Back To Basics: Week 1

What do you do when you feel sluggish and cruddy after the holidays? When you haven't worked out in a month and you've been eating all the things? In my case, you go back to basics and rebuild your base.

After rediscovering my love of multisport racing last year, I think I'm finally ready to end my break with triathlon (yep, we're getting back together).  I'm also ready to stop lugging around the winter/holiday fluff that I put on while being a total sloth after the Last Call 5k.

Obviously, there's a plan here - there's always a plan.  I came across a really interesting triathlon base building plan on my bike trainer app/site (TrainerRoad), so I've committed to following it for at least the next 4 weeks.  I may actually do a second round of base building before moving on to the build phase since it's been a long time since I tri trained and I need all the help I can get!

The plan looks something like this:

*Mon: Rest

*Tue: Swim

*Wed: Bike

*Thu: Run

*Fri: Swim

*Sat: Bike

*Sun: Run

This seems pretty reasonable to me and it's acceptable to rearrange things to suit your schedule so long as you don't do the same sport on back-to-back days.  I'm in!

I'm also making a concerted effort to clean up my diet.  I've been skipping breakfast, eating too many meals out, and drinking far too much.  I've decided to do a lot more meal planning and weekend prepping - and only 1 cheat meal per week.

So here's how Week 1 shook out:

Monday:

It may have been a rest day on the workout front, but we were definitely busy around here.  Mr. R&R and I finagled our schedules and got out of work at a somewhat reasonable hour and promptly drove over to a local gym to take a tour.  This particular gym has multiple locations in the area - and most of them have the thing we need most in a gym - a pool!  After a tour and some chatting, we signed up.  I'm officially a gym rat again.  

After that, we headed home and had dinner: Butternut Squash and Apple soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.  I didn't love the soup, but it did the job.

Tuesday:

The gym location we toured on Monday has a pool, but it's only 16 yards long and is mostly meant for water walkers and AquaZumba types.  It'll do in case of emergency since it's open 24 hours, but there's a location about 20 minutes away that has a standard 25 yard pool, so after a long day at work, we headed out there.  My first pool workout in 17 months was only 850 yards, but it kicked my ass all over the place - it felt so good to be back.  We didn't get home until 9:30pm and we were both freaking starving!  Dinner (tacos) was thrown together in between showers and we were eating by 10pm. I'm pretty used to eating dinner late, but this was just silly!  I'll definitely have to make plans for fast dinners on swim days.

Wednesday:

Today started with a valuable lesson: I will not take 17 months off of swimming ever again.  My abs hurt like a mother and my arms were ready to fall off.  Trying to wash your hair when your arms hurt like that really sucks!

Dinner (cheater chicken, potatoes, and green beans) came first tonight, which is a very good thing because the first bike workout was brutal.  I've done it before and every single time, I'm reduced to a quivering pile of goo.  In one hour on the bike I went through 2 bottles of water, half a package of Shot Blocks, and my shirt was repurposed as a sweat mop.

Back in The Cave

Thursday:

The arm pain continues. In fact, I think it intensified. I guess it's a good thing that tonight's workout mostly beats on my legs. 

It's been over a month since I laced up my running shoes.  In fact, the last time I ran was the Last Call 5k - and it was about 20 degrees warmer.  Mr. R&R and I both bundled up and went our separate ways.  Not. A. Good. Run.  Between dodging ice, unshoveled sections of sidewalk, being out of shape, and being dressed like Randy from A Christmas Story, it was a slow jog (slog?) not a run.  This doesn't bode well for Saturday's Frosty 5k.

Dinner was a couple of eggs and some toast - because I had to eat, but had no motivation to do anything more involved.

Friday:

It's Friday!  That means beer and all manners of fried bar food, right?  Nope.  Mr. R&R and I checked out the pool at another gym location - this one is only 5 minutes from home.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to swim at all given that my arms still felt like they were going to fall off.  I was slower than slow, but the pain let up once I was in the water and I made it through the 800 yards, hauled myself out of the pool, and called it a day.  We rolled in the door around 9pm and dinner (spaghetti) was cooked, showers were taken, and we crashed as early as possible since Saturday was both run day and race day!

Saturday:

I ended the 2015 race season on an incredible high by breaking my 5k PR by 8 seconds.  2016 started out in the toilet.  We bundled up, drove to the race site, and hid in the toasty warm car until the last possible second before doing the usual pre-race warm up and stretch.  I was shocked at the number of people who showed up!  We hoofed it about a quarter mile to the Start Line, listened to the race director's warnings of ice and narrow spots on the path, and then the gun went off.  I flew for the first quarter mile (low 8's) and then my nose started freezing up.  I seriously could not breath in through my nose, which doesn't work at all.  I spent the first mile breathing mostly through my mouth (not good) and it clipped by in 9:08.  It was all downhill from there and I'm not talking about the course.  I was in such bad oxygen debt that I finally had to slow to a walk, cup my hands over my nose and try to thaw everything out. Mile 2 was a pedestrian 10:03.  The misery continued for another mile.  Every so often I had to walk and thaw out my nose. Obviously this meant a pathetic performance on my part.  Not only was it the slowest 5k I've run in a long time, but I fell to 4th overall in my age group for the series. Mr. R&R, on the other hand, won his age group and is now assured of winning his age group for the series (it's mathematically impossible for anyone to overtake him as long as he shows up for the last two races), and he's the second place male overall!

 Time: 29:37 (9:33/mile pace)

Overall Place: 88/190

Gender Place: 43/128

Age Group Place: 10/20 (F35-39)

I also had a 90 minute massage on Saturday night and my arms and shoulders feel much better and my lousy mood disappeared while listening to music and snuggling with these guys.

Saturday Night Cuddle Puddle

Sunday:

Sunday is always about preparing for the week ahead. On the food front, I made a big pot of chicken pot pie soup and a giant pot of spanakorizo (greek spinach rice), so we'll be eating that for lunch/dinner for the next few days.  The soup turned out okay - a little bland for my liking.

Soup for you!

The spanakorizo turned out great - it was almost identical to the version made by a restaurant I used to love.  I also made up some tzatziki sauce to go with the rice and a few pineapple yogurt messes for breakfasts. We're set through at least Wednesday.

The workout du jour was 45 minutes on the bike for a workout called Goddard.  I was a sweaty mess inside of the first 15 minutes and my bike was making a weird creaking sound whenever I put a lot of pressure on the base bars or the aero bars.  Looks like I'll be making a call to Emery's tomorrow because I'm 99.99% sure that my bike is not supposed to be making that sound!

Week 1 Totals:

Swim: 1700 yards (.97 miles)

Bike: 20.51 miles

Run: 6.05 miles
Total Time: 3 hours, 39 minutes