It Christmas and all that

Howdy,

Well the Turkey Trot is done! I didn't take any pictures but i finished in a time of 43mins. It was a 5 mile so not too too shabby. I was concentrating on going slow and not pushing too hard. It was a great run.

Right at about 6 miles my leg likes to give me a little trouble so i have been limiting my runs to that right now.

I have been trying to think about what i want to try and get to next year. I really enjoyed the Green Bay Marathon this year and i think id like to repeat it. We'll see.

I think its important especially if your new at this to list accomplishments every so often so here is a run down for the benefit of new people just starting out.

In 2007 i weighed in at 440LBS + and i was on deaths door. I needed to make a change.

In April 2008 finished my first 5k! This was more of an accomplishment than running a Marathon to me. I used the couch to 5K program to get there.

June 2008 Finished my first Sprint Triathlon!

2009 i my first ever 10k

2010 rode my bike and finished my first 90 mile bike race

2010 First Olympic Triathlon

2010 My first Half Iron man

2011 my first Marathon

2011 learned to Roller skate/Rollerblade so i could spend more time with my kids.

That's just a few so far. I know i need to get that first Full Iron man in the bag soon!

This was not to show off, just to show if your new that you can do it given some time! Also i do read all your blog comments so thanks for posting!

O the picture? Well that is the gun out of an A10 tank buster plane. Amazing how big it is!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sorry i have been a little MIA for a while but i will give you the run down.

Well the big news was that i completely tore my quad muscle in a my first mountain bike race.

I think this has been coming on for a while. I had been biking to work more than normal and i had a run on the treadmill where i tried to go really fast. Well it had been making a weird twinge in my leg. After about a week it went away. Then 2 weeks later i was warming up for my first ever mountain bike race and i came off.

It was not a big crash, i have been through much worse. I tried to slow down my slamming my left leg down but went over on my right side. My brake broke and i had to walk about 3/4 mile back to my car dragging the bike. My leg hurt at that point but not too bad. Well on the drive home it started to hurt like crazy. Then it blew up like a watermelon under the skin. I mean Huge!!

I showed my wife at home and off to the ER we went. They xrayed it and made me sit around a good bit but said nothing they could do. There was allot of internal blood under the skin but was not a good idea to drain it. They gave me crutches and i went home. (The bill was $1700!!!!) thank gosh for insurance!

I iced and heated it and stayed off it. Well the next day it was felling a little better and i felt foolish for going to the ER. Until...around 7pm i was standing in the bathroom doing my business and BANG massive pain and it blew up again to water Mellon sized proportions!! It was crazy painful too!

The next day i went to the Sports Medicine Orthopedic doctor. She is quite the USA Triathlete too and writes for beginners triathlon.com! She used an Ultra sound and a lot of long words but said i had torn my Quad muscle and i would need Physical Therapy. I could not walk at all on the leg at this point and any weight at all on it was extremely painful.

So began Physical Therapy...

I really thought i wouldn't be able to run or cycle for a long long time again. Over the next 4 weeks i had 2 appointments a week and i was manging to swim a few times a week at least.

Well i did all the exercises they gave and learned much about my body. After just 4 weeks i could run again slowly and i am now just starting to be able to bike again. They said it normally takes 12 but because i am used to body recovering from workouts my body is used to fixing its muscles!

So good news...if you work out a good bit and do get an injury in life you will recover much faster and better than someone that sits on the couch!!

I have a 5 mile Turkey Trot on Thursday that is 5 miles but i have to take it slow!! Thanks if you missed me. The Podcast are not possible right now anymore but if you want them back let me know as i will have to invest money in them.

Updates Updates

Hello Friends.
Things are going well and i need to get my blog updated.
Since my trip to England i have got a few things done.

8/7/11 Oshkosh Triathlon (Sprint) 1hr 23m 12s
8/13/11 Carol Rose Wester 5 Mile Trail Run
8/21/11 Race The Lake 90 mile cycle race
8/27/11 Manitowoc YMCA Triathlon (Sprint)

Osh Kosh First

Pre-race routine:

No Food! This is a must in a race for me. No food the morning of. My stomach sucks.
Cleaned my bike the night before. Got my things halfway ready but i should just fully load the car up the night before as i forget things at 3.30 in the morning! I checked off my list and nearly left with out my bike!!
Early in the week i practiced getting in and out of my tri shoes while they were on the pedals.

