For my 500th post, I'd like to thank . . .

It's amazing to me that this is the 500th time I've posted something on this blog. After noticing last week that I was posting my 499th time, I've been reflecting on what should be my 500th blog post? Should I do a re-cap of the highlights of my 500 posts? Should I just post some dumb workout I've done? How about reflecting on life, the universe and everything? How about a little bit of all of it?

If you look to the right (if you're in an RSS reader, you probably won't see this) you'll see my archives go all the way back to August of 2005. 4 and a half years posting to some website. In that time, there have only been 4 months that I haven't posted anything. But at least one post every other month. I've always said I have a problem with consistency, but I guess this blog shoots that theory out the window. I can be consistent when I feel like it's worth it. And for some odd reason, I feel like this blog is worth it.

The original intent of my blog was simply a place to collect my thoughts, maybe record a workout or two and keep track of my weight. It was also meant to be somewhat private. A few close friends would know it was there, but for the most part, it would be something I kept to myself. I found that was quickly not going to happen. When I started receiving comments and web traffic from all over the world (not consistently, but frequently) I realized it was no longer a private situation. I'd like to think that I didn't change my posting habits as a result, but that would be lying to myself and you. I no longer put my deepest, most intimate thoughts here, I keep those locked away for only a chosen few, but I do express myself pretty freely here and let you see the good and the bad.

For example, you've gotten to see my weight in all it's undulating and fluctuating glory. From my high of 356 pounds last year to my low of 275 pounds fairly recently. I've blogged about having weight loss surgery and the mental and physical implications of that. I've talked about triumphs and defeats in my business. About my joys and sometimes my dis-satisfaction in my personal life. My workouts have been detailed in excruciating detail at times, giving you charts, maps, distances and reps. I've shared my immediate and some of my long term goals. And through it all, people from all over the place have been nothing but encouraging. OK, there have been a few detractors, I won't lie. For the most part, I've kept every comment ever posted, good or bad. With one exception, comment spam (I'm tired of WoW power leveling what ever that is and UGG BOOTS!). The comment spam has unfortunately lead me to disable comments on my blog. So I'll miss your kind words of encouragement. But now with my blog getting pushed out to Facebook, my friends will have the opportunity to comment there.

So for my 500th blog post, I'd like to thank the Internet and the wonderful community of friends it's helped to create and the friendships it's helped to further. I can still remember wayyyyyy back in 1994 or so sending my very first e-mail to Scott at WSU. It was the first e-mail I had ever sent outside of Boeing and our little network. On a VT20 terminal emulator with phosphorous orange type that I'm sure gave me radiation poisoning. Coming from that world of sending purely text based e-mail to today and the amazing amount of ways we have to stay in touch with friends old and new, just staggers my mind. And to think, it's really only a 15 year old journey now. Imagine what we'll see in 2020 or 2030! Maybe by then you'll be reading my 5,000th post?

Thanks everyone, so far it's been an amazing ride! I can't wait to see what's next!

Sometimes I Surprise Even Myself

This morning, I headed back to the YMCA after a three week furlough. I've had the nasty flu/cold stuff going around and while I still have a slight cough, was tired of not working out. So after the 42 mile ride on Sunday I figured it was time to get back for the Triathlon class.

I hit the pool at 5:20 this morning, didn't sleep a wink the night before so I was early. Started out with a 400 yard warm up, followed by 150 yards of drills and another 150 yards of kicking. At that point someone said "Today are time trials right?" Wha!? (The t was left off the previous word for dramatic effect) Oh right, every first Tuesday of the month are time trials. A 1,000 yard swim followed by a 5 mile bike and finishing with a 2 mile run. Lovely. No sleep, wearing cargo shorts in the pool and we're doing time trials.

At least our 1,000 yards was really a 10 X 100 set with :10 between each 100. Unfortunately the guys in my lane dubbed me the "fast" guy and so I got to start first. Nothing keeps you motivated like 3 skinny guys pressing you, but I held my own. The 1st 100 was a 1:26 . . . Only 30 seconds off my fastest ever. HA! That seemed a lot funnier in my head. Sorry for the early morning swimming humor. I finished the set in 16:36. No where near WR time, but extrapolating that to my tri, I think I should easily be under my goal of an hour for 1.2 miles.

Next up was the bike. We're on the LeMond Revmasters in the spin room with the Pilot computer, so I'm not sure how accurate they are, but I completed my 5.0 miles in about 16:46 . . . Or avg 17.89 MPH, so could be pretty close?

Now, my FAAAAAAAVORITE sport. Running. Not. I do enjoy it, but would much rather be in the pool or on the bike. But here's where I surprised myself. In my previous post I estimated that I'd do about a 12:00 mile pace over a 5K distance. Putting my time for a 1/2 marathon at 2:52 and I figured if I could come CLOSE to 3:00 on the run, I'd consider that a victory. However this morning, we did a 2 mile time trial on the track (No treadmill SS!!) and I knocked it out in 19:29!!! I just started at a pace I figured I could do for the whole 12 laps (1/6 of a mile track) and kept plodding along. When Bob called out my time at the finish, I was like "Wha!?" (See how dramatic that is?) and some quick calculations in my head put that at a 9:45 pace! SUB 10 minute miles! Wowsers! There may be hope for me after all! Now plugging THAT into the running calculator at Runners World and they have my 1/2 Marathon time at 2:22, a full 30 minutes faster. Sweet!

