It's the "cheese"!

So, I've posted a decent amount about the afternoon GI issues that I have. At one point, I thought that it was something in lunch meat that causes me issues. Then, when I bring in chicken or salmon to eat for lunch, I don't have the GI issues that afternoon. I've been playing around with different lunch items that may cause me to cut the cheese all afternoon long. Well, I think it's the "cheese". I put fat free cheese on my sandwiches for lunch. Today, I didn't put cheese on my sandwich and my afternoon gasiness is nonexistant. That's about the only thing that I can think of that's different today. Next week, I'll play with putting the fat free cheese on my sandwiches and then not putting it on the next day.

Man, if it's the "cheese" that's causing me to cut the cheese, I'll feel so much better when I'm not eating it anymore.

Not Sore

I'm no longer sore. Well, not just walking around, but if you touch me the right way, I'll hurt a bit. I've been hitting the foam roller and TP ball every day and that is helping a lot.

Regarding my afternoon GI issues, I think regular lunch meat causes me the issues. Yesterday, I had salmon and Spanish rice for lunch and I didn't notice much GI issues. Today, it's 3:30 and my stomach is starting to feel funny. I'll try some more stuff out though, but I think it is the lunch meat.

My race report is coming soon. As I said before, I was almost done with it and then the computer ate it.

Suckage

You know what sucks? When you are typing up the next to last paragraph of about a 20 paragraph race report and you do something stupid to make to go away. Fuck, that sucks. I'll work on it again tomorrow at work.

Sore, not anymore

After Buffalo Springs on Sunday, I was pretty sore immediately after the race. I loosened up a bit during the day though. Monday was pretty painful, especially with my hamstrings, IT band, and lateral quads. I worked with a TP massage ball and the foam roller for about an hour last night. Today, I did an easy 1500yd swim and then 40min on the spin bike. I'm almost back to normal now. I'm actually recovering pretty quickly and that'll be sped up by more TP ball and foam roller work tonight.

Also, my race report is coming soon.

179.5!

Hah, I'm finally under 180. Woohoo! I'm starting to carb load today so by race day I'll be up to 186 or something crazy like that in 3 days. Then, I'll drop it all next week.

I went for a swim this morning. Short swim of 1500yds with 500 warmup, 6x100 at best average pace, and 2x200 cooldown. The water was cold this morning, or my comfort zone is changing because I'm losing weight. Even dropping 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks has really affected me. I'm almost always cold now and it isn't fun.

Swimming @ The Dick

I went swimming at Dick Nichols pool again this morning. I like that pool. It's clean, not crowded, and 25yds. It's kind of warm, but most pools are at this time of the year. I did about 1800yds with a 500 warmup, 5x100 build each 25, 12x50 with 25 fast, 25 steady, and then 200 cooldown.

As I was eating an apple for breakfast this morning, I realized that I haven't had any good produce in awhile. The Pink Lady apples are tasty, but the texture of the flesh isn't good. They are soft and aren't as crips. I really like Braeburn apples, though. And Gala. I had an absolutely horrible orange yesterday. It was just nasty and I couldn't finish it at all. I've had some bad strawberries lately as well. Man, I just want some yummy produce.

For supplements, I'm on a new fish oil, glucosamine & chondroitin, and a multivitamin in the morning. At night, I take ZMA when I remember. I haven't noticed the crappy feeling like I did last time and I'm not on the B complex vitamins anymore. I was on the B complex vitamins because my nutritionist said that antidepressants tend to deplete your body of B vitamins. Since I'm not the Lexapro anymore, I shouldn't need additional B complex vitamins.

My weight this morning was 180.5. I was also up at 4am because I couldn't sleep. Way too much crap on my mind right now, but the swim this morning helped it out a bit.

181, kinda

Yesterday I weighed in at 180. Today was 181 and that was after me going out and having about 4 beers last night. So, I take this as a good sign that I'm actually starting to lose weight again. About damn time! I think I'm getting slightly more toned as well.

Today is suppose to be a rest day since Buffalo Springs is coming up next weekend, but I'm going to do the J&A core workout today. I think doing some strength training/core workouts like that really helps me out in the long run, especially when I'm trying to lose weight. It's weird, but that's what I did when I dropped 15+ lbs in 2 months in college. I did some cardio, watched what I was eating, and lifted weights a lot. Man, that was fun. I still can't believe that I weighed just 168 at that point. Hopefully I'll be able to get down there again. Right now, I'm looking forward to 179.

