The Road to Racing

[james452]

This challenge has the ultimate end goal of completing a mini triathlon on Sunday February 4th. That's right, on the last day of the challenge.

 

The Race

Swim 250m, Bike 10km, Run 3km. A "short" race which will be my first triathlon in 4 years (I only just realised that it's been 4 years since I've done one). 

 

My Current State

Last month was the first time in a while that I've actually been losing weight. Despite having a reasonably good diet, I lost little weight over the previous 12 months. For a while I wasn't sure what was wrong, now I think the missing piece of the puzzle is that I wasn't active enough. Over the last month, I've been doing more walking (though still a small amount), but I've added swimming and cycling into my training. In fact, I went 6 weeks without going to the gym and instead I did 2 training sessions a week. With this, I dropped around 4kgs last month which suggests to me that weight loss is a lot easier for me if I'm doing some cardio. 

 

My Quests

Project 90kgs

• Weigh less than 90kgs (currently at 96kgs)
• Be in ketosis for 1 month

 

Become a pro triathlete

• Complete Mini Triathlon on February 4th
• Swim once a week
• Ride once a week
• Run twice a week
• Gym/Strength and Conditioning twice a week

 

Work like a machine

• Change my work schedule so I focus on one project each day of the week
• Ride my bike to/from work at least once a week

 

Future proofing

• Create side income by choosing one of the following two options:
  • Offer tutoring services and resources in Mathematics
  • Start a blog on Skill Learning and build a strong subscriber list

 

 

Quests Explained in Detail

Project 90kgs

I accept that this will take 2-3 months to complete. If it happens quicker, good, means I can focus on other goals sooner. If not, that's okay, as long as I progress towards it. 

90kgs is actually the first milestone in my weight loss journey. I think my final weight will sit somewhere under 85kgs, but right now, I have this first goal. Based on past experience, being under 90kgs means I can push myself to complete a 10km run without damaging my body. It's effectively the first point where exercise doesn't feel like it's a huge struggle and I don't get out of breath easily.

 

To achieve this, there are three main things I'll be doing

• Stay in ketosis by saying no to all junk food 
• Completing 3-5 workouts a week
• Going for short walks almost every day with my partner

I just recently read Mark Sisson's Keto Reset book. In it, he suggests easing into keto by eating low carb for 21 days, then sticking to strict keto for 6 weeks. Until the 21st of January, I'm in that low carb phase. However, I can push it a bit harder without too much effort by focusing on saying no to junk food. This effectively means for 21 days, no chocolate, no potato chips, no ice cream (the three sugary junk foods that I eat). This will train my willpower, something I haven't done in a few years.

 

Become a pro triathlete

Over 6 years, the sport I loved doing the most was running and triathlons. Hence I got back into triathlon training last challenge and aim to continue it this challenge (and ideally for many years). I'm following Power Speed Endurance (PSE PRO) workouts (formally Crossfit Endurance). This works better for me and allows me to have a life outside of training. 

 

Currently I've been focusing a lot on skill development, especially with the swim. I barely did any skill/drill work for swimming yet now, the warmup + skill work is my workout (I don't even do the main set). In only a few sessions my swimming skill is a lot better. I now have a good rotation through the water, and I'm working on making my catch better. One thing that has slowed me down is my breath whilst swimming. I find I'm out of breath too quickly, but that might be because my workouts range from 1000m to 1500m of swimming. I guess I break down around the 800m mark, which is more than the 250m I need to do for my triathlon.

 

I put running on hold, because I was hurting my lower legs too easily, a consequence of holding on to extra weight and poor technique. This week, I'll do some Couch to 5k workouts for running coupled with skill work. Nice and simple so I don't overdo it. 

 

Work like a machine

I'm doing a little experiment this month where I change up what work I do for my PhD on different days. For example, Mondays I work on my beta oscillation project. Tuesdays I focus on Data Analysis. Wednesdays are personal days/business focused. Thursdays are for spatial models. Friday for writing. I find I get work done quicker if I have a shorter, but highly focused timeframe to work on it. I think this will work well.

 

Future Proofing

I've spent so much time following sites like Nerd Fitness, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Live your Legend, that I'm convinced that once I finish my PhD, I don't want to enter the workforce, I'd rather be a freelance consultant and/or run an online business to help others. My main motivation for this is so I have extra time in my day which I can use to enjoy life rather than waste away in the office. The two things I mentioned above cover what I'm passionate about, Mathematics, teaching, and learning. I've attempted to get this started in the past, but fear stopped me from sending my work to people and getting their opinions on it. This year, that won't happen. I'll pick an idea, stick to it, and focus my time on promoting my material to people who'd be willing to read it.

 

 

Final Thoughts

If you can't guess by all the things I wrote, I really enjoy goal setting and making lists of things to do. It gives me something to dream about which motivates me to actually do the work I need to achieve my goals. If you want help setting goals, just shoot me a message, I'd be happy to help with it.

 

The most important thing I've learnt when setting goals is to work on one of them immediately after making them. For me, that's to head home early to go to the gym with my partner and do an Overhead press workout followed by a keto eggplant lasagna

[jonfirestar]

5 hours ago, james452 said:

This challenge has the ultimate end goal of completing a mini triathlon on Sunday February 4th. That's right, on the last day of the challenge.

