Halloween Candy

Candyheads
Ahhhh it is that time of year again!
There is so much candy around and i have a weakness for Chocolate! I am just going to have to be super strong and remember how bad all that sugar is for me and all the headaches it gives me.
In England Halloween was not such a big deal as it is here. I even remember watching American TV shows as a teenager like Roseanne, they would have these big Halloween specials and it seemed Americans would go crazy at Halloween. It made no sense to me until i moved here. Again it seems that is a huge money maker for the industry to push their products on this time of year.
Now do not get me wrong, i love this time of year of brown leafs and cool temperatures it is just the amazing. It just the huge push to get my kids too eat unreal amount of sugar that gets too me.

Guinea pigs are not food!!
So last night i see my wife watching a show on the Travel Network where they are in a foreign country eating Guinea pigs! ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, i had a g pig when i was little and i still love them! I stood there in shock as they ate them roasted and you could clearly see they were g pigs! It is still haunting me today. I understand they do eat weird things in other countries but please don't show it! You might think i am over reacting but i bet you wouldn't want to see them eat dogs or cats. Yet another reason i am vegetarian.

My foot hurts
Yep the bottom of my left foot hurts. I think i have an injury. It hurts to walk on it and running is out this week. I was meant to play Racquetball with a friend this week but had to cancel. I never played Racquetball but did play Squash in high school in England so hopefully i will have some kind of clue.
Instead of running i had to swim and do elliptical training. Lets hope it is better by the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day!

The pictures are of 2 goats that walked along a bridge one from each side. When they meet in the middle they could not go around each other or go backwards (i guess Goats can't go backwards) They were stuck there for 2 days before they were rescued. My farmer friend says they are male and female. I wonder what they were going to do up there! Poor lil goats!

Green Bay Duathlon

Wow lots to catch up on! First my Green Bay Duathlon:

Got up at 4.30am and left at 5am to get there for 6am. Stopped to pick up some water but did not eat or drink before the race (i know better) Very foggy on the way up there. I had done a 4 mile running race the day before this race.


I saw my BT Buddy Jerry!!! Sweet! Dan from Heavy Pedal was here too.

I ran about 1 mile or for about 10 mins to make sure i was doing ok. I seemed ok. No stomach problems today

Here is Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay packers where the event starts and finishes.

Run 3 miles: 23:10
Came out fast for the first mile run.Slowed a little then fast for the third mile. I tried to catch a guy i knew was a bit faster than me. I didn't hold back. He just beat me in but anything less than a 8 min mile is crazy fast for me.
I really really need to lose 25 pounds. I could be so much faster!! If i can go 8min miles at 230LBS what could i do at 200 pounds?

T1 : 1:35
Still too scared to leave my shoes in the pedals. I need to work on this for next year.

16th out of 28. Winner was 47 seconds.
Also my quick release on my front wheel got stuck in someone elses spokes on the rack. Need to make sure that does not happen. Cost me about 10 seconds.
Practice leaving shoes in pedals. I was happy with how i did. Need Triathlon shoes (NEED lol)


Bike 33 miles 1 Hour 31:19, 21.68avg mph
I pushed hard here all the way. I was dead set to have an average speed of over 20mph. My normal is 18-19. I wanted to win the Cydesdale division so bad and i knew i had to get an average of over 20 as my running was slow. Only once or twice it dropped to 18mph on a hill. Alot of 23-24 mph on the flats. Still it was not fast enough.
I went all out crazy speed. 20 LBS less i hope to be faster!

T2: 1:23
Winner was 27 seconds. I could not get my arm warmers off as i couldn't catch my breath and focus. Felt like i was going to fall over putting on my shoes.

Did get my helmet unstrapped while running in.

Run 2: 1 mile  8:20
Ran as fast as i could. Saw my friend Jackie out there and that helped speed me up. I was so hoping to place in Cydesdale.

Got my print out results. 10th! :(. Aww well. Maybe next time. Winner was 1:51., 2nd 1:54 and third 1:58. So i was 8 mins from third place. How am i gona get there next year i wonder?


