Oh carbs, how I love thee.

I was all gung-ho until the holidays hit, at which point I gained back what I had lost and chubbed up to my fattest weight ever. It was pretty depressing – I wouldn’t call myself “fat,” but I was definitely at my flabbiest. I checked back in with my strength trainer, who agreed that I looked a bit “chunkier” (sigh) and told me to start writing down my food again. He also bullied me into sharing my weight every week, so instead of my vague “I’m down a pound,” I’d have to start giving actual numbers. Crap.

This week I turned in my food log and was told I had made a marked improvement in the slop I was shoving down my gullet. I’ve so far lost about 6 lbs but have a ways to go to hit my goal weight. I’m basically going for “skinniest I’ve been since I got my tonsils removed when I was sixteen” weight, only with more muscle mass and fewer popsicles. (It was the “subsist off popsicles and tea” diet, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t poop for a week. Damn was I skinny though!)

Breakfast of champions

The one thing that threw me for a loop was when I got my body composition tested. To me the fat percentage seemed inaccurate – it was about 4% higher than I expected and placed me in the “poor” category. Normally I wouldn’t think much of it, but I don’t look that fat, for crying out loud, and I do stay pretty active even if I do tend to eat utter garbage. Also, bear with me here as I introduce an example derived from VH1 of all places. I caught part of an episode of Celebrity Fit Club on TV this week, and one of the “celebrities” getting weighed in looked considerably chunkier than me but apparently had 2% less body fat. Granted, she was about 3 inches shorter than I am, but still. She was told that if she lost 20 lbs, her body fat would drop about 4% (I forget the exact number), yet my strength trainer told me that if I lost 20 lbs to hit my goal weight, I’d drop 10% of my body fat. That seems like a pretty big difference for two people with apparently similar body compositions and weight goals.

This whole body composition nonsense kind of confuses me. Either way, I know what I want my goal weight and my body fat percentage to be, so I guess it doesn’t matter too much what the test says I’m currently at. All I know is that racing should be a bit easier when I’m hauling 20-25 fewer pounds through the water, on the bike and while I’m running. I’d also like my Ironman Canada finish photo to look pretty hardcore and not “Hey, that fat kid is blocking the finish line!”, at which point I’d start sobbing and trying to unwrap my finisher’s medal thinking there’s chocolate inside.

I don’t even like chocolate that much, but I’d still chow this down

I haven’t hit all my workouts but have managed to get most of my long runs in. I’ve done most of my training runs in Capitol Hill, so I think the hilly terrain has proved beneficial. I’ve also been doing heart rate zone training and have dropped two minutes off my mile pace when in zone 3. The one thing I’m worried about is how to pace myself for race day — I’ve gotten used to slowing things down for zone training, but I’ll have to speed up a bit to try and hit my goal time, so pacing is going to be a bit tricky. I’ll have to consult the coach this week for her opinion.

I think I’ve got a sub-4 in me for sure, but I might have to train a bit harder to hit it. Work’s been a bit stressful lately, plus I’m trying to squeeze in the beginnings of triathlon training, but if I were to just train for a marathon I think I’d do alright. In any case, we’ll see how the race goes on Sunday. I’m in taper mode this week but have a few workouts here and there, plus a (gulp) body composition test + diet analysis on Wednesday (it’s part of Operation De-Chub for Canada). I don’t think the Super Bowl gorging and beer guzzling will make my trainer too happy, but hopefully burning thousands of calories this weekend will counteract my bad habits. :D

Last weekend, I swam a length and brought my head up when I got to the end of the pool. The first thing I saw was a pair of feet. I looked up and Rusty was peering down at me, instructing me to widen my left arm entry. I nodded and took off to swim to the other end of the pool. 20 yards later, I pop my head up and see…another pair of feet. I sigh and look up, and Bridget is staring down at me. What does she say? “Widen your left arm.” Gahhhhhh, I already heard that at the other end of the pool. Boo, hiss.

