Back at it

I had a good weekend.  It started with a fun party for Cody at the house that involved a game of glow-in-the-dark ultimate frisbee that was, I would venture to say, a spectacular success.  Especially since no one was seriously injured, which seemed like a very real possibility when you have 30 adults running around a dark field littered with hidden rocks, bushes and furry black dogs, and with nothing but a glowing dollar-store necklace to illuminate them.  Well, not quite.  I think our saving grace was the enormous full moon that actually lit up the field pretty well.  Anyway, glow-in-the-dark ultimate.  Awesome.  And it helped work out the rest of the crap left in my lungs from 2 weeks of sick.  And I made chili, that everyone seemed to enjoy, despite the fact that, uh, I just dumped everything in a big pot and cooked it for a day.  Master chef here.  Right.  Secret ingredients or something.  And cupcakes!

This was the tiramisu batch, which was probably the most photogenic, what with the marscapone/whipped cream topping.  Yeah, and sometimes I eat cupcakes full of wheat, sugar, and butter.  Yum.

Anyway, while the party was incredibly fun, by far the highlight of the weekend for me was getting out for 3 hours on my shiny new bike on Sunday, with some 3x8 LT intervals.  They hurt!*  I wanted to quit a thousand times, my HR was sky high and my power really dropped off by the last one, but I woke up this morning feeling better than I have in 2 weeks.  Physically, yes, but mostly it helped my head a ton.  Motivation, enthusiasm, morale, and overall cheerfulness have returned.  Excellent.  But I've decided to bail on Battenkill, since I feel like I need to regain any  lost fitness to jump into a race like that.  Instead I'll head down to Plymouth for the little Myles Standish State Forest Road Race.  It's shorter, and closer, and generally less demanding.  But I need to race my bike!

*I feel compelled to add that, yes, of course they always hurt, but aiming for the same power range I was training in 2 weeks ago, after 2 weeks of no intensity at all, was unusually, but unsurprisingly, difficult.  But my new bike is rad!

Food to the Next Level

I'm often accused of taking my nutrition "to the next level."  Or, as Cody says, "you're really picky."  It's not so much that I'm picky, but when it comes to cooking dinner I consider what I ate for breakfast and lunch and all my various snacks throughout the day and come up with something that's not redundent and fills any holes that I think I have in my daily nutrient intake.  It just makes sense to me.  Like, if a person (not me) had bacon and eggs for breakfast and some sort of pasta dish for lunch, you're not going to have a bacon quiche or pasta for dinner, right?  Am I right?  Well, that's how I look at it.  If my major protein during the day is soy, in the form of tofu, or a protein shake, I'm not going to have soy at dinner, much like the bacon thing (okay, I know there are lots of people who eat bacon more than once a day, that's cool, do what you want, but it doesn't work for me).  So when Cody says, "why don't we have veggie burritos for dinner?"  And I already had Mexican food inspired salad with black beans and avocado at lunch, I'm probably going to veto that.  And suffer the consequence of being labeled picky.  For the record, Cody understands why I make the choices I do, he's just pretty much given up on cooking for me.  That's cool, I like to cook, and I hate doing the dishes, so it's win-win. 

Anyway, at work I've been accused of "taking it to the next level" after drinking a green smoothie, kombucha (which like, everyone drinks), and fresh veggie juice. 

Cucumber, kale, carrot and beet.  Pretty much the elixer of life, as far as I'm concerned.

Even my uber-healthy marathon-running personal trainer extraordinaire friend told me that.  And my mom told me that my green juice "looks like snot."  Come on, lots of people drink beet juice!  Or maybe I just have an inordinant number of friends and acquaintances who are elite cyclists.

Anyway, after thinking I was so healthy on Monday, I woke up on Tuesday with what I can only assume was a sinus infection.  Another day Off The Bike.  WTF?  I followed my mother's advice and used my neti pot and breathed lots of hot steam and applied hot compresses.  This morning all that pressure is off my sinues, but all that stuff drained into my throat.  I am so over this sick crap.  And I'm especially pissed off that I've been taking such ridiculously good care of myself and yet not getting healthy. 