Event warmup:
Ran a little bit before the swim to get my heart rate up in my wetsuit

Swim:
5th out of 21. Hmm i felt like i was slow. I was out of breathe a good bit but not panicked. I kept close to the buoys and amied for each one insted of the end point. breathing on my right side the whole time. Was shocked about the rocky ground under the water at start. I found i swim faster than i was wading. I actually draghted a bit and for the first time i got around people ok. I think a few times i was not going very straight but every 3rd stroke i looked up to keep me on track. Used my MP3 to keep calm.

What would you do differently?:

I think i need to mentally rehurse a little. I think i should go long and steady strokes instead of short fast ones? It seems so hard to judge my swim performance.

T1
Suit got stuck on my heels a little. I was snapping on Helmet while stepping out of suit. Need to remember to reach down and unhook ankels. Did good with riding on top of shoes and slipping into them when ready. Practice really helped.

What would you do differently?:
Remember to get ankles unhooked.

Bike
The ground was wet and dry in some places. I felt like i may have pushed to hard at the start but i managed to keep it up. I could not have pushed harder.

What would you do differently?:
Weigh less.

T2
4th out of 21, i jumped off the bike from rolling. I did drop my helmet at one point. No socks on the run.

Run
Not bad. Actually faster than i thought it would be.

Event comments:
Pretty good race. On time, plenty of people. Timing chips. Well marked course.

Carol Rose Race:

Well i did this race with my Daughter Megan and my work friends wife who just got through the Couch to 5k program. Because she was extremly nervous about doing it my friend asked me to run with her. I ran at her pace so this race really didnt count much for me on times. It was a fun trail run and it was really nice to have my daughter from Washington State run it with me!

Race The Lake

This is a 90 mile race around Lake Winnerbago. This would be my second year of doing this.

Pre-race routine:


Got up at 2am because i had to be there at 4.30am to do Body marking. It is a nice drive over to Fond Du Lac. Had fun body marking people. Tried to make them laugh and even gave a few a smiley face under their race number. Lots of people came up to me wearing long sleeves and i said 'your going to have to take off your clothes for me' which made them laugh a bit.

Cycle
The first half to the High Cliff park is always nice and flat. You can keep up to 22mph going for a good while. A chipmonk ran out in front of me at one point. There are great support stations. Plenty of food and water. There is a water bottle exchange at the top of High Cliff. After high cliff when you hit the windmills it gets hilly and windy. There are a lot of rollers and between Miles 55-80 is pretty hard for me. After mile 80 you get some good straights and down hills. They probably wouldnt be too bad normally but after 50-60 miles my legs dont have too much in them.
Comments:

Good race again this year. My back snd shoulders suffer the worst on this. I put biofreeze on them at the two rest stops i stopped at which were High Cliff and mile 80. Drank Gatorade so i would not cramp. The 90 miles make me think i am far away from Ironman as there is no way i could run for long after because of back and shoulder pain.

I dont know if i could cut out the 2 rest stops on this race or not at this point. I had intended to take this one really slow but after high cliff i couldnt help racing it.

Saw about 3 bad crashes. One guy and blood all over the place. You have to be careful on this course.
The medals were VERY cool this year!!!!

What would you do differently?:
I have to lose weight for this if i want to go any faster. I need to make a big effort for next year to weigh 200
I got some food. Drove home. Took a 1-2 hour unrestful nap. I went to bed about 10pm and took one of my wives muscle relaxers for her back.Boy it made me CRAZY sleepy. I felt like i couldnt even open my eyes the morning after. Maybe next year book a day off for after the race.

Event comments:

Great Race. Lots of support. You need to be init!


Manitowoc YMCA Triathlon

Managed to grab Third place this year in my group.
Pre-race routine:

Had to Get up at 4am as i was helping with registration. This event is 20mins from my house! I had everything packed up the night before so i was good to go.
Got people Body marked and got to use the Bullhorn was was a huge bonus.
Taped a GU Gel to my frame and filed my water bottle

Event warmup:
Went in the water jogged around a little bit. The water was crazy cold! 57F. Very odd for this time of year.
Swim

2nd out of 6 on the Swim. Kept up front andvery close to the line.It was really cold and for some reason i kept forgetting to kick. I was probably at 95% effort level.

What would you do differently?:

Kick more. The swim is over so quick i dont know if more swim training would help. 4.44 Was the winning swim time in my group. Get my knees higher when running

T1
Winner of T1 in my group. Somehow a bunch of water got stuck in my wetsuit which was weird. Plent of glide on ankles and feet seemd to help alot. The overall winner had a 48 second T1.

What would you do differently?:

Seeing as transistion was not numbered i think keeping my bike on the end of a rack would help here.


Bike

Went as fast as i could really.