Total Time = 2h 05m 48s

Overall Rank = 132/570
Age Group = Clydesdale
Age Group Rank = 10/28


I wanted one of these:!

5 Levels of speech, Some fall biking

I have been thinking lately i need to get a little deeper in my blogs. Instead of producing just the facts i need to dig down and talk about how i feel about issues. Recently i head there were 5 levels of conversation.

1. Basic matter of fact - This would be talk about the weather, how the Packers are doing (very common around here) and just everyday stuff that does not really mean that much

2. Lets talk about a subject or someone - This goes a little deeper but can still be hit or miss about most things. This could be conversation about someone or something.

3 Energy and passion - This goes a little deeper still. This is when someone talks about something with energy or passion.

4. Production - This is when 2 people understand the subject and are 'making' something. Not completely into the conversation but are working together on the end result.

5. Deep Conversation - This is rare and this is the one i would like to get to more. I know in conversations with my wife i am guilty of not getting to this one enough. I need to do this more within my family.

So i will try and get my blog a little deeper. My English is terrible which is surprising being from England! Aw well.


This is going to be a crazy weekend. I got a 4 mile cross country race on Saturday morning which i am feeling good about. I did it 2 years ago and i still have my time for it. I can not wait to see if i improve any on it.

Then Amy's 9th birthday party. This is a Golden birthday for her too. I had no clue what a golden birthday was until i moved to Wisconsin. It turns out that if you were born on the 9th your 9th birthday is Golden. The 22nd then when you turn 22 it would be your Golden etc.

I took some pictures of my mountain bike ride and i have using an amazing app on my Blackberry which is totally free and it tracks by GPS your whole ride. At first i though it would be much good but it is amazingly accurate. You can also track walks and runs!! Here is the link and you can see exactly where i went.

http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/rVaSR2R1ijw

I  highly recommend Endomondo for biking, walking and running. I found it to be very accurate. It did not loose signal in the woods either.

It is going to be a busy weekend. I have a 4 mile run race on Sat and on Sunday it is the Green Bay Duathlon. The weather is meant to be sunny and 70F all weekend which is unheard of here in Wisconsin so i am SUPER excited.

Also this weekend i am going to a show!!! This is the show http://colinandbradshow.com/

They are 2 of the funniest people in the world!! I loved the show "Whose line is it anyway?" when it came out in England and i was living there. Then the American version came out and i loved that too. Now i get to see it live!!!! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Enjoy your weekend friends!

Enjoying the now!

Often on a weight loss journey it is hard to remember why you are doing it. Well thinking back to when i began in 2007 i desperately wanted to be there for my daughters. They were 5 and 7 at the time. They were so full of energy and life and i could barely move.
Denial is huge when your 440LBS. You pretend your problems are not as big as they really are. But raising, playing with and walking my daughters down the isle to get married was not easy to ignore the fact my chances for doing this were getting very slim (no pun intended). The road ahead looked so daunting. I used food to cope with everything. Stress, happiness, sadness, anxiety, boredom and the list goes on and on. There was no way i could look ahead and say...OK i need to lose 200 pounds. I had to take it one day at a time.

Now 3 years later in between watching what i eat, making sure i get enough exercise and making sure i do not fall back in old habits its easy to forget why i did it all.

Well a few days ago i tool Emily out to go mountain biking again. I would have never been able to do this 3 years ago. I really don't know what it  means to her when we do things like this together and i probably never will. Secretly i am hoping as she grows up and becomes her own person and a grown up she will look back at rides like this fondly.

I took a few pictures to capture it. She loves loves loves to ride her bike.

Here we are riding across the bridge on the trail.

 Out in the woods

 This is downtown Manitowoc WI

 I always make her wear her helmet

 Out on the gravel pathway

 Speedy Emily

Another riding in the woods, This trail is about 6 miles long and she is only too happy to ride the whole thing.

It is so easy for me to get caught up in losing my next 5 pounds or working on placing in my age group in the text race. But this is what it is all about!

Love you Emily!!!!