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.



A wee bit of frustration

No pictures today as somehow i have messed up my uploading account. I am working to get it back.

So this weeks weigh was horrible. To be honest i do not even want to write about it. I did everything right this week. Very careful about what i ate. Increased my running distance as Marthon training starts. And yet i was up 2.7 lbs!!

I was honestly shocked. This kind of thing really messes with my head. I lost 2 Lbs the week before when i was not being so ultra careful. Now i know i should shrug it off as an odd week but i am having a hard time doing that.

I know i should just keep doing what i have been doing and make small adjustments. I am going to try to eat more fruit/veg and less processed food. I wish i could eat so clean as to not eat any processed food, flour or sugar at all.

I have to watch how much sodium i eat too. Ahhh its frustrating.

Marathon training

So i am following a training plan from http://www.coolrunnings.com/ for my training plan, however i still need to blend in my swiming and cycling to keep me going for Triathlon season.

I can not make it to the pool tonight as i have to get my Honda looked at because of a recall. This is a little bit frustraing because it turns out right now Mondays are the only day i can swim on at the local high school pool as they did not get enough interest to open on Wednesday nights too. So looks like i am going to have to find other ways to swim. Actually for as short as most swims are on Sprints and Olympic distance around here id be ok with just going on Mondays.

I have got another weigh tomorrow and am hoping for a good one.

We went and checked out an indoor mountain bike that just opened in Milwaukee and i am itching to get down there and ride it now. you can check it out on http://www.raysmtb.com/

This morning i ran a 10miler and on Sat i ran a 9 miler. My legs are feeling ok but it is a long time to spend on the treadmill! This morning it took me 1 hour 35 mins. Weird thing is the treadmill wont let you go longer than a 60 min stretch so you have to re set it.

It always weird watching people come in, work out, go to leave and your still running. You sure get some strange looks!

My first Marathon!!

I didn't want to do it. Running is ok but anything over a half marathon i would not enjoy. I have done a few half marathons but i did not want to commit to the full 26 miles.

Well the company i work said they would pay the fees for it and give us a special company t shirt to honor our co worker that died in a car accident that was training for the half. Well in her honor i decided to do the full. Mainly to honor her but also so i can have a Marathon under my belt.

If i am ever to know what a full Ironman is going to fell like i need to get this done.

So last night i signed up for the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon in May.

I ave my training schedule laid out already and i am still going to be swimming and bikeing alot.

I am still on the fence about doing my second Half Iron Man this summer. I figure now i am already doing alot of the run training.



Good news is i am at my lowest ever recorded weight. 223.7. I would really like to be right at 200 for this Marathon.



Some of may know i was going to do the disney marathon in Jan 2010 but i had to move back to Wisconsin to get my old job back.

Need to swim

So last night i went to my local High School that i swam at on Monday night. The lights were off and the pool was closed! How frustrating.

I used to swim at the YMCA pretty much when ever i needed. Costs got high so i joined Planet Fitness and swim on Mondays and Wednesdays at the High School. They cancel the Lap Swim with no warning and no way to find out it is canceled until you get there. This can be frustrating but there is not much I can do at this point. Just move on. I was glad i got my boot camp and cycling in the morning.

I went to the Doctors last night and i offically have a sinus infection! It kept me up all night so am feeling a litttle rough today.

Eating is going ok. I admit i am a chocolatte hound. Last night i found choc chips for cookies in the pantry and i ate just 'some'. Then i wanted to eat them all. SO i had to empty them into the trash can. I wish i was not that weak but sometimes that is what i got to do. I just can't have that in my house.

On a plus note..we are starting a new WW/YMCA challenge group and we have a meeting about it on Saturaday!

Apple ITouch Changed my life

I am lucky enough that my work supplies me with a BlackBerry. Due to poor coverage of AT & T up here no iphone. However...

A year ago now i i bought a Apple ITouch as an upgrade from my Ipod Nano as i wanted the Nike Plus runners thingie bilt into it and not have to keep plugging the module into my Nano.

It really is awesome!! I can go on the internet anywhere there is WiFi and it works way better than my BlackBerry for suffing.

My Weight Watchers app is absoultley awesome too. Even if im in my house it is still easier to pull out my iTouch than go upstairs and get on the computer. It makes me fitter too.

I have downloaded the app hundred pushups and it takes you do by day though getting to be able to do 100 pushups.

Now they have 200 situps and 200 squats apps too that are only $2

If your even close to thinking about getting a new MP3 player do yourself a favour and get one.

I use mine on my bike trainer too to watch spin videos right on the handle bars from www.sufferfest.com.

I noticed last night my 9yr old daughter talks in her sleep alot and i been wanting to get an app that records you sleep talking. She would get such a kick out of it.

I track my points on it, use the points calculator, look up stories it really has transformed my life more than any gadget.

The new one has a camera on it to. My only regret is getting the 8GB. I have to manage how many podcasts and spin movies i have on there. I would def go for the bigger one next time. It has never had a problem and the battery lasts a good while.

ITouch is amazing