I actually started the diet blog about two years prior to this one. At some point, I hit a plateau in my weight loss journey and I began working out to burn more calories. The rest is history – which you can read here on this site. I like blogging about things going on in my life – it provides a wonderful emotional outlet – much like therapy. And if it helps inspire others struggling with the same issues, than that is icing on the cake. Mmmmm, cake. Cake is evil.
One lesson I have learned since working full time is that it takes planning to fit workouts into a busy life. My new job has different hours, so I need a new plan for how to make that work. Here is a first cut:
- I’m not going to do any lunchtime workouts. For one, I’m not near any O2 fitness clubs at my new office. :-( And I don’t know what the culture is yet for taking long lunches and coming early/staying late to make up for it. I think it’s a bit flexible, but I want to prove my worth to my boss before asking about that.
- I don’t have to be at work until 9am. I need to take advantage of that extra hour in the morning, even though I hate early am workouts. There is another O2 Fitness club on my way to work. I am going to try getting to that one at 7am each day this week:
- spin class at 7am on Monday
- treadmill on Tuesday
- Wednesday off
- Bootcamp class at 7am on Thursday.
- treadmill on Friday (I actually like treadmills!)
- Saturday and Sunday will be long bike and long run days. If the weather is too cold for bike, I’ll just do two run days.
- I need to organize all my stuff again into bags for different workouts. I was really good about that until my last race of the season, and now my workout crap is all over the place in my house. ACK!!!!
Now for some light entertainment – which includes cake – click on the image below:
Tags: balancing life and work, planning
I want to thank, Denise, a blog reader who emailed me with concern that I had not posted in a long time. That really touched me to know that someone out there in bloggy land missed my musings. So, thank you, Denise!
If you,ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I started working full time shortly after completing my Ironman race a year ago. Well, working full time and trying to fit training in is very hard. My job was stressful and the hours were not flexible, and I gained ten pounds. I had a pretty good season last year, but my speed was not where it was in my “Ironman days”. And it was nowhere near where I wanted it to be.
I found a brand new job that I started this week – which I am completely loving! It is a much better fit with my web skills. Right now I am in training so it’s not stressful. Once I ramp up to speed, I think it will be long hours and some stress, but I will be doing really cool stuff and working with really cool people for a really cool company. I think the cool factor will negate the stress factor.
Still, I am struggling with trying to lose a few pounds and trying to fit in training with a super busy life. It doesn’t matter how much you like your job, it still eats up your training hours. And I do miss my “part time work at home” lifestyle where I could go out and ride my bike for three hours on a Thursday afternoon.
I think I have gained another five pounds this month and have hardly worked out at all. I need to get out of this couch potato funk, and QUICK. Help!
Tags: balance, blue pill, couch potato, ironman days, red pill
I did the Washington NC Half Iron race on October 30th, 2010. It was an awesome race venue. Here is a news article about it. http://tinyurl.com/34c89je
I loved the race course and it was perfectly organized by Finish Strong! Finish Strong’s motto is “Racing done Right”, and I can vouch for that!
Official Results:
Swim 1.2 miles: 35:49.5, pace of 1:42
T1: 3:00
Bike 56 miles: 2:56:49.6 pace of 19 mph
T2: 4:06
Run 13.1 miles: 2:23:56.3, pace of 11:00 min/mile
Overall: 6:03:40.8
Age group rank: 1 out of 2
Overall Female rank : 11 out of 21
Swim:
Brrr cold. My feet did not feel cold in the shallow water while waiting to start. But once we got into deeper water, OMG, it was take your breath away cold. I swam hard just to try an warm up. I focused hard on swimming a good line, too, becuase I wanted to get out of that cold water. I even had a full wetsuit on, and still felt cold. I didn’t hear if they announced the official water temperature on race day, but conditions at Bath, NC show a low water temp of 60 and a high of 65. That makes this the coldest swim I have ever done!
This was a PR swim time for me. I swam too hard, methinks, cuz the rest of my day was just ‘off’. I think my body was tense, and I was making those tense muscles work hard, and they did not like it so rebelled later on.
T1:
Came out of the water and tripped running up to the transition area. Lots of people asked me if I was okay. I said yes, laughed, and got up and continued on my way.
