SUB 40!!!

Sub 40

I have been working at the weight thing and I am into this new mountain biking thing. The mountain biking is exciting, stressful, and at times painful! But ultimately it is a blast.

I have been focusing on my running as well. A wise Triathlete in our club named Vanilla once said to me, after I acknowledged that I hate running therefore I swim a lot, he said not me, “that’s the way, don’t focus on the area you need the most work.” He has a way with words, but oh how right he is. I am doing this. I have been learning more and more about interval training and I have been doing this type of training for about a month now.

On Thanksgiving Day I did the Turkey Trot 5k and I finished in 40:57. This for most of you will sound pitifully slow, but when you look at the fact that my last triathlon I did the 5k portion in 59:07 and the last solo 5k that I did this time last year I finished in 54:22 – a sub 41 minute 5k is a vast improvement.

Tonight I took part in the Reindeer Run here in downtown Baton Rouge. My goal – Sub 40 minutes. I met my good friend Pat and his lovely wife and awesome two children. I have written about Pat on several occasions. He did the Disney Tri last year with me and he has been a major positive influence on me helping in my success with my weight.

I started in the back of the pack this time since at the Turkey Trot I felt bad that so many people had to run around me. It took forever it seemed to begin running after the horn went off AND I became a bit frustrated at all the people who started in the front and were walking in droves right in the middle of the road, but no big deal after about 500 yards.

I started my watch when we crossed the start line and set out on a pace I felt I would keep the entire 5k. I felt great for the first mile and a half. After that my heart rate a very high but I didn’t feel like I was pushing that hard???

I saw a few friends out on the course and also saw a few folks that I met at the Turkey Trot.

As I closed in on the final stretch I didn’t think I was going to make it in under 40 minutes. My watch said 39:03 when a nice lady ran up to me and introduced herself to me and she is a member of our Tri club here in Baton Rouge. She was very nice and ran in with me. I crossed at 40: 37on my watch, but my GPS said that I had gone 3.44 miles which is about a quarter mile longer than a 5k (3.2 miles). But I shrugged that off since I recently purchased the band new Polar GPS that they just came out with and I assumed I did something incorrect since I am still learning its functions.

However I saw my friend Clay from the tri club and he said that some folks with the Garmin 305 (which I used to have) said that the course was a little long as well.

POINT BEING – I finished in under 40 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE

June 28, 2007 - 434lbs

November 11, 2007 - 328lbs

June 28, 2007 - 434lbs

November 11, 2007 - 328lbs

After much harassing from you, my friends and my spectacular wife I am posting current numbers and pics.

My wife has seen me a little frustrated since I have been sticking to 1200 calories (and less) but over the past 3 weeks I have not lost weight.

Let me really matter of fat here. I did fall off the wagon two or three times for three or four days at a time. I would resort back to eating high calorie crap, but I have done better at stopping that and getting back on track rather than sabotaging my efforts by telling myself that it is ok for me to continue eating badly since I fell off, NO MORE OF THAT!

Bottom line is that since the scale hasn’t shown any change for so long I have been irritable (as Amanda puts it). Our friends Ryan and Mary (both MDs who are expecting their first baby!!!!) educated her on changing ketosis levels (I am paraphrasing) in my body and how that can have an effect on my in da brain.

I have been a little frustrated after seeing weight drop off of me for 2 ½ months (434 lbs to 338 lbs) and then over the last month I have lot only 7lbs. But, as I stated prior, I did lose focus for a few days over the past month.

Therefore Amanda talked me into picture logging (that is what we call it) this morning. She convinced me I would see a difference. Me, not so sure.

As you can see from the pics . . . I CAN see a difference!

Now my focus has been elevated and I am ready to tackle my next AND FINAL 120lbs. I AM PRACTICALLY HALF WAY THERE!!! I began at 434lbs and my goal is 210lbs. That is a total of 224lbs and I have lost 106lbs thus far. Only 118lbs to go.

Mile Stones:

I ran my last 5k in a sub 37 minutes and little over 12 min mile!!!!! WOO HOO! Consider that when I run a 5k alone (not in a triathlon) I have usually averaged about 50 minutes which is over 16 min per mile and when I run it at the end of a race as part of a triathlon I average about 18 to 19 minutes a mile.

Mile Stone #2:

I broke down and bought new boxers. After my old size boxers where literally falling off of me, I bought more that were a couple sizes smaller and they were tight at first, but now are perfect.

Thanks to everyone for their positive comments and their kindness. Also thank you to the haters that really fuel my fire.

I am going to beat this and I am going to finish a 5k in under 26 minutes before 2008 is over. I am also going to finish Cajunman (Sept 08) in under 2 hours (my best cajunman was (2:38:31).

I will try and post more regularly on my weight. I am doing a few 5k runs over the holidays, but I am not planning any tri’ until Cajunman in September 08. I want to focus on losing the weight which is requiring me to eat very little and it is difficult to train and the race on so little calories. However once I am at 210 I will begin to learn my eating style to maintain that weight and load properly for energy and then I will kick butt at Cajunman 08!