GOTTA get some more lbs off though. I'm not going to get much faster at this weight. But I'm psyched for now!

Holy Crap! Only 20 weeks!

When you say it like that, it seems like a LONG time, or maybe it doesn't? The bottom line is that in 20 (or so) weeks, I have committed to doing a 1/2 Ironman triathlon. In just 5 months, I intend to propel my body swimming for 1.2 miles, biking for 56 miles and running for 13.1 miles. All of this despite the fact that I've NEVER run more than 8 miles in any one stretch. Only biked more than 50 miles a couple times. And swum . . . well, OK, I've got the swimming down. One outta Three ain't bad! Actually, I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that pressed right NOW, I could knock out the swim and bike portions without too much worry. It's the run that has me spooked.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually weird in the fact that I ENJOY running. Yup, I said it. I actually ENJOY running. The one caveat being that I ENJOY running when I'm in RUNNING shape. I am not however, currently in RUNNING shape. (Don't ask, I just enjoy CAPS tonight) I can run and I do run, but that is not to mistake me for a RUNNER. Yet. This is going to sound like the guy that caught the winning touchdown in his High School homecoming game and that's all he has to hold on to 20 years later. BUT, in my Sophomore year of High School I was actually able to propel this body of mine to a Sub 6 minute mile. 5:55 to be exact. At that point in my life, I was in running shape.

Fast forward some 24 years and I am NOT in running shape. I'm 70 pounds heavier than I was then and oddly, 24 years older. (It really feels good to say I'm 70 pounds heavier because last year I would have had to tell you I was 150 pounds heavier. The 70 doesn't seem so daunting now.) In road races, back then, I would average an 8:00 minute mile. Now? 12:00 would be pushing it. But I am running. And for the most part, I can run/walk my way on the treadmill for an hour and knock out over 5 miles. But 5 miles is not 13.1 (the .1 is the important part) miles. And the task of completing 13.1 miles seems REALLY scary at the moment. Not even counting the fact that I intend to do it after the swim and bike.

But I'm convinced I have what it takes to be a half ironman. I'm in the best shape I have been in recent memory. (READ: Last 12 or so years) My cycling strength has steadily improved over the past couple of years, enough so that now I don't feel as though I'm slowing Steve and Brandon down . . . and even get to push them a little from time to time.

So I'm trying to figure out what a good goal time would be for said half iron. I want something that will challenge me, but not something that's completely not obtainable either. So how does one go about figuring such things out? I do intend to lose about 30 pounds in the next 20 weeks too, so that'll help improve my times all around. So going off some guesstimates at the moment, I came up with this:

Swim:
In my Sprint tri, I swam the .25 miles in 10:20, so extrapolating that data, I should expect the swim to take about an hour.

Bike:
The ocean shores course is really flat and hopefully there won't be a ton of wind. For the sprint tri, I averaged 18.62 MPH, so since the course is just over 4 times as long, I'll plan on maybe averaging 17MPH? (I AM in much better cycling shape now than I was then) So quickly, 56 miles divided by 17 gives a time of 3:18. So I'll shoot for under 3:30 on the Bike.
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BRR! Cold Outside!

So this morning I got up at 4:50AM . . . yeah, like before 5. I'm trying to make this a Tuesday morning ritual, and maybe now that Nita has gotten the bug, it'll be easier knowing how much crap I'm going to catch for NOT being there. Oh, I guess I should mention the REASON I got up so early is to be in the pool for the 5:30AM Triathlon class at the Mel Korum YMCA in Puyallup. So this morning, I met Nita at the Y and we headed to the pool. Our workout went something like this:

• 4 X 75 free with :10 in between each 75
• 8 X 50 Kicking With Fins alternating flutter and dolphin
• 300 free
• 10 X 25 drills, first four one armed, last 6 10 kicks between each stroke.
• 2 X 150 on the 3:00 with 1 X 100 easy
• 2 X 150 on the 3:00 with 1 X 100 easy

I'm probably missing something but that's about 1,850 yards ... the leader, Lisa, said we did 2,000 . . . so I'm missing something.

After the Pool, we headed up to the spin room for 30 or so minutes . . . my Pilot read 6 miles even when I left.

