Once again the world has decided to try and conspire against me getting my training in.  This morning I got up at 4:45 and was at the Y waiting for the door to be unlocked at 5:25am.  When they unlocked the door at 5:30 we were instructed that the pool was chemically imbalanced and that the earliest it might open was 6AM with a strong emphasis on the "might".  I explained that I was already chemically imbalanced but they still wouldn't let me in.

Time for a new plan...

So based on the shaky "might" I decided I'd switch up my plans and get a strength training workout in instead.  Which I was planning on doing early this afternoon anyway.  So I got that in, and then went to work.  Which I'm currently burried in as I head out on Wednesday for a two week business trip so theres lots to do and get ready for.  I even managed to get ahead of the game today...   for a while I contemplated trying to sneak a swim in this afternoon but theres only a couple of lanes open in the afternoon and I honestly don't really have the time to get it in.  And if I had to skip one workout today thats the one as today was going to be a bonus swim just to continue to imprint my newfound successful balance position.  But I'm in the pool with Jacki tomorrow anyway as well as later this week so no harm done.

So I thought it would be perhaps be of interest to see some of the quirky day to day items that are part of my training.  So lets whirl through a few....

Below is a picture of my fridge.  The top half bears the all important white board.  Always written on the top of it is my weight from that particular morning.  Currently at 140.2.  Theres nothing worse than when you have to erase one number to write a larger number down.  Keeps me motivated to keep it as close to the same or lower.  Ideally I'd like to have that number a tiny bit lower, or really I just want my body fat percentage to fall from its current place of 11.2% to 8 or 9%.  Below that number are two other numbers.  On the left is always my current calorie intake on that particular day, and on the right is the rough amount of calories I've burned during workouts that day.  I try and keep to 2000 calories a day and allow myself some portion of workout calories to go towards additional food, especially on long workout days.  In this case I did a 30 minute swim drill workout and a 5 mile run.  Worth about 600 calories.

I often cook large amounts of food and then portion and freeze it.  So on the bottom right you can see that it says Tuna 700, and Chik Pasta 600 meaning that the frozen portions of that have that many calories in them.  That way when I eat it a week later I can still remember how many calories it was.

As well as that on my fridge you'll find my recent race number from the DC marathon, the pool schedule at my local Y, and a really clever bicycling map of Rhode Island where all the roads are color coded based on how bicycle friendly they are.  Theres also info as to where the steep inclines are, and where all the bike paths are.  Very handy!  I found it online, and I have a large format printer for work stuff that comes in handy for things like this.

Now heres whats in my fridge.  I travel so much with work that theres never all that much in here.  I tend to shop in small bursts and try and buy frozen and dry goods in bulk and fresh stuff in small purchases so that I can eat it before I go away again.  So as you can see there isn't much fresh stuff as I'm about to head out of town.  Most of what you see are bottles of cold tap water and gatorade for long bike and run days.  Hydration is not a problem of mine...  I drink more water than most people I think.

And now for the secret cabinet of endurance goodness.  Ok...   so its not really a secret.  But it is my favorite cubby in the kitchen.  I always have a massive stock of balance bars on hand.  They are my current favorite energy/nutrition bar of choice with a good balance of ingredients.  I start most of my days with two of these.  On the plus side I can eat them and then go for a run ten minutes later and they don't even remotely upset my stomach.  The gold boxes on the right are powerbars for long bike days as the balance bars tend to melt on the bike, Clif Shot Blocks electrolyte chews for long run days, and some Clif Shot Gels as well that I still haven't quite aquired a taste for, but I do get a nice jolt of energy from them so I keep torturing myself with them to see if I can get used to them.  I eat probably way too many energy bars in general.  I need to cut back on it but when I'm travelling all the time the balance bars are my savior as eating a couple of those for a meal sure beats eating nasty fried catering or whatever fatty calorie dense food my client is trying to feed me on that day.

So theres a quickie whirl round round the kitchen.  And just to show I don't JUST eat energy bars and drink gatorade all day long here's a shot of dinner from the other night.  Diced albacore tuna over brown rice with asparagus in a thai peanut sauce.  Delicious, nutritious and full of good carbs and protein.  Good stuff!