This is awesome. I'll be following to see you smash this goal! 

[james452]

My Scales LIE!

I moved the scale around in the bathroom so instead of showing 92kgs (there's no way I've lost that much weight), it now shows a more accurate 98kgs. This lines up more with how my clothes fit and the belt holes I use. Regardless I'll be sure to use the scale next time I go to the gym to see where my weight actually is. My reasoning for why the scales weren't accurate is to do with the floor in the bathroom. It's vinyl flooring instead of tiles, so the surface is a bit soft which can take weight away from your scale. Unfortunately there's no hard flat ground in my house, so maybe I'll ditch my household scale and only ever use the gym scale.

 

Trying new things

Yesterday's activity was a game of tennis. A few mates at uni asked if I wanted to play and I immediately said yes. I played tennis for 10 years when I was younger so it was great to get back out on the court. 

 

Gym consistency

Been to the gym twice this week (and my body is feeling the pain from it). Today is my scheduled gym day, but my girlfriend and I are going to do a swim pool instead (mostly because the pool was closed on Monday because of New Years). 

 

One very important lesson I learned is that if you make a training schedule, you always train on that day, even if it's just 5 pushups. This allows me fluidity, such as I can replace a run session with tennis, or a gym session with swimming. As long as I do some training on the days I'm meant to train, then I'll easily be able to maintain the training habit which in the long run will equal results.

[jonfirestar]

12 hours ago, james452 said:

My Scales LIE!

I moved the scale around in the bathroom so instead of showing 92kgs (there's no way I've lost that much weight), it now shows a more accurate 98kgs. This lines up more with how my clothes fit and the belt holes I use. Regardless I'll be sure to use the scale next time I go to the gym to see where my weight actually is. My reasoning for why the scales weren't accurate is to do with the floor in the bathroom. It's vinyl flooring instead of tiles, so the surface is a bit soft which can take weight away from your scale. Unfortunately there's no hard flat ground in my house, so maybe I'll ditch my household scale and only ever use the gym sc

 

Oh yes they do. The best thing you can do is to remove all the variables that you can from the equation. Always the same scale, on the same floor, with the same clothes at the same time on the same day. 

[james452]

Obstacles in the way

Started the week off with some pretty bad neck pain. Been seeing some specialists. One says it's like an injury, although I didn't do anything to injure yet. Hence maybe it's just months/years of poor posture building up. It's feeling better today but may take a couple of weeks to heal up properly. This means no swimming or cycling for another week. Running should be okay. I find that standing, walking, running, basically being in a tall stable position, my neck will be okay. 

 

Work work (or lack of work)

I've been trying to figure out why I just don't want to be going into work since the new year started (work being a PhD). I feel like it started when I was looking for jobs once my PhD finished. This must have depressed me a bit because I saw a whole lot of interesting jobs that I feel like I'd rather be doing than working on my PhD. And looking at the huge salaries these jobs pay doesn't help either when you get paid slightly more than minimum wage. 

 

I've also been out of a routine recently. There are no set hours for a PhD, they just expect you to go in and do work. Hence no start time that I have to be in at work which means I'll be slower and lazier with my mornings, but then I'll want to leave early so I get less work done than I need to. 

 

The third thing, my current project is very open ended, which means that it's difficult for me to know exactly what I'm doing and where this work is heading.

 

Action Steps

• Set a start time for work (8am) and commit to it.
• Make a plan for my projects. Pretend that I am writing a paper for it, and try to imagine what would be in that paper. Those sections then become tasks I need to complete.
• When I look at jobs, if I see one that's interesting, I will send a friendly email to find out more about it even though I won't be applying for jobs for a whole year.

 

[jonfirestar]

14 hours ago, james452 said:

 

Started the week off with some pretty bad neck pain. Been seeing some specialists. One says it's like an injury, although I didn't do anything to injure yet. Hence maybe it's just months/years of poor posture building up. It's feeling better today but may take a couple of weeks to heal up properly. This means no swimming or cycling for another week. Running should be okay. I find that standing, walking, running, basically being in a tall stable position, my neck will be okay.

Yikes, that's rough. I hope it clears up quickly! 

[james452]

See ya neck pain

It's clearing up after seeing people to massage and manipulate parts of it. I've narrowed down the source of the problem to the mattress topper we purchased a few weeks back. My mattress is pretty firm, but my girlfriend wanted a mattress topper to soften it up because that helps her sleep better. However, I figured out that it doesn't help me. I removed it from my side of the bed so she can still use the topper and I can use the harder part of the bed. I've done this for one night, but it's the first night this week I woke up and didn't feel like I had a lot of back pain. I still need to find a new pillow, going to look at contoured latex pillows.

 

Swim swim swim

Managed to fit a swim in yesterday and my pace was pretty good. 5x50m swims with 20s rest, averaged about 58 mins per 50m. Basically, I used to do about 52-54 secs/50m, and that was in a 25 m pool so you get to kick off the wall which makes you faster. I think next swim, I'll go to a 25m pool so I can compare my time now to my time a few years back.

