A solid week

Thanksgiving went very well. There was an idea that I was going to go, along with the woman who lives next to me, to the home of a mutual friend for dinner. I went for a long bike ride, and I got home around 2 to discover that the last-minute arrival of immunocompromised family made the relevant home off-limits. Well, perfect; I had bought everything for Thanksgiving dinner before I knew that the invitation was even a possibility, so the revocation of it just answered the question "what am I going to do with this turkey"? It went straight in to roast. I had made russian cream with raspberry-crabapple reduction sauce in advance to bring over, and chilled a couple bottles of riesling. So dinner was served around 7, with my neighbor and I sharing turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, brussels sprouts sauteed in bacon fat, fresh ABI5 rolls, good white wine, and russian cream for dessert. She took the rest of the russian cream and sauce home with her, and I stripped the carcass, made stock, and had everything packed up and in the fridge/freezer and dishes washed by 9 PM.

Whew.

On black friday, I went for the first run in over 2 months without carrying a bike. I didn't even bring my phone; just socks, shoes, shorts, a t-shirt I took off almost right away, sunglasses I didn't use, my watch, and a house key. Got slightly lost in the east end, ran over 10 kilometers, and felt great at the end (and a young lady yelled "can I get your number?" at me from a passing car).

And today was a whirlwind of accomplishments. Not only did I finish out my first week of 100 reps on every strength exercise, I ran my first triathlon. I biked to the beach, swam a kilometer, biked over 22 kilometers home, and ran a bit over 5K. So it wasn't an "official" triathlon, but every distance was above the associated distance for a sprint-length event. I also defrosted my fridge and freezer, did a load of laundry, went grocery shopping, and made a batch of trail mix. I feel like my life would be in an incredible place if I got as much done every day as I did today. Speaking of groceries, I bought eight big bars of "tony's chocoloney"chocolate. Having read their back story, I want to only buy chocolate from them for a while.

Tomorrow is a no-exercise day. But fortunately, that doesn't mean that exercise is forbidden, just not mandatory. I think I might bike to a decent park and have a nice walk in nature.

Back in the saddle

Today was a solid day of accomplishments. One of the first things I did was turn on the pot of beans I started soaking last night; beans are proving to be very satisfying fare lately. The recipe varies, but I always includes beans, salt, fat, and one or more ingredients just for flavor (onion flakes are a regular addition). Today, it occurred to me to try chicken fat. It also occurred to me that the long, slow cooking method I have been using wasn't really going to work if I wanted to go swimming. So I got the pot to a rolling boil, wrapped it in some towels, and put it in my cooler to cook in its own residual heat. I ended up cooking it a bit more in the evening, but it was a worthwhile practice nonetheless (and it saved a fair bit of electricity).

Part of the reason it worked was that I was using one of my backpacking pots, so the handles could fold down and the pot could fit into the cooler. The same fact is why both pots are soaking neatly in my sink right now. The other, smaller one is soaking after having some reduction sauce cooking in it; raspberry chambord, but sweetened with a small jar of my failed crabapple jelly attempt.

Today was my first time swimming in my heavier wetsuit, and my first time using my hood. I was unbelievably buoyant; I swam about a kilometer, and most of it without using my legs, because they were so buoyant that kicking kept driving my feet out of the water. I wasn't even remotely cold (despite the water being below 10C), but part of that may be that I biked to the beach in the wetsuit, so I arrived rather warm. I biked home stripped to the waist. But it was a good swim. Other accomplishments include making laundry soap, doing a load of laundry (which I am doing by hand these days), fetching two large jugs of water, washing my swimming gear, and grocery shopping, on top of my usual daily tasks.

One more accomplishment; really, it started yesterday. I achieved 100 reps on pushups, situps, and squats. That exceeds the "outstanding high" category for my age group in the navy PRT standards. It feels great to have achieved this goal. I wonder about adding in pullups.

Rough week

Tuesday, I ran to work carrying my bike. Wednesday, I had a noticeable amount of shoulder discomfort, bordering on pain. Combined with knee discomfort, I decided not to exercise at all that day (except my usual stretches, strength training, and steps). On Thursday, I did my weekly brick workout in to work and it went rather well. That left me with two swims and a run for the week, but I knew I'd have to sacrifice one of them. Friday, I was getting ready to leave for a swim when I got a call in to work that lasted until the late afternoon; given that it was already dark when I went home, that torpedoed any hope of swimming that day. Now, it's early on Saturday, and I'm at work, seriously doubting that I'll get any more workouts in this week.