The beer last night was part of a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Fund put on by the Austin LUNA Chix. It started at about 6, I showed up at 6:30, and I was home by 8:45. Man, I passed out on my couch at about 9:15. Four beers and I was gone for the night. I'm getting old or something.

Weird

Ok, I swear today's workout was like a Seinfeld episode or something. Just a bunch of weird stuff happening.

First off, I pulled into Zilker Park at around 8:30 to try to get in there before I had to pay for parking. I told the parking attendant, some youngish girl, that I was going to Barton Springs. And she says "Wow, you have beautiful eyes!" and waved me on. I said "Thanks", smiled, and went on. That's a nice way to start my day.

I got in the water and aquajogged a lap. At this point, it was 9am so I got out and paid. When I got back in, I finished up 3 more laps of aquajogging. Damn, it's boring, but I think now that I can do 4 laps of aquajogging, I can do any mind numbingly boring task. It used to take me about 25 minutes to do a lap, and I can now do a lap in under 17 minutes. I'm not using my arms much at all either, I'm just using the running motions to propel myself through the water very, very slowly, but not as slowly as I used to.

Towards the end of my aquajogging, it happened. I've always heard about it, but I've never witnessed it with my own eyes. Topless girls. Yep, there were two girls swimming around Barton Springs topless. Now, they weren't that attractive, but it was cool more for the novelty of it. It was funny though because when I was doing a recovery swim, I was heading to the dam at the far end of the pool. I was heading into the shadows and I saw something right as I was grabbing for the pipes. I look left and it was Topless Girl #1. I look right and Topless Girl #2 was about 3 feet away. I apologized for almost crashing into the topless girls and I kept on swimming. It was funny because all of these old perverted men were trying to find anything to say to them.

I did my 4 laps and got out of the water. I'm freezing right now, but I'm drinking my vanilla yogurt, protein powder, lowfat chocolate milk, peanut butter, strawberry, and mixed berry smoothie right now which is also cooling me off.

At PT last week, Kathryn found that my left hamstring is still super tight. I'm going to take my TP ball and try to work on the hamstring about twice a day to get it to loosen up a bit. I'm going to do a full round of PT exercises as well. I need to stick with this PT a little bit better so that I can recover fully.

July 1st will be McDonald's Day

July 1st will be McDonald's Day. What does that mean? I'll eat at McDonald's at least twice, probably 3 times that day. I'll do it to get it out of my system. After July 1st, I'll never eat at McDonald's again. How many people you know say "I can't remember the last time I've eaten at McDonald's!" Well, I currently can't remember, but I want to remember right down to the day that I last ate at McDonald's. The last day that I had a cigarette was January 4th, 2006 and I've gone nearly 6 months without a single puff. I've been tempted, but I won't smoke again. I want to do the same thing with McDonald's because it represents all of the fast food industry. Now, I'll still probably eat fast food because I occaisionally eat at Wendy's, Whataburger, Taco Bell, Taco Cabana, and Sonic from time to time, but it's maybe 2-3 times per month at most.

It's funny because I used to work at a McD's in high school. I was a damn good employee, too. I worked there for over a year and ofcourse I ate their food all the time. I was working 40 hours per week while going to school, still made straight A's, but all of my food was coming in the form of greasy burgers and fries. Man, when I was a teenager, my metabolism was through the roof and I ate a ton of food. I can't imagine what damage I did to my body that year and a half I worked there. I wouldn't even consider it now. I only have 1 more day of eating at McDonald's and then I'm done with it, hopefully forever.

Rainy day turned sunny

Shit, I was in a foul mood this morning. I had been on Friday because I hadn't worked out since Wednesday night. Thursday was the date (no core workoutns involved) and 2 doctor appointments. Friday, I felt like crap in the morning, I sold my car, balanced my finances in Quicken, and went to bed. I wasn't feeling well and I decided I needed sleep more than a swim. I woke up this morning after about 10 hours of sleep to thunderstorms. Damnit, no taco ride then. I went and ran some errands instead. Later in the day, the sun came out and it was in the 80's. I went for a 2.5 ride and got in about 50 miles so I was averaging close to 20mph. That was with all the stopping and crap that I had to do as well. It was pretty damn windy today. Very swirly and just all over the place. I felt good the entire ride and went through 5 bottles of fluid on the ride. I only peed once, though. I seriously think I need 60oz of water per hour or something like that. I started off with 2 bottles of InfinIT IM formula which has 300 calories per bottle and 2 bottles of water with a single Nuun tablet. I also stopped at some bike shop on Bee Caves and filled up with plain water there. I felt fine the entire ride. I actually felt great when I was done. I could tell that I worked today, but not fatigued at all. I was suppose to do a 30min run afterwards, but my doctor doesn't want me running for a few days.

