delalana

@Sylvaa Just read through your thread and you are way ahead of me. You are a beast getting through a ton of races and events every year.

Updates! Strength Training: Still 2/3 for the week. Looking at tomorrow afternoon for the remaining workout Friday Treats: Avoided the pasties, but did have a beer with coworkers. Not too worried about this as it's not a habit (it's maybe the second beer I've had at work since they started opening up the taps every day back in March). Veggies: Got in 3 servings today. Sugar snap peas from the farmer's market with lunch and kohlrabi and squash with dinner. Turns out kohlrabi is delicious. It tasted like I undercooked it, but that's easily fixed next time. Also, it's super filling. I could not eat more than half my meal for a while (I did eventually finish the chicken and squash, but in the future I think half a kohlrabi is a better serving size.) Robotics: No progress. It's only the 12th, so I don't have to panic yet, right? Also got in a run after work today. Followed the first week of Cto5k (60 seconds of running, followed by 90 seconds of walking and repeat 8 times total). It wasn't what I would call easy, but it actually felt like a pretty good match for my current abilities. I could make it through the runs, wanting them to be over but not absolutely dying by the end and I felt fully recovered at the end of the walks. I probably could have done another couple of rounds beyond what I did. So definitely better than I expected. @Sloth the Enduring That tri definitely looks like it could be fun. The fact that they specify that the 5k is a run/walk means I don't even have an excuse to chicken out. I've still got some website perusing to do, but I'm interested. What sort of time frame are you looking at with "sells out fast"?

I suppose I could do worse (or for non-Minnesotans, "best sidekick ever!") I didn't really realize how much I talk like this (Minnesotan here). Now I feel like I'm never going to not be able to notice it again...

After an excellent vacation and an impromptu adventure in plumbing I'm back to it. Nutrition and exercise were generally lacking for about the past week, but I did manage to hit my vegetable servings both yesterday and today and I did strength work both Monday and today, so that's on track too. Hi! It's awesome to meet someone else who's at the same spot as me. It sounds like you're pretty far along, you should totally do the tri if you're ready for it! How did you get into each of the three sports? I swim at a Jr high, so not a ton of opportunity for drills. If I knew more of what I needed to work on I could potentially get a membership to the local community center and use the pool there (and, huzzah, afternoon and evening lap swim times are actually a thing.) I looked up tris around here and it looks like LifeTime sponsors the big local one, which is huge and has a ton of competition levels. It is not happening for me this weekend, but it's nice to see that I'll have options in future years. (I just looked at their training plan and, wow, I am coming at this from a different angle than most. I actually almost feel confident with my swim times comparing them to what they recommend for training.) Did not get to try the cauliflower rice yet, unfortunately. Tomorrow I should actually get home at a decent hour, though, so I'm planning on either that or some kohlrabi (never tried that either) with grilled BBQ chicken and other veggies for dinner. Yep, that and running are both options. To be honest, running scares me. Again with the really slow and never having stuck with it quite long enough in the past to get where I wanted to be. I'm thinking after work tomorrow I'll head out with a couch to 5k app and see how I do with that. From there...well, we'll see where "there" is, I guess.

I'll definitely try to get an opportunity for videotaping. If the main coach doesn't answer my email by next week (he's notoriously bad at email), I'll talk to the one who's normally there when I swim. One of the things I've heard a bunch is that if you want to see progress for a workout you need to do it 2-3 times a week. I'm not sure how much mental fortitude I would have to keep running if it's the same level of struggle week after week.

Swimming. I'm usually at the pool twice a week for an hour each time. I could go more, but 4:30 wakeups are early. I'm not eager to add more of those if I don't have to. I haven't been video taped. That was supposed to be part of the technique class I tried to sign up for. I know I definitely have issues there as the head coach will periodically point them out when he's there (we have a bunch of coaches that handle different practices throughout the week, but the head coach is the only one who really offers feedback). I'll email him to see if they're planning on offering the class again any time soon or if there's someone who could work with me one on one. I'm definitely more limited by strength. My kick's pretty good, definitely better than the arm portion of my stroke. Endurance doesn't seem to be a problem as I did an open water swim last weekend and the 900m swim was pretty easy with only a few seconds to break and get my bearings every 300m or so.

7/2 Strength Training: (1/3) No strength training today, but the DOMS are REAL.The aftermath of 90 squats and 40 burpees is fun... Friday Treats: n/a Veggies: (2/7) 3 servings Robotics: No progress 7/3 Strength Training: (2/3) Waking up early to get in a session before work did not happen. I did get in a short session after work, though, so yay! Friday Treats: n/a Veggies: (2/7) 1 serving. I'm on vacation between now and Sunday, so I don't have a ton of control over what I'm eating. I'm guess this one won't be great over the next few days. Robotics: Still no progress After building up strength training over the past few months, I'm finally starting to notice concrete results. When I started doing yoga back in January/February, most of the holds that required supporting myself partially on my arms we really hard and I'd need to drop out of them pretty quickly. Lately, I've been able to support myself a lot longer, as of today not needing to drop down to my knees at all throughout the class. It's been hard to notice if there's been any incremental progress in my swimming speed, so it's nice to have something tangible to point to as far as results go.

