Category: life

Racing Weight – Plugging Away

Hey, y’all. (Hey, Jank!, I hear you say)

Plugging away up here. Starting the 4th week of Racing Weight. Haven’t been completely strict on either diet or exercise, but I’m batting about 80% on workouts, and diet appears to be working – I’ve gone from 186 to 182 in a month. Nothing breathtaking, but steady progress beats no progress, right?

Working swimming back into my routine has been a key. Working out form through the Triathlon classes at the Mystic YMCA a couple of years ago made a giant difference. Swimming’s always been a great way to get exhausted quickly, but it’s nice to be able to knock out a mile of laps in 45 minutes instead of maybe 600 yards for the same level of exhaustion. I’m by no means a good swimmer, but the sensory depravation one gets in the pool is close to zen. 20 good flip turns in a row feels like carving a good line through moguls – something you can’t think too much about but need to be completely conscious of to make it happen.

Commuting on the bike is awesome, BTW. Need to spend some time documenting my current system. But that’s a post of a different color…

Plugging Away

So good to be back on the bike this morning. Lovely day, had breakfast with the guys from church, went home (nix on the saving gas today, as breakfast was as far from home as work, but it was 0530 and I really didn’t feel it…), spent some quality time with the boyos, and then flew into work.

I’m shocked at how quickly my general cycling fitness seems to be coming up. Hopefully my weight will keep coming down. I’ve been using myfitnesspal.com (specifically the iPhone app) to track calories (net of exercise), and it seems to be working – zap every barcode that goes into my belly, set the preferences for lose 1 lb/week, and do it. Two weeks, two pounds, including last week while on travel. It’s been kind of tough, ’cause there were a lot of just random calories I’d eat during the day without thinking about it, which is why, I think, my weight kept creeping up.

Still loving DailyMile – nice to get the feedback, and pretty easy to knock out a post.

My PF seems to be at least not getting worse. I’m not convinced that my left foot will ever be good again, but it’s at least better when I run than when I don’t. So, I suppose, I’ll keep running.

And, with that, at least I’ve busted the August zero for posting here.

So…

What have I been doing the last two months?

Getting fat and slow, mostly. When I went to the doc, he said to take at least a month off of running. So, I did.

Then the guy at PT (Who was MAGIC, MAGIC, I say, with the tape and the battery-delivered analgesics) had me keep doing the stretches I was doing, but, more importantly, didn’t mess around and cleared me to start running again, provided I kept stretching and using orthotics.

So, I’m painfully fat (Well north of 180), and painfully slow (Bike’s been averaging less than 16 mph), I’m at least running again.

I’ve also changed jobs, which should end up providing more time in the day. The pool’s a 5 minute walk from my office, and, even better, it’s only 7 miles door-to-door home to office. I’m still sorting out logistics with the job, but I’ve ridden my bike in at least once each week I’ve been working here.

My goals for the summer, as they have been for the last two, are to get well and get thinner. Let’s see how that goes…

Hey, amigos!

Wow – missed another month on the blog. Wish it were because I were taking an internet vacation, but I seem to have slipped into consumption mode much more than production mode. There’s something that’s lost there, and I kind of regret it.

Training for the Vermont City Marathon has gotten kind of scattershot – I’ve allowed work to come back to dominate my time, skipping workouts. I think there’s still plenty of time to recover the training plan, but am kind of disturbed that I slipped off so quickly.

I have been pretty regular at getting to spin class, and making about 75% of my runs, including all but one long run, so I don’t think I’m so far off, but I could be doing better.

2011, Continued!

Hey, Amigios!

Isn’t this great? I’m already meeting my monthly average number of posts, and we’re not even a week into 2011! Frankly, it’s kind of creeping me out, this whole needing to share again, but my writing gear’s a little dusty, and I kind of miss the whole thing.

Man, winter is a drag. I still haven’t motivated myself to head outdoors again after Sunday’s slog in the fog. Sunday’s run was a huge milestone, though. Missy came back in from a “short” six miles or so, and since we didn’t have Sunday School, there was still over an hour before we had to be bundled into the car and trundled on down to the house of worship to get some religion. I felt like crap – there was some alien bug brought forth from Oklahoma over the holidays, and it laid waste to my and my youngest’s intestinal tracts. (In my case too much Clyde’s Cider probably helped)

But, it was pushing 50, and I pulled on the Garmin, pulled on some pants, and laced up the sneakers. The new (that we’ve been in for a WHOLE YEAR) house is at the top of our neighborhood; so I slogged down the hill, and out onto the Gold Star highway. I felt awful, so why not climb? There’s about a 1.5 mile long uphill from the entrance to our neighborhood to the top of the hill at Flanders Road, and I slogged on up

Felt.

Like.

Crap.

But, I did it.

