Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Yesterday was the first time in forever and a day that I’ve done two workouts in a day (a short run in the morning, swim drills in the evening), and today everything is sore. Hips, arms, core, the works. And I still want to hop on my bike for an hour or more here this morning to get in one more workout this week. I know this’ll get easier, but I did not want to get out of bed this morning. As it was I let myself sleep in.

Going to attempt a visit to the Washington Design Center today with BC (depends on when he gets over here, I suppose). It’s here in SW, and I’ve never been, so I want to check it out. Spring has sprung and I’m wanting to rearrange my living room. I have ideas, but it’s always fun to see what other folks have done to tweak those ideas.

Since getting tested, getting back to exercise has been slow. Motivation, breaking the non-exercising habits of the past couple of months, all nasty little barriers to overcome. Still not back to anything resembling a regular workout habit. Blah.

Work’s been pleasantly busy. Big project from last year has raised its ugly head again (the good idea of an outside agent which just happens not to be legal – so sorry), so we have to respond to yet another Hill inquiry about this thing. Ugh. Doesn’t help that the particular field office involved won’t shut up and get into line with HQ on this one, and admit that they’re reading the law wrong. The other big project has been a nice distraction, and finally seems to be coming together in a way that I think will work fairly well as a narrative, and in a way that the #2 in our office (who is ultimately charged with this memo) will like. Step increase kicks in this month at some point, so a little extra money should show up in ye olde paycheck soon, which is always nice.

Keep hoping for slightly warmer weather in the morning (I’d be okay with low 50s, thanks), mainly so I can go outside and bike. I don’t want to set up the trainer yet again and have to crank out miles in front of the television any more. Unfortunately the lows for the next week look to be in the mid-30s, so more trainer time it shall be. At least that lets me clear out my backlog of magazines & catalogs (I usually browse magazines when I get bored with the TV and am stuck on the bike indoors).

Okay, results from the testing are in. These are running based (so cycling and swimming will be different). VO2 Max is 42, which is okay (not stellar, but stellar wasn’t expected, to be honest). Max Heart Rate was 195 (!!!), Anerobic Threshold was 191, which puts the heart rate training zones at:

Z1 157-168
Z2 168-179
Z3 179-191
Z4 191-195
Z5 195-???

Compare this with the standard formula (220-age), where MHR would be 185, a full 10 beats lower than the tested number.

I suspect this means on average I’ve been training in Z1-Z2 almost exclusively, with only occasional dips into Z3. That’s not a bad thing, and it’s good that I’ve been generally staying in Z1-Z2. It’s also nice to know I don’t have to try to stay below 157 (which was excruciatingly slow). I do need to consider training into 3 and 4 on occasion, but not right at the immediate moment. For the time being it’s running in the zones I’ve been using, but with a bit more confidence, and no need to stay down lower than is useful.

This week was supposed to be a relatively quiet one, or so I thought. Then a cousin called, is in town, and we’re having dinner tomorrow, which means my hair appointment (for the 3rd of 4th time in a row?) gets rescheduled, hopefully to Wednesday, when I have a date with BC (dinner after haircut, I suppose). Thursday turns out to be election night for my cult co-op, so I’ll be getting some knitting in then. Busy, busy, busy.

The legs are a bit sore from yesterday’s short run, which is expected. Treated myself by making a nice curry tonight, though it reminded me why I don’t keep cashews in the house in a regular basis (*nom, nom, nom!*). This curry’s best with a light topping of cilantro & chopped cashews, so I went all out after a brief stop at the grocery store for the fresh stuff.

One of my larger projects is going to be picking up steam here in short order, so work’s going to get very busy with lots of the more tedious aspects of being an attorney. I think we know where we’re going with it, though, so hopefully it won’t be too painful.

I’m deliberately not commenting on all of the political posts I see all over the ‘net these days (well, except to share satire), mainly because I happen to like my friends and would rather not unduly antagonize those relationships.

Started the day relatively early, at least early for me these days. After an early breakfast and putzing around the house, I hauled myself up to upper NorthWhite Northwest DC to get myself tested. Specifically, I was getting a VO2Max test. This involved getting a Hannibal Lector-esque mask strapped over my nose and mouth and then running myself ragged.

