Sit and Spin

So everyone is making New Year's Resolutions. I try not to. But I can't escape making a list of goals in my head. One of them is to get back to blogging. I even started a new blog. Due to it's content, I may keep it private. It is dirty but not in the gutter, it is the opposite of sexy. I also plan to copy all of my MySpace blogs and post them to my Blogger account. I don't plan to delete my MySpace account, but I never go there, who does?

It's so hard to invest time, text, and uploads in any one site for fear of that digital medium becoming passe; irrelevant. I'm sure that someday something will replace Blogger or my oft-used Google Documents/Calendar/Tasks/Bookmark Lists, but for now I have to put my electronic garbage somewhere. Even as I transfer all of my music and photos to my 2Tb external hard drive, I cringe. I cringe thinking about all of the data storage I have dead, dying, or just inadequate resting uselessly in a cabinet: floppy (3.5) disks, hard drive disks, Zip disks, CD-R, DVD-Rs, & 256MB thumb/flash drives. Everything seems so impermanent.

I have come to realize that I have a bit of the hoarder in me. I will repurpose almost anything. Today, I pulled a Millenium chocolate box out of the recycle trash bin in our break room. My thought process: "Ooh tin box, I could cover that with fabric. Opens box, wow it is hinged, even better! This will be great for pens." Knowing me, I will use it for pens, but I will never get around to decorating it. Ahi won't let me save anymore spaghetti "mason" jars, because he hates how long I soak them in the sink to disintegrate the labels. The other night I needed Ahi to use plyers to repurpose a glass jar shaker. I guess I should draw the line at prying things off of a 50 cent jar.

Of course fitness and nutrition are always goals that I can usually attain for brief moments in time. However elusive they may be the majority of the time. As I maneuver my way like a pretzel around my bike on the trainer, I keep thinking that I should really sit and spin. I don't really have any excuses not to, just like I don't have any excuses not to do a lot of other things I should do.

I'm just caught in this cycle of blah. Somewhere along the line, after the Summer Sun faded, I got discouraged and I stopped training. I even stopped thinking about training. Which if you knew me in 2007/2008, you wouldn't believe it. I did not stop eating of course. So, I put weight back on. But this fat is different than my original fat. The pre-2007 fat was sturdy, as it had been amassing itself since I was a chubby little girl. This new fat is yielding, squishy even. There is no sucking in this fat.

I always seem to gain weight when I am taking classes. I don't have time to train. I often skip meals during the day and then eat late. (I did manage to avoid spicy hot dogs from Betty's Hotdoggery this semester!) I don't get enough sleep as homework keeps me up well past midnight. I really believe that stress does exacerbate weight gain. My extra loose size 5 jeans became my tight jeans. As my self esteem kept plummeting, I lost more energy. After the semester ended, even though I finally had time to train and get back on track, all I wanted to do was stay in bed. Away from benign eyes that I saw as malevolent, judging.

I don't know why, but sometimes my weight would go down and I'd be back in my size 1 jeans, with a round of flabby dough over the top. But then I would get new jeans from the same store I bought my old ones at and they wouldn't fit and I'd be back to feeling hopeless. Of course the holidays came and made it worse. But after a couple of weeks of restricting my diet, I feel like I'm losing weight. I don't use a scale, I use my clothes to gauge my expanse. Although it could just be the forgiving Old Navy jeans I had to buy since I only had one pair of jeans that fit. I know Old Navy runs big, so I am deluding myself to think these loose size 4 jeans are any sign of progress. Even recognizing the placebo effect, they do seem to be improving my morale. I probably shouldn't hold my breath until I don't have to hold it when I'm wearing new size 1 jeans.

Due to my lack of training, I won't be attempting the Ironman California 70.3 race in April. Although I am sure that I could probably do the 1.2 mile swim and the 13.1 run, I doubt that I could make the time cutoff off the bike. Maybe if the bike course was flat, I might have a chance. But knowing my phobia of hills, there's no way I can get up to speed in time. Realistically, it wouldn't be healthy to try to work up to 70.3 miles from 0 in 3 months. Most likely I will volunteer at the race for the 3rd year in a row.

Despite my lack of training, I will be "running" the Stephen Strasburg 5K on Jan. 15 and Surf City Half Marathon on Feb. 6. I have a month to get my miles back up to 13.1. I'm not stressing since a PR is the furthest thing from mind and walking is not illegal. I might even run the race with Ahi.

This will be the year of the Sprint Triathlon. I am planning to volunteer for KOZ Enterprises triathlon expos and will run most of the associated races. I have to register for all of the races now. The only one I am on the fence about is SuperFrog. It is a 70.3 course with a 2-loop ocean entry, mostly flat 4-loop bike with some bumps, and a 2-loop sand run and it is one week before SDTC, my "A" race. I spectated at it last year and recalling the course, I don't think it appeals to me. However, it will probably be the cheapest and most convenient 70.3 to practice the distance.

I will definitely be doing two International/Classic distance races this year. Thanks to Brian Long, I will be racing the San Diego International Triathlon in June for free. Which will help me crush my second attempt at the San Diego Triathlon Classic in September.

But before I can hope to achieve any of these goals, I need to get home and Sit and Spin...and swim and run. :D