Peace out.

ADDITIONAL NOTE:

After I had written the above post I had a discussion with Amanda and we talked about my fears of losing weight. I know, I know . . . What fears???? Losing weight and fears shouldn't go together but they did and still do for me.

My biggest fear of losing weight was stretch marks and loose skin. Now, many a skinny person has said to me, "who cares about that?" I do. And I write this blog with the hopes that I can be a channel for or human research project for someone who is going through the same weight issues I am. I am ashamed at times to share some of the feelings I am having about myself but, I figure that if I am having those feelings then there might be someone else going through this that has the same feelings and they should know they are not alone. I am brutally honest in sharing my highs and lows about this experience of being mortally obese to one day being healthy. I will say that even with my short term successes it is still very difficult on me and I am depressed a lot of the times event thought I am over 100 pounds less than I was 4 short months ago.

My fears are coming to fruition and I am dealing with them ok on some days and not so much on others. The loose skin is not as bad as I thought it would be, but the stretch marks are nasty. I am currently reading a journal article that discusses assisting in the repairing of those cells and things I can do to help, however it seems that there is no “fix” for lose skin and stretch marks except going under the knife and having what they call a body lift. I am not so keen on that whole deal, but we shall see.

The area that bothers me the most is around my butt. GRRRRRR. Loose skin is a runn’n wild! But the alternative – staying at 400 plus pounds is not acceptable.

The other issue I am dealing with – This is really gross – is hygiene in areas where the loose skin hangs now. In some of the folds I have to constantly monitor and clean AND KEEP DRY or I get sores. I am not dealing well with that at all. I feel dirty even though I shower twice a day and at times when exercising in the middle of the day I will shower three times a day, but it still messes with my psyche.

My point in sharing this is that I think this is inevitable for anyone losing massive amounts of weight and I am trying to look at it as a positive. Such as . . . This just means I am succeeding in my goal and it may get worse before it gets better, therefore I need to expect the worse and then it will get better??????????

I will charge on and if I can help anyone out there in blogosphere-land with their goals of losing weight please post or email me.

God Bless and Peace Out II!

New to Mountain Biking!

I wanted to share with you all my first experience in mountain biking.

Before I get to my experience I wanted to share a few ideas for anyone considering mountain biking for their first time:

1. Ride you new mnt bike around the neighborhood for a week or so before hitting the trails. Jump curbs, run into curbs, throw yourself off the bike into the yard, come to a complete stop and make sure you can clip out of your pedals going backwards.

2. Even if the website of the trails you are going to ride say there are maps available at the site, print your own. I don't have a printer at home but saw they had maps at the site . . . NOT!

3. GO VERY SLOW your first time on the trails.

4. Go after you know many others have hit the trails AND make sure you go on the trails that people STILL USE!!!!! I found loads of thorn bushes hanging over on the trails. I caught all of them before I rode through them and stamped them down at the roots for future riders.

5. Make sure you have your cell phone.

6. Don't go alone your first time.

I had a GREAT time! I love this trail riding thing. I could go all day with that type of excitement. I probably hit the dirt three times, but loved all of the except the last one (see below).

I made a few mistakes. first I didn't know the trails and ended up on the "advanced" trails several times, but I maneuvered through them just fine, mainly because I was going fast (for me) and didn't have time to freak out about some of the descents and climbs or the massive roots, or other fun stuff. I had to walk the bike up one small climb (very small) but that was because I hit a rut and didn't react properly and began rolling backwards and hadn't followed the rule of learning how to clip out in a moment of panic.

I would recommend trail riding for everyone. I am doing it for off season training and to break the monotony, but I can see hoe people focus all of their energy into mountain biking!

Now to the fun part.

As I was on one of the "advance" trail. There were many thord bushes hanging on the trails. MAYBE this is normal and just part of the fun, but I can't handle donating that much blood to the trail dirt, so as I stated I would pull over and stomp the bushes down so that future riders wouldn't hit them.

BUT there was one . . .

I didn't have time to react. I came around a small corner, saw a thorn VINE hanging out that I was heading for and the contact point was MY FACE. I didn't want to damage this precious face so I threw up my left arm to block it. The vine dug in and actually PULLED my arm back.

Problem 1. because of the vine I failed to notice the drop off just after the turn. I hit a rut the bike turned violently to the right and I began to fall over the bike down the small fall off. As I did this the rest of the vine found my left leg and torn into it and my cogs on the big ring of my bike dug into my right ankle.

I stood up at the bottom of this decline and blood was dripping from several spots on my body. I reacted appropriately (after I squealed like a stuck pig while this was happening) by throwing my helmet, cursing, and finally wondering how bad the ankle was since the cogs went in about and inch and a half.

The ride back to the vehicle was awesome, blood all over my baby blue bike, I'm still cursing. It was a blast! Also, Don't pull your sock over a wound to stop the bleeding . . . You eventually have to pull that sock that is now dried to you skin off of the wound, no fun.

Needless to say, I am ready to go again!!!!!!!!!

Cheers!!!!!