So now I can’t slack when I think the coach isn’t looking because the coach is always looking…all three or four of them. Group workouts just got a whole lot harder…damn those knowledgeable coaches. They really should mind their own business and let me make little to no progress in the water. ;)

1. Anything with garlic and/or pesto. I love garlic, but Jason will attest to how stinky it renders me whenever I eat anything that contains a hefty amount of it. The funk emanates off me, repelling boyfriends and vampires alike. It’s kind of like that episode of The Simpsons where Moe opens up his Family Feedbag restaurant and a little girl draws a picture of him:

   

   “Aw, you drew the stink lines and everythin’.”

   The garlic burps are no picnic, either. Today I went for a swim and am pretty glad it was in the pool, because burping in the open water would probably result in a lot of floating dead fish.

2. Asian food. Most Asian food, while delicious at the time of consumption, ends up creeping back around and karate chopping me right in the gut. Japanese food is typically okay unless it’s particularly spicy — the main offenders are usually Thai food and Korean stuff like kimchi or bulgogi. As with garlic and pesto, the core concern here are the burps, although they probably do a pretty decent job of clearing a pathway for me during a race. Hmm, maybe I need to start keeping some bibimbap at transition…
3. Nuun. This isn’t really a food and it is good for pre-race hydration and recoveries, but I eventually learned not to drink it during workouts. Since Nuun has virtually no calories, I’d end up getting a major case of gut rot on brick runs and feeling like I was going to hurl like a spitter in Left 4 Dead 2.

   

   This is what happens when you drink Nuun during a workout.

   It’s kind of weird to think that a lack of calories would make you feel nauseous, but that seems to be the case with a lot of athletes. Oh well, lesson learned.

4. Heavy sauces. I would eat gyros from Aladdin’s every day of the week if I could, but their tzatziki sauce would come back and murder me later on. There’s also this place in the U-District called Shalimar, and they have these crazy delicious Middle Eastern sandwiches. I learned the hard way not to eat there before a track workout, as I spent the majority of my 400s clutching my stomach and hawking up yogurt-spiced loogies.
5. Tequila. This one’s kind of a no-brainer, but to be fair, it’s not like I drank a few shots and then went for a run…I ran the day after drinking my body weight in añejo-y goodness. This is about 75% Mark’s fault and 25% mine and Jason’s, because we probably shouldn’t have gotten him two bottles of tequila for Christmas, but then again, he shouldn’t have made us drink about eight shots each after already having a few margaritas. Dear god.

Nowadays if I know I’ve got a really hard workout involving intervals, sprints, speed work, etc, I eat pretty “boring” stuff like a sandwich or some eggs or a salad. The shitty thing is that even an innocuous food item has occasionally kicked me in the proverbial balls — one time I had really gross burps at track after eating a Luna bar, and another time a banana has tried to smite me.

As 2009 draws to a close, one of my main goals for 2010 is to eat better, not only so I’m healthier and more trim, but to cut down on these B.S. burps and the ick factor during what will be many, many workouts next year. We’ll see how well that goes… ;)

1. The back is better… I got some TLC in the form of massage, chiro work and foam rolley goodness, so huzzah for that.
2. …but the hamstring is not. A combination of weighted one-legged squats (curse you, Eli! *shakes fist*) and lots of run mileage has led to a tight right hammy, right where it meets the pooch butt. I’ve been stretching and icing it, so hopefully it’ll play nice over Christmas break so I can get my 18 miler in.
3. I ran the Las Vegas Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon. Jason did the full and shaved ten freakin’ minutes off his PR, thus capping off a fantastic year of racing for him (Mark has dubbed him “Mr. PR,” which is no joke — I don’t think he had a single bad race all season). I, meanwhile, did two minutes better than the Seattle half in June but was still 2 minutes off my PR. The goal for 2010 is to do a sub-1:50. I think that with my diligent training for Canada I should be able to pull it off.
4. I’m training for a marathon in February. It’s a podunk tiny marathon in Goodyear, Arizona that should only attract a couple hundred runners. The race is February 14th — what better way to celebrate a Hallmark holiday than to run 26.2 miles? This will be my second marathon, and I’m hoping to PR by a lot (about 20-35 minutes). The pipe dream is sub-4 hours, but I’ll be happy with low fours.