Oh, that reminds me, I saw the doc on Thursday about my wart. I wanted him to nuke it from orbit to get rid of it because it's screwing up my running gait. He said to lay off of the acid that I'm putting on it and lay off of running for a few days. The acid is creating fissures in the healthy skin around the wart and running is causing a callous to form on top of the wart. He'll take a look at it in 2 weeks and scrape off some of the skin to see how it looks. This sucker is huge and I can't wait to get rid of it. I have pictures of the original wart if anyone wants to see it.

I feel like crap

I'm feeling slightly sick today. I only had 2 drinks last night, but I was feeling wiped out last night from them. This morning I have some head stuff going on and I'm really, really tired. I'm suppose to swim tonight, but we'll see if I do that or not. I may just call it an early night, get 10 hours of sleep, and then go ride in the morning on the taco ride.

BP

I got my BP checked today at the doctor's office. It's 118/68 with a pulse of 61bpm. My blood pressure is much better than it was about 2 weeks ago when it was 135/78. My pulse is still high which is strange because it should be lower from all the training that I'm doing. I would expect it to be under 54 by now, closer to 50.

Wednesday was crazy

Wednesday was crazy. It was probably a little too much, but I felt like I had to do it anyways. I did about a 6 mile fartlek run at lunch. I should've done it in the morning, but with Buffalo Springs coming up, I'm trying to get as many workouts in the heat in as possible. This one was hot and my arms were tingly afterwards, too. Not a good sign, but I felt like I ran pretty strong the entire time. The loop around work is weird because it doesn't matter how fast or how slow I run, it always feels like I always finish a loop within 30 seconds of every other loop that I've done before.

I went to the J&A core workout again. I really need to keep getting to these because they kick my ass. My abs were so sore from Monday that I could only do 1 pullup at the beginning. I just had shooting pain down the front of my torso when I did that first pullup. After the workout and I was warmed up, I think I did 5 chinups and 4 pullups which surprised me that I did that many when I was that fatigued. Afterwards, I did a 10 minute cooldown run with Meg.

After that, I went to Deep Eddy and swam about 8x200yds there. It was nice and easy and I was working on my form. I also wanted to do a cool water swim since it was really hot outside and my legs are starting to feel trashed. Speaking of, I need to schedule a massage with Ron next week.

Nice calves!

I was walking into work this morning and 2 ladies that I work with were walking behind me. They were making comments about my calves. Of course I had to stop and flex for them and they enjoyed the show.

I was suppose to do a run workout today, but I'm not. I just don't have time. I'm worn out from working out the last 2 days, I have 2 doctor appointments today, and a date later tonight. So, no time for me, but it's OK.

I also weighed in at 180 this morning. I think it's mostly due to me being dehydrated slightly so I'm not that excited about it. I'll be excited when I register at 178.

Abs Hurt

I did the J&A's core workout on Monday. I'm sore now and it hurts to sneeze. My lats are pretty sore as well. So sore that it was an interesting swim on Tuesday morning. I went to a new pool, Dick Nichols, that is near my house actually. It isn't as crowded as Stacy, it is cleaner than Stacy, and it's cooler that Stacy. And it's 25yds so I'm quite happy with it and I'll be swimming there from now on. Problem is that lap swimming is open only from 6:30-7:30am so if I want to get an hour swim in, I have to be there right at 6:30.

I did the Tuesday Nighter last night. I was told to meet at Pure Austin at 5pm and there would be a group riding out from there. I showed up and the only person that I recognized was Amy Marsh, Brandon's wife. Well, she didn't know anyone else and it was her first time there as well so we rode out there together with the group. She also had some cash and bought me Gatorade because I forgot my wallet at work. It was over 100 degrees when we left so it was going to be hot!

We rode out there fairly easily and I got better at riding in a group. I don't have problems taking turns behind someone, but I'm a little sketchy on turning next to someone. I practiced these skills out there. Once we got there, I recognized Scott and maybe one or two others. This is definitely a roadie race because there were few triathletes there. The A's left and then the B's waited about 5 minutes. Then, I was off.