1st place 46.04

Second 45.11

Top Winner Joe Yander 40.31


What would you do differently?:
I need to keep losing weight. Maybe practice race pace more.

T2
Got a little stuck behind some in transition. But not to bad.
Was joint first in my group for T2
Winner was 25 seconds. Again Next year remember placement of bike!!!

What would you do differently?:
Get my bike in a better slot. Make sure my ipod does not get stuck in my shoe. Get helmet off while running in.

Run
This is the fastest i have ever run a 5k! I won my group for the run! In the last 1/4 mile i got chicked but i picked it right up and sprinted in to overtake her. I was very happy with this time. Think how much quicker it will be when i lose 40lbs!
This run was awesome.

What would you do differently?:
I am dedicated to losing weight and picking up some speed next year!

When you look back i was fast everywhere. The only thing that made me 3rd was losing about 4-5 mins on the bike. I need to work on this. I think with the weight loss it will help. I need to get out on Thursday but i need to squeak in some Mondays even when i get dropped. I spent time mentally pre paring and i need to do more of this.


The race itself is a good one. About 200 people and i really like you can shower there and relax. This is my home YMCA. The non numbered racking can be an issue and i saw 2 men almost get in a fight over spots. I gave up mine so they wouldnt fight

Back from England

The last two weeks i spent time in England visiting family where i am orginally from. If you didnt already know i moved to the USA at the end of 1997. I had not been home since 2003 and it sure was nice to see Mum and Dad and my brother.

We spent a day in London as my girls wanted to see the sites and see where i grew up. I always like going to my home but i dont think i could live there anymore as it has become so expensive!
We hired a mid size car and just one tank of Petrol (Gas) was $150! and its not like the people there get paid more!

During my trip i managed to run every other day but no bikeing and not much swimming. Which was kind of nice as i need a little break.

We went to many castles as old churchs/Abbeys. When you grow up there you take old buildings for granted but since living in the united states and i now really appreciate churches and castles dating back to the 1100's

Here is a few pictures to show you what i mean:

This is us in front of the Queens Summer house.

This one is a castle from around 1200. This is typical of what you find all over the place in the UK.

This is the inside. The floors are missing but the craftsmanship is amazing.

This is an Abbey we visited. The stonework is awesome.

This is the inside. I got a shot of the people so you can kind of judge the height of the ceiling.

Another shot of the Abbey

This is a shot of us driving over Tower Bridge in London.

I have soo many pictures i wont bore you with them all.

On other news i was so happy to hear Bungus Podcast back on the Air!!!!! Keep em coming.

On the race front i think i have decided to drop out the upcoming Mountain bike race and volunteer for the MS150 bike ride that goes near my home town. I feel it was time to give a little back.

I have some more Triathlons in August and my work friends wife is getting ready to run her first ever 5k. I had coached her though the Couch to 5k Program and she shoulb be ready to run her first ever 5k. So i am going to do that with them.

I did not give up on the mountain bike race completely i am just going to postpone it for now.

Ok one more parting shot

Green Bay Triathlon 2011 Part 2

Ok so now it was Sunday and my turn for the Green Bay Triathlon. It had been kind of a crazy few day leading up to it. My new bike came in on Friday and was the right size. I got my fitting done on it and had only managed to put about 15 miles on it on Sat. I was a little worried about it but everything felt ok.

I was doing the Olmpic Distance which is a 800 yard swim, a 29 mile bike ride and then a 10K. I went with my wetsuit for the swim as it seems to help me go a little faster. Here is a picture before the swim:

Swim:

 I had a weird start. The 3 waves before us they staged them and gave about 5 mins between. Then they moved my wave up to the start and i was getting ready knowing i had 5 mins..and not 10 seconds later they said GO..i was totally off guard. No big deal. Wore my mp3 swim player which keeps me calm. The dolphin divers maybe gained a few seconds on me running/ wading. Some people did it in there cycling shorts and top. I will not bore you with all the times but i came out of there 5th out of 10 in my Division so not too bad. I got my suit off to my waist as i ran to transition and i stepped out of it easy.

T1: Aggghhh SLOW! 3:05
I really need to make improvements here. It was warm so no need for arm warmers or anything.

I need Triathlon bike shoes so i dont have the sock hassle. I put glide on my ankles and that helped my suit come off. I put my team cycling jersey on over my tri suit. I think i should of worn it under my wetsuit.
Helmet on while i step out of my suit would help.
I did put baby powder in my socks but its time to get tri shoes. My next Triathlon my whole goal will be to get this T1 time down. I was 7th out of 10.