It actually isn’t as bad as it sounds. They just strap you in, hook you up to a detector, then start you walking at a moderate pace on a treadmill. The pace picks up until you get to a preset one (set by the tester after talking about your pace), then they start increasing the incline. All of this happens slowly over the course of 15 minutes, until you get up to your upper limits, which I presume they could tell by the VO2 feedback. I hit 200 beats per minute before we went into cooldown mode.

I’ve not gotten the full results back yet (they’re being emailed to me), but the tester did confirm something which I’d suspected for several years now – I burn high when it comes to heart rate in exercise. I look forward to seeing what the tests show for where my heart rates are supposed to be now, as it’ll help me train more intelligently. I’ve wanted to do one of these tests for a while, but the timing never worked before now. I’m planning to follow up with another test in a month to see how training affects the numbers.

And it was wonderful getting to run after a full month down from the vertigo, even to that level of effort. Perhaps especially to that level of effort.

After coming home to clean up I zipped out to my local yarn shop to pick up some longer circular needles for the scarf I’m working on (the 16″ was getting annoying – kept catching on the cable). Their selection waxes and wanes, so I picked up several pair while I was at it, for future projects. Switching the scarf over was easily done, and the longer cable’s been much easier to knit with. Not quite halfway done with the first skein. Posted a pic on Flickr today of the progress as of this afternoon when I updated the status over on Ravelry.

Haven’t seen much of BC lately. He’s dealing with his company’s annual audit this past week and next (plus all the prep the week before last). Headed out to the movies with him tomorrow, after a run in the afternoon, I hope. Depends on his work load, but it should work. I just picked up an EZ-Pass for the mini, so I don’t have to keep popping change on the toll road to get out to his place. His parents have accepted an offer on some property to turn into a winery, and he’s going to purchase their house from them, so for the foreseeable future I’ll be driving to Herndon on a semi-regular basis. The EZ-Pass just makes it that much easier to get out there.

One last appointment with the podiatrist in a week, then I should be cleared entirely from his care, which is the last bit of anything going on. The plantar fasciitis is gone, and has been gone for several weeks now, but this is just one last appointment to milk my insurance company ensure it’s well and truly 100% gone. Until then I can still run, so that starts up tomorrow with BC, and then swimming again come Monday. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that this was it, because the long-term goal is focused on the IM now.

It moved! Or, rather, it was both sides, not just the one that got treated last week.

Okay, let’s back up. I continued to experience vertigo, first lighter after the treatment last Monday, then back to how it had been over the weekend. Yesterday morning a lie-down on the bed (from full upright to fully on the back) induced full fledged spins. Whee! So, a call to the ENT set up another appointment for this morning.

When they tested to see which side it was this time (last time was definitely the left), the right side is what turned up positive. The doc said the audiologist last time noted some reaction on the right, but because the left was so much more dramatic they thought it was just the left. So, this time we treated the right side, and hopefully that’ll knock it out.

Took the day off so I can sit around, keep myself upright, and try not to worry about stuff.

Unfortunately, it’ll be another week before we know for sure if this has gotten the last of it fixed. Which means a full three weeks off from exercise. I’m now less than 12 weeks out from my first planned tri, and so much closer to the 10 miler and the half marathon, which means I’m not going to have the fitness base there to be able to run any of the three of them. And that means I’m canning them for this year. Which sucks in a major way, because I enjoy these two particular running races, and was looking forward to doing this particular tri for the first time.

Got myself all kinds of stressed out over the lack of exercise this past weekend. Stressed enough that my hands are a big mess of eczema. It’s getting better now that I’ve let go of the races, but how gross. At least I discovered that my old med for the eczema was out of date, so I’ve got a fresh batch to pick up in a little bit (and no visit to the dermatologist needed, thank heavens).

Anyway, so just chilling out at home today, and meditating over where I’m going to go, fitness wise, once I’m good to get back to exercise. My first race would then be a 10k in June, then the two tris in September and November. Probably should hit the weight room, as I should have been doing over the winter, as well as base building cardio fitness, and lots of technique work. But that’s to be mulled over while I try not to drive myself crazy in this collar for the next day.

Back to the training grind this morning. Short run before work, and a short swim this evening. Felt good to get back in the pool, but I definitely need to work on drills again – my form started to fade too quickly as the swim went on. I did do some limited drills among the laps, but I need to look back at my materials to refresh my memory on them.

