Weekend warrior.

Recently, Andrew and I have been working on changing a few of our habits. We're trying to eat out less, drink less, eat more fruits and vegetables, and get to the gym more often. We also returned to Weight Watchers, where I picked up a little tool to help with those goals:

This is the ActiveLink active monitor, a fairly new addition to the Weight Watchers program. It tracks all your movement throughout the day and then calculates activity points to offset your food points. Under the regular WW program, you calculate your own activity points by entering any exercise you do, the duration, and the intensity. So, under that system, I give myself about 5 points for my weightlifting class.

What's different about the ActiveLink is that it considers your whole day's activity and requires that you hit a "base line" for the day before you earn any activity points at all. In other words, if you work out hard at the gym for an hour, but then sit for the rest of the day, you may not earn any activity points at all. Just this morning, I did a really challenging TRX class, but it wasn't enough to hit my base line for the day. Once I do hit that base line, any movement I do for the rest of the day (walking, fixing dinner, etc.) will earn me activity points.

The whole point of the Active Link is to promote movement and discourage being sedentary all day, every day. I decided that this would be good for me because I've fallen into a bit of a "weekend warrior" pattern, where I slack off on my weekday workouts and then go all out on the weekend with hard trainings and races. This isn't good for my health or for my performance in those races, so I wanted a little push in the right direction.

I had been thinking about this for awhile when I happened to attend a WW meeting specifically about the ActiveLink. I was a little skeptical (as I am whenever anyone tries to sell me something), but the device was cheap enough ($35 on sale plus a $5 monthly fee, no contract) that I thought it was worth a 1-3 month experiment. I took it home, set it up, and clipped it on (first pleasant surprise: it really is invisible under your clothes).

From the moment I activated the ActiveLink, it started an 8-day "assessment" of my activity. For those 8 days, I was instructed to just go about my normal routine. I plugged it in periodically to charge it, but I couldn't see any data until the assessment was over. My assessment week wound up being an extreme version of my weekend warrior pattern. Literally within a few hours of putting the ActiveLink on, I came down with a bad cold. I did half of a tri-training workout the next day, but I spent 5 days after that too sick to go to the gym. I even left work early a few days to come home and lie down. So, a very sedentary work week. Then, come Saturday morning, I forced myself back to the gym and out to run a many errands as I could manage.

Sunday was my first "real" day on the ActiveLink and what did I do? I ran a half marathon! The IronGirl Columbia half-marathon, to be specific. I was still pretty sick and knew I had no business running a race, but it was an expensive one and I hated the thought of losing the money. This was also the first leg of the IronGirl "Triple Crown," which consists of the half and two IronGirl triathlons later this summer. If you finish all three, you get a special award at the end. I love special awards. So, I did my best and it wasn't pretty. The course was super-hilly and I was dealing with chest congestion that hampered my breathing. I ran my second-worst time ever and felt every second. Still, I had a moment of pride at the end when I realized that this was half #15 for me!

When I got home from the race, I plugged in my Active Link to get the results of my assessment and personalized 12-week challenge based on those results. Sure enough, the weekend warrior problem was right there in my data. On weekdays, I earned between 0 and 1 activity points. On the weekends (ie: the two days I worked out), I got up to 5. Based on those results, my initial challenge is just to get up to 2 activity points each day.

The first day of my challenge was race day and I got a whopping 26 activity points (or 421% of my goal). Day 2 (yesterday), I was beat from the race and feeling lousy again. I reached my base line, but I didn't exceed it enough to earn any activity points and only met 73% of my goal. So, with just these 2 days, I can see how the ActiveLink is helping me. If I think of my goal in weekly terms (ie: 14 points/week), I'm already way over it. But I'm thinking of it in daily terms- a minimum of 2 points each day. Its not about crazy weekends (I got that); its about more active weekdays.

April was a race-heavy month. I did the Cherry Pit 10-miler, the Arbutus 5K, and the IronGirl half. Now, I have a bit of a break with no races until the Rock Hall tri on June 2nd. With lighter weekends, this is the perfect time to work on steeping up the weekdays. Wish me luck!

Back to bed and blogging.

Obviously, I took a little break from blogging. When last I wrote, it was January and I was struggling with a cold that started on my wedding day and hung on for a little over a month. I'm happy to report that my blogging hiatus was NOT due to continued sickness. That cold finally went away in early February. The blogging hiatus was due to other things. I'll call them "post-wedding administrative issues": writing thank you cards, changing my name, sorting through close to 1,000 photos, and finding room in my tiny house for a 2nd person and all of that person's things. To my great surprise, I'm finding post-wedding tasks tougher than planning the actual wedding.

The good news is that I learned a valuable skill during the wedding planning process: letting things slide. It took a few months, but I reached a point in wedding planning where I accepted that I could not work full time, plan a wedding, train at my usual level, and do all of the other things I usually do. It just wasn't possible. So, I gave myself permission to let a few things go. I'm glad I learned this while planning the wedding, because it has become even more important since the wedding. One of the things I let go over the past few months? Blogging. As much as I love this blog, I just couldn't make it a priority during the first part of this year.

