Monday, March 23, 2009

Shake and Bake, Baby!

Spent all weekend at one ball park or another. Bo had a tournament all weekend and Briar had a game Saturday night. Bo's team finished runner up in the tournament. We stopped to eat dinner on the way home, and Bo, sitting there looking at his "runner up" medal, looked up and says:

Bo: Mom, we got last.

Me: No, Bo! You guys got second!

~Long pause as he looks out of the top of his eyes and grins~

Bo: But Mom, Ricky Bobby sayzzzzzzzz...

And you know the rest of the story...

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patricks Day!

No, I'm not ordinarily this festive, but put a $50 card gift card on the line and well...I all the sudden get festive. Except that I forgot I'm must not be the only one needing that dang gift card during this recession...other people came into work with decked out from head to toe, flashing green earrings, nails painted green, everything. So I probably won't win the $50 gift card, but oh well. You should've seen me this morning driving through small town Manchester in my Prius, with a my bike on the back, and my green hair shining. My kids opted to have J.T. take them to school.

Got in 2500 yds at masters swim last night. Still feeling good to be training for something. I do need to change up this blog a little though. It still says I'm on the road to IM. Technically, I'm on the road back from IM. Any suggestions?

Monday, March 16, 2009

Remember what it feels like to be an athlete?

I did, this weekend. I had forgotten how good that feels. Friday I met Tim and Tammie and we took off on a 13.3 mile run that included the absolute worst hills in Manchester - those of Country Club all the way to the Laurel Crown Rd. I knew about the hills because one of my best friends grew up on that road. Tim and Tammie did not, and took off down that way, but I am not one to argue when I can barely breath in the first place. I just sucked it up and hammered up them, too. My only saving grace was that I promised myself that when we got back close to my car, I was bailing. As in done, stick a fork in me, going home. We got back to the rec center around 9 miles, though, and they wouldn't hear of it. They just kept on, so I finally slammed back a Gu Roctane and took off for 4 more miles. Have you tried the Gu Roctane? Peeps, the stuff works. I cannot even tell you how dead my legs were when we took off running again, but after about 2 miles I felt a burst of energy that even had me picking up the pace. It's good stuff - it will be my gel of choice from here on out.

Saturday...well, all the baseball games were cancelled this weekend. And since I had stayed up half the night Friday night packing things and getting ready for a tournament in the cold and rain, I sorta slept till noon on Saturday. It was the first time I've done that since...wow, probably college. Bo finally jumped on the bed and said, "Uh, Mom, are you just gonna lay in the bed all day?!" I took the hint and finally got up and about. The rest was nice, though, and much appreciated by my legs. We spent the rest of the day cleaning, cooking, and playing Guitar Hero. Oh yeah, one more thing...I decided to do the Gulf Coast Triathlon - a half ironman 7 weeks from now. I've put off the decision long enough, and I hesitated to even consider it seriously because it's not a cheap trip, but with a little bit of creativity I think I can get down there, rock it out as best as I can on 7 weeks of training, have some intoxicating beverages on the beach, and then ride my little hybrid back in pure 2009 Recession fashion. Because I just need a goal. My goal is to follow the Trifuel Half Iron plan as closely as possible starting at week 14 (ouch!) and not to stress when I need to miss a workout for family obligations or baseball games. It may not be a GCT PR, but it'll be fun and hopefully we can get a crew down there to support Tim, who will be doing GCT for the first time. He will no doubt set the course on fire.

Considering I finally have a goal, guess what I did Sunday? I rode my bike! Outside! 35 miles!! Then I had a strawberry banana protein smoothie, made with frozen strawberries and bananas that I had prepared and frozen myself. I threw a little bit of yogurt, milk and protein powder in it and it was wonderful. I felt wonderful, too....like an athlete again. I felt the adrenaline when I hammered up the Noah hill. I felt the passion when I had the wind at my bike. I felt the fire inside when I hit the wind head on.

You can take a girl out of the races, but you can't take the racing out of the girl. Dixie...honky tonk...racing...it's all the same.

Tim, Tammie and I hammered out 6 miles this morning at 4 a.m., and then I lifted weights and did core work for over an hour.

And that all leads to the Final Fifteen. Which is coming right along. Even though I haven't weighed lately, my mind is slowly getting on board. There are a few absolutes: I can't eat ice cream; I can't eat refined sugar. They just don't work for my body. What does work is steady, consistent good choices. Carrots instead of chips. Blueberries instead of chocolate. Yogurt intead of ice cream. Green tea instead of dessert. I haven't weighed yet this week...I'll report it when I do.

And finally...the best Daddy in the world turned 58 years old last Thursday, March 12:


Happy Birthday, Flash!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Ups & Downs of the Final 15

Final 15 Ups:

I am slowly but surely starting to like yogurt.

Yogurt is my replacement for ice cream.

I have realized that I cannot run for 2 hours and survive the rest of the day on 1100 calories.

I have been able to eat mexican fajitas w/out the chips and tortillas.

I feel more control over my diet, and I am a control freak, so that suits me just fine.

I can feel a difference in my body composition, even though I'm not satisfied with the movement, or lack there of, on the scale.