Fine, Immune System, we'll play it your way.  I'll do hard training rides with no leg warmers and no hat, and then when I get home I'll eat white flour and sugar, and follow it up with a drink of bourbon and then smoke a cigarette.  Fruits and vegetables?  Never heard of 'em.  Maybe after this you'll learn to appreciate how good you have it and start doing your f'in job. 

In an unrelated note, I love this post from one of my favorite bloggers.  The focus in the fitness industry on body image and not health is something I'm actually sort of happy to get away from.  I find it really frustrating to have clients who are totally healthy, have low body fat, and aren't happy because they don't look like someone in a fitness magazine.  Dude, stop.  When I tell them what they'd have to do to look like that they think I'm joking, then they notice I'm not laughing.  Right. 

Okay, I guess I should go do some work or something.  I've got wicked short-timers'.  1 more week! 

5 to go!

Yes, 5 more mornings of rising at 4 AM to open the stupid club.  Right.  Not to be overly dramatic, but I truly believe my life will be a lot better (not that it's bad right now, quite the opposite) when I'm not struggling to get my beauty sleep several days a week.  Say what you want about studies about sleep patterns and people who can function at a high level on 6 hours a night - if I'm not getting at least 8 I am not going to be at my best (that's putting it mildly...). 

Welp. I had the entirety of last week off the bike.  Yes.  The entire week.  It's like my immune system just totally quit on me. Pretty much total system failure.  I got out for 1.5 hours yesterday (it was lovely) and am feeling super pumped, and also apprehensive, about diving back into training this week.  What if I can't get through my intervals?  What if my power sucks?  What does this mean for Battenkill?  I found myself looking at the course map for Battenkill and the elevation profile and thinking, "If I can just make it until mile 45 or so when it looks like it really kicks up then I'll be happy."  First of all, it's impossible (for me, at least) to make any sort of realistic assessment of the course based on the profile and map.  And even more important than that, what the hell kind of set up for success is that?  No, really, what?  If a client, or a friend, or anyone for that matter started telling me that I'd tell them that they'd just lost the race before it even started.  So no more negative thoughts, Mar, got that?

Okay.

Positive thinking.

Climbing strong, feeling light and fast and effortless.  I feel so good on my fancy new bike!

Confident on the descents.  Confident in the dirt.  My technical skills elevate me from a back-of-the-pack cat 2 to competitor.

Calm.  Relaxed.  Confident in my ability to read the race. 

Fun.  Bike racing is fun. 

Dude, I'm going to be so fast for CX season.  This time last year I was running lots and occasionally getting out on the bike.  This year I'm doing a big hard road race with the best on the east coast.  Money in the bank. 

There, better?

Much.  Actually, I really do feel a lot less anxious than before I typed that.

Regardless of result, I'm totally pumped to go race bikes again.  I'm happy to have two weeks of training to get back after being sick, and I'm so psyched to do some suffering tomorrow. 

Ugh.

Still sick.  Wahh.  But I'm being "patient" and letting myself "recover".  I guess I really did a number on my immune system.  Sorry 'bout that, Immune System.

Anyway, this is day 3 sitting at home slowly working through various house cleaning projects (if you can call doing one load of laundry a "project").  I did get out last night - I made Cody take me to see The Hunger Games.  It was rad-tast-some (rad+fantastic+awesome).  Cody thought they left out too many details from the book, but I was all, "Whatever, dude, if they included every damn detail the movie would be 10 hours long."  

