Eatin and movin week 2

Week  2	Training	Notes
Monday January 25th	Cycled to work and home again. Dun Laoghaire – Town – Dun Laoghaire	Running before I could walk.
Tuesday January 26th	Rode horse for 30 mins. Went for 1hr 15 min Snowboard Lesson	Tremendous fun
Wednesday January 27th	Swam 500m	Sweating in water feels weird
Thursday January 28st	Nothing
Friday January 29nd	Nothing
Saturday January 30rd	Rode horse for 30 mins Swam 500m
Sunday January 31th	Rode horse for 30mins

DATE	BREAKFAST	LUNCH	DINNER	POINTS/NOTES
Friday 22nd/Jan/2010	30g porridge, 100g Banana, milk. 80g mushrooms, onions, Poached egg.              5.5	Brocolli & cheese soup, WW roast vegetables and pasta, slice of brown bread. Bag of popcorn. 1 pear.                                                   8.5	Baked potato, 4 low low triangles, beans, chopped onions. 8	22
Saturday 23rd/Jan/ 2010	45g porridge, 130g banana, blue berries. 5	Brocolli & blue cheese soup, 2 slices brown bread. Extra light phili. 3 apples 5.5	WW lasagne. 2 ryvita. 5 Chicken dippers 7.5, 15+	33+ Had chicken dippers at alan’s 30th.
Sunday 24th/Jan/2010	40g special K, 130g banana, skim milk. 5	Brocolli soup, 2 slices of bread, extra light phili. Leftover potroast and rice. Pack of popcorn.            12	WW cottage pie. Butternut squash soup. Slice of brown bread, extra light phili. 2 ryvita.                   7	24
Monday 25th/Jan/2010	2 slices brown bread, Ex Light phili, tea with milk                               5	M+S Count On Us Asian Prawn Noodles 5	Uncle Bens Brown rice 125g Phil ex light 8	18
Tuesday 26th/Jan/2010	Special K 45g, Banana 130g 5	Velvet Crunch x 4 4	3 x Finn Crispbreads, Smoked Salmon 70g, Ex Light Phili 4	13
Wednesday 27th/Jan/2010	45g porridge, 130g banana, milk, 5	Brocolli soup, 2 slices of brown, ex light phili, popcorn x 2 bags, 2 apples.                                                  9	1 can tinned salmon, 1 small can beans, chopped onion. 6	20
Thursday 28th/Jan/2010	4 x finn crispbreads, ex light phili, 70g smoked salmon                         4.5	Homemade Omelet w/ onions, mushrooms, low low triangles, tomato, rocket.                                 4	WW toffee bar, pizza in milanos, Goodfellas bottega pizza. 20+	28.5+

Sound as a lb.

Another pound has ended it all and flung itself from my person. The confirmation was at my second Weight Watchers weigh-in last thursday (29th). I had been reasonably good all week but wasn’t expecting to lose anything as I’d lost 4.5 the week before so the solitary lb was a genuine bonus. Of course in true fashion I spat in the face of my bonus by going straight from my WW meeting to Milano’s where I devoured the most delicious romano pizza before going into town for some cocktails and then eating a goodfellas bottega pizza on my return to my friend’s flat at 4am. Way to go, Slimmer.

Exercise has seen a noted rise since last week also. I started last week by cycling into work and then home again on the Monday. This was something I did with relative ease in he months after the Warrior Run when I still has the gleam of mountain battle armour on my skin and my leg muscles had been so effectively worked into submission that they put up with any new challenge without quibble. That, however, was then and five months on the couch ‘n’ cake shift with make any muscle forget quicker than a threatened witness in a high profile mafia trial. Needless to say the cycle was at best distressing and left me feeling that I would train for the cycling leg in gradual bite size distances.

Tuesday I did a doubler of non tri related physical activity. Firstly I rode the horse, she too is training for something in the summer and as a failed racehorse has a keen insight into my natural inclination towards going slowly or just staying very still. The evening brought a new string to my bow in the shape of a beginners snowboarding lesson. Despite the fact of hopelessly incongruous on such a cool item as a snowboard, myself and Him Indoors had a fantastic time sliding around on the brushbristles posturing as snow on Kiltiernan SKi Slope.