I am no longer craving chocolate.

I feel much better.

I haven't thrown in the towel. I've made some mistakes, but I've gotten back on track. I am optimistic that I will reach this goal.

Final 15 Downs:

The scales are stuck on 129. I attribute this to a not so great weekend last weekend, followed by a stomach virus, followed by being starved and ravenous. I don't know if I actually lost some weight then gained it back or what, but they last time I weighed it said 129, the time before said 130, the time before - 129. Either way, I haven't lost any weight since the first week.

The whole logging and blogging every day just did not take. Not at all. Like I have time to do that during baseball season...what was I thinking? I am logging pretty much everything I can, but the blogging is going to have to come more sparingly. You know it's not a good idea when your own diet is causing you so much stress it makes you want to eat a french fry. And I don't even like french fries.

The early stages of changing how you eat just suck. I'm always wanting something different than I have to eat. Then if I give in and let myself have something I shouldn't, I want to devour it because I know it'll be ages before I can have it again. And it's always on mind, always lingering...I'll be glad when it's just second nature. I swear when I get there I'm not letting it go again. I had all this under control in 2003...I didn't eat sweets and didn't want them and had lost several pounds. Then I went on a cruise, where the dessert is free. Free dessert, I said. How can you not take the dessert when it's free? I found out, because I've been craving sweets ever since. It's always back and forth - I eat them for a while, and then I don't eat them because I need to shed a few pounds for a race or something. But the craving is always there...ever since the cruise.

Final 15 Status:

On the days I workout hard in the morning, I'm finding time to make eggs(1 yolk + 2 whites), and then oatmeal. When I don't workout in the morning I just have oatmeal. It just works better than way for me.

I'm still mostly eating the Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers Smart Ones meals, and when I'm not I'm making fairly good decisions.

Dinner is still a work in progress. This one is hard for two reasons. 1 - My husband and 2 boys want a real dinner...not a weight watchers meal. And 2 - this is a busy time of year, and feeling that starving feeling in your stomach when you realize it's 9p.m. and you haven't eaten yet, is going to happen sometimes, even with the best effort to keep healthy snacks handy. I'm getting better at eating "my food" while I watch J.T. and the boys eat what I'd rather have, but I'm not out of the woods on this yet. However, if "what I'd rather have" is keeping the "pounds I'd rather NOT have" on my lower half, then it's really not what I'd rather have, right? Right.

All that said, I'm still working on it. I haven't gotten it mastered yet, but don't give up on me. Like my friend Don told me once - "It's a marathon, not a sprint."

I do have more and interesting stuff to blog about, so check back soon...

Monday, March 02, 2009

Final 15-Week 3, Identifying a Problem, and We Got Snow!

Let's start with the snow...



This was the biggest snow we've had in Tennessee in probably 5 years. Personally, I'm ready for spring and could have done without, but the kids had a blast, so I guess it was worth it. I considered mtn biking in it, but Holly convinced me that it could mess up my bike, so I didn't. I'm not totally convinced of that, but then again, since I was still in my p.j.'s at 2p.m. I probably wasn't that serious about it anyway. J.T. was the snowman builder this time. I normally get out there and roll one up, but my mind is just too far gone toward spring to really get into it. So, I served as breakfast cook/camera woman and fixed bacon, eggs, oatmeal and biscuits; and shot video, took pics, and then learned how to make movies! I also did some work on the website I'm making for Briar's baseball team - http://ccmsbaseball.com. I don't have the pics on the front page, yet, but it's getting there.

Now, let's talk about food.

~the tone takes a nose dive~

I did really well Monday and Tuesday, and I think I did okay Wednesday, too. However, life around my house started getting really busy and hectic. I wasn't able to plan out all my meals, I got stressed out, I didn't get anything logged, and I ended up starving. Starving = falling off the wagon. I basically just went back to my old ways of eating what I wanted and used lack of time and lots of stress as an excuse. I do remember that I did very on Saturday, but not so much on Thursday and Friday. I don't have to have a log of how many calories I ate to tell that I haven't been eating right...I can tell by the way I feel and by looking in the mirror. My only hope, at this point, is that when I weigh in today at lunch that I will be the same as last week, although I doubt that will be the case.

All that being said, I'm not giving up.

"You have a choice. You can throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off of your face." -Gatorade

I have identified a major problem that I have with my diet. I eat really well and have no problem with it as long as everything is running smoothly and I'm being productive, etc. But when I start having to be 3 places at once with more things to do than I can possibly squeeze into the day, I start giving up on the diet. I must also note that I tend to do the same thing with my training. I survived this during Ironman by saying "the house is just not going to be perfectly clean while I'm training for IM" or "the laundry will get done at some point, I'm training for an IM" or "sorry, I can't make this meeting because I have a long brick today." Now there is no IM, so I expect my house to stay spic-n-span, I expect to pick up all those volunteer jobs I had to turn down last year, and I expect to be able to make it to 3 places at one time. And all that's okay, because afterall, that's what we triathlon moms do...but I have to quit throwing in the towel when it comes to nutrition...I have to pick it up and use it to wipe the sweat off my face and keep going...strong and steady.

Week 3 will be different. Watch me.