Bike:
My new bike was fast. I improved from last year and ended up 5th out of 10. Not much to say really. Would aero bars make me faster? Maybe but not by much. I averaged just over 20mph and there were some good hills.

T2:
faster T2, i am going to need to maybe practice running no socks? scary.

I did race all the way to where i had to get off the bike. sometime in the past ive slowed down too much anticipating the dismount.


Run:
CRAZY!!! I didnt know i could run this fast. I completely went for it. I puked up during the run and just kept going. I had huge strides. I really hurt myself running like this and im not doing it again. Was NOT fun.
I wanted to place but at what cost? I am not going to do this again was way too crazy and much to dangerous for me. Nearly fainted at the end. Awesome mtime but i PAID for it big time

Overall i had a great race and alot of fun. I learned i need to speed up my T1

Green Bay Triathlon 2011

Green Bay Triathlon,

Yes i owe you some reports so i will get you caught up as quickly as possible.

Well to start with my 11yr old Daughter did her first ever Triathlon. For me this was more important than my Triathlon this weekend. She was fantastic! She was a little nervous to start with. I took her up on Sat and she loved having all the attention on her. She kept saying over and over again 'thanks for doing this for me Daddy, i feel so special'.

I spent some time explaining to her that it does not matter if you come last. Most of the kids this was not their first Triathlon so i just wanted her to concentrate on finishing. We got her body marked and all of her things set up in transition. I really tried to make her feel like a superstar. The weather was really nice this day as well which really helped.

Before the race she spent some time splashing in the water to get used to it.

I told her as she gets out of the water things can seem confusing and she might have trouble finding her bike so while she was playing in the water i used the sidewalk chalk i had brought with me to help her:



She really seemed to like this idea. So here she is getting ready for the short swim, i managed to get a shoot of her just as she looked back:

And her she is on the way back in after the swim:

Then she was off to the bike. She had a little trouble getting her socks on and looked a bit worried but i cheered her on and told her everything was normal and OK and she would be fine. OK off to the bike part:

She made it the two laps around the park just great and then she was off to the 1/2 mile run. She was doing great. At one point she said i cant get my breathe but i told her it was normal to be out of breathe. I think she was worried something was wrong but i was glad i was there to keep her calm.
I was a little worried she would quit but no way! she was determined. At points i could tell she was hurting and i wanted to do it for her (typical Dad) but i knew this would help her confidence to get through it.
Here she is on the run and then over the finish line.

She did awesome! She was really pleased with herself. I didn't make her do this event it was something she wanted to do herself. There were a few kids with road bikes and all the gear but i told her just not to worry and she would only be racing herself. I had an awesome day with my Emily and i will not forget it. I hope she remembers it too!

Afterwards i took her over to Panera Bread and got her a tread for breakfast, she wore her medal pretty much the whole time. It just me and her that day and if your a parent thinking about doing this i would recommend it!

Ok next report: My GB Triathlon. But Emilys was way more fun!!!

Midweek

Hello Blog friends!
Hope you had an enjoyable long weekend. Now we are past memorial day everything here in Wisconsin goes crazy for a while. It seems every weekend there is something to do finally.
This weekend i have Green Bay Triathlon on my schedule and my 11 year old daughter is going to try the kids Triathlon.
My kids at first had this theory in their heads that if they are not the best at a sport why do it? It has taken me a little while to get this out of them. I think they are starting to understand that just taking part is where the fun comes from and not winning. After all not everyone can win, it is just not mathematically possible.

I got back some pictures and videos of the Full Marathon i did in May and they look great. Looking back at the event it took me about 4 days to be fully recovered and not do the shuffle every morning.

I will see what i can do about getting some pictures this weekend of the first Triathlon of the year.

New Bike Day...again...maybe

So i had finally got the money together about 2 months ago to buy myself a new Road bike. I have been riding and racing on my entry level Aluminum Marin Porto Fino for just over 3 years now. Now do not get me wrong. For $675 it has been an awesome bike. The only upgrade i ever really did on it was replace the rear wheel with a hand built rear wheel that cost me about $150 because my 230LBS kept breaking the little spokes. It had Shimano Sora on it which work surprisingly well for being so budget minded. I put 3200 miles on it so far with no major problems. I am still going to use it for going back and forth to work and dirty/rainy rides.

I had a budget of about $2200 and started looking. My biggest hitter is wanting a Carbon Fiber frame. Well for this kind of money i found a Kestrel on Bikes Direct with full Ultergra components on it with in my budget! Normally a Carbon frame with Ultegra and good wheels would be about 3000-3500.