I have also broken the seal on the swimming front. The extent of swimming my whole life has involved getting into the water, either commenting that it’s freezing (in the Irish Sea) or commenting how lovely and cooling it was (in any body of water while on holiday) splashing about for a bit and then getting back out. My maiden voyage of length swimming was fairly productive. Myself and my partner in tri-disciplinary crime managed to swim 500m (20 lengths) broken up into short intervals. It was enough to make my face turn a fetching shade of crimson and my heart to sound like hooves at the Curragh. The reverberations of sound against the walls of the local county council swimming pool was like a sledgehammer of nostalgia as I was bathing in the scene of many’s the childhood saturday swimming outing, when the kids pool was warm with suspected pee and the adults pool stretched out like an inland sea, the other side invisible to the naked eye.

I must wrap this up now as I’ve got a 5.30 alarm call in order to exercise my like-minded equine. All in all a good week for the combined forces of moving and eating. Managing to raise the levels of the former while keeping the latter at an acceptable level.

More to follow. Godspeed

Eatin’ and movin’

My log of both activities for last week

Moving

Week  1	Training	Notes
Monday January 18th	Nothing	I
Tuesday January 19th	Nada	Told
Wednesday January 20th	Nil	You
Thursday January 21st	Diddley sqat	I
Friday January 22nd	Zilch	Was
Saturday January 23rd	Zip	All
Sunday January 24th	Zero	Talk!!

Eating

DATE	BREAKFAST	LUNCH	DINNER	NOTES
Friday 15th/Jan/2010	Porridge, 40g. Banana 50g. Skim Milk	4 ryvita, 2 low low triangles. Chicken breast, 150g. Onion	Olives. Meatballs. Potatoes.	Tapas in Market Bar for dinner. Got very drunk.
Saturday 16th/Jan/ 2010	5 rice cakes with light philadelphia	2 Finn crispbreads, Chicken breast, 2 low low triangles. Butternut squash soup	Roasted garlic cloves in oil and butter. Chicken and chorizo in rice.	Dinner party in Katy’s, sinful garlic, much booze.
Sunday 17th/Jan/2010				Total write off, too hungover to eat, slept most of day.
Monday 18th/Jan/2010	3 weetabix, 1 banana, Skim milk.	8 rice cakes, extra light phili. 1 apple, 3 bags manhattan pocorn.	100g chicken breast, peas, vegetables.
Tuesday 19th/Jan/2010	2 apples	Butternut squash soup. Slice brown bread. Pack of manhattan popcorn.	Olives 30 g in garlic oil, chicken in stir fry with brown rice. Tin of salmon, tin of beans, 3 ryvita
Wednesday 20th/Jan/2010	45g porridge, 130g banana, blackberries.	6 finn crisp breads, 3 low low triangles,	Brocolli and blue cheese soup. 1 apple.
Thursday 21th/Jan/2010		125g pasta, tomato, pepper and garlic sauce with light philli.	Cinema popcorn, bag of winegums.	Didn’t get to eat til late, made pig of self at dinner. Went to cinema.

Watching the lbs

I’ve been a little slack with the updates about Weight Watchers.They say a watched clock never moves, well a watched weight follows the same principle. You think it’s not moving because you can’t see it in front of your eyes but really it is moving. At it’s own pace mind you but the pace dictated by the universe, any other pace would be wrong. Like if you were watching a clock and the second hand jumped forward from five past the hour to twenty past the hour, you’d be really excited because you’d think there had been a time warp of some kind a la The X-Files, (of more recently Fringe), but the second hand would be forced to return to where it had been and continue as normal. I have spent most of my overweight life wanting the second hand of my mass to jump forward in 20 minute and half hour intervals, but this time I’m happy to just let it slowly fall away bit by bit.

The first week was a pleasant surprise. I was down 4.5lbs. I stuck fairly well with the points and tracked everything. Tracking is deemed to be the secret to losing the weight. I won’t pretend that it isn’t a little cumbersome writing everything down but if they said that I was to stick pins in my eyes to deflate my midriff then I would buy up the monthly order from the Shaws knitting needle department.

Anyway, it is getting late and I have to get to bed so I will be lazy and just post my food and exercise diary form last week. Besides, all this talk about food is making me hungry. UNtil the morrow…

Rechristening the challenge.

