searching for my mojo...
Oh, hi! Well, so...if you don't count my last entry from July 2010, it's been well over 4 years since I've really blogged here. I see that imzadi and Triman and are still here. Some of the original users! I love it.
They've changed some buttons. I'm a little confused and don't know what a bunch of them are. I guess I've blogged a bunch on Wordpress and Blogger since abandoning this, my very first blog, my LJ. I kind of feel like this is still sort of a "secret blog" of mine after becoming semi-famous in the internet triathlon world. But with that notoriety, I've been unable to really blog like I used to. Especially because I feel like I've lost my mojo since, oh probably the last time I blogged here on LJ. Coincidence? So much has happened since then. I raced a lot. Didn't get much faster in 2010, but I sure was fit. Went back to the real world to make some headway on that inevitable student loan debt burden and reclaim some self-worth.
Last year I did some 6-week challenges on the Nerd Fitness Rebellion website, which is like a forum for geeky people wanting to get in shape. I liked being anonymous, and the first challenge was nice because it did keep me accountable. The second one was ok. By the third one; let's just call it a non-starter. Another 6-week challenge started today, and now that winter's over and the epic bike ride is over, I was feeling ready. But then I realized why I didn't want to do the challenge on the NF forums...I'm kind of selfish. People start following your thread and they leave encouragement for each other, and I'm kind of selfish and would feel obligated to follow them back and leave them some nice comments too. But honestly I don't have time. I just want an outlet for me to write down my goals and progress without having to read and comment on other people's challenges. Told you I'm selfish!
So here goes my 3 mini-goals for this 6-week challenge:
1. Eat clean. To me this means eating gluten-free and dairy-free. Mostly. (I don't get super neurotic about dressings and sauces.) I typically front-load my carbs in the morning, and start my day off with GF oats and 3 eggs. With bacon bits. ;) I tried the Paleo thing but it's on the restrictive side--I have no ill side effects from some oatmeal and rice, with fruit to replenish carbs after workouts.
2. Make the local RWB group runs every Wednesday night. One of my goals this year is to be more social and I'm finally making new friends here. I need to go every week to keep it up!
3. Train before work at least 4x per week. I don't have to get to work until 8am and have a 15-20min commute, so it's not unreasonable. "Training" constitutes at least 30mins of swimming, biking, or running.
That's it! I'm planning to sign up for a 10km in 5 weeks, and I'm already registered for my tri season opener, an Olympic in 7 weeks. I'll do a weekly update to see how my mini-goals are tracking. As a reference point, I'm super out of shape right now. That winter was long and brutal, and all I've really done are a lot of long, slow trainer rides. I can tell that running hurts, een for 30mins, but it's still my favorite.
As far as long-term goals, I've got a marathon in early October and would like to actually train for it this time (my downfall the last 4 years--not training and hoping I'll still be awesome). In fact, I want to PR. My PR is actually from two entries ago on this blog...when I ran a 3:15:02 in Jeju as a local training run. I was first woman overall but not allowed to take any of the prizes (it was like a gift certificate to the mall, which I totally could've used), and I even went off course a little. So I want to break 3:15, and I'd really like to go under 1:30 in a half marathon and eventually 3 hours in the marathon.
Oh yeah, and there's my weight too. Let's just get it out in the open while we're being honest. Weighed in at 154.8 last week. Which is about the upper limit (155) of what I consider acceptable for off-season weight these days. I was about 140-142 when I did my one-ironman-a-month in 2010 and all the way down to 132-135 when I broke 10 hours twice at the end of 2009. I think I can get down 10lbs fairly easily with just some consistent training and better eating these next 6 weeks, then we'll go from there.
All righty. In the meantime, I shall continue searching for my mojo. It must be here somewhere...