That’s about it for the time being. I’ll check back in after this weekend’s long run and workouts. Hope you all have a happy holiday and that you receive a stocking full of gu and PRs. :)

This – costume + stiffer back = pretty much what I looked like

We got to the hotel and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. To my horror, I was unnaturally shifted to the left like I was rockin’ a permanent gangsta lean. At this point, I was crabby as hell and just wanted to lie down, so I spent most of the afternoon on the floor staring at the carpet and wondering how clean it actually was. To make matters worse, Jason had come down with a cold so he was feeling as miserable as I was. The Gimp and The Germ made for quite the glamorous couple last week.

After some sad stretching attempts and a couple of Icy Hot patches, I pretty much gave up and resorted to hobbling around Vegas with jumbo shrimp posture all week.

I ran into a colleague of mine who’s an Internet marketer-slash-chiropractor, and he gave me a little TLC which helped a lot. Some of his exclamations included, “Jesus, your left IT band is so stiff,” “You’ve got muscular legs!” (always what a girl wants to hear), and “Why is your neck so STIFF?” Come to think of it, every other remark out of his mouth had to do with how stiff my body was. I think I come in just under “walking cadaver” on the Scientific Chart of Stiffness.

I wasn’t my usual chummy self in Vegas because of how unhealthy and uncomfortable I felt all week. We’re back home now — Jason is still sick and miserable and my back and neck are still kind of aggravating me. I’ve been married to the foam roller all weekend long and have scheduled a long-ass massage (as opposed to a long ass-massage) for tomorrow and plan on stalking my chiropractor all week so he can hopefully pretzel my body into something resembling a normal human form again. I just want to feel healthy again so I can continue building a solid base going into next season. Grrr, arghh….

We packed up some things for the weekend and were just about to leave when Jason randomly decided to call his dad and see if he wanted to tag along. Brief aside: Jason’s dad is awesome. He’s the kind of spectator you want watching you race because he’s genuinely interested in athletics and sports. He’ll show up at 5 am to watch things get set up and will wait around all day until the race ends. Best support system ever. [See also: Robyn Nelson]

Anyway, surprisingly enough, Jason’s dad wanted to tag along at the last minute so we headed to his parent’s house and picked him up for the long haul to Penticton. (Or, rather, we drove to Jason’s parents’ house and Jason’s dad drove from there. Woo hoo, free ride!) The area in and around Penticton is gorgeous — huge lakes, rolling hills and valleys, wine country galore. I’ve also never seen a town embrace the Ironman like Penticton. There were signs everywhere welcoming athletes and advertising the Ironman. Hell, the town Subaru dealership is even called “The Ironman City Subaru.” After coming from the most redneck, anti-Ironman Ironman race I’d seen, Penticton felt like I’d died and gone to athlete heaven.

I should wipe my ass with this postcard and send it to the fine townsfolk of Lake Stevens

When we got into town, we made our way to the house that we were staying at for the next couple days. My friend/chiropractor/fellow triathlete Nathan was racing Canada and had rented a house, and he had an extra room to spare. What I didn’t expect was for the house to look like the family who owned it had just left hours before we got there — personal photos and whatnot were left out, making me feel like I had just broken into someone’s house and decided to crash there, Goldilocks-style.

Undoubtedly because Nathan despises me for canceling so many chiro appointments, he decided to save this room for me and Jason:

That poster of Zac Efron holding the camcorder was pointed right at the bed. Ew.

It’s like the Disney Channel barfed all over the walls

Okay, that’s just fucking creepy

Not only was this girl obsessed with Zac Efron…

…she also seemed to side with Team Brown:

Awkward

Jason’s dad opted to sleep on the floor since he was a last-minute house guest, so the three of us spent the night inside a 13-year old girl’s room, surrounded by glossy two-dimensional teen heartthrobs, nightmare-inducing clowns, and a lavender phone shaped like a pair of lips.

Race day arrived, and we awoke to find an amusing checklist left on the countertop by one of the racers staying in the house:

Gotta remember to glide that chode!

We headed to the start to watch the race and to support our friends.

Swim course

I was absolutely blown away by the crowd of people who showed up to support the race. There were groups of spectators everywhere, and they cheered just as loudly for non-pros as they did the pros. It was by far the most supportive fans I’d ever seen. (No joke, Jason, his dad and I even got cheered on by people when we went for a 6 mile run. It made our wimpy little workout seem like a major accomplishment.) The race was amazingly well organized, too — I’ve never seen anything like it.

