2006 Closeout

What a great year! There were ups and downs (injuries), but overall a very great year. Did my first triathlon, lost a bunch of weight, became calmer, spent more quality time with my family, and met a bunch of super nice people here in blogland.

This morning I went and did my Get Your Geek On virtual Triathlon; swam 750 yds, biked 5 miles, and walked .1 mile (ankle/foot still an issue). The gym will be open tommorrow so I am going to start the new year off with another swim session. January will be the month I learn to bi-lateral breathe!

Hope you all have a safe and happy New Year's!

A Bicycle Story (http://www.hamishsutherland.com/trijokes.htm)

A triathlete was walking around in town one day when his friend, another triathlete, rode up on an incredible shiny new bike.
The first chap was stunned and asked, "Where did you get such a fantastic bike?"
The friend replied, "Well, yesterday I was out running in the forest just minding my own business when this beautiful woman rode up to
me on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want!"
The first chap nodded approvingly, "Good choice. The clothes probably wouldn't have fitted you anyway."

Do you have OED (Obsessive Exercise Disorder)? by Coach Steve (www.tri-ecoach.com)

Here are the symptoms:
* Only one workout a day makes you feel guilty.
* You called in sick not because you're hung over but because the weather was bad over the weekend and you've got to get that long workout in.
* Your bike(s), wheels, wetsuit, and other miscellaneous tri-gear are worth more than your car.
* You never sleep-in on weekends.
* You used to eat candy bars and still do, but now they have names that include words like: Power, Balance, Zone, etc.
* Acronyms and numbers like HRM, AT, LT, ATP, OD, 140.6, 70.3 are familiar, and IM does not mean Instant Messenger!
* You know there's still a band aid at the bottom of lane 3.
* The phrases "Swim Meet this Weekend," and "Annual Maintenance Shutdown" stress you out.
* You know all the kilometer to mile conversions by heart.
* You plan your race season a year in advance and log on at midnight with your credit card ready.
* You used to make fun of people wearing Lycra, now you think it looks cool. :)
* You look forward to getting older (aging up = less competition)!

YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TRIATHLON FEVER WHEN...

* You lay out your pajamas on a towel, transition-style, on the floor next to your bed.
* You buy a car to match your bike.
* Your most important accessory on that new car is the bike rack.
* You believe that all motels should be required to have at least a 25-meter lap pool.
* You usually wake up at 4:00 in the morning but don't get to work until way after 9:00.
* You depart in morning with swim bag, bike, and running shoes in case you can get away at lunch for a workout.
* You mention a race and somebody responds "running or biking" and you are again forced to explain....
* Somebody hands you a cup of water and you have to restrain yourself from pouring it over your head.
* You forget that talking about daily LSD and speed weirds some people out.
* You feel like you took the day off because all you did was swim 3000 yards.
* When asked, how old you are you answer 35-39.
* You think there are only two seasons during the year, racing and off.

Again?

It's snowing hard, already have 5" of snow on our driveway (Thursday 5 pm). We may get up to 24", bummer! (That was at 5 pm, the girls and I shoveled the driveway a second time at 10 pm and there was an additional 8 inches! There is supposed to be an additional 3-8 inches Friday with more on Saturday. I'll have to break out the truck to cruise around in today, that's always fun!) Here is a photo from Friday afternoon (about 15" at our house), after we dug out again:


It has been one week since I saw the orthopaedic specialist and still no call for the MRI. I played phone tag with the nurse for the last two days and finally I get ahold of her this morning. She says she is sorry but she can't find the results of the MRI. No shit Sherlock! We haven't done the MRI yet because some idiot in your office dropped the ball for an entire week! The preauthorization has not even been requested through the insurance company! I called the imaging office, clued them in and gave them the phone number for the preauthorization, and told the orthpaedic nurse I need to get this done asap! Of course, if I'm not snowed in, we are heading for Arkansas for New Years and the earliest I will be available for the test is the 4th. I am so sick of hobbling around and not being able to walk! I feel like I'm 80 years old!

I was going to blow off this afternoon's swim as the driving was terrible (snow) and I was torqued. But after swimming 1200 yards I had let off steam then relaxed with a 15 miute hot tub. So now I feel bettter after having vented and swam/swum (which ever it is). 1200 yards is good for me but after reading all the other blogs it seems so short! I will get there! Patience, patience. As some have pointed out, 1200 is pretty good. I do have to remember when I started swimming last spring I couldn't do 2 lengths and got seasick!

