3 WEEKS!!!

Sorry. I don't mean to be yelling at you, but I realized over the weekend that the Oly Tri (which I still have yet to officially sign up for) is 3 weeks away! Less than actually....since it was 3 weeks from yesterday!

So, yesterday I had a very difficult 10 mile training run. I was supposed to do a brick workout of a 15 mile bike followed by a 5 mile run, but I made a rookie error with my bike and ended up having no air in the front tire. Since this happened late Saturday night and I could not get to a store to get a new pump, I decided I would just run on Sunday. As I ran I was composing this post in my head. Let's see if I can remember all the things that were going on.........

The title of this post was going to be "Another BAD Week". I was going to warn you about the fact that this would be a horribly negative post (once again) and bitch and moan about all the things that are negative in my mind right now.  But, around mile 4 I decided that was STUPID. It was at that point that I decided I would start by getting all the negative out of the way and then focus on the positive or on what is being done to change the negatives to positives down the road.

Without further ado....here is the NEGATIVE list:

1) I'm S.L.O.W.!!!! Oh...you say this isn't new information??? Well, I feel as though I'm getting even SLOWER, which is currently driving me up a damn wall!

2) I'm F.A.T!! Again, nothing new you say?? Yea...I have officially gained weight. Every time over the last almost 2 years that I went up slightly in my weight I could always say to myself "I'm still down xlbs from this time last year so that's great"! And, it usually was a considerable amount of lbs - 20, 30, 10...whatever. At the beginning of July I looked back and noticed that one year ago I weighed 6lbs LESS than I do right now. Ugh. So, I'm getting fatter as well as slower....wonderful!

3) I have to train alone (see #1), which makes it quite challenging to stay out of my head (running by yourself for hours on end...struggling the whole time...it's a LOT of time to THINK, which is a recipe for disaster for me). I know, probably 90% of runners train alone, but I've been used to having people to run with - for at least part of the distance. It has now happened that because I'm not improving and they are, I now run by myself after about 3 minutes. It kind of sucks. It's a constant reminder of #1. And then, that nasty "not good enough" demon enters my head.....the thought that I would like to be "good enough" to be able to find someone who runs my same pace/same intervals/etc.

4) WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING about this marathon that is now less than 100 days away?!?!?

Ok. I think for right now those were the main things bringing me down on Sunday. #1 and #2 are the main culprits and really contribute to everything else. Therefore I decided that perhaps I'm angry enough and fed up enough with myself to actually DO something about it!

So what am I doing about it?!?!?

1) I can't really do anything about being slow other than KEEP GOING. Keep moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other and always remember that "You Don't Have to Go Fast....YOU JUST HAVE TO GO!!!"

2) This I can do something about. And this will probably result in a better outcome for #1 as well. So, starting today I made a committment to get back to basics. I'm even OK with baby steps, but I have to make SOME kind of steps. So far today I have tracked all my food, did NOT eat one meal out (this is HUGE on a work day for me), and am still within my calorie range. No lie - I'm already struggling. I'm fighting the demons that are telling me to just go raid my kitchen because I've been good all day....and even with a little binge tonight my day will still probably be better than it's been! Ugh...shut up!

3) This I just have to deal with. So what if I have to train alone?? I need to learn to enjoy the me time. And, I have already talked to my husband about how he might be able to help me.  I also plan to ask other people as well to help in some capacity.

YES! This I need to continue to work on daily.....

Regarding last week's workout plan....I failed miserably! I'm not even going to recount day to day because it's so sorry. Whatever the plan was last week, I didn't do it. I ran 3 miles on the treadmill on Tuesday and ran 4 miles outside on Thursday....and that's it! HOWEVER, I started this week off right so far. I ran 10 miles on Sunday, which took me a little longer than it would have taken me to bike 15 and run 5 so I still got the time in. Today was a scheduled rest day and I swam 1000 yards instead! Tomorrow I am planning to do the brick that I should have done Sunday (bike 15/run 5). Wednesday I am going to rest. Thursday will be another swim or bike; Friday run; Saturday swim, bike or rest. Next Sunday is my next LONG run and will be a distance I have not yet covered. 17 was on the training plan, but since I missed 14 and just did 10 this past weekend, I'm thinking 15 is more reasonable. Still longer than I've ever done before. Wish me luck!

My goals this week are simple, yet challenging.
- Track my food and try very hard to stay within my calorie range (but track NO MATTER WHAT...I always stop tracking the minute I think I've blown it, perhaps if I still tracked I would stop before it got out of hand).
- NO WINE
- Get all workouts in....no more than 2 rest days this week.
- Limit eating out....if I eat out 4x this week total, that's probably HALF of what I've been doing...baby steps, remember?? (frankly, I don't even want to take a minute to figure out how much I've been eating out because when you figure in breakfasts and lunches out during my work day + family meals out......).

Wow! Once again I find myself having written a HUGE post and I still haven't covered at least 2 of the topics I wanted to cover. I want to try to keep the readers I have, so I'm not going to continue to bore you tonight!

I simply need to remember to discuss the recent thoughts I've had about an Ironman 70.3 (or any 70.3 - doesn't necessarily have to be the "Ironman" brand). For those of you who don't know what that means....stayed tuned. For those of you who do....you know how crazy this is!

And with that...I leave you to go figure out my calories and see if I can have a snack since I'm STARVING!! :)