Pursuing Prime Perfection

And with that quirky segment of alliteration I will outline the meaning behind the Ps seen above. Overall this has been a below average week. Initiated originally by a cold but then continued on by bad habits. I missed my first lectures of the semester and have been dozing in others, always a bad sign. I have also been snoozing and watching too much TV which led to snacking in bed, a repeat trigger/ symptom of the Dark ages. Based on this build up of poor habits along with my study falling behind has triggered the positive response required.

That response is perfection. Past blogs have outlined my attempts at perfection which highlight repeated failures. These past attempts I believe have failed because I set unrealistic goals throughout an unrealistic timeframe such as months or weeks. So now I'm keeping it simple. The goal is simply to be perfect until Monday morning starting from this afternoon.

Now this pursuit will be difficult but doable and I've only got myself to keep on track. Central to the Perfecting criteria is diet, study and gym in that order of priority. My diet has been poor and now is the perfect opportunity to reinforce the benefits of hitting your diet targets. Study has literally been non-existant so the criteria will be a solid 2 hours minimum of study. While the gym is pretty self-explanatory. Finally some other minor criteria includes no snacking in bed, no snoozing and just nothing negative. Another thing i hope to include positive thoughts suppressing the negativity I know will come with pursuing perfection.

I am going to aim to log my thoughts, feelings, urges, basically anything throughout the day to hopefully reinforce how perfecting those life aspects makes you grind so much better throughout the day. Let's Do It, Alpha and Out!!!

Virus, You Sly Devil

The walls were up, the immune cells strong and the mind was pumping the positivity but alas a goddamn virus still managed to sneak in. I proceeded to smash it with juice, vitamin C and rest but it seems to be settling in for the long haul. It has not completely wrecked my exercise regime. I am still hitting up the gym but the cold has definitely taken the edge off my performance. I am trying to maintain my exercise and walking the tightrope between my fitness and my recovery. So this basically means reducing early morning starts, keeping warm, lots of fruit and plenty of sleep. Hopefully this will do the trick, Alpha and Out!

Hittin The Stone

Milestones that is! I am having a champion day after a very tired, lethargic and flustered rest day yesterday. Speaking of which when I wrote yesterday's post I was sitting in the sun. After getting up and finding shade, reading up on my practical and grabbing a cold Coke Zero my misty head cleared somewhat and I managed to walk on.

Anyway back to the champion day. I seriously believe today's awesome origins came from just before I went to sleep. I had got a free sample of ice cream from work which I took home for my grandparents. Now never underestimate the power of ice cream on me, I would buy a 1 litre tub after work and demolish the lot at 3am in the morning back in the depths of Awkwardness. As I got home, extremely tired and having dinner in the back of my mind Awkward was whispering "Come on, there is a small tub of ice cream in the freezer for you to eat before you go to sleep," Not content just to entice me, he tried to rationalise it for me - "Come on your tired, you've been going all day, you were spot on with your diet you can fit it in, you deserve it," All the usual bullshit that Awkward sets in my mind when I am tired. The crunch point came as I walked past the freezer on the way to bed. I looked up at the white door, greyed by the night. And I...

Walked straight past it. Boom! That is the milestone I am talking about. Alpha knew that if I fell to the creamy sword, I would be up even later, sleep in, miss my 8am lecture, probably not even make it to Uni and have a dwelling, depressing day in bed. The final touch to my avoidance was the biography/training manual of champion triathlete Chris 'Macca' McCormack which I am currently enthralled in. Instead of grabbing a spoon and digging into temporary relief, I jumped into bed and read the book till I was right to drift off to sleep with the warmth of the dog at my feet.

Macca's book leads me onto the next reason I am in a great mood and having a productive day. His book has swung me around from pure desperate housewife style "fat-loss & toning" to training for a return to triathlon and doing everything for performance rather than vanity. This lead my gym session to crank out a race pace/flat out duathlon in the gym on the treadmill and exercise bike. When I left home this morning after a brief but deep sleep I had no intention of doing a duathlon in my gym session however I was in a good mood and thought about how busy the weights section would be and that it would be better to do that tomorrow morning rather than today. So I jumped on the treadmill and bike for a 5km:20km:5km run:bike:run. And I SMASHED IT! 22:51min - 35:43min - 24:04min. I am happy to see my body hold up to the race pace intensity and the increased duration of the workout. From this pattern I am going to launch myself into preparation and training for triathlons rather than fat-loss. And I am excited at the possibilities. Phew! Long post today but I got a lot of positives in my mind. Straight to the Top we're going, Alpha and Out!