C.R.A.P.!

I'm glad Christmas is over, I didn't get stressed at all which was nice, but it's going to be good to get back to a regular schedule. A lady at my wife's church lost her 20 year old daughter in a car wreck 3 days before Christmas and one of my favorite bloggers, GeekGirl lost her dad 2 days before Christmas. I kept thinking how hard that is and I was totally happy just having my family. Puts things in perspective.

I've been looking over my food log back through February 06. There were enough slips to have kept me from losing another 10-20 pounds - a little bit here and a little bit there really adds up. Seem innocuous at the time. Jess kept asking me "haven't you had enough donuts for a lifetime?" And I thought, well yes, but I ate them anyway. I've been mulling it over and he was just a little off, I have not had enough donuts (cookies, chips, ice cream, brownies, etc, etc) for a lifetime, I've had too many for a lifetime! I ate enough of that garbage for several people's lifetime!

2006, I have not had a single bite of pizza as it was a major binge food.

Now I am looking at how I can better my diet for 2007 so I can lose more weight and get healthier. There are some things I eat too much of even if it isn't a binge: cheese, chinese food (always eat too much of that), cookies, candy, and crackers - "C". I also indulge sometimes on donuts, brownies, bagels and white flour products such as hamburger and hot dog buns -"R"efined flour " "A"nd of course there is still "P"izza. So, my new mantra for 2007 may be "No C.R.A.P. this year and I will have a nice small rear. Or perhaps "all these processed foods taste yummy but that is why I have a fat tummy". Any rhymesters out there?

I still have not had a call for my MRI and I'm wanting to get on with it! I did find a pool open on January 2nd to do my GYGO tri when we are in Arkansas vising my dad and stepmom. Hope ya'll have a great week and don't forget to Get Your Geek On!

Too late for Christmas, but . . . .

Too late for Christmas, but never to late for your sweetheart!
Valentine's Day is coming up!

On another front, went to the pool and the water was 75 degrees, freakin' cold. Did 1,000 yards and then jumped into the nice hot-tub! One swimmer saw the temp of the water and walked away in disgust. The gym assured me it will be back up to a pleasent 80 degrees on Tuesday. I hope so!

2006 is coming to a close and it was a great year: lost 80 pounds, did my first triathlon, lowered my blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar. In eight more days I will have gone without a single bite of pizza for one entire year! It was a major binge food of mine. My mantra this year was "I don't need a pizza fix in 2006". . I am going to add something else for 2007, maybe candy, salty snack foods, or Chinese food? Of course I will need an updated Mantra, any suggestions?

Have met a lot of cool people here in blogland and I am looking forward to 2007. I should have my MRI on my foot/ankle this next week and I hope the results will let me resume bike/run (walk for me) training fairley soon, but I suspect I may be sporting a cast. At least I get to swim a lot for now. I registered for the GYGO New Years' Triathlon, I will swim 750 yards, bike 5 miles (stationary bike) and hopefully walk about a block (dumb ankle!). Don't want to start the year with a DNF!

Merry Christmas! Or, Happy holidays! Or Happy Haunaka! Or just have a happy weekend!

Let if snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The weather forecasters got it right for once, it dumped and dumped! Here are photos from this morning! We worked our tails off and it was actually fun, all the neighbors were out and helping each other. We got about 28"-30" with some 4 ft drifts at our house.

Snow and other stuff

Well, I drive Becca to school for the first day of finals and there's only a couple cars at the school. It's snowing but only about an inch on the ground and JeffCo never, ever shuts the schools down for snow, not even 8-10 inches. But they did today! It's supposed to be a whopper of a storm. I talked with a friend who is stuck in a motel in Raton, New Mexico because the interstate is shut down from the storm and he can't make it back to Colorado. Even the stores and malls are closing down.

I did make it to the Dr this mornig though. I went to a Sports Medicine/Orthopeadic Surgeon. I think I went to the right place as the very first thing they did was take complete x-rays of my foot and ankle. The podiatrists and general practitioner did not want to do that, "it's just a sprain, R.I.C.E. it". Well I know there is something a little more wrong than that, I'm the one with the foot and the pain! One of the issues has beeen going on since July and was not a result of the chiropracter messing up my foot. The Dr seemed really competent and ordered an MRI after checking me out and listening to all the details (which goes back to when I was 5 and drove a shovel through the big toe on my right foot trying to dig a swimming pool in grandma's back yard. (And yes, my uncle and I did get a whuppin' a couple days after the hospital). She thinks I have a stress fracture on the July issue and she wants to see the MRI for the inside of my foot and ankle.

