Yes, yes, YEEEESSSSSSS - I beat Elliott today

In case you don't remember or are not familiar with him, Elliott is my dragon aka lazy a** alter ego. He likes to lounch on the couch all day long with some nice music, chocolate mountains, legs on the radiator and someone to cuddle. Until now most of the time he won. Today was different I won. Finally. Frankly, Elliott isn't as lazy as he used to be and I really want someone to cuddle too.

It was a hard battle today. Here is how it went. Since it was sunny outside I got Elliott following me walking the whole 5 k to the national library over snow and ice without any complaints. I think he enjoyed it quite a bit, since I had fed him with Zucchini-latkes before we left.
But as soon as we got to the library the reprieve was over and he started nagging. He wanted a candy bar, I was neither hungry nor did I have an appetite for a candy bar. A candy bar at that moment would have spoiled all my advances over the last few days. No reasoning with him, he continued with nagging for the next 2 hours. You think it's funny? Try to concentrate on preparing an important job interview with a 500 pound dragon sitting next to you and screaming "I want candy and I want to go home, not to that stupid piano concert" in your ear. At 5 PM I decided to read Marksdailyapple.com Forum with the success stories again. And that quieted Elliott down.
At 5:30 PM I gave back my books and went to the cafeteria to drink a hot tea (it was freezing in this darned reading room) and eat the rest of my zucchini-latkes. I made sure to forego the nice looking cakes and candy.
Then I walked another 4 k to the music college, Elliott was really unhappy about it and I wasn't exactly happy either. Because it seemed like I walked through a blizzard. And you know what, the big music room where the concert was, was also waayyyyyyyyy too cold. After the concert I walked another k through the blizzard to my streetcar station and went home.

Now I'm enjoying a hot peppermint tea, fish, tomatoes with feta cheese and sour cream.

You know what is also really funny, I will have another interview tomorrow, though this one is a phone interview (they called when I was at the supermarket today). We'll see how it goes with both interviews, the other one is real life on Thursday in Dresden again. Cross your fingers that I finally make it.

That's it. I finished my meal, time for a good nights sleep in my warm and comfy bed.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

This little monster

Elliott had me eating chocolate waffles this morning (4 AM) again. Dang. On the other side, I stood strong with training and dinner last night, so a few waffles are only a small setback along the way. This kind of nighteating will stop as soon as I move out, anyway. For two reasons: a) I'll buy no waffles b) this nighteating is a parents flat thing. Never did it when I shared flats and I won't do it in my own flat. So there's nothing to worry about.
I ate some Thai noodles and backed bananas (i just love those) yesterday for lunch (my mom and I bought a Deuter backpack for my dad, his birthday is on Friday, I made her treating me to lunch ;-). Unfortunately my skin started acting up last evening and now my inner elbows (old place for my neurodermatitis from childhood) are red and looking bad. I'm definitely sensitive to gluten. I don't have a problem with small amounts, so soy sauce is okay, but big portions of noodles are a problem for me. Good to know. Noodles (carbs) are bad for me anyway, so I'll make a big detour around them from now on.

The assessment center for Super Job is moved to next Thursday. So I've got even more time to prepare and enough time to work the "Mental Training" book through. (Looking on the bright side, right? Right.) Like Keith said in his comment, it has tons of good advice. Buy it! It's worth its weight in gold, in my opinion. I highlight nearly every sentence I read and I'm just on page 13! I wasn't too happy about this appointment shifting as you can read in yesterdays first post. BUT have a look on todays Elle UK horoscope for me:
"So much is happening behind the scenes at the moment—so much so that you’re not even aware of all subtle influences guiding you beyond your normal safety zones. Tune into the subtle clues if you want to get a handle on what’s really influencing you. Nothing is quite what it seems." Sounds good, no?

Triathlon insights
Yesterday I forgot to tell you what I also learned from my "long" ride. "CORE STRENGTH", until yesterday I didn't know why I should train it! Even when Molly wrote that "I thought of camp a lot, when Jen Harrison had talked about core strength and how much it pays off late in the race when run form starts falling apart." on her post about "Silicon Valley International Triathlon", I didn't get it. Since the second round of yesterdays ride I know now what core strength is for and that it hurts like hell, when I don't have it. This whole second part of the ride would have been a lot easier if my core muscles would have been abled to hold on. But it hurt. Elliott and my body weren't amused in the slightest. Now I have to find the right drills to get it done. By the way my chest muscles are still complaining.

Well, here is some wisdom from the "The triatlete's guide to mental training":
"In the beginning it's hard to understand that the race is not against others but against that little voice in your head that tells you when to quit" Charlss Brenke, age-group triathlete (p.12)

"You must train yourself to seek out and thrive on adversity and have the ability to stay calm and focused when the race is on the line. You need the ability to use your emotions to your advantage so that they help you perform well. Finally, mastering the pain that you will experience in training and races will enable you to endure the physical challenges you will face as you pursue your goals." (p. 11)

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!

Let me introduce you to "Elliott", he is

my Dragon. He was a lazy, untamed and slightly fearful dragon all my life, trained by my parents. He guards the door to my subconsciousness, unfortunately he does this sometimes too well and doesn't really like to change the believes I hold in me and my abilities, that he had put into this dark and deep cave. At the moment he is slightly disturbed, because I'm nudging him to change those believes that had been holding me back. As you can see in the picture he's quite afraid of those changes:

(yes, it's photoshoped)

Today Elliott and I had another quarrel. While we both agree that an afternoon nap is pure bliss, I wanted to train afterwards, but not Elliott. "Ah, no, we did ride 25 k yesterday and you still have sore chest muscles. And your metabolism is down and won't there be dogs! You really don't have to do it every day, let's just call it recovery day!" "No Elliott, I said I would drive 25 k today and I will do so. I thought we had discussed this. We both want me to look lean and chic. And you, me and the body want to be healthy and fit. Therefore we do this. We had our nap, now we take Aurora and go for a ride!"

Well, I succeeded in getting Aurora out and go for the ride. But Elliott didn't stop nagging! First my behind hurt from yesterdays ride, so Elliott complained about that, as this didn't make me give up he complained that the rear tire doesn't have enough air, I drove on, next was my right quad, then he told me that I felt a lot better yesterday and if we shouldn't just do one round, I said no, we do two, then he complained about the climbs and so on. I succeeded in the end, we drove two rounds I made the full 25k, even though I had to really push me and Elliott and my body to get through it. When I got home I was finished. I had no strength left. Elliott sits now in his corner and pouts. When I told him that he gets a nice chocolate proteinshake he just turned around and stared out of the window. Such a kid.

So here are todays stats, worse than yesterday but still it surprised me that it only took me half an hour longer for 9 k:
distance: 25 k = 15.53 m (it looks so short in miles)
time: 1:31:42 hrs
in zone: 1:07:25 hrs (could be better, but those climbs were hard today)
HR: 133 bpm

Before I get on my next ride tomorrow (a short one. Elliott just gave me a mean shoulder glance, LoL), I will get more air into my rear tire.

And just for the giggles, Elliott sees RED:


This happened when I forgot to turn the flash off. No photoshopping, whatsoever.

Have a good nights sleep and a great new day. ROCK IT!!!

KEEP MOVING FORWARD!!