I was super worried about not buying a bike from my local bike shop. I felt ashamed not to support them but there is no way i would get that spec for the money i had. So i nervously ordered it knowing i had a full 30days to return it.

Here is how it came:

Looked good so far. I took it out the box and gave it a quick once over. All looked good. Here it is out the box:

I took it to my local bike shop to put it together. That cost me $40 and they did not make me feel bad for not buying one of theirs.
Here is what it looked like made:

It was VERY light and rode extremely fast.
I put about 40 miles on it and i had some trouble changing gears on the rear derailleurs. I just thought it was the cables setting in. It got worse though. On a ride the chain snapped! What the heck. It was an Ultegra Chain and i took it in. They said they had never seen the Ultegra chain snap before! I got new links and go it going. I used a really good mechanic and he could NOT get the rear derailleur in adjustment no matter what he did. He said he would have to pull the handlebar tape off and re run the cable costing me more money. This gave me a very bad feeling about this bike. So i packed it back up and shipped it back for a full refund. They were very good about giving me 100% refund.

So i selected a Specialized bike at my local bike shop that i am meant to pick up today. It is much much less of a bike than this one but i feel more confident about having the local bike shop help me if there is a problem. It is still a Carbon Frame and i am OK with the gear set but the wheels on it are heavy.

We will see how it goes and i will let you know.

--Update...went for the fiiting on my new bike and the 54cm frame was just too small for me. The LBS is going to have to order a 56CM for me. Means i will have to wait another week. Very frustrating but i would rather have it correct. Group ride tonight is going to be on my Marin again.

Green Bay Cellcom Marathon 2011

Yep that me in that photo on the far right of the group.
Back in Novemeber of 2010 right after i did the Turkey Trot, a lady at work i run with sometimes got killed in a car crash. She got completely side swiped by another driver out of the blue at an intersection.
She was meant to do the Half Marathon here in Green Bay yesterday.
Because of this my company decided to put together a team to run it in her honor. I have never done a full Marathon before but have done a few Halfs.
I decided to man up and run this one. Her brother works here at our company also.

I had done my training for this Marathon but only ran about 3 days a week for it. I do not like to run more than that as i get really sick of running fast when i do it this much. I had no idea how i would handle a full Marathon.

I am so lucky that my family said they would support me and meet me on the course wherever i asked them to. Thank YOU! I could not have done it with out them. We live about 50 mins drive from Green Bay so we did not need to spend the night.

So i packed up a large bag with everything i thought i may need and asked them to bring it to the spots i was to meet them at. I meet them about every 4-6 miles which really helped as i knew i only had to focus on seeing them at the next point.

I managed to forget my ipod so i thought i would be running the first 9 miles with no music until i remebered i could use Pandora on my Black Berry...phew!

The weather was dry but extremely windy. 40mph winds were blowing.

 I was trying to enjoy it. I was surpirised to see i started to speed up towards the end. It was all about management. I even sent status on my facebook on my phone during parts of it to keep me going. The crowds were great! they really got me throught the hard parts. I didnt walk any of it which i was also surprised about. With 1/2 mile left i nearly tripped badly but managed somehow to stay upright.


About Mile 23-24 is when i started to hurt and good bit. No cramps or blisters or sores just the top of my feet hurt and good bit. I ran through the pain as i kept telling myself people with cancer have to go through more pain than this.

For my first Marathon i did surprisingly well.


Marathons are not really my thing. It does not seem healthy to be in this much soreness. I cant workout for two-three days either and thats going to bug me. I will stick to half marathons unless it is a special circumstance. This one was for you Amy.

Here is some pace Data my total time was 4hours 48mins

Start 7.08am
Mile 5 56:26 Pace 11.17 8.04am
Mile 10 1:50:23 Pace 11.02 8.58am
Mile 13.1 2:23:06 Pace 10:55 9.31am
Mile 15 2:43:50 Pace 10:55 9.52am
Mile 20 3:37:54 Pace 10:53 10.46am
Finished at 11.56am

Coming up

Ok so somehow my last blog got deleted?

Very weird.

Anyway really quick this Sunday will be my first Marathon in Green Bay!

If you want to get live results my number is 1686

Full report coming

Had enough of winter

This weather has got to end! It is driving me crazy. I can not get outside to run or bike and more snow is expected. I hear all the time about how it is 70 in the south and it is driving me crazy!!

SO whats been going on? Well Marathon training has been coming on ok. I'm not a huge fan of long long distance running and don't normally run more than 3-4 times a week. I been stepping it up to 5-6 runs a week and i think it is hurting me. I am going to go back to not running more than every other day and cycling/swimming on the off days. I been doing the 100 push up challenge again and now i can safely do 60-75 push ups in a row.