Then, my office calls and they closed for the day! That's cool as I can hang with Diane and the girls and have some family time. Of course, I'm further behind on my holiday shopping but I'm not stressing! There's always Saturday and Sunday! The Dr said I can keep swimming and if it doesn't hurt I can do the stationary bike until we get the foot MRI back. Better to get things fixed now than the spring. I have 10 months to get ready for SOMA 1/2 and my swim is just about there. Hopefully I can bike by March and walk/waddle by June :-)
Snow report tommorow!

Great workout this morning!

I'm pooped. Today's swim session totaled 2,150 yards (1.22 miles), in 1 hour twenty minutes:
200 yds Anchor Drill
1 minute rest;
200 yds Finger Tip Drag Drill
1 minute rest;
200 yds Freestyle
2 minute rest;
200 yds Anchor Drill
1 minute rest;
200 yds Finger Tip Drag Drill
1 minute rest;
200 yds Freestyle
1 minute rest;
200 yds Freestyle
1 minute rest;
200 yds Finger Tip Drag Drill
1 minute rest;
200 yds Anchor Drill
2 minute rest;
350 yds Freestyle.
My heart rate finally got up to 110 at the end when I sped up a little, most of the time it was around 90 (maybe it's because I'm so darn slow, ha!). When I get this weight off I will be fast! It will be like having a 427 hemi engine on a Volkswagon frame! Zoom! Zoom!

You Bloggers!

What a great group you all are! Always supportive, very informative, and sometimes downright funny! I hope the stress of the season does not get to you and that you enjoy it!

I know sometimes I get stressed and I made a decision this year that it is just not going to happen. My daughters said I was stressed last year just setting up the tree! So this time I was very calm setting up the tree and they really appreciated it. As the book says, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (and it's all small stuff). Most of it is anyway, we had a lady at work pass away from cancer this week, so Christmas hussle and bustle does seem so insignificant in comparison to what her family is going through. A friend of ours is battling breast cancer and going through her chemo treatments, a whole lot more stressful than shopping..

The girls decorated the tree this year and did a great job, lots of pink.


Today I worked back and triceps, just love that workout. I also love working legs. Biceps and shoulders are so-so, and I hate working chest. I never was one of those guys who was into the bench pressing and big pecs. Squats? Leg presses? Back work? Give that to me any day!

Today I weighed after one week of eating 3500 cals per day. Lost 6 pounds with only 2 weight training sessions, one stationary bike session, and two swim sessions. It will be interesting to see what happens weeks 2-4. I was 389 on Sept 10 (my first tri) and hung there for a while. Then over the last 2 months I went back and forth between 386 and 396, then I shot up to 400 the last couple of weeks. As I said before, when I focus on eating the 3500 cals with nutritious foods, there is little room for junk food (literally!). I am really satiated with the new diet and am hoping it will pay off (I believe it will, Colleen seems to know her stuff).

As always, have a great workout!

Crap-oh-la!

Just got back from the Dr, I have a !@*% sprained ankle. So that means no treadmill and no bike for a few weeks, at least. So, what do I do for the next few weeks, sit on my fat butt? No! I am going to swim, swim, swim, and swim some more (of course, I will build slowly). Mike Ricci did say that was a good way to get in touch with your swimming (or something like that). I will still be able to weight train, except for legs.

As far as the diet goes, I realized today that one really good thing is that I am so stuffed from eating good quality foods that there is not much room (or desire) for bad foods! My co-worker Kathy brought in Larmar's donuts today at work at I wasnt' even tempted, and I love Lamar's donuts!

Tommorrow is trim the tree day and I guess I better start on some X-mas shopping! Have a great weekend and I hope you do not let the holidays stress you out!

Misc

Just got back from the gym and did some swim drils for 500 yds and did 20 minutes on the stationary bike. It felt really good to get back in there. My foot and ankle is still a mess so I am going to go to the Dr to see if there is anything serious going on (I just need to find the right one!).

Met with Colleen Cooke, nutritionist for D3multisports, for a consult on my nutrition. Based on my RMR of