Slacker.

I havent posted in a while. You shouldn't care. Not much is happening. In the midst of the off-season I have been keep on keeping on. Workouts have been lax, but when I work out, it has a purpose. Running workouts are mostly shorter distances, and I plan to add an LSD workout in a few weeks. For now it is track and tempo workouts with ample time to rest between. Weight training workouts are slowly being added, with a follow on swim or yoga session for every session. Biking has been there, but not very intense. Most of my workouts have been in the 30-40 mile range, with spurts of significant effort done as intervals. One major change has been my diet. I have dropped about 4-5 lbs in the last two weeks, and am going strong. Candy for halloween was a tough part to restrain myself from, but aside from the 3 lb bag of chocolate we still have, I am out of the woods. Major changes to my diet which seem to be doing ok have been to concentrate on eating vegetables (except potatos) and limit/eliminate rice, bread, wheat products, sugar, corn products, and mostly anything that has been processed. During meals this means that salad has replaced the starch/carb portion of the meal.

Dont freak out. I have not eliminated carbs from my diet. I still eat oatmeal and things so dont wig out that I have eliminated my muscle's ability to provide energy. The carbs I do eat I am looking up to see what effect they have on the glycemic index. By keeping low GI, I can keep the body from creating fat, and hopefully lose some more weight. maybe for Christmas I can be a regular clydesdale - instead of superclydesdale like I am now. Losing weight will help my running as much as intense training as it will be less impact on joints and tendons. Let's see if I can keep the momentum.

Yoga and the splits.

I know i haven't written in a bit. Not much is going on. I am on base work. To that end, last night I went to yoga last night for the first time ever. I have to say, it was pretty cool. There were a couple points where I could feel my muscles were really stretchy, and in other places not so much. I think warrior poses will help with my running and increase of my stride. I think that the dog poking his butt in the air, and the boom-shack-a-lacka that we did when we did the dog butt pose, will help my shoulder instability a lot. I also think that my hip instability that I have been experiencing since the race will get better with some of the front split-style stretching poses. I also know that while I did really well with the front to back flexibility, when we did the lying down butterfly thing, and the sitting with legs spread and reaching forward stretches I likely looked quite freakish with my knees poking up in the air.

Other that that, I am going to kick it up a little more. I am pretty disappointed with my food choices. There are good choices to make, and I have not been making them. Donuts and peanut butter pretzel bits at the office, dinners have been easy to fix and kid friendly, but not as healthy as they could be. Snacks are happening too much, and 3 beers are steadily becoming a nightly phenomenon. And I have not been drinking lite ones. Just a series of less than good decisions will curtail the efforts I have been making.

Cmon man! get with the program!

Building back a base.

Mornings are my time to work out. I find if I put it off, it doesn't get done, and it has to get done. Mornings are the time when I get the main workout done for the day, and I have a main and an optional. Main is usually either a build workout, or a speed workout. Example; tomorrow is wednesday, and I have a run and a swim. The run is the main workout, tempo run, 5 miles. The other workout is the swim, drills and 200s, which I can do either on the way to work, or on the way home. Since I need to be back for 7 so that the rest of the family can do their thing.
Thursday is a bike and weights. My sons want me to take them to the YMCA to lift, and so i will have 20 min warmup run, then weights. Morning bike is 25 miles with some moderately hard intervals. Friday is Swim in the morning (4x500s), and run in the evening. I need a gear on here to help me post the workouts. That would be cool. All of this leading up to my 70.3 in May.
Other stuff: I woke up this morning and noticed that I have pimples all over, mostly on my torso and arms. Also, I have more than the normal number of weird whitehead/ingrown hair things. Weird and gross. Sorry, should have warned you.
I have not heard from the doctor about my potassium test. The hypochondriac in me says it might me Addison's disease. Sometimes I want there to be something there so that the weird joint issues that come up have some reason, and that all I have to do is take a pill and things will all be normal.
Joints seem loose. I think 2 weeks was too long to not keep up endurance training. Getting back into it is harder than I think it should be. I am taking it easy for now, because the base and strength have to be good and solid before I start the full-on speed workouts. My joint hypermobility is frustrating, and the docs said the solution is to be ultra fit. Well, I would say that since I completed a 70.3 in Augusta I am fit. Now for ultra-fit.