I have recently been listening to Jillian Michael's podcast from Itunes which i am really liking. She talks about inside the food industry and about finishing with biggest loser on season 10. I have got some much needed insight on myself from these pod casts.

I finally got my new rear wheel for my road bike. I have been  wanting a new road bike this spring but it is not going to happen. My rear wheel including fitting and adjustments came pretty close to $200 and i put some new grip tape on the handle bars also.

My next race is a Half Marathon on April 16th in Osh Kosh. Then a Duathlon on May 1st.
Still on Weight Watchers plan, however i switched to online only for the spring/summer period.

I have been swimming 1 -2 times per week.

Tomorrow i have a root canal that needs to be done and i am not looking forward to it at all. I am trying very hard to not let it mess up the rest of my week and just deal with it when i am there. I have a tendency to let things like that make me really depressed on the days leading up to it.

Seroogy's 15k Green Bay WI

2.11.11 was the Seroogys 15K in Green Bay hosted by Midwestsportsevents.com
Seroogys is a maker of chocolate here in Green Bay that is truly amazing and truly very very bad for you. You can visit their site at http://www.seroogys.com/

The weather all week had been -25F but it was meant to warm up on Saturday. This year Midwest is using disposal timing chips which actually works out really good because when you pick up your packet the day before you get your timing chip. Pretty much all you have to do on race is find a parking spot, get to the start line and go! I really like this idea. It did not warm up  as much as expected. It was about 20F was was much better than -25F! However the crazy warm temps of 36F did not come until the day after.

My plan was just to drive up park and spend the least amount of time as possible outside before the gun went off. The race to start at 8 and i found a parking spot at 7.45. Waited in my car until 7.55 and then jogged over to the starting line. Because of this plan the only picture i got was the one above on my phone. Last year they had about 1000 races and this year 1500. A good turnout for such a cold run.

I had looked up the winning times for Cydesdales from the previous year and knew if i wanted to place i would have to go at least 8.30 min/miles! That's fast for a 5k for me! I wanted to give it a shoot anyway. I came out the gate fast. I started at the back which was probably a mistake but i secretly love overtaking people that weigh much less than me. I planed to go by the drink stations as i knew it would upset my stomach.

I had no breakfast as i already know from many previous experiences i will get sick if i do. I don't recommend this it just is the only thing that works for me.

At the 2 mile point i was doing good. My Nike Plus on my itouch was saying i was keeping a pace of 8:45min/mile ish so i was doing good. The gloves i had were not warm enough so i pulled my fingers into them and made balls with my fists to warm up. That seemed to work.

Some places on the course were really narrow and i had trouble going around people sometimes. There was still some ice around so i had to be careful.

Well to sum up i kept my pace and finished in 1 hour and 19mins. This was good enough for 3rd place in Cydesdale div! Yes i had placed!!

I had a great time. I kept my strides fairly long and had achy legs the next morning but not too achy.

I had made plans to meet my family in Green Bay for my daughter Emily's birthday lunch and see if i could meet them at a 10am movie. I was cold and sweaty so i had a good idea. I just upgraded my Planet Fitness membership so i can visit any PF in the country for free. I found one in Green Bay that had just opened so i went over there via Blackberry and Garmin and showed there. I made to the move by 10.30am and enjoyed a kids movie with the family!

Next we had lunch at HuHot and headed home after my wife wanted to look at some new cars (yes shes got the bug again) We even looked at Honda Elements which is one of my fav cars right now. I was disappointed to find out they are discontinuing them.

SO...Sunday you could find my daughter and myself down at Rays Indoor mountain bike park again,...(we have season passes now!)  http://raysmtb.com/   What a great weekend i had!

Here is a picture from Rays. You can see the Bananergy we needed.

Two weeks from He##

Sorry it has been quiet. The last two weeks have been CRAZY at work and i buckled a good bit from my decent eating. It started with a week of meeting from Sunday through Friday and then a week of teaching school in the factory from Monday through Friday which just finished today.

Very stressfull but i am glad its over. I have lots of things to report fore you.

My running suffered the first week but i started to get it back on the second week.

I have a RACE tomorrow. Yes i have a 15k to do in Green Bay tomorrow so i will try and get some pictures and make a report on it.

I have been doing alot of indoor mountain bikeing at Rays. I just went ahead and bought a season pass for me and my daughter. I lost a filling, cut my knee and nearly broke my nose but i am getting much better!