Last night I made this for dinner:

Sorry, that's a really lousy picture.  It's a TLT (tofu, lettuce and tomato) sandwhich on GF bread with homemade kale chips.  I marinated slices of tofu in soy sauce, a touch of vegan worcestershire sauce, and a touch of liquid smoke, then fried until crispy in olive oil.  Except I ran out of propane before they really reached "crispy bacon" status.  Anyway, it was really good.  Bacon's a tough one, as a non-meat eater.  I don't have particularly strong bacon cravings, but there are some dishes that it's just so key in.  Like a BLT.  Or pasta with pesto.  I mean, bacon really makes that dish.  Or quiche.  Maybe today I'll try to make a totally vegan GF "bacon" spinach quiche.  Or . . . maybe some other time.  Anyway, I think the tofu I made last night was the best bacon substitute I've tried.  I've done the fake, pre-packaged stuff (bad, in so many ways), I've tried eggplant bacon from The PPK, and I've tried tempeh bacon, but none of them really did it for me.  But this tofu stuff came pretty darn close.

In similar, picky food preference news, I've decided to capitulate and make Cody's birthday ice cream cake full of gluten and sugar and eggs and stuff.  I mean, it's his birthday after all.  And if I made it all Marian-esque I'd end up eating like, half of it, instead of just a little bit.  Which would be unfortunate, because . . .  

I just pre-reg'd for Tour of the Battenkill.  Yeah.  It's in 2 weeks.  I realized something, right after I did that.  I haven't done a big road race since I crashed out of Cascade.  Um.  Uhh.  So I guess I need to do some heavy-duty positive visualization about riding in a pack on a fast descent.  And stuff.  Whatever, it'll be fun.  Guess I should buy my cycling license . . .

Anywho.  

Well, I'm going to go back to being sick and staring at my 4+ loads of laundry that need to be done and thinking about recipes that I could try but probably won't.  

First World Problem: Boo hoo, I'm sick and can't ride my new bike.

So, on Friday I had food poisoning, which pretty much wrecked my weekend.  I mean, first of all, dealing with getting all the nastiness out of my system, then feeling the residual effects of losing 7 pounds of water weight and absorbing no nutrition for a day.  I missed my last day of hard intervals for March and my long ride.  That was really annoying.

Oh yeah, and it was cold.  Not unseasonably so, but I have to admit to being extremely spoiled by a couple days of 80+ degree temps.  Shorts and short sleeves.  My spandex tan, which had been but a happy memory, started to return (if you squinted at it, in the right light, or if you have a very active imagination).  We started working on getting the boat in the water.  Flowers were blooming.  And then . . . 50 degrees.  I know, HTFU, that's not cold.  But I really do love the heat.  90+?  I'll take it.

Okay, moving on.

On Monday my new bike came in!!!  

Sorry, that's not a very good picture.  Getting pumped to go race that thing, though!

Then on Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat.  Later that day I gave notice on my job at the gym.  Yeah, just bikes bikes bikes from here on out.  Bike fits, bike rides, bike coaching, talking about bikes, etc etc. 
Later in the day I started feeling pretty yucky and spent the whole evening trying to consume every food/vitamin/remedy I could to avoid coming down with what I knew I already had - the flu.  This morning, blech.  Not so good. 

What can I take from this?  That the sunshine turns me into an idiot, convincing me to do things like a hard 1 hr MTB after doing a really hard training ride.  And riding to a group ride that I should have driven to, so as not to get stuck out in the chilly air.  And finally, feeling totally lousy but making myself go do a hard workout anyway.  Lucky for me (um, what?!) the sunshine seems to have left us for the time being and my judgement seems to have returned in its wake.

Springtime in Bad Photography

Last tuesday I drove out to Fitchburg to ride up Wachusett a couple times.  Ouch.  People were trying to ski, which looked miserable.  Seriously, if something looks miserable to a person doing zone 4 hill intervals you know that it probably really sucks.  By contrast, I was wearing short sleeves, and after my ride I stepped into a pond to ice the legs.  Ice is right - that water was bitterly cold.  I pretty much just stayed in long enough to get a picture.  In retrospect it was probably frozen a week before.



On Saturday I made vegan Irish Cream.  It was delicious.  It had coconut milk, sugar, chocolate, coffee, and Jamesons.  Not sure how the name of that company made it through spell check - everyone know's you spell it Jamison.  (haha, right?  We all know that's a joke?)