 

Weight

After figuring out that there's no hard flat surface in my house to use the scale on, I decided to use the scale at the gym, but they no longer have a scale (which I'm surprised by). Guess I'll just continue with diet, and aim to make training consistent and spend more time moving around and hope that makes changes to how my clothes feel.

 

 

[Sloth the Enduring]

My wife and I had to get a sleep number bed, there was no compromise mattress.

I have one flat spot in our whole house where a scale works. For guys at least, a much better number to track is your belly circumference anyway.


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[jonfirestar]

On 16/01/2018 at 11:12 PM, james452 said:

Weight

After figuring out that there's no hard flat surface in my house to use the scale on, I decided to use the scale at the gym, but they no longer have a scale (which I'm surprised by). Guess I'll just continue with diet, and aim to make training consistent and spend more time moving around and hope that makes changes to how my clothes feel.

 

 

I agree with Sloth, use a tape measure.

[james452]

Playing on hard mode

Since my last update, there's been a few unexpected boss fights. The biggest one of all is that I might have sleep apnea. I did a home test for it recently and I'm still waiting on test results (my partner has called the clinic every couple of days for me, and I'm grateful that she does that type of stuff for me). I would say there's a 90% chance that I have it. It makes sense, my sleep hasn't been as great, I'm generally fatigued throughout the day, I have a LOT of trouble concentrating at work, and worst of all, I've struggled losing weight over the last year despite what I consider to be a very good diet. A couple of extra factors, my uncle has sleep apnea (which is probably because he is obese), and my brother had it (in which they had to remove his tonsils and some other stuff). 

 

In a way, I want the test to come back positive. Although I never want to have sleep apnea, knowing if I have it would explain a lot, and it gives me something to fix. Right now my partner and I need to sleep in different rooms because my snoring is keeping her awake. I want it fixed up so I can go back to cuddling her at night. That's mine (and her) motivation to get this sorted.

 

Other possibilities

Let's say the sleep apnea test comes back negative, which would mean there's some other sort of problem. 

 

Culprit 1, my sinuses. I've recently been experimenting with eliminating foods to figure out what causes my head to get congested. Initially I thought it would be dairy, so I took that out. Then my next guess was coffee, so I removed that. Then I had a long black, and my face felt like it was on fire, which means for now, I can no longer have coffee (I think dairy is fine but I'm keeping it to a minimum right now). I initially tried to go completely without coffee, but then my energy levels and tiredness was horrible. I then threw in some chai teas, and I feel a lot better. I guess this is my go to caffeine drink now. 

 

Culprit 2, thyroid problems? This one is stretching it. I'm only considering it because I read about Staci's thyroid problems and felt like the symptoms resonated with me. I did get a blood test done which included a TSH check so I'll know if there's something wrong with them.

 

The Obstacle is the Way

Firstly, you should read the book of this name by Ryan Holiday, you won't regret it. 

Despite this big obstacle, I signed up for the triathlon on Sunday. 250m swim, 10km bike, 3km run. My first triathlon in 4 years and I'm very excited about it. It's the shortest distance it offers, and I know that I will struggle (and other people would wait a month or two before jumping into one), but the whole point of this race is that I do a race. I just want to say that I'm a triathlete again, and to use this race as a baseline. In the future, it will be fun to look back at this race and to see how I've improved.

[jonfirestar]

On 31/01/2018 at 3:44 AM, james452 said:

The Obstacle is the Way

Firstly, you should read the book of this name by Ryan Holiday, you won't regret it. 

Despite this big obstacle, I signed up for the triathlon on Sunday. 250m swim, 10km bike, 3km run. My first triathlon in 4 years and I'm very excited about it. It's the shortest distance it offers, and I know that I will struggle (and other people would wait a month or two before jumping into one), but the whole point of this race is that I do a race. I just want to say that I'm a triathlete again, and to use this race as a baseline. In the future, it will be fun to look back at this race and to see how I've improved.

Racing is fun and motivating even if you aren't 100% ready for it.

[james452]

I did the race!

 

It went well. Goal was to finish in under one hour, finished it in 59:53 therefore success

 

My brother signed up at the last moment, so it was pretty cool to be doing the same race. He's pretty good at triathlons, he placed 4th out of 16 people in our age group (mostly because he thought he had a flat tyre so he pulled over and turns out someone else had a flat).

 

Race was 250m swim, 10km bike, 3km run. Splits were

Swim: 7:33 (though this included the run into transition)

T1: 2:11

Bike: 26:11 (happy with this)

T2: 0:00 (fastest transition ever)

Run 23:57 (had to run/walk most of this)

 

It was clear from this that running is a weakness. Being 100kgs makes it hard to run well, but training will make it a bit easier. The goal is to keep swimming and cycling at 1 session per week, then 2-3 sessions of running per week, and 2-3 gym sessions. The next race is 2 months away so hopefully I can improve my running by then, and hopefully lose some weight, and hopefully have this sleep apnea stuff sorted out.

 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Congratulations on beating your goal.


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