THe warriors run was my fiery baptism to the world of athletic events and as an introduction to physical challenges it served me greatly, but as this year is heralding the pursuit of the triathlon goal, i have felt the need to rechristen these far from hallowed pages. The blog formerly known as Walrus to Warrior has become Tris and Tribulations, no doubt the oncoming months will be heavy on the latter in anticipation of the former.

All talk…

Week one passed without me so much as attempting to move with the vigour required to garner the label of exercise or training. Despite all my big talk I managed to find an excuse every day after work to exonerate me from exertion. However I soon got wise to my malingering ways and have adopted a zero tolerance policy with myself. I know better than anyone the tripe I will come up with in order to convince myself that the still option is the best option. Despite my idleness, I did do lots of research on triathlons in search of the right training plan and after some light-hearted evaluation decided that this is little beauty formulated by one Michael Pate will do the trick nicely.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=262

It’s 22 weeks long which if started today will bring me up to the end of June, leaving one month until the date of my proposed first triathlon, the Rosses Point sprint triathlon in Sligo on 31st of July. I got today off to a positive start with some cycling, namely the 5 miles from Dun Laoghaire to town to go to work. It wasn’t too bad, discomfort-wise, but i’d say it’s safe enough to assume that as it took me an entire 45 minutes I wasn’t exactly pulling an aul Lance Armstrong in the revs per minute department. Still though, it was definitely a step closer to competing in a triathlon than getting the 46a and falling asleep with my mouth open in front of judgemental commuters, and for that I will be patting myself on the back. The bad thing about cycling a certain distance away from home in one direction is that you are invariably forced to return by the same methods so as I’m penning this post from the illicit out-of-bounds supervisors computer in work I shall now finish up to embark on my two wheeled journey home. I shall leave you with this succinct list of cycling’s disadvantages.

1. Saddlebum

2.Mid-calf oil-stains

3. Cycling uphill

4. Cycling on the flat

….and advantages…

1. Cycling dowhill…wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

‘Tis the season to be blogging

I’ve just lifted up the rock I’ve been hiding under for the last five months and discovered that due to the virtual metabolic standstill I incurred by hibernating I am now back to my pre warrior weight. Damn you genetics damn you. Now seemed as good a time as any to crawl out from my boulder and get back in action. I was a warrior once, I can be battle fit again.

Cliched as it is, January is a good time to be undertaking a challenge and blogging was a tool I found to be a great way to keep track and motivate myself, it’s follow through and maintaining the regime that is the real test  and as only I know too well consistency and routine are things I repel. So I’m back here again on the pages of space hoping to document success in achieving some goals.

My attack this time is two pronged.

1. Gluttony has left me at what I am only too afraid is the doorstep of diabetes and a lifetime of outsize clothing. In order to combat this I have joined the much famed Weight Watchers and intend to stick with it until I have educated myself to eat properly and I am a non elephantine weight, preferably both. Tonight was the first meeting where the unspeakably inspirational Fiona weighed me in confirming my ridiculous mass. I’m not brave enough to speak its number but suffice to say, it’s adolescent. Tomorrow I shall start as I mean to go on food wise.

2. To aim for the Warrior run again, though on the cards, would be boring to read for me and any potential blog tourists. This year, i’m mixing it up a little. The goal that I’ll be documenting is a triathlon, whether I’ll be scoring said goal is another matter. One which I shall be putting my mind both to and over. Training shall commence this weekend with a trip back to the gym to ease back into things. Just to recap, since my last post I kept my fitness levels up for a month but then couldn’t compete in the Dublin Half Marathon because of work and after that, to my shame, I let the fitness slide. I don’t mean gently slide, i mean slide like a kamikaze six year old child in an aqua park. Anyway, new year new leaf, who said i couldn’t bounce seasonally from walrus to warrior status like a mammalian yo-yo on crack. Therein lies my aspirational manifesto, I’ll be back, with updates.

Morning after…

And so it came to pass, the mountain stayed where it had always been, and 800 Mohammeds flung themselves at its immovable base with minimal regard for anything other than their desire to make it back to the Strandhill canon before the broom wagon.

I beat my predicted time by about five minutes, which felt like winning Olympic Gold, every year, forever, but all at the same time. I won’t disingenuously pretend that it was easy, or even moderately hard, it was sheer, utter, unadulterated, bloody murder. However, the post run elation overwhelmed me as soon as i crossed the line and rapidly begun to erode the memory of the hillside horrors.