Ugh.

On the plus side, my new rain jacket arrived. It fits like a glove and, by God, it's a size medium. Medium; I don't think I've worn medium anything since some time in high school. Yet another motivation to keep this weight off. In fact, I'm inclined to think of this week as more of a rest week than a failure week. I also noticed yesterday that, though I had climbed at least 10 flights of stairs, my watch registered only 3. I could have gone out and climbed more, but I think this is a good first step towards giving less and less regard for what the garmin connect app has to say. It's a useful tool for measuring some things, but my measured life spreadsheet is the metric I should be using to track success and failure for that sort of thing. Badges are all fine and well, but that app doesn't know everything. For example, it claims my "fitness age" is fully eight years higher than my actual age, and that my VO2 max is abysmal. I'm inclined to think that this is due, at least in part, to me having no mechanism for telling the app that I'm carrying 50 pounds when I run.

I've also been considering my weight standards for myself. I'm pleased to be as lean as I am (around 11% body fat), and I don't want to gain a lot of fat back, but I have been increasing my strength training for some time now. I can't shed fat endlessly; right now, I'm carrying about 20 pounds of it, and I'm pretty clearly not pushing myself hard enough to lost more than 6 or 7 of those, at the most. If I want to progress in my strength training, at some point I'll have to accept additional mass.

Thanksgiving looms. I intend to cook a more or less full meal, or parts of it if (as is suspected) I eat over at someone else's home. Either way, I have a 12-pound turkey that will get roasted. I also need to get moving making crabapple jelly if I'm going to give some to my boss before she leaves.

Second to last week

Yesterday, I had a very pleasant long bike ride. I find that, while I enjoyed (and still enjoy, to the extent that I get to do them) long runs, I enjoy long rides even more. I also picked up the last few things I wanted to get as Christmas presents (except something for my father); I may just get everything to everyone on time without even paying for express shipping this year. I think this measured life stuff is working out rather well. Yesterday was also the first day of 95 reps on my strength training. Next week marks 100, my goal. I'd like to add in some pullups (but not 100 a day; that's insane).

Today, I ran to work carrying a bike, just for a covid test, and biked home. I'm really swapping the workouts around in this second to last week of my training program. I think that the first thing I'll add to my workouts once this program is over are some runs without a bike; I miss running unladen. I'll go for a run with no bike, no pack, not even my phone. Just the $20 I keep in a capsule on my shoe and my watch.

I finally got in some foraging for the month. I picked a pound or two of crabapples from some trees in a public park. I could have picked WAY more with a ladder, but that's life. Tomorrow, I think I'll try to make jelly.

Two weeks left

It's Sunday; rest day. Yesterday was satisfying; stretches and strength training during a lull at work, bike home, change, bike to the beach, swim, bike home, laundry, sleep, and bike back to work. The swim was 1460 strokes. The wind was unusually strong, and it took a bit of extra work not to drift out from shore. I was careful not to close my wetsuit neck too tight and I tried taping a piece of gauze to the back of my neck, and there was no chafing to speak of. I did my laundry by hand; it was easier than I expected, and rather faster than doing it by machine.

I was thinking of going foraging for crabapples tomorrow, but I noticed that the hitch for my bike trailer was missing. When I asked my bike mechanic about it, he told me he had thrown it out because he didn't know what it was. Which make me seriously question whether I should ever go back to him. I may still try foraging tomorrow; a backpack full of crabapples could still make a respectable amount of jelly. I got some weck jars a few days ago, and I'd like to make some jelly to give out for gifts.

My garmin vivoactive 3, which I've had for less than a month, started glitching yesterday. This is the second one that's been giving me trouble. This is one of the big reasons I've started trying to track data with a spreadsheet; I'm trying to reduce the dependence on specific pieces of tech. Right now, my watch tracks things like my steps, flights of stairs climbed, etc. It would probably be cumbersome and distracting to count my steps manually all day long. Hmmm.

Oh, the title. There are only two full weeks left in my current triathlon program. It ends when the month ends. Then I need to either figure out some kind of maintenance, or a path to continued improvement.

Some red on the chart

As I've mentioned here before, I'm using a spreadsheet to track various metrics in my life; weight, pages read, exercises, etc. I didn't expect that it would be perfect right out of the gate, and I've already made come changes. I also set up a few color changes; red meaning that I had failed to achieve some metric for the day that I have deemed particularly important. If I go months and months with no reds, that means my goals are probably set too low. But I had a few reds the other day; water consumer, pages read, and spanish learned. Frankly, because I fell asleep early. Just another reason to get as much done as possible early in the day.