It was cold, and I was wet. I pulled my wetsuit half way off, and started to put my jacket on. It was really hard getting it on over wet skin. I had to pee really badly, so I just started peeing in my wetsuit while I struggled with my jacket. It was nice and warm, lol. It was kind of gross when I pulled my wetsuit legs off. I will spare you the details there.
Bike:
Great flat bike course. Not windy. Mostly smooth roads. Should have been fast!
I felt really ‘off’. The course was flat and felt sooo hard. I kept pushing hard and only getting 18 or 19mph. I can usually put down a 20 mph speed on flat with no wind without killing myself. I kept looking for flagpoles hoping to see that maybe it was a very windy day, but every flag I saw was limp. So weird. I pushed way too hard and didn’t even get a great time. Halfmax was a harder course on a windy day, yet I was faster that day with less effort.
Garmin Data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54913030
You can see there are alot of turns on this course. They were all very well marked! Great volunteers pointing the way waving bright orange flags at every turn. Thank you, FS Series! Racing done right!
T2:
The last hour of the bike I had to pee really badly. When I got to T2, I really couldn’t hold it any longer. So, I just sat in the grass right there in transition and peed my pants. It took a long time, but was great relief! I also took the time to put on my injinji toe socks. I had practiced that alot leading up to this race, and got it down to 45 seconds. I did not want toe blisters slowing me down on the run, and I figured the 45 seconds would be gained back in the run. It did not matter much today, but I think on a good day, it would be worth it.
Run:
Great run course, mostly flat, went thru downtown Washington, NC, a quaint little town by the riverfront. Perfect weather.
This run was basically a slog fest for me. Every muscle in my body ached as if someone had beat the crap out of me, and I could not make dead muscles go fast.
I tripped at mile 4 and banged up my knee. It was just a flesh wound, so did not impact my race, it just left a nice bloody battle wound. 
Garmin data: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54913033
Easy to follow run course! Simple out and back twice, no need to think while in the pain cave. Great volunteer support provided by some ECU sorority girls who were so sweet. At the turn around for after the first lap, I asked some girls if I could trade in my legs for a fresh pair. They said I could do that at the finish. When I passed them the second time, they remembered me, and said “Fresh legs just ahead”. That was just awesome!
Friendly folks along the downtown area, too. I asked one couple if they would run a mile for me, they laughed. On the last lap heading back in, I asked an older gentlemen if he would give me a piggy back ride the rest of the way. He laughed and said “You look like you’re doing just fine”.
Post Race:
Hung around with a BT friend, “spot”. He had a great race – Congrats! I got an award for first age group. It was a ceramic travel coffee mug. Very cool and useful award. I also got a really cool hoodie in my race packet instead of the usual T-shirt. I love that they give out different and useful things instead of the same old crap!
Had a very hard time again driving home. I had to stop and rest and refuel with my traditional burger and fries (and a Frosty, too!). I think I will do this race next year, but make a fun weekend out of it.
Other Thoughts:
Why I didn’t do as well as I had hoped:
- sporadic training the last month. i took 10 days off after Halfmax. Then I did a hard week. Then I kind of just winged it.
- poor sleep and nutrition week before race. I am usually very careful about what I eat leading up to a race.
- I did not do any yoga the week before race. I usually try to do it every day to get myself all loose for race day. I just didn’t have time or motivation this time around.
More thoughts
maybe i just suck and am making up excuses- maybe i should just be happy that I can do this stuff at my age and be happy because a six hour half ironman is a solid finish time. I have it in my head that since I did a full iron at 12 hours, I should be able to easily beat six hours at the half. But, those were my ironman days…
Photos:
I did not take alot of photos this race. I got there just in time, so I was rushed setting things up. And afterwards, I was too sore and tired.
Twitter friend @runfastermommy has written an excellent blog post about the World Triathlon Corporations announcement regarding their new Ironman Access Program. Read it here.
My advice to Runfastermommy, and anyone considering a full iron distance race: do a non-WTC branded race instead!
- I highly recommend the Rev3Tri series of races as a superior alternative to WTC. They have a full distance race in Ohio, staged at Cedar Point amusement park. Very cool.
- Or, do a smaller local Iron race. I had a great race at Beach2Battleship Iron distance race. I spent a lot less money on it than a WTC race – in race fees AND travel expenses. Plus, I got a really cool tattoo when my race was done. I still love my tattoo. :-)