The first half lap was kind of slow. About 3 miles, the pace picked up a bit and at one point there were some guys that tried to pull off the front. They were separating from the pack and I didn't want to get dropped so I powered through and caught on to the back of that pack. We were absolutely flying and I was loving it. It was scary as hell but it's what I expected. Taking some of the corners were pretty scary though and it was good that I was getting used to it. I was sticking with the main back pretty well, but it was tough because they were moving fast. I'm just not used to that type of racing, but I'm pretty good in time trial efforts. I tried to rest whenever I could. There was one right turn that I didn't know about and there was a hill after that as well and I was totally in the wrong gear. I had to work my ass off to catch up with the rest of the group.

I kept up with the lead pack for the 1st lap. Amy got dropped at the right turn with the following up hill, but I was able to recover. On the first lap, I climbed up the hill pretty strongly. Well, that was my downfall. As I was cresting the hill, there was some random guys attacking and I tried to keep up by barrelling down that hill. This didn't allow me a chance to rest at all. After another right turn and some rollers, I quickly dropped off the back of the pack while I was fighting so hard to stay on, but I just couldn't. My race was done, but I was still going to push. I kept pedaling and I had the pack in sight for awhile. At some point, I passed two other cyclists and we ended up working together for the rest of the lap. Each of us would take about 1-2 minute pulls in front. I got us up 1 big hill and I switched off. That was fun as well because I was learning when I needed to pedal harder to stay on someones wheel when I dropped back. It also felt like I had slightly more energy than the other guys because I would pick up the pace slightly when it was my turn to pull. I kept my cadence higher in the 95+ range as well. I completed the 2nd lap and I was done. I met up with Amy again and we rode back to Pure Austin.

Overall, I did about 40 miles on Tuesday. It was freaking hot and I had 4 bottles of fluid and I still felt horribly dehydrated. It was fun though and it was very tough on my cardio system. I needed something like that and I'll be back at some point soon.

My weight this morning was 181 which is down from 184 from yesterday. My new car is awesome and I still have to write up my Tejas Triathlon race report. BTW, I got 6th in my age group and once again I had a great run for me.

Lung Busting Workout

First of all, 184lbs. I fucking hate my body.

I had a lung bursting workout this morning. I was suppose to swim yesterday, but work kind of got in the way of that. Today was suppose to be a rest day, so I just swapped days. Jamie told me to do a warmup and then do 12x75 as 25 fast, 50 strong. Well, since I swim in a 33yd pool, I ended up doing 12x100 as 33 fast, 66 strong. I also did a 600yd warmup and a 200yd cooldown. Damn, I freaking hurt this morning. Total lung bursting workout. I was exhausted and I was trying to push each 100, but each one hurt worse and worse. I got through it though and the reason why is because I know doing sprints like this will make me faster. My shoulders were hurting and even my pecs were tired towards the end. Man, it felt good though. I was asked to circle swim, but the guy that asked me was pretty much the only other regular competent swimmer that I've seen at Stacy. We were lapping the other guy pretty badly so circle swimming wasn't that bad this time.

Also, I'm going to Houston tomorrow to pick up my Outback. I can't wait.

New triathlon-mobile

Well, it looks like I'll be getting a new car this weekend. It's a 2002 Subaru Outback that is loaded and in great condition. Here is the link to the Autotrader ad. It's quite nice and I'm really excited about getting a new car, especially one with AC. This will be my first car paymenth though so I'm not happy about that. Eh, it's a new car though. Man, I can't wait to actually get it. Woohoo! I finally have a car that is a lot more triathlon friendly than my 2 dr Honda.

Tired Legs

I have tired legs. Don't know why. Well, OK I've had 2 tough days the last couple of days. Tomorrow I'm suppose to swim, but I think I'm going to take it off instead. Plus, work is pretty busy tomorrow. After my run last night, I had another 30 minute run this morning. Running fartleks without an HRM is somewhat difficult.

The bike tonight was tough. I should've ridden outside, but I did the spin bike instead. I hate it, but it's safer and easier to deal with. Plus, I got to talk to Janee and I haven't talked to her since she started the night shift. She did say that I'm looking trim which is like the 3rd person to say that to me in the last 2 weeks. I guess that's a good sign, but my weight has changed maybe by like 2 pounds in the last 2 months. I'll take it when I can get it. I'm crashing now because I'm exhausted.