Now, though, I'm happy to report that I feel more on top of things and ready to get back to the blog! I put "blog" back on my to-do list a couple weeks ago, and I finally got around to it today. Why today? Because I'm home sick again! Just a minor cold this time (I hope), but I had to seize on the opportunity for a full-circle moment. Back in bed, back to the blog!

So, other than administrative tasks, what have I been up to?

Races:

Since my last post, I ran my first three races of the year: the Valentine's Day 5K, the B&A Half Marathon, and the Cherry Pit 10-miler, all put on by the Annapolis Striders. None of these were great races for me in terms of finish time. In fact, I think I ran "personal worsts" for each of these events. I knew going into these races that I was unlikely to run good times. Compared to the last few years, I'm heavier right now and putting in significantly less training time. So, I went into each race with the same goal: make a strong, consistent effort throughout the entire race. I didn't want to start out strong, burn out, and wind up walking. I also didn't want to finish feeling like I could have pushed harder. I wanted to feel like I worked as hard as I could for the whole race- and I did! I'm not proud of my times for any of these races, but I am proud of my efforts.

I'm also proud of my husband, who ran PR's in each and every one of those races!

Since I slowed down and he sped up, now we can run together!

IronMan 2012:

In February, Andrew and I went to the annual Annapolis Striders banquet, where I picked up my 3rd straight Ironman award! I get one of these each year that I run the entire 8-race Champ Series (ranging from 5K to metric marathon). I'm gunning for a 5-year award before I allow some kind of life event (like, say, having a baby) to force a year off. The banquet is always fun and great motivation to keep going in the new year.

IronMan 2010-2012... and counting!

 

Planning the race calendar:

Despite my less-than-consistent training, I have mapped out a pretty ambitious race calendar for 2013. I'm planning to run all of my usual races, including the Champ Series, the Baltimore Half Marathon, my 3rd Marine Corps Marathon, and both IronGirl triathlons. I also have three new races on the agenda:

(1) Rock Hall sprint triathlon on June 2nd. Andrew and I signed up for this event after the organizers of TriRock Annapolis announced a date change for their race (which conflicted with our schedules). This will be my first tri of the year, and Andrew's first tri ever!

Getting geared up!

(2) Merrell Down and Dirty on July 21st. This is one of those races that includes an obstacle course and a mud pit (a la Warrior Dash, Tough Mudder, etc.). I've been wanting to try one of those races for a long time, but nothing ever fit into my schedule. Then, we got a postcard announcing this race, 15 minutes down the road on a weekend we are both free. Bingo. Apparently, direct mail works!

(3) The Kauai Marathon, September 1st. This will be my first time running two marathons in the same year, and my first time running a marathon on my HONEYMOON! Andrew and I have been talking for a long time about going to Hawaii for our honeymoon, but we couldn't seem to settle on a plan. Finally, I googled "Hawaii marathons" to see if any of them would work for us, timing-wise. Bingo again. I found this race less than a week before the early bird registration fees went up, which forced us to make a quick (and awesome) decision. Now, I wake up every morning, look at the calendar, and mentally update the vacation countdown.

Juicing:

Another thing I let go during the wedding planning and post-wedding process? My diet. I just did not have the mental/emotional space to focus on eating healthy. Being crunched for time and stressed out led to far too many lunches and dinners out, far too many cocktails, and the biggest number I've seen on the scale in 10 years. Once I emerged from my stress fog, it was time to get back on track. But how to get motivated?

After a few weeks of hunting around, I finally found my motivation via Netflix. As someone who hates sitting still, I'm not a big TV or movie-watcher. But, I married into a giant TV with a really cool speaker and a Netflix subscription. A couple weeks ago, Andrew went away for the weekend and I decided to see what all the fuss was about. That's when I discovered the food documentaries. Netflix is full of 'em! As my regular readers know, I am way into food and always striving to be healthier. So what could be more appealing than movies about food and being healthy? I watched 3 or 4 that weekend, but one in particular really stood out:

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead follows Joe Cross, an Australian who undertook a 60-day juice fast back in 2007 in an effort to lose weight and get off medications for obesity-related conditions. I'm not a fan of any kind of extreme eating plans (like, say, juice fasts), so I was skeptical, but there is something very compelling and convincing about Joe's story. Since watching the movie, I've started following Joe Cross online and in other media, and he makes a very strong case for a very simple idea: just eat more fruits and vegetables. Way more fruits and vegetables.

Obviously, the idea that eating fruits and vegetables is good for you is not news to me. Still, if I'm honest, I've never been great about it. I would guess that I eat way less processed food and meat than the average person, but I probably don't eat any more fruits and vegetables, even though I know that I should. After watching this movie and then watching it again with Andrew, I became persuaded that I needed to make a change. First, we went to the grocery store and loaded up on produce. Then, I came home and fired up Andrew's Vita-mix. For a week now, I've had some kind of fruit and vegetable smoothie every day, usually at breakfast. I enjoy them, and I find that they motivate me to eat more fruits and veggies throughout the day. The best part? I went back to the grocery store today and bought more produce because we actually ran out! We used it all up and didn't have to throw anything away. Definitely a first.

So, those are the major updates. As we move into Spring, I'm looking forward to more training, more races, more juicing, and more blog posts!