All day long I saw all sorts of people racing Canada. There were pros, old people, young people, overweight people, (lots of) skinny people. I even saw the guy who races each year with a new “gimmick” — I’ve heard that in previous years he’s raced dressed as Elvis and using a fixed-gear bike. This year he once again went the costume route:

I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be a leopard or a cheetah, but either way, that is one impressive getup considering how swelteringly hot the day was.

My favorite race outfit, however, was the guy sporting the Life with Louie t-shirt:

I could only snap a shot of the back of the shirt, but still, that is an awesomely dated and obscure choice of attire for a 140.2 mile race (who runs a marathon in a cotton t-shirt?!).

Eventually my teammates started to pour in. Mark was first, and he absolutely spanked Canada (and deserved to — he trained so hard all year-long and exceeded everyone’s expectations). This picture pretty much sums up how other racers felt to see him nearing the finish:

It was so awe-inspiring to see my triathlete buddies approach the finish line one-by-one. Everyone had a phenomenal race, and I was so excited and proud for them.

The next morning we got up early so Jason and Nathan’s friend could head over to the Expo Hall and sign up for the 2010 Ironman Canada. After much deliberation and a bout of temporary insanity, I did the unthinkable and signed up with them (it only took 3 G-D hours to do it too, and there wasn’t even a rollercoaster at the end of it). I hadn’t planned on committing to a full Ironman so soon, but Penticton really won me over with its beautiful course and the incredible support and organization. So I HTFU’d, plopped down an obscene amount of money, and began counting down the days until next August.

I’ll keep you all updated on my training regimen from now until D-Day — it’s sure to be rife with complaints, blisters, sunburns, near-drownings, early morning grumblings and prep races. Hopefully you’ll come along for the ride and experience a year’s worth of prep for a full Ironman race. I’ll try to make my journey as amusing as possible for you. :)

Eli is a bit more subtle in his breathing critique. I’ll be mid-lift and he’ll suddenly go, “You’re engaging your core, right?”, at which point I flex my abs in a knee-jerk reaction and respond with, “Uh, yeahhhhh…” Everything requires an “engaged core,” even writing a check for the day’s workout session (okay, maybe not). After our last meeting my abs were sore despite not having done any crunches or ab work — they were all hurty by proxy.

Regular, lazy Becca breathing is different than workout breathing. Lazy Becca Breathing is quiet, calm and satisfying. Workout Breathing is loud, shallow, “I’m gonna pop out a baby because I’m in labor and this is how I learned to breathe in Lamaze” breathing. I hate Workout Breathing. Why can’t my belly loll up and down like a distended Somalian’s when I’m exercising? Stupid core being all important and whatnot!

All I’m saying is that this fancypants new breathing better get me a sick-ass looking stomach, because if it doesn’t then I’m gonna call shenanigans on this “having to think about how to breathe” nonsense and will start gulping in air like a greedy chunkster again…

Her haircut is still considered trendy in Lake Stevens

The town literally consists of this skeezy restaurant, a Subway, a crappy foodmart, a burger shack, and, inexplicably, a town museum (maybe they wanted to commemorate the day they scored a Subway franchise). To answer your next question, no, there are no hotels in Lake Stevens, so if you’re thinking of flying in to do this race then lucky you, you get to stay in Everett or a neighboring city. (And no, Seattle is not “twenty minutes away,” as I heard one race official tell someone over the phone; it’s more like 50 minutes.)

Secondly, the “lake” part of Lake Stevens is filthy. It smells terrible and is full of garbage. When Jason swam in it the day before the race, he said the bottom of the lake was littered with beer cans and junk. Teresa said she spotted a chair during her swim. Jason and his dad once saw a half-submerged mattress in the lake after they finished a bike ride, and I had the pleasure of experiencing an obese kid with a rat tail throwing firecrackers into the lake as I was standing in it for a post-workout ice bath.

This is a form of child abuse, people!

This lake is the town’s urinal — they don’t give a crap about it and they certainly don’t take care of it, so excuse me for not wanting to pay a couple hundred dollars to do a race that involves swimming in it for 1.2 miles.