Oh, and training 2x a day = getting home to my body screaming “FOOD!” It’s a good thing I went to the farmers’ market on Sunday.

Work was … work. Thought a particular crisis was going to come to a head, but no calls, so I assume we’re still in a holding pattern there. I’m feeling somewhat unmotivated, but I suspect that’s the decaffeination talking.

Bike ride planned for the morning, and I hear I’m going to see the new Rambo movie tomorrow evening with BC. Promises to be a real stinker, which should be nicely amusing.

I decided to give up caffeine again because it was affecting my sleep, which in turn was screwing with my training. Today was day two, and I warned BC that I might get a bit testy in a week or so. So far, so good, no headaches, sleeping better, all good.

I have, however, been extra-snarky. Like, really, really overly sarcastic at every little thing. Poor BC got to see a lot of it this weekend as we watched TV and I did a complete snark-a-thon at pretty much every show. Not quite what I was intending when giving up caffeine (New and Improved! Now with extra Snark!), and hopefully it’ll pass shortly as my system gets used to the change. Until then I suppose I’m going to have to watch my tongue more than usual.

Well, that was a pleasant way to spend a weekend. Most of it was, thankfully, spent with BC. Quiet night in on Friday. He went home for a good chunk of Saturday, then came back that evening for an outing.

We headed out with friends for drinks, dinner and Cloverfield Saturday evening. The camera work did not make me sick, though I suspect it was a one-time watch for me (big screen – good; small screen – meh; at least that was my impression of it). I do also have to echo another bloggers comment that “I wanted to see more monster, and less people.” The relationship drama stuff could have been cut down in order to see more of the actual attack, and I suspect any military folks watching (as was the premise at the beginning) would have edited out all that extraneous stuff in favor of “more monster.”

We were very nearly late to dinner because, well, in the spirit of MAL (which we did not attend) I attacked him in some of my Nasty Pig gear when he came in the door about an hour before we had to head out. That was quite fun.

Sunday was langorous. We finally bestirred ourselves from some gaming in the morning after sleeping in (Mass Effect on the Xbox for me, Bioshock on his laptop for him), got a nice big late lunch at Thai Tanic, then picked up stuff at Whole Paycheck for a mushroom & sun-dried tomato risotto that evening. Yum!! Fantastic recipe out of Vegan with a Vengeance, though I modified it slightly (more rice, mainly). We were glad to spend most of the day indoors, since the temps never really made it out of the 20s. Poor BC forgot to bring gloves, so when we hauled the groceries back to the car (two bags total) I handed him one of mine for his bag. He laughed, but still took it gratefully as we wandered back, one gloved hand with groceries out, one hand firmly ensconced in a pocket.

Unfortunately he had to work today, but we have date plans tomorrow – another nice night in with movie and some soup (a curried split pea soup, to be precise). For most of the day I was a bum. Did hop on the bicycle trainer to spin out a few miles for a little over an hour, but mostly played more Mass Effect. Beat the game late this evening playing on “casual” mode, so I’ll have to play it through later on a more difficult level. For now it’s back to one or more of the games on the Wii, I suspect, so I can finish those and perhaps lend them to BC.

Back to the salt mines tomorrow, though even with all the other stuff I was doing this weekend I think I came up with a solution to a sticky wicket one of our programs has gotten into by mis-reading some of my office’s advice. Clarification (to the program; not here) shall be forthcoming tomorrow.

I did a flexibility and core strength assessment tonight as part of beginning my tri training season. One word: Ouch. Mostly flexible, except for the lower back, but not strong at all when it comes to the core strength (which I suppose matches with the not-so-flexible part). Ouch, ouch, ouch. At least I know where a major weakness is, which I was expecting to be the case, and can address it now.

Ended up stuck at work until 7ish tonight on a couple of phone calls and negotiations. I feel like a horse trader with all the back and forth stuff I’ve been doing these past couple of weeks. I am, evidently, the guy with the answers, or so it feels like. Regardless, I took some time to put together a presentation for my colleagues on this year’s budget and what changed for our BGA. Hopefully da boss lady will like it and I can get this thing done soon because I think it’ll help a lot of the other attorneys who’ve never looked in at our appropriation.

So, back into the routine, but with some twists this year. Should be interesting.