Running makes me feel like i’m going to die, but paradoxically also makes me feel as alive as if my central nervous system was plugged into the clouds above where i pass. Retrospective glances over the ill-updated pages of this blog will show day after day of grumbling, whinging, moaning and lyrical, graphic descriptions of just how dreadful the exertions feel. Yet there is an intangible un-nameable factor that compels me to continue. And i say this not in the blithe security of the post-warriors safety net, sure in the knowledge that nothing if its ilk looms in my future, because yesterday morning  I signed up for the Dublin Half Marthon, which is in 27 days time.

So the walrus shall live to run another day. The feckin eejit. Stay tuned for more tales of physiological woe.

P.S. My online mentor, The Great T-Runner, broke the hour for this years W-run, coming an incredible 8th. I’d like to extend my admiration and congratulations. You are part human-part ibex.

Morning of…

The butterflies in my stomach have set up a fully functional military state in my intestinal tract. Their dictator (a sadistic Red Admiral, who knew something so beautiful could be so evil) has been making his army do star jumps in the main stomach area. I cannot discern excitement from nervousness as I am awash with both and both are fighting for domination of my brain. The morning’s rain promises a slippery descent which if mis-footed at some points would double up as a free-fall water-slide for a few meters (as i discovered on one of the training days on the mountain).

From my vantage point in Rosses Point the mountain looks bigger than its 1000m, I toyed with the idea of going for a morning swim to wake myself up and distract myself from the task ahead but I chose to stay here and wonder just how difficult the two hour between 3 and 5pm were going to be. If I had managed my time better I would have come down three weeks ago and done a practice run on the old route just to gauge it but time management has never been a strong point.

I’ve thought carefully about what time I think I will complete in. Obviously avoiding the broom wagon was my initial goal but I have revised that somewhat. My time on the road is 77 minutes, the last time i did the mountain it took us 55 minutes though that included stops. The slowest time last year was 36 minutes but that was the old route so on the balance of those two figures I’ll have a punt at 2 hours and 3 minutes. This puts me well out of the running for any hot water in the showers in the runners village but my desire for a self congratulatory pint will be enough to help me endure the frigid water rather than make my way back to the point for a hot one.

I must sign off now to go into town and get socks as I forgot to pack mine. Best of luck to all and to all the best of luck. I’ll see you in The Strand for a few afterwards!

Final battle cry before The Ascent.

As i write, there are 55 hours until the Warrior run starts. That brings with it a mixture of dread and excitement that has intoxicated me like a child on too many e-numbers. The last three months, though undocumented on these pages have seen me find some (reasonably) conventional employment (albeit sans internet access which, coupled with a faltering home internet, prevented my regular blogging), continue to train, plateau in my training, ramp it up again and before I knew it I was on the home straight to the run.

The only other organised run I have done was the mini marathon, which i did in a reasonable 64 minutes, but that was delightfully flat and devoid of rugged terrain. HOw i scoff now at my trepidation as the “gradient” of Nutley Lane.

Some of the other warriors in training in my wake are still going strong, some not so strong. Well if I’m honest, I am in their slipstream. A (who has left the odd comment on these pages as Baluba) is looking the fittest and has the muscle melting ability to run non stop from the bottom of bray head over its two peaks and back again without walking at any point. D is looking like a solid finisher also, he and I ran the road part of the Warriors run a few weeks ago and he managed it in 61 minutes to my 77 (to our credit the weather was beyond inclement, the wind on the last few kms on the main road almost had you standing still). J has unfortunately had to sacrifice his entry having suffered a litany of injuries including two broken toes (broken on separate occasions would you believe) some knee ligament damage from overcompensating while trying to train on said toes. The doctor ruled him out on account of the toes two weeks ago. The only other female in my band, C, went off to Thailand on a journey of self discovery a few months ago and won’t be running either.

The last week I have done Killiney Hill and Bray head in preparation for this weekend. This evening in might just do about 4km and then that’s it until Saturday. I’ll just sit and wait while my insides rapidly liquidise. I must sign off now as I have to go to work now in the soulless internet vacuum in which I am employed.

Until The Mountain…….