Finally the group headed out for a run . . . yes . . . out as in OUTSIDE! We realized as we started that A) it was cold, B) it was dark and C) most of us were wearing black (it is slimming after all). So probably not the brightest group at 7:00 in the morning, but we WERE motivated. I forgot to strap on the Garmin for my run, BUT I was able to map it out online and came up with about 1.5 miles. Actually the run felt really good. I only walked for about 5 seconds at the top of the only hill. I used Map My Run to map it out, so if anyone wants to see it, you can find it here:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/wa/puyallup/208126452334968048

Here's what I'm shooting for in terms of workouts, probably through March:

• Monday - Arms & Chest in the weight room followed by 30 +/- minutes of cardio
• Tuesday - Triathlon Class at the YMCA
• Wednesday - Legs in the weight room
• Thursday - Evening Spin class at the YMCA
• Friday - Shoulders and Back in the weight room followed by 30 +/- minutes of cardio
• Saturday - OFF
• Sunday - Long Run or Ride with DaBoyz

Will I make 6 days a week every week? Probably not, but it's what I'm shooting for right now. If anyone wants to join me, I'm happy to have as many accountability partners as I can get. :-)

I Don't Have To Be Perfect, Just Getting Better . . .

Sunday will mark 5 months that I've been a cyborg. On August 24th of last year, I had surgery to install the LapBand to FINALLY get my weight under control. As I look back over the past year, it was February of last year that I seriously started to consider weight loss surgery, I've had some triumphs and some setbacks. But mostly, I've learned a lot. The one realization that I've come to that has hit home more than anything else though is that I don't have to be perfect. I'm really good at beating myself up when I don't execute on something perfectly. If I intend to run 5.5 miles in an hour, but only manage 5.25, I say really horrible things to myself. Or if I plan on having a protein shake for breakfast, but inexplicably end up in the drive thru at Jack In the Box, I call myself really nasty names.

I strive for perfection. I think we all do to some degree, it's what we do when we don't hit it that matters. If we miss by a little or a lot and it keeps us from trying again, then we don't grow. But when we realize that we can't all be perfect all the time and that's OK, then we're able to move beyond what we did yesterday and do better tomorrow. I'm good about talking about how much I want to do, but I'm not so good at discussing the times I don't do it. That's where my blog has helped me. I can look back on my triumphs and to some degree, my failures and learn from past mistakes and do better next time.

Right now, I'm stuck. Since May of 2009, I've lost "prit-near" 75 pounds. It's by far my biggest triumph in the area of weight loss I've ever had. I've lost 50 pounds before and even 60, but 70 is new territory for me. For the past 3 - 5 weeks, I've hovered between 282.5 and 286 pounds. When you consider I started at 356, I'd say I'm doing pretty good. But getting below this 280 pound mark has been a real bugger for me.

On the 4th of January, I went in and had my band adjusted. Literally for the next 10 days, I couldn't get nearly anything down. I thought for SURE this would be the breakthrough I needed to get me below 280 pounds finally. About all I could get down were protein shakes and protein drinks. Since I'd been having trouble getting enough protein in my diet, this was (I thought) a good thing. But no, still hovering between 283 and 286 . . . . this morning, I weighed in at 285.

Now, I'd LOVE to think that with the working out I've been doing, I'm building muscle and losing fat. I do think to some degree that's true. I've (overall) lost 6 inches in my waist going from size 44 jeans to size 38. I've lost 4 inches in my chest, going from a size 56 to a snug 52 and I've lost over 3 inches in my neck. So I know my body is changing in radical ways, and all good I might add.

But the blasted scale is my nemisis. Ultimately when I see my doctor on the 1st of February, my measurements won't mean a THING to him, only the number on the scale. He won't care what my body fat percentage is, he'll only want to know how many tubs of butter are no longer on my frame. While I see the benefit in this initially, I was (am) morbidly obese afterall, at some point it SHOULD matter to him that while I only lost 2 pounds, I gained X pounds of lean muscle and lost Y % of body fat. But it won't. It's called "Weight Loss" Surgery for a reason. Not "Body Composition" Surgery.

So now, my life is all about tools. What are the tools I need to employ to ensure my success on the scale? The first tool and the biggest of course was the LapBand surgery itself. I knew going into it that it wasn't going to be a panacea for me. This was a tool and like ANY tool, not properly utilized, it won't help.

Next up is Gym/Exercise time. I have to dedicate time to exercise. The problem is that left to my own devices, and given the option, I'll skip the gym more often than not. So accountability partners are key too. My normal people to work out with, Brandon, Nita and Steve, have tons of things going on that lead us to NOT workout together more than we do. So I've tried to find accountability partners that have a similar schedule as me. So enter, Carl and Josh from my office. So far (two weeks in or so) it seems as though we're able to motivate each other to be there and give goodly amounts of crap when we're not. Another tool.

Today I got my Bodybugg (http://bodybugg.com/). It's the little device you see on NBC's The Biggest Loser. They wear them on their left arm and occasionally you'll hear one of them mention "I haven't hit my burn for the day". Really what it does is sit on your arm and measure how many calories you burn during the day. So if the "weight Loss Math" is correct, if you burn more than you consume, you WILL lose weight. BUT there are caveats and hopefully this device will help me find them. For example, if you're supposed to have 2,000 calories per day and you have FOUR, your body will start to shut down and hold on to every calorie as if it were the hope diamond. So you have to be within reason. A 500 calorie per day deficit will help you lose 1 pound per week. My goal is just over 1.5 pounds per week from now until July. So I picked this little guy up to help me figure this all out.

Will report back later and let you know how all the tools are working out.