Yesterday, I had my first brick commute. I biked over 22 kilometers to a park, where I transitioned to running (over the course of about twelve minutes), and ran just shy of 5 kilometers to work. The transition could obviously improve, but to be fair it was raining and I also had a backpack with work clothing and a few other things. Overall, I'm quite pleased.

Work has again made my exercise schedule somewhat unworkable. I've still got a run and a swim to do this week, but it's unwise to do both in one day, and I only have today left in the week. Given my performance yesterday, I think I'll try to go for the swim. Perhaps I should use my other wetsuit and see if it still chafes the back of my neck. Or I may try taping my neck with medical tape of some kind. Anyway, I think I would still keep swimming even if the chafing never got better.

This exercise thing is starting to take up a lot of my time. Not just with exercising, but with trips to and from the ocean, planning, doing extra laundry, and the like. I'm also buying things; gloves and booties to keep my hands and feet warm in the ocean, a dry bag, a swim float, goggles, etc. etc. etc. I have a goal that I want to achieve, and I will achieve it, but I also don't want to have a home full of accumulated exercise equipment. I find myself slipping into wearing clothing I would previously have only considered exercise clothing during common daily activities; for example, I almost never wear socks except feetures running socks. I've seriously considered getting rid of my bathrobe if I end up getting a swimrobe.

I wonder what the best method is for staying in shape with minimal gear in all weather. Body weight training and barefoot running are all fine and well, but only an idiot would run barefoot year-round around here.

Another success

I swam over a kilometer today. This was my first swim with booties. I felt warm, but never more disconnected from the water. I also realized that changing straight from booties to socks and shoes means that there is no need to rinse the sand from my feet.

Swim days are days of success and accomplishment.

I got a body scan today. 11 percent body fat, or around 20 pound of fat all told left on my frame. My muscle mass hasn't gone down (in fact, has gone up slightly) since the last scan, so I'm really only losing fat.

Previously, I had only considered using foam to keep my bicycle and other gear afloat when I tow it all behind me while swimming, or possibly some sort of small inflatable like the ruckraft. I didn't particularly care for that last idea, because of the possibility of it springing a leak. Today, it occurred to me that I might use a folding coroplast boat. It could be rather small, and use the frame of the backpack to stiffen the boat itself. It could fold and fit onto the frame during both the bike and the run. A travel pack of gorilla tape would answer any leaks. It might be best to wrap the bike in plastic to make it more or less waterproof and buoyant, and have the coroplast shell merely act to streamline it in the water.

This also opens up the question of camping on some of the islands around here. Bike to the closest point on the shore, fold the bike and put it in the boat, swim to the island, and camp. Groundsheet, pad, sleeping bag, a couple food bars, some water, flashlight, and a book. Maybe my camping stove and a pot for some coffee or tea.

Swim days are success days

Well, really, many non-swim days are success days too. A good brick day is a success, and of course there's the day I ran to work with a bike. But a swim day always feels satisfying. Yesterday, I got off work around 8 in the morning, biked home, changed, biked to the beach, swam, biked home, and had a fourth bike ride to get to work in the evening. I wore my new yulex gloves for the swim. They're certainly very effective. It's a strange sort of dichotomy, the same one I noticed when I first swam in a wetsuit. You feel simultaneously more protected from the environment but more disconnected from it. My hands were not numbed by the cold, but they were still less sensitive to the environment because of the gloves.

Maybe you can't protect against anything without also always noticing the barrier.

I've got three weeks left in the current triathlon training plan. Three weeks is also when I should hit 100 reps for all my strength training exercises. I need to make sure that there is a continuation plan of some kind; if not for improvement, at the very least for maintenance. I've looked around at various rules of thumb; "you can do in a day what you do in a week", for example. The idea there is that you could, for a competitive event, run and swim and bike in a single day the same distance that you usually spread out over a whole week. In theory, then, if you were to cumulatively perform an ironman distance every week, you would more of less always be ironman-ready. In theory. I think that, at the very least, you would want a hefty chunk of each exercise to be done in one shot; for example, running a half marathon distance once per week, and spreading the other half over the other 5 or 6 days of exercise. Likewise, there would have to be a long bike ride, 50 or 60 miles at least. It would probably be best to have one day be a sort of massive brick day; bike 60 miles and run 13 over the course of 8 hours or so.