 I did a hard ride on Saturday, and when I got home I cooked myself this amazing meal.  Salad, homemade Kale Chips (we've established how awesome my kale chips are, right?), and two soyrizo tacos with avocado and cabbage salad.  Holy crap that was good.

And then yesterday (Sunday) we got out for almost 4 hours in the dirt.  Did I mention Cody's home?  For good(ish)?  Yep.  Anyway, it was awesome, even though my legs were kind of ouchie from the training I've been doing.  But we rode in shorts and no-sleeves.  Love the dirt.

See?  No sleeves.  I've determined that if I were to open a paint store I would invent a color called "New England Pale" which is basically the color every pasty person like me turns through the colder months in the Northeast.  It's sort of sad and sickly looking.

Anyway, life is good.  Need more coffee.

Spring Forward

While I rejoiced in it staying light until 7 I've heard many people bemoaning having to get up an hour earlier, then this morning there was a Yahoo headline about how daylight savings time increases your risk of heart attack because you lose an hour of sleep.  Seriously?  Really, are you f'in kidding me?  In my experience  the vast majority of people don't get enough sleep because of lifestyle choices that don't prioritize rest, and experience poor sleep quality due to lack of physical activity and poor diet, yet something as simple as setting your clock forward is a "risk"?  Really?  What's wrong with people?  Of course then there was the "every 6 seconds a child is injured on stairs" headline this morning, too.  Come on folks, the world isn't that scary.  It's going to be OK.  We'll survive the time change, and with any luck our next trip to the second story.  Worry about climate change or losing your reproductive rights, not a time change and your children being exposed to stairs.

Sorry, I'm done now.

It's been a while since I last blogged because I'm pretty boring.  Also, I outlined a list of things I'd be doing while Cody was gone, and I'm sad to say I've failed miserably at being a social butterfly.  Flutterby. 

As for the rest of it, I've been riding lots and seeing definite improvement in my fitness.  That is really cool.  Sometimes you progress in baby steps that are hard to even notice, and sometimes you take these big ol' strides forward, and you add 20 watts in 3 weeks.  That's the best feeling ever.  It's supposed to be almost seventy degrees this week!!!!!!!!  I cannot possibly add enough exclamation points to that statement to convey my level of excitement.  Tomorrow I'm going to drive out to Fitchburg and do some intervals up Wachusett.  I haven't done a hill interval in a year and a half.  Are they as fun as I remember?  I'll let you know.

Hmm . . . what else?

Oh yeah, as probably anyone who reads this knows (because you saw my pics on FB) I went to Philly for a couple days last weekend.  It was pretty cool.  When I got back Cody's brother asked me, "Was it nice to be back in the city?"  I was really puzzled by that.  It took me a minute of. "Oh, um, no?  But, uh, back . . . in the city?" before I realized he was comparing Philly to Reno.  Like I'd feel like I was in Reno because I was in Philadelphia.  WHAT?!  There are what, just under half a million people in the greater Reno area?  And Philly proper has 1.5 million, and you're an hour from Washington DC, 2 hours from NYC, with lots and lots of people covering every mile of that.  I mean, really, in what world is hanging out in Reno like hanging out in Philadelphia?  Hilarious.  Living in Reno is a lot more like living in Gloucester than living in a truly big city, like Boston, Philly, NYC, etc. 

Cody came home from Philly on Friday, but he had to head back last night.  This is ridiculous.  I suggested that if I hit him in the kneecap with a tire iron, not too hard, just enough for a fractured patella, that they would let him stay home, but he declined my offer at this time.  Weird, right?  Anyway, we had a pretty mellow weekend.  On Saturday we went to a garage sale at this unbelievably huge, ostentatious house in Magnolia.  I got a - drumroll please - pasta maker!  "But Marian," you say, "you don't eat wheat!"  But this morning I found a pasta recipe that only uses water, flax meal, and garbanzo bean flour (my favorite GF flour)!!!!!!!  Yes.  More exclamation points.  And the best part?  It only set me back $5!!!!!!  So I'm going to make some vegan/GF pasta.  And it's going to be amazing.