Back under 230

Well, I'm holding, AFTER easter, under 230. I feel great, Easter morning I went for a nice little hike in the woods behind my in-laws house, where we spent easter. It was truly wonderful. I have gotten back in touch with so many things, one of the biggest things I've noticed is that I appreciate everything more now than I did before I was in shape. I like the fact that I can hike up a nice steep hill and not need a break, the fact that walking and moving is no longer such hard work that I don't want to do it.

I love being more in shape, and the fact that doing things no longer seems "hard" makes it a lot more fun when you do them. I had my peanut butter meltaway egg, but only a little slice rather than about 1/2 the egg, which is what I would have eaten before. I also had some other tasty desert food, as well as some home cooked food, but all in all, I just enjoyed the day, and refocused yesterday, stayed within my calories, and being back on the bike with fresh legs, found it very refreshing. I was rewarded this morning by being the exact weight I was Friday morning, so onward and downward with the weight! :)

F2PH

Second run coming up

I've been slacking on my running, mainly due to being a little apprehensive about running the actual runs, and wanting to make sure my legs are ready. I attempted my first 6 mile run last Sunday, I made it 3.9 miles running, then walked the rest, but I felt good doing it. I'm excited about tomorrows 5k, my strategy is to finish in the same or better time than my last one. Hopefully that's doable.

I've been steadily losing weight, down 31lbs officially as of yesterday, so that's GREAT news. Gotta stay focused, as happy as I am about where I have gotten to, I'm nowhere near the final goal. Thinking about it though, I'm nearly halfway there, so that's good news too! I know the last 30 or so will come off much more slowly and with more resistance than the first 30, luckily those last 30 will be fighting against the increased activity that is known as spring and summer. As the weather warms there are more group rides to go on, and the family decides to come out of the cave and ride on the weekend, all of which adds up to more monthly miles for me, so that's great news for my weight loss and overall fitness!

Clothes are starting to fit very well again, and I'm not like "Urggggggg" when I look in the mirror, more like "well, gettin there" which is a step in the correct direction. Oh, and in the next two months I NEED to start swimming. This will require a membership to some indoor facility with a hole in the ground which is filled with water. Gotta get on that if I want to have any chance at even finishing the swim! :)

Well, TGIF! Here is to a good and activity filled weekend!

F2PH

Legs!

Yep, they feel normal today. Almost completely normal. Nearly like they did before I started this whole running thing. Well, stronger, but I'm speaking of the absence of pain. So what does that mean? Well, that I need to run of course! :) I will be running tomorrow, I'm trying something new, I am stuck at 5.7 as my speed, I think my body is settling in ant trying to make that it's "comfortable" speed. I am fine with my body finding said speed, but I would like it to be a 10 min mile, so that when I push I can get down to closer to an 8 min mile, and when I want to slack off a bit, I can do that 10-11 min mile. Tomorrow I plan to do some intervals, 1 min running all out, hard as I can, chest nearing explosion speed, and 1 min walk to recover. I plan to do this for 30 min, with a 5 min warmup and cooldown. I will be using my GPS to lap between the runs and walks, so I can see what my max running speed at 1 min intervals is. Should be interesting to see how this looks on paper (well, on computer screen, as I doubt I'll ever print it :) )

Back on the road bike, have I mentioned how good a road bike feels after the mountain bike all winter? It's like holding 15mph is so easy compared to holding 9 with studded tires and about 300lbs of bike under ya. (Ok, not quite 300, but you get the idea). Feeling great and still dropping weight, holding around 234/235 for almost a week now, but that beats the heck out of holding at 255 :) It will drop again, this is just how my body works.

Well, I don't think I have anything else. Carry on. :)

F2PH

Running is fun!

Ok, so i'm crazy, I know, but I have actually decided that running is fun. It's not as much fun as biking, I think mainly due to the lack of speed, but it is oddly relaxing, peaceful, and freeing. I like running, and I'm looking forward to doing it, both a short run with the family tonight, and a longer one over lunch tomorrow. I also am planning to run my first organized run in about a week and a half, and I'll be doing my first 5k a month after that. I'm pretty excited. I feel great, I'm losing weight, I'm still biking to work and home every day, in short my body is working as a machine now, rather than as a storage battery for potential energy :)

I'm also looking forward to trying to become a decent swimmer, I'll have to work on that, mainly because of the whole deal I have of hating water in my face, and it seems the head up doggie paddle version of swimming I do isn't going to go very far when it comes to real swimming. I don't have any illusions whatsoever about swimming, I know this will be my weakness, but at least I know it, and I'm prepared for it.

I don't have much else to add today, just wanted to update, and keep logging my thoughts.

F2PH

Milestone- down over 25lbs

I'm officially down over 25lbs as of this morning. I was 237.4 this morning, the least I have been since starting my journey down and the least since about two years ago (man, it kills me to type that, I danced in the mid 240's for almost a year, telling myself that since I was "fast" on the bike the 240's were just fine for me) I had myself convinced that my body was just there at 240, 243, 245, 248, 250, 253, 255, 259, etc due to a random bump in weight, and that as long as I kept biking I'd come back down.