Tired Times In The Sun

I sit on the edge of the lakes at Uni in 20 degree sunshine feeling tired and flustered. As I soak up the sun I am trying to pinpoint why I am feeling so tired and out of it. I had a very solid 7 hours of deep sleep, usually more then enough to keep me grinding. I did have a massive 'brick' session of cycling, running, weights and oztag over a 4 hour period last night. However I made sure I had a stretching session last night and along with icing sore legs has avoided the usual physical hang over from such a session. I am having my rest day as planned but still feel tired and lethargic. Maybe it's the length of my day leaving home at 6:40am and returning home after 11:30 thanks to work. That along with the first practical session for one of my subjects has got me all flat. I always seem to find the first practical session intimidating due to the initial meeting of lab partners and the interaction I,'as an introvert, do not enjoy the prospect of. However I generally get over it quickly and it becomes enjoyable. Bam I think that probably explains it. Hopefully in a couple of hours I'll be fine. Fingers crossed, Alpha and Out!

Just Don't Do Too Much Damage

An extended break while going a day too long was exactly what I needed and yes I'll give myself a pass mark in the damage department. Only an afternoon of DVDs and a bag of chocolate was the real damagers of the period. I am feeling refreshed and raring to get stuck into another extended period of work.

I am looking to build on last weeks work. This means refining my diet and improving on my gym attendance. I need to plan more specifically my exercise routine, particularly which days become rest days, which days focus on strength and which to cardio. Upon this I need to plan my study and week overall. Also I plan to prepare my food and backpacks for the week as early as possible to improve my diet and streamline my study. Let's do it, Alpha and Out!

Pain, Pain Don't Go Away

Arrgghh! Knee's pumping, arms tensed holding onto the handles, calves about to burst, hamstrings about to burst, a crick in the neck inhibiting my attempts to checkout what was behind me. Last night on my ride to work and then the return run I felt the side effects of overtraining. My legs particularly the calves and the ligaments around the knee's were all strained and sore. My cycling was significantly slower particularly on hills where I needed to get out of the saddle a lot earlier than normal to pump up even a slight incline. While frustrated, sore and tired from a early morning rise to get to the gym my discipline surrounding my diet waned and strained. Luckily thanks to the growing power of my resolve the diet didn't suffer too much junk, just some extra biscuits, some leftover chicken stir fry for lunch and perhaps less water then I should be consuming.

All these reasons and more push me to question the unplanned, spontaneous nature of my exercise and workout schedules. I think I really need to plan it out better particularly considering my body is my engine of choice for transport to work, Uni, Oztag wherever. I simply cannot risk injury and repeated need for rest days. I think I need to figure out a way to split my exercise routine into segments focusing on performance for the eventual triathlon comeback as well as fat loss and injury prevention.

And of course I need to take at least one day off to rest a week, a libation I am currently enjoying today despite having to wake up slightly earlier to compensate or time on the bus. I have also relaxed the diet a bit today more to the fact of piss poor planning than anything which I will improve on in time but today I am ok with it. I'm just giving myself a parents pass, "....just don't do too much damage," Enjoy today, plan for tomorrow and live for the pleasure, Alpha and Out.

Operation: Straight 7's

"Your mission, whether you choose to accept it, You will find yourself at University staring down 4 subjects in your Final Semester. You will do everything in your power to achieve a top grading of 7 in each subject. Good Luck Soldier, this posting will self destruct in three seconds.....3.....2....1...."

Well maybe not self destruct but it definitely needs to be etched into my mind, become my sole predominant focus. However this will not compromise my fitness time and goals as I believe that working out is the best way to relax between hard core study as well as keep the mind sharp and flowing. Couple this with an appropriate diet and the brain and my physiology will run even smoother. I spent the majority of my holidays attempting to establish or at least start some productive habits to help guide and protect me to complete my mission. And while some habits haven't yet stuck like getting up consistently early, some essential ones like going to the gym most certainly have and I enjoyed a couple of weeks of hard, flat out sessions and am beginning to see some results.

Lets Go Get it, Lock in, Focus, Letssssss Do It!! (Cue Mission Impossible theme music)