I really need to stop swimming at Stacy

I went swimming at Big Stacy pool this morning. I either need to be there in the water at 5:58 or I need to find another place to swim. I can't stand circle swimming unless everyone in the lane is about the same speed. The reason why I don't want to swim at Stacy is because I'm almost always the fastest person there and I never get to circle swim with people the same speed as me. Circle swimming with slower people just screws up my workout way too much.

I also ran 8.2 miles tonight. It was hot, but I felt pretty good. I had some stomach upsettedness issues and I think I might have figured out what is causing this. I think it might be turkey that I ate at lunch today. It always starts at about 4pm in the afternoon and lasts to about 7 or 8pm. No heart rate monitor or watch so I have no clue what my time was or my heart rate was either.

Weight was 182 yesterday and 183 today.

Oh, I'm pissed about CapTexTri. I looked at the results today and somehow I moved down to 11th place. Someone else's results came in and they place above me. Damnit, I really wanted to place in the Top 10.

Weight Games & a bunch of other crap

Over the last couple of days, I've been playing some weight games. When I woke up yesterday, I weighed 182.5lbs. After my workout, I weighed 179, so I lost 3.5 lbs during the workout. This was after drinking 5 containers of fluids as well. Yeah, I really need to up my fluid intake. Today, I weighed in at 183.5. That was higher because I was hydrating last night with alcoholic beverages which tend to dehydrate me and make me retain water at the same time. It's weird, but that's why my weight was higher this morning. After my run this morning, I came back and weighed 179. Yep, I lost 4.5 pounds. It's interesting though.

My run today was fine for the first 2 laps. As soon as I hit the 3rd lap, it got painful. My legs were heavy. I felt like I could keep up a decent pace, but once I hit a hill, I would reduce to walking. I had Gu's this time so I think it was just the heat and the drinking last night. I had a ton of water at the water stops and I started my day out with some InfinIT. I planned on doing a full 3 4.1 mile loops, but on the 3rd loop, I stopped and talked with Betsy. She had bonked and I was having a painful run, so I stopped and walked with her. I ended up actually running about 11.5 miles.

Speaking of, my InfinIT came in yesterday. I have a formulation that I call "316cal/24oz". I can either put 2 scoops in one bottle and then take one plain water bottle with Nuun per hour, or I can put 1 scoop each in 2 bottles and use that per hour on the bike. Well, I got the stuff with minimal flavor and let me tell you, there sure is minimal flavor in it. My next formulation will have slightly more flavor because right now it tastes very bland and bitter almost. I'll be trying it out on the bike soon though. The formulation is thin which i good because it'll be a lot easier for me to take it down.

After my run, I soaked in the free part of Barton Springs and now it's been almost 2 hours since I got out of the water and I'm still shivering. There's something wrong with walking around your house with the temp set at 78 and your wearing a hooded sweatshirt and you're thinking about putting on more clothes to keep warm. That is partially because of my weight loss. I think I'm starting to see the outlines of some abs. Maybe. My weight is definitely declining, slowly though, and it'll be just a matter of time now. I will have washboard abs, damnit!

Bonk

This morning I did a 43 mile ride with Meggers, Logan, and Charles. It was a slower ride and I averaged only 17.1mph. We started after 9am so it wasn't until after noon that we were done. Then, we met back up at J&A's and left for a run. I peeled off after about 20 minutes because I only had to do a ~30 minute run while everyone else was doing 10+ miles. Man, I nearly bonked. All that I ate today was a PB&J sandwich for breakfast and then 3 bottles of about 175 calories in each bottle. I felt good at the start of the run, but by the end I felt horrible. I had no energy and it was tough to keep my legs moving. I was getting loopy mentally as well. I needed food and I went over to ATC and ate some pizza. They threw the tacos away! Of course, it was 2pm by this point so it's understandable. My lesson learned today is that I now know what'll happen when I don't take in enough calories while training.

Yoga

I went to yoga today for the first time in a month. It was good. I almost fell asleep during shavasana though. I think I might have been snoring a bit as well. I feel a lot more relaxed because the last couple of days have been stressful But they've also been relaxing as well; it's been very weird. Also, today was a skinny day as well, but I didn't weigh myself. I'll do that tomorrow.

Also, I can't believe how good I feel from the CapTexTri. I'm still high and full of energy from doing so well on Monday. Man, I absolutely love racing. I have so much fun during a race. The only workouts I've done this week was a 300m swim on Thursday and then yoga today. I don't like taking this much time off of training especially since I didn't feel tired after the race at all. I should've done more training, but it's good to rest. But usually when I'm resting, I should be sleeping as well.