Thanks! Truth be told, I've never really liked running, so I'm somewhat open to changing my giant goal in the future. I swim with the local Masters club, so they've got plenty of open water races, everything from 1 to 10 miles, and indoor meets in the winter. My main hesitation here is that I swim really slowly. That would be awesome! What would you recommend to get faster when it seems like simply keeping up with swimming isn't making enough of a dent?

Yes! I'm a software engineer by trade so I also work with programming, but the team I was on in high school had always competed for Chairman's, so I introduced that when I joined the team I mentor four years ago. We've been making slower progress than I'd like towards establishing solid community outreach and, as mentioned earlier, the sponsorship part of things isn't my forte. I'm trying to get more stuff organized in the offseason this year so we can start up pretty quick in fall or, at the very least, build season. We only have one marketing student returning this year, so we'll see how things go. The parent who's volunteering to help should be around for a couple of years, though, so that should be helpful going forward.

Daily Tracking: Strength Training: 1/3 complete! I never got a response about the technique class, so I'm going with 3 strength training sessions per week. Also, typically the hardest of three sessions each week and particularly hard this week (wobbly legs 15 minutes in and hanging onto the handrail for dear life as I walked down the stairs after it was all over), so even if I miss one or both sessions while I'm on vacation later this week, I've got the biggest bang for my buck behind me. Friday Treats: n/a Veggies: 3 servings in today Robotics: No progress

I'm usually pretty good at cooking for leftovers (I've got burrito casserole and meatballs in the fridge right now and I'm also working through some frozen walleye), but having a specified day to plan and cook could definitely help to make sure I don't run out of food on a busy day. And thanks for the reminder that meat can be cooked from frozen. I always seem to forget this and lack the patience/foresight to thaw ahead of time. The salmon living in my freezer may get eaten yet! How filling is cauliflower rice? I tried doubling up on veggies for a couple of days instead of doing some brown rice with meals, but found that I was always hungry for 20-30 minutes after meals, even if I hadn't been particularly hungry before I ate. Thanks for the tips, everyone!

I'm right there with you with all the food challenges (donuts every week, Friday food trucks, various other daily treats available for me, and not wanting to cook after I get out of work for me). I've found that hummus makes a lot of snack veggies more satisfying (not celery, though, I still hate celery ). Juice popsicles sound like a great idea for when you really want something sweet. Good luck!

Backstory: My entire life I've identified as a swimmer. I've always loved the water: lakes, pools, you name it. But I've also pretty much always been the slowest person in the pool. This - along with some sustained periods in the past of, shall we say, less than full effort in the pool - have led to a desire to prove myself to be a "real" swimmer who can hold her own and keep up with more than just the people who swim once or twice a year. My measuring stick (and the big gigantic Goal That Must Not Be Named) is to complete a triathlon. Where I'm at right now is roughly 60-70 pounds overweight. I exercise a fair amount, a mix of swimming, yoga, dance, and more recently strength training. A triathlon feels impossible right now, so for my big goal for this year I want to swim fast enough to move up a lane at my swim practices. This requires me shaving about 10 seconds off my comfortable 50 yard swim. This felt pretty doable in January, but a lot scarier now that we're at the end of June. I get plenty of practice in, so that leaves three main avenues to improve my swimming speed: Get smaller Get stronger Swim better/more efficiently Goals: So with those parameters in mind, these are my goals for the next four weeks: Strength train 3 times per week OR complete a 3 week swimming technique class and strength train 2 times per week. I've signed up for a swimming technique class, but haven't gotten any confirmation that it's actually happening. No one I've talked to seems to know about it and the person in charge of it is terrible at answering his email. If I don't hear back in the next day, I'm assuming it's not happening and I'll go ahead with strength training more. Avoid Friday treats. During the summer work brings in a different food truck every Friday afternoon with treats. These are delicious, but not exactly healthy. The one exception I'm planning is if I'm there when they bring in the truck from O'Cheeze. Their grilled cheese is absolutely delicious and I missed it last year. Eat an average of 2.33 servings of veggies per day. Translation: Eat 2 servings of veggies most days and 3 servings at least a couple of times per week. Side Goal: Not fitness related, but something I've been dropping the ball on for a few years now that I really need to stop doing that on. Write up an onboarding document for robotics marketing and get in touch with the parent who's volunteered to help. I volunteer with a high school robotics team and am the lead adult for the marketing team. While I can help with some things, many parts of marketing (e.g. finding businesses to sponsor the team) are way out of my skillset. There is parent who works in something marketing related who has volunteered to help, but I need to make sure she knows what we do and has the resources she needs. Not to mention actually following up with her in the first place. Challenges: The hardest part of this for me is going to be following through with the food. I don't have a problem getting myself to work out and when I do cook I'm pretty good at it. But when life gets busy, there's nothing premade in the fridge, or I just really want something deep fried, it can be really hard to convince myself to eat at home or cook after a long day at work. Optimism: Having some form of accountability seems to be really helpful for me (see the more than a couple morning swims I made it to last winter solely because I had promised another swimmer I would be there), so having a public record and a community here should help. Let's do the thing!