I have not weighed myself in the last 3 weeks and i fear it is going to be really bad :( But i am already back on plan to lose more weight.

More sooon my friends...

Keep your eye on the Prize and Happy Birthday

What am i doing?
I was running this morning after a 2 day break from doing anything about why i am running. Is it to make my next triathlon faster? is it to make sure i can complete my first Marathon? is it that one day i would like to do a Iron man? Well it is all of these reasons and more. I want to live a long time and be healthy! If i keep up an hour of exercise and day and eat right i am fairly confident i can be around for a good while and be healthy while i am around.
I want to be the old dude that is very healthy into his 90's and then one day suddenly just drop dead without a big long number of years where i can barely move around.
Now i know i could go done suddenly tomorrow from a disease or get hit by a bus but i want to do everything possible i can to be healthy. I also recently heard that just 15mins a day working out can reduce your chances of getting altzimers.

Going through the motions
As you may imagine getting up at 4am in the morning to go run/swim or bike is NOT fun. My bed is very warm and it is cold in the house and very cold outside. Everything in my body wants to stay in that warm bed. The thought of a 8 - 10 mile run will keep you in bed also. No one is barking orders at you, if you don't go no one will be mad at you. It is at these times i have to go through the motions. I just get up and not think about anything else. Then i just get my stuff on without thinking about where i am going. If i thought about it too much i would stay home. Then i head to the gym. The car park can be particularly challenging as i want to just sit there in my nice warm car. I think just go in and walk on the treadmill for 5 mins. Once i am actually on the treadmill and running all the bad thoughts disappear. I start to feel alive. Yes it hurts but the feeling of moving beats it. A smart man once said 'The worst thing you can do for your body is not move it'.

Happy Birthday to ME
Instead of counting the years i want to make my years count! So here is a list of firsts for me in the last 2-3 years.

• Went from 440lbs to 220lbs
• Got my life threatening high blood pressure done to a healthy normal
• Ran
• Ran a 5k, 10K, 15K, 1/2 Marathon
• Biked to work (12 miles)
• Ran to work
• Joined a hardcore cycling group
• Did  sprints, Olympics and a Half Iron Man Triathlons
• Had my mountain bike leave the ground both wheels and landed it (mostly)
• Fit nicely in coach class on planes
• Can buy clothes ANYWHERE
• Learned to Ride a motorcycle

Wow the list can go on and on.

smash bang boom

Been working hard at tracking EVERYTHING this week. Normally i accurately tack to about 90% of all i eat. Well because the the last 2 weeks i have gained weight i was tracking 100% very closely this week. I feel exhausted right now from keeping track of every tiny bite but guess what...it worked. I dropped 1.6LBS this week. It goes to prove if i track everything i can drop weight still.
I feel a little down as it was a massive effort to get that 1.6lb loss. I will just keep going..what choice do i have. As a wise person once said 'the only thing holding you back it you'.

Running - Marathon training is going good. I manage another 2 hour run on the treadmill making it to 11 miles last week. I am teaching myself to deal with the pain of the long runs. For the long runs i do run 9 minutes and run 1 minute. This type of walk run seems to be working the best for now. I kept the treadmill at 0.5 grade for 1.5 hours of the run. Also at least once every 10 mins i stretched my stride so I'm not teaching my muscles to keep shorts steps and this seems to help break things up also.

Biking - For fun at the last minute i went down to Rays Mountain bike park again. I had a bad landing of one of the jumps and as you can see above my wheel is totally shot. I had only been there a few minutes before i wrecked and thought at first i would have to go home after that long drive down there. Thank gosh they have rentals!. It cost me an extra $10 but i was glad i could stay. I actually had a really good time on the rental. It was a single speed which seems to be perfect for the park there.

Swimming - I managed to make to the high school pool last night and got in 45 mins of non stop laps. I varied my speed on some sets to get up to race speed. Of course i could not of done it with out my trusty swim mp3 player. I should be going one other time this week. 2 times a week seems to work great for me swim wise.

100 Push ups - Still working my way though this app on my itouch. Last night i did 170 push ups total. Broken down into 5 sets.

200 Sit ups - Working through this ipod app as well. Still early days.

This week on Thursday is my Birthday and i will be 36. This year i know it seemed rude but i sent my family a wish list. I am very hard to buy for. I already got a Performancebike.com gift card in the mail - Thanks Daughter!!!! and there is a brown box in the cupboard that i am trying not to sneak a peek at.
I asked for gift cards to performance bike or i tunes, new bigger itouch, wetsuit so i don't have to keep renting, a locker bag etc... looks like they listened!!

