The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The good and bad things are what form us as people...change makes us grow.  -- Kate Winslet

Terms like 'good' and 'bad' are extremely simplistic in what is a far more complex situation. -- David Icke

So.  It turns out making changes is hard.  Even little changes, small shifts.  For a while over the last few weeks, I felt like I was doing good.  But then towards the end of last week, I did pretty bad.  But this isn't exactly right - it's a lot more complex than that.  Even when I thought I was making progress, things still were not good...and even though I'm not super proud of my choices over the last few days, some good came from that too.  Good and bad - it forms us, it makes us grow.  But a binary classification as good or bad - that just doesn't really explain everything, does it?

I'm trying to make Athlete 2.0 - the better, healthier, fitter, and faster me.  I know I can't change overnight or go from 0-60...so I'm working on small changes.  The first small changes (logging and liquid) were going pretty well - although I did "break" my rule about liquids this weekend...beer!...and I have slacked a little bit on logging.  But I think having a few beers here and there is fine and being a little slack here and there on logging is OK - as long as it doesn't continue.  So even though I haven't been the best with either of these, I feel like the slips are just tiny dips - and I'm back on track.  Back to logging regularly.  Back to drinking wine, water, and coffee (or tea).  I know I'll drink a beer here or there - and I know that there'll be times when I don't log my food, but I also know that the habit is formed and I will get right back on plan.

The other shifts I was trying to make were more protein, more veg.  These shifts have not stuck quite as successfully.  Protein, particularly the amount that the Roar book suggests I eat, is actually pretty hard to do.  I've definitely increased my protein intake (thank you, logging, for showing me this much progress)...but the amount is still too low.  And eating veg at every meal...well, it turns out I don't actually like veg at breakfast - at least not yet.  :)

I'm going to spend another week or two with these goals - perhaps if I can't get to the level I'm hoping to reach, at least I'll understand where I'm at and be able to use that as a floor to improve from.  These two shifts may have been either too big or too nebulous - I'm going to still keep my eye on improving my protein and veg, but I'm really going to focus on data gathering.  And speaking of data gathering, I have some more of that going on too.  I got a Garmin 920xt and have been tracking my sleep and steps too.  More on this later.  I'm going to build Athlete 2.0 one data point at a time.

So - that's the "bad" - now for the "good."  This weekend's long run, done at the same basic intensity level, was about 15-20 seconds faster/mile than last week's long run.  Yeah me - this training thing is starting to show some benefits again...which is awesome.