There are many possibilities. I'm also thinking about adding pullups into my strength training; not with the goal of doing 100 a day, as with the others, but perhaps 10 or 20. The only issue is that, unlike the other exercises, pullups require a bar, and none of the doorways in my home are strong enough to even support such a thing. I think there may be a pullup bar in one of the local parks; maybe I could have a morning jog/strength training/jog approach.

Staying motivated

On Thursday, for the first time in a LONG time, I ran to work. I ran to work carrying my breakfast and my lunch, my work clothes, and a bike helmet for the ride home that afternoon. I also carried the bike for the ride home.

All up, I ran just over 5 miles carrying a 51-pound pack. It was slow, but I never stopped running. I had never carried that bike on a run before; previously, I carried a different folding bike. Fortunately, this one was still perfectly functional after the run. Unfortunately, it rubbed a patch raw on my back. I also ended up taking the night shift Friday morning. I ended up having to run errands right afterwards, and by the time I got home, I was just too shattered to go for my swim. So today, instead of running (and possibly exacerbating the raw patch on my back), I'm going to go for a swim. That means this week will at least have contained two of each type of workout (counting the brick as a bike and a run).

I received some R-4 yulex gloves and booties in the mail from Patagonia. The gloves fit...well, like a glove. The booties, on the other hand, were far too small. They got returned, and a new pair should be on its way. Between those and the fact that I haven't even used the thicker of my two wetsuits yet, I should be able to swim through the winter. I might have to add a hood. I have also considered looking on craigslist for wetsuits in poor condition and cutting them apart to make second layers for specific areas; a vest, for example, or additional layers for my legs.

The spreadsheet for tracking various statistics related to my life is going reasonably well. As anticipated, it's far from perfect. Tracking dietary macros becomes more difficult as my diet becomes more complex and I consume more of my calories from sources besides meal replacement shakes. I think I will use my weight as a metric for how strict my macro tracking is. The spreadsheet highlights in yellow anything at or above 81 kilograms; that will be my "your weight is increasing; be careful" notification, but I won't bother tracking macros. 82 or more brings an orange highlight; I think I will use that as a "start tracking macros and eating a deficit of 500-1000 calories/day". If it's a significant jump, I may also use it as a trigger for a day of fasting. 83 kilos or above results in the color being red; that will be my marker for strict ketosis, absolutely no more than 50g carbs total (not net) per day, and to stay that way until my weight is back under 81. 2 kilograms of fat represents about a week of eating 1000 calories per day less than I use. I'm not going to exceed the 1000 calorie deficit per day, with the exception of any fasting days. If I do choose to fast for a day, it will be Sunday (my rest day), and the following day's brick workout will be followed immediately by eating.

I should have made a video of myself at 210+ pounds, asking present me to keep the weight off. Past me did the hard work; getting the weight off. It's up to present me to do my part.

Day 4

 A lot has happened.

Today, I finally got back into the sea. I was wearing my thinner wetsuit, and boy; what a difference a few degrees makes. My goal was 1,300 strokes, and I made it to 1,219. My hands didn't seems to mind so much, but my feet were mostly numb by the time I got out. This was the first time I brought a regular backpack to the beach, carrying my swim backpack and a thermos of hot broth. I got out, put on my shorts, got my feet dry(ish), put on my socks and shoes, and sat down on a bench for a couple mugs of hot broth. I stopped on the ride home to drop off my bike for some service, walking the last few blocks. And the first thing I did on arrivinghome was order yulex booties and gloves...overnight service. I never order overnight. But I've got a swim the day after tomorrow, and it's only getting colder.

Since my last entry, I've also has the experience of trying my new running shorts out on a run with no other lower body garment. They worked out fine, so it looks like I'm set on shorts for a good long while. I've made a few other purchases; glucosamine-chondroitin with MSM pills and salmon oil pills, both made in the USA. I found a vacuum flask, all stainless steel and made in the USA, for $10 on craigslist. And I bought a forehead thermometer made in the USA. My morning routine is rapidly developing to include a full-on miniature physical; weight, heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, and blood glucose/ketones, as desired.

My "measured life" project is working out reasonably well. I've hit my markers, and in some cases exceeded them by quite a bit. The data entry is a bit troublesome, but I think that may just be a matter of habit. Or I may need to find a way to improve the process.