The (wo)Man in the Mirror

Yesterday, I stared at my blank computer screen, starting and stopping about 3 different blog posts that were meant to wrap up 2010 in some sort of meaningful way. I tried to do an entry about the super fun impromptu Thursday ride, the last ride of the year. I tried to do an entry about the super fun Polar Bear ride yesterday, the first ride of the year. Both of them wound up sounding campy and, well, irrelevant. The general gist was "group rides are fun!"

Duh.

This statement is not to belittle the fun I had, or the wonderful company with whom I rode. It's just that riding with your friends stands as one of the pillars of Bike Riding Enjoyment.

So this time, I'm going to write a post that focuses on one thing that I rarely discuss in this blog.

Me.

As in my actual physical body.

Which has undergone a lot of changes since a year ago.

For the majority of the population, good/bad correlates pretty closely with healthy/unhealthy. The average person, if they maintain a certain weight in relation to their height, is also healthy.

For athletes, though, this relationship isn't so cut and dry.

When I ran, I only ran LSD. No, I didn't run on psychotropic drugs. I only ran long steady distances. Even my not so long distances of 5/6 miles were run at a long steady pace. I never broke the 10 mph mark, and knowing what I know now, I doubt my HR ever went above 150. As such, I had super long lean legs. My body fat number was 16.71, and my weight number was 115. And I was "good." I clung to these numbers like awards.

In reality, I probably wasn't as healthy as I could have been; it was a Looking Good sort of weight. If I'm 100% honest with myself, the ultimate end to my running means WAS Looking Good. I didn't run to push my limits or test my strength. I ran to fit into a skinny pair of jeans. It just happened to be more fun than hours on the elliptical.

Then I started cycling.

And stopped running.

My main goal on the bike? Become a Badass.

My trainer has definitely been pointing me down that road. I do intervals. I suffer. There is pain and sweat. There is improvement and strength and endurance.

There is also this recent conversation, taken place shortly after my AT intervals became "established":

Trainer: So how have you been feeling?

Me: Good! Great! Excellent!

Trainer: Are you ok with where you are weight wise?

Me: (60% truthful) Yeah, I don't even really get on the scale anymore.

Trainer: Ok, good. I would imagine that you've been seeing a significant weight loss over the past few months with the ATs, I just want to let you know that this won't be so much the case for the coming months.

Me: ..............

Truth be told, I had been stepping on the scale. It went up. The last time the number read where it is now, I was depressed and living in DC teaching riding lessons and barely getting out to run and eating way too much office cake and sugary things. I even went out and bought an elliptical machine so I could make sure I exercised no matter what the weather outside was.

What's worse, the old "just see if your pants still fit" rule of thumb also had to be thrown out the window, since last winter I was LSD-ing without eating enough and, truth be told, was probably underweight in terms of my muscle tone for what a long distance runner SHOULD be. So none of my pants fit my thighs and butt (where did that come from?).

The one thing I cling to is the body fat number, which at last check was 15.9%. Ok, I'll round up, even though 15.9 sounds better. 16% Same exact ball park as last January. Which means that I know the weight gain is muscle.

So why was that 40% of me untruthful when I said I didn't worry about my weight?

Because of these truths:

I am at a healthy weight for someone who does what I do and wants to improve.

I could still lose some weight and still be healthy.

I love Starbucks coffee and usually put in a lot of cream. <--40%

I love sweet things and often take a bite of this or that treat during the day. <--40%

These are truths that many amateur athletes like myself face every day. The third/fourth ones can be replaced with Starbucks frappacinos, or salty things, or icecream, or what have you. But there are tons of people out there just like me, who are above average for a normal person, but still average for an athlete. To take that next step would mean giving up that third thing, at least in its current form. As of now, only 40% of me wants to take that step; the 40% that's not happy with my weight.

So here I am in 2011, completely different from 2010. I'm healthier, have more muscle, and am stronger. I can honestly say I am in the best shape I've ever been in my entire life.

I'm also about 10 pounds heavier and none of my pants fit.

Those two facts make for a tough, 60/40 scale to balance.