Sunday, October 31, 2010

OktoberFast Wrap Up

I realized last night (as I was destroying a plate of Tandoori chicken, ironically) that October is going to be a very light training month. I have to Taper for the OC Tri which is the 10th, then I promised my body and my wife to go light on the training this month to rest and finish a living room remodel. So my goal is to be at or below the weight I am on race day despite the decreased training load.
The above is the comment I left on September 30th in response to Big Clyde's post about the OktoberFast challenge.  Basically, my month was supposed to go down like this:
  • Taper for the OC Olympic Triathlon
  • Finish remodeling the living room
  • Maintain (or lose) weight in light of a decreased training load.
How did the month end up?  Here it is in review:

The Taper - I ended up doing OK with my taper - twice (well, maybe one and a half times).  Regular readers will recall that I was all ready to go for the OC Tri, but managed to put the wrong cleats on my cycling shoes.  I didn't discover this little folly until about 40 minutes before the race start, so I had to drop out after the swim.  Obviously I was pissed, so the second I got home I searched for another race and found the Big Rock Olympic Triathlon the following weekend.  Though the second time around wasn't a full taper, I definitely took it easier than normal.  In hindsight, I think everything worked out for the best - I ended up doing OK at Big Rock.

The Remodel - Yeah....this one's not done.  I've been working on it, but I'm not finished.  I used to love doing this stuff, I'm not sure what happened.  I still have to install some light fixtures, paint and seal the floors.  This WILL be done by Thanksgiving; mid December at the latest.

The Weight - My weight is down by a pound or so, but it wasn't that much of a "challenge" due to the fact that my training volume didn't decrease too much.

Here is my training volume for the month:

Bike:20h 16m 24s  - 362.79 Mi
Run:11h 42m 55s  - 86.93 Mi
Swim:9h 12m 08s  - 15880 Yd
Strength:40m

It's a little over 41 hours.  My run volume is slightly up from September, but the bike is down by about 90 miles.  The decrease in the bike is mostly due to 2 or 3 days of crappy weather we had.  I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, but I really couldn't be bothered to ride in the rain pretending I'm racing in one of the Spring Classics.  Also it's nice to see I made it to the gym - once.

The cherry on the proverbial sundae was winning my age group at the Huntington Beach Distance Derby.  This certainly wasn't in my plan.  In fact I wasn't even registered for this race on September 30th.  But it was nice to win a piece of hardware for the first time. 

So it seems that though nothing really went as planned, I had a pretty good month.  Well, except for the living room.  I'm catching some heat for that and I probably deserve it.

Anyway, a big thank you is in order to Clyde for masterminding the challenge.  I also look forward to reading about how everyone else did with their challenges.

16 comments:

KovasP said...

Living room - This WILL be done by Thanksgiving; mid December at the latest. If not, then for July 4th or Labor Day. Promise.

heather said...

Congrats on your age group win! That's fantastic!

Don't beat yourself up about the remodel, that stuff never goes according to plan. I've found the holiday months are the best time to finish home projects. Just plan a huge Thanksgiving dinner or a Christmas party. Gives you a deadline and a tremendous amount of pressure to work under. :)

Caratunk Girl said...

Ha I like Kovas's comment.

How about you winning your AG counteracts not getting that living room done. That might not fly at home...ha ha but anyway, sounds like you had a great October.

Jennifer said...

Ha! Don't feel bad I have an extra bathroom that's two years into a remodel. I'm not even making any promises at this point! I think OCT was a pretty good month, take a break and you'll feel revitalized for the next go-round! Cheers!

Lucas R. Tucker said...

Nice month.

I used to enjoy remodelling and working with my hands. Until my wife bought a fixer-upper and it became more of a second job. Now I dread most of the remodelling that still has to be done. I procrastinate in that area a ton!

TRI714 said...

You bastard ! How the hell did you stay focused on all those swim miles ? Great job !

Lindsay said...

This challenge was the first one I stuck with the whole time! You and Clyde should feel honored lol.

Workout levels look solid to me! As for home Reno -- I fid it always takes at least 2x a long as planned:)

Emz said...

When your done. I have a house that was supposed to be done 2 years ago. ugggg.

Tandoori chicken.......yum.

Aimee said...

Ugh...I know all about remodels not getting done! My husband and I always seem to be doing some sort of remodel project, and it always takes longer than we expected!

ajh said...

Congrats on a good month! The remodel will happen!

Chris K said...

I'd call it a pretty darn good month too. The hardware is just awesome. And, you got to learn a valuable lesson about cleats :-)

Quinton J said...

Thanks for reminding me of my house projects buddy. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Actually I'm liking Heather's idea of throwing a huge Christmas party...minus the stuff about doing the house work and the deadlines and stuff.

Big Clyde said...

Dude, your mileage is sick. I am sitting here debating on if I should commit to 15 run miles or 20. You did 87! You also rode well over twice what I did. And you swam for 9 hours. Yeah, I think you did fine.

Now, finish the stupid living room already.

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