It was a foggy, foggy New England day – cold, still snow-covered ground held back rosy-fingered dawn. Ink-black night had transitioned into unseparated-colors-and-whites pasty grey; the air was wet with condensation. No wind, and the kind of dead silence that’s usually not found unless one’s out to sea. Not many folks up early to practice religion the day after the New Year.

And, sucky though it was, it gave me hope. Made me remember what I love about the road, remember the good things that happen in my head when there’s nothing to think about except for turning circles with the feet, staying light in the knees, and following the white line or crushed
gravel.

At the top of the hill, I turned around and headed back towards the house. Funny thing with running, going down isn’t any easier than going up. But, when I made it back to the ‘hood, I figured I’d head the long way around the block to get home. Legs let out about halfway up the hill, walked for about a quarter of a mile, but ran the last quarter mile, uphill.

As I walked in the door, the hiccups set in, and Missy started laughing. Dunno why, but working hard in the cold always gives me hiccup. With my stomach still in a knot, I also got to re-sample the morning’s kashi (yum) [not], but managed to choke it back down.

So, the streak’s still alive. Monday, I snuck into spin class at the Y. 45 minutes of lungs searing on no breakfast may make Billy a slightly skinnier boy.

Streak continues today.
After a crummy adventure with the car in which I fell victim to terrible service and wrongly questioned someone who I’d usually known to do good work, came home to a great supper with Missy and the kids. Put everyone to bed, then TO THE LAIR! 45 minutes on the rollers, 26 minutes on the treadmill, shower, write, and to bed.

With an actual paper book that no-one but me’s requiring me to read.

All hail Discordia

2011 kickoff

Ah, blogosphere, if there’s any left.

The end of 2010’s been rough, running-wise for me. I completely failed at Fat Cyclist’s lose 10 pounds by Christmas challenge. The start was good; but the finish left a whole lot to be desired. For a variety of reasons, primarily work-related, I fell off the wagon and finished off on Christmas Eve right where I’d started.

Which I suppose is a large part of the story of 2010.

I didn’t really make any real resolutions for 2010, so there’s no real way to sum up the year. I suppose I could chunk my dailymile.com feed (Love, love, love that site) to figure out how this year compared to last year, but, frankly, I’m afraid it’d depress me.

I ran the Vermont City Marathon in May, and then pretty much sat up in the saddle for the rest of the year. Vermont City was a great race, but, as usual, my training was sub-par, and I faded hard at the end of the run. What was different, though, was that I felt completely compelled to finish the race when I cramped at 16 miles.

Melissa ran New Haven this year instead of me, which was completely fair, and about which I have no regrets other than pure jealousy. But I think that without that as an end of summer goal, I kind of wandered…

My alternate goal was to lose 20 lbs between Memorial day and the end of summer – absolutely no progress there.

Overall, though, I’m cool with it – this was a tough year at work, and I’ve pulled through with general success. My fitness hasn’t lost anything since this time last year; my relationship with Melissa has probably never been better, and my oldest kid isn’t getting notes sent home from his teacher on a regular basis, and actually got a smokin’ good report card this last marking period.

There are prospects at work that look promising both professionally and in terms of work-life balance, and I’ve been selectively de-committing from some of the non-work stressors that I have.

So, I’m upbeat but realistic about 2011.

Enough so that I think I’ll set some goals:

1. Run Vermont City again. Loved the race, and Melissa wants to run Flying Pig. Which means if I want another family weekend in Burlington over Memorial Day, I need to suck it up and run. Oh, the sacrifices I make.
2. Finish FatCyclist’s 10 lbs plan by the end of January. Frankly, it was working while I was able to reschedule priorities. January looks to be somewhat less chaotic than December was, and it’d be nice to roll into training for Vermont City at 175 instead of 185.
3. Tri, tri again. I really regret not doing an olympic tri last summer. I especially regret not doing one with my buddy Dave W, who is no longer working at the same place with the part-time job. So, hopefully, I can do a win-win here and keep in touch with someone who’s been a good friend (something I’ve been notoriously bad at in the past), AND work out my tri demons. I’m also good for the NAVSTA Newport tri in August – it’s a sprint, and I’d love to see what I can do with some good training and 20 lbs less baggage.
4. Not get onto Jon’s list of dead blogs. I really miss posting as much as I had in the past. I also need some inspiration – who’s writing well?

Here’s hoping to get back to you all in 364 days with a great 2011 wrap-up.

Hellooo, Runna Neighbas

The rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.

I’ve been having a good month, running-wise, if a little bit busy. Foregoing a fall marathon seems to have been the right decision; now to keep my weight moving down and my mileage moving up, and maybe spring will hold better news.

I’ve fallen in love with cycling again – key ride was the Bluff Point night ride that Mystic Cycle Center puts on – full moon and empty fire roads completely rocked. Though the monthly drill weekend rides have really, really helped, too.

Getting back to the pool has been good. This week’s triumph is two days in the pool, with more than 1000 yards each time. Little victories.

Lastly, Movember is coming. Go run.