Hanging in there and self evaluation.

Weight loss wise it has been a bit of a downer the last two weeks. I was really hoping to lose 20 pounds much faster than it is going. In fact the last 2 weeks i have gained 3lbs total somehow.

I have been counting everything i eat on WW but i think somehow i have been making tiny mistakes and these add up. So i have been SUPER careful this week and sure enough i found points i was not taking into account.

I have been though various stages in weight loss. When i was over 400 i could not have to be super careful and i would still lose like crazy. This went all they way down to 260. Then at 260 i had to ramp it up. Now i find anything in the 220-230 range i have to be amazingly careful as it seems my body just wants to stay at the 230 range.

My Goal is 199 right now. I do have some loose skin (yuck) i know its horrible to admit but you don't go from 440 to 225 with out a bit of lose skin. If i want to have surgery to  get it removed its is going to be 5000-8000 dollars. Now mine is not nearly as bad as some. Because mine is minimal it means it is not a medical problem so insurance will not pay for it. I wonder how much that skin weighs? I am guessing 5-7 pounds but who knows.

I am just going to keep going and try not to think about it to much but be extremely mindful of what i am eating.

Managed to get to the pool to swim for lunch today!

10 Week Fittness Challenge

My local YMCA and Weight Watchers have teamed up for a 10 week fitness weight loss Challenge. Enrolled are 190 people! I managed to get on a team for my $15 and they are doing all kinds of activities.

SO to kick off the 10 weeks we had to take a prefittness challenge at the YMCA. For this i had to to first see how fast i could do a mile in.

Most people were walking the mile but of course being the overachiever i am i wanted to run. I managed an OK 8.08 min mile. I am thinking i should of  sandbagged a little as they are going to measure me again after 10 week but it just didn't seem right.

Next up was as many push ups as you can do in 1 min. Thanks to my 100 push up challenge on my itouch i manged to do 60 in 1 min! Proper push ups too.

Next was as many sit ups as you can do in 1 min and i managed just 30. I need to work on this one. I just got the 200 sit up app! Then there was a stretch test but i have no clue how i did in that one.

Some people have asked me for a new Podcast. Well it seems i have a little more time in the evenings now (If i put down Call of Duty Black Ops) so i am going to try working hard on that.

O the picture is a beautiful Crumpet shop in Seattle Washington. I love Crumpets!!!

Rays MTB Milwaukee

If you have not heard yet i have been very excited about the opening of Rays 2nd Mountain Bike park in Milwaukee.

It was meant to open in November 2010 but it opened on 12/31/10 due to them not having permits ready.

However it was well worth the wait!!! Last weekend i visited the park to see what it was like and too see if my 10 year old daughter Emily thought she could handle it.

Well this weekend we heeded out there after doing my fitness test at the YMCA which i will write about later.

The place is AMAZING. It is an old Menard's building (think Home Depot, Lowe's) that they have converted into a Indoor mountain bike park. These kind of things do not happen too often. With the help of local manufactures (Trek etc..) it got its doors open. This is the second one in the world! The first was opened about 6 years ago in Cleveland.

We got there and i rented Emily a small mountain bike which was extremely good. It was single speed (all you really need) and good spec.

As soon as i had signed up and paid my money we hit the track. It has been a long long time that i actually felt like a kid on Christmas but this did it for me!!

It was soooo much fun. Plenty to keep you busy. I am not a natural at all. I cant do jumps very well but over the 3-4 hours we were there my skills improved dramatically.

I could easy spend all weekend there if your thinking of coming out a long way.

I will add pictures below so you can see for yourself how awesome it is. If you want to check out the website it is www.raysmtb.com

This is Emily rolling my park into the park. She was soooo excited.

This leads you up to the second level of the park. Yes two levels but plenty of ceiling room so you do not hit your head.

This is Emily getting her feet wet. She had never really mountain biked before and i think she is hooked.

See the smile on her face! Thanks Dad!!

This is me going down the beginner trails. And Emily on the camera.

This me in some action! I feel i have come along way since i was 440LBS! Sure would NOT of been able to do this then.

Me coming up the ramp. I was a little afraid at first then i was hitting it hard after 2 or 3 goes.

I really liked getting the hang of these little jumps. I learned a great deal about flowing over them.

Where else could you find so many FRIENDLY bikers in Jan in Wisconsin!

Jump section and some expert area.

Some of the Expert area. I have yet to go on it.

I have  more photos but i wont bore you too much. I hope to go there a good deal. It is just over an hour away from my house but the trip is soooooo worth it.