Thirdly, the bike course is horrible. It’s two loops and is a challenge for sure, with a few tough hills, a lot of false flats, and many twists and turns. However, what I hate most about the course is that the town’s inhabitants are so mean and inconsiderate to cyclists that it makes for a stressful, miserable ride. Every time I’ve ridden the course I’ve had some redneck in a Ford F-150 angrily honk at me as he passes me at 50 mph. And surprise surprise, Ironman didn’t close off the course during the actual race so my friends said they kept getting passed by jerks in cars who would angrily swerve and honk at all of the cyclists who were racing. Jesus Christ, this race is one day out of the year — you’d think that these a-holes could show some courtesy and put up with a few hours of inconvenience, but no, they’ve gotta get to Walmart or a monster truck rally or a Larry the Cable Guy viewing party or wherever the hell they’re rushing to.

And yes, this is the type of place that would likely have drivers who buy “truck balls” for their vehicles

The cherry on top of this turd sundae was the expo hall for the race. Race organizers had the expo hall in Everett, because, as I’ve already mentioned, there is nothing in Lake Stevens. Fun fact: Everett has an events center. Logically, you would think that the packet pickup, race briefing and expo hall would be at the events center or somewhere similarly sized…and you’d be wrong. Apparently the organizers decided that they wanted the expo hall to match the ghettoness of the actual race itself, so they held it in a Holiday Inn that was simultaneously hosting a Cash for Gold trade show. The lobby was a mess of athletes running into old, obese people who stank of ashtrays and were trying to turn in their gold brooches for fifty bucks.

Typical Cash for Gold customer at the hotel

Organizationally, the expo hall was a disaster. There were nearly 900 people signed up for the race, and the organizers were forcing each athlete to attend a mandatory meeting before they were allowed to pick up their race packet. There were four meeting times, one of which was reserved for the elite triathletes. The meeting room held about one hundred people. You do the math: clearly, not everyone is going to be able to squeeze into the room for the meeting. Did they think about this obvious logistical nightmare?

No, of course not; instead, they had some pissy volunteer with a beer gut and a 70′ porn ’stache angrily turning away athletes at the door when they tried to squeeze in and attend the meeting, sighing as if it was a huge personal burden. “Jesus Christ,” he’d whine, “There’s no more room. You have to come back in an hour” before shutting the door in their faces. Fuck that guy — the whole point of a volunteer is to make the athletes as comfortable and as prepared as possible. When you’ve got volunteers being rude to the racers, they’re creating a hostile and unwelcoming environment. Racing that distance is stressful enough as it is — you don’t need a poor man’s Burt Reynolds with a power trip barking at you and telling you what to do.

“Go away, we’re full.”

Speaking of the “mandatory meeting,” that is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. I’ve done three half Ironman races and I’ve never been forced to go to an athlete meeting before picking up my packet. There is nothing unique about the Lake Stevens race to where athletes have to be subjected to hearing someone drone on for forty minutes about the course and the token safety information. Oh really, the swim starts here and ends here, and the bike is a two-loop course, and the run is ALSO a two loop course? Wow, I haven’t heard that information since I read it on the goddamn website! Thanks so much for rehashing this for me! Seriously, offer the meeting to people who are nervous and haven’t done a race of this caliber before, but let the veterans and pros skip it — that’s what waivers are for, people.

I honestly have never seen a race this ghetto, unprofessional, cheap or poorly organized — not a half distance, an Olympic, a sprint, or any running races. There’s no way this race is worth a $225 sign up fee. My advice to anyone who’s not raced Lake Stevens before and is considering it — skip it. And to the Ironman race organizers, my advice to you is to either lower the registration fee by $100 or move the race altogether. Lake Stevens is a shithole that doesn’t respect athletes or take care of the course. Washington has better locations for a half Ironman. If the organizers want to maintain the prestige and value of the Ironman brand, I suggest they do something to improve the image of the Lake Stevens race.

Dude, if someone threw a tray of mustard at me while I was riding, I would freak the eff out and go apeshit on him. Then again, I can’t stand mustard, but still, that’s so not cool.