Let me tell you all, that's a cop out. It's every bit as much of a cop out as the hundreds of excuses we as a lazy society make for not working out. It's bs, and even when we're selling it to ourselves, I don't think we're really buying it. I know I wasn't. It sounded good, but I know that in my mind I really was aware I was backsliding, and badly. Had I kept going I have no doubt I'd be the 300lb guy who still bikes to work. I don't want to be that guy, I want to be the 190lb guy who runs at lunch, competes every year in multiple runs, tri's and maybe even an honest to goodness bike race sometime. I want to push myself so that I don't have the option of ending up on the wrong side of 240 again. I have found that when I lack goals, I lack focus, and when I lack focus, I find excuses. I have some pretty interesting goals for this year-

Complete a 5k in under 30 min.
Complete a sprint duathlon (not sure on time here yet)
Complete my first triathlon (sprint)
Complete my first Olympic Triathlon

From there, I am forming up next years goals in my mind already-

I'd like to do a 1/2 marathon
I'd like to do another olympic tri, as well as a sprint again
and I'd like to train for a 1/2 iron.

The following is the ultimate goal-

Reward completion of the 1/2 iron with a nice tri specific carbon bike (built up by myself of course, I love building bikes)

And with said bike, compete, before age 45, in my first Ironman. And win it.

Ok ok, I know I'm most likely not going to win it. I will however finish it, and that will be a win for me.

So, there they are, in print on the blog that only I read (I'll have to make sure I work on that too, have to have someone holding me accountable huh?)

F2PH

Perspective

I have had many lessons in perspective over my life, but many more have made themselves evident since I have started paying attention to them. We attempted a foolish trip this past weekend, we tried to go to visit my wifes parents, in western pa. We got on the road early on Friday, thinking we might get there before the roads got bad. We succeeded in getting halfway there before the storm truly hit. The roads got bad fast, and to our credit, we stopped being dumb just in time. We stopped in Somerset and hunkered down for the night in a hotel, fully expecting everything to be cleared up early the next day and to finish our trip. Well, 33 inches of snow fell in Somerset, and we were stranded there for the weekend. What did we do? Well, our daughter made a friend, and they played most of the time, we visited with the new friends mom, and others at the hotel, and pretty much had a great time.

Just when we were focusing on how things were not what we had expected, my wife realized she had misplaced her wallet. We had walked though the snow down to a fast food place to get something quick to eat, and it turns out she left it there. The good news is, we got it back, and that had a very nice effect in reminding us it could always be worse. It's funny how that happens.

Life often gives us little reminders that things that go wrong, could have gone a lot more wrong, and we ought be happy with where things ended up, even if it's not always where we set our sights on when we started. The first step to being depressed is focusing on that first negative thought. It really is that simple, and it's taken me many years to figure that out. Hopefully I don't find a way to forget that simple lesson any time soon.

F2PH

A little ouchy

Well, I'm back! Good January this year, feeling good, well till this morning that is. I was biking to work, in the snow, made it here without issue (thank you studded tires). I get to work, and there is this little path (paved) I take behind the building, it's made for walking, so the only turn it has is a nice 90% turn, the path is about 2 feet wide, so that turn is a bit tricky even when it's dry. I'm back up on the bike, taking my time (I had pushed the bike, and had considered pushing it the whole path, but thought riding would be more fun) so I'm coming around the corner, really taking my time, taking my time, taking so much time that, well, I must have stopped, and over the bike went! :) I hit with my right knee, looking at it this afternoon it looks like I hit the edge of the pavement, then slid into the gravel, and stopped. I stood right back up, got my bike, hopped back on, and pedaled though the parking lot to work. I thought "man, there goes my run today, F&*K! Well, that's what I thought, but as the morning went on, the knee while nowhere near normal, just didn't hurt all that bad....

Fast forward to lunch, I suit up, and go for my run, I'm on couch to 5k, week6, and this is day 2. I hit the same path, on foot this time (not as far to fall!) and start running, I feel my knee not doing great, but not too bad either. Now for the funny part of the story, this is my "good" knee, my other knee is weak from being dislocated several times, so I now have no way to limp and provide help for my "bad" knee, as my "good" knee isn't so good today either. Result is I think I ran more balanced than normal. Now on to why this is worth a post.

5 years ago, I wouldn't have run over lunch if you had been chasing me on the back of one of those raptors from Jurassic park. I'd have just given up, actually, I had kind of given up, on health anyway. Today I had a crash, albeit not a major one, it would have however served as a most excellent excuse as to why it just wasn't wise for me to run today. I don't think anyone would have argued the point, and I could have sold it to myself as well. Difference is, I didn't want to sell it to myself, I wanted to run. I wanted to get out there and get those miles in, I had been looking forward to it since my last run. My life, and my outlook, are vastly different than they were just a few years ago. I can't imagine going back to that way of thinking, and that way of feeling. I love being active, and I love looking forward to miles and miles of human powered travel in the coming years.

F2PH