Winter blues

Dear people of the warmer southern states, also substitutable with any warm client readers, you are turds for living in such a reasonably climate-influenced location.

There, I said it.  I am actually resentful that you were smart enough to live somewhere nice while my clearly questionable life choices have led me to a city where the temperature was in the teens this morning.  With wind, single digits.

Why am I whining so much you ask?  Well other than being so good at it (it's on my resume), I was scheduled to run this morning.  1 hour and 40 minutes of pure happiness.

What did I do instead?  Snuggled with my pups and caught up on The Voice.  It was just too cold out to be running and the thought of 1:40 on a treadmill makes me compulsively want to dig my liver out with a wooden spoon.  Damned if you do, damned if you do...

How then, I'd like to hear, do you all deal with the crappy season as an endurance athlete?  I can handle an indoor bike ride, and in some ways prefer it to outdoor riding, but the running is tough for me.

Do you just suck it up?  Do you have a brand of clothing you wear that actually works in these temps?  Do you preemptively light yourself on fire beforehand?

My first race is just over 5 weeks away and some running needs to happen.  While puppy-snuggles are truly superior to most other things in life, a better triathlete they will not make.

Pondering, shivering, scheming...

Weekly review: a week on sneezes and sniffles

Perhaps it was the screaming crash back to reality after a monumental trip in Italy, but this week was chalked up mostly to gooey tissues and zinc lozenges.  Yes indeed, I got a cold.  At least I had the decency to wait until I got back home, right?

No complaints here though, I promise.  Reliving the wonders of this last trip more than got me through an achy body and puffy eyes.

I was able to eek out a spin class on Monday, the first day of the cold, and thought I was dying.  Granted it was the first workout in a couple weeks after living the life of a starving sloth in Europe, but that class was hard!  I was lightheaded and even a bit queazy, which was concerning as I didn't know I had a cold yet.  I thought I was just SUPER out of shape!

Imagine my relief later on when my hair started hurting.  That's right, my hair.  Why is it that when a virus is taking hold of your body, your hair and scalp are the first to be symptomatic.  Please tell me that happens to other people and I'm not just overly follicularly sensitive?  I'm sensitive about it falling out, but hurting seems different.

And while we're on the topic of cold-induced questions, why do zinc lozenges have to be so nasty?  It's not the taste, as they are a delightful cherry sensation, but rather the gross cotton-mouth effect they have afterwards.  I swear my throat hurts more after a lozenge than it did beforehand.  Can't I just slurp on a tasty menthol lozenge and swallow a zinc pill?  Why must the zinc be ingested in lozenge form?  Anyone?

These are the problems I face in my life.  I'm glad you're starting to understand how difficult I have it.

Well here we are at week's end, and the cold has finally been bested (thank you zinc lozenges).  I performed somewhat adequately yesterday for a 1.5 hour spin class, and surprised myself today during an interval/weight training session with treadmill sprints.

The diet has also been so clean it squeaks.  I started my 45 Paleo challenge on Friday and have been going strong ever since, with the small exception being a celebratory glass of Pinot Noir on Friday night.

So all in all, this week was a recovery from vacation, grueling as it was, and a great start to the next phase of training and healthy living.  I know it is still a ways off, but my first race is looming.  April 2014 starts off the season with a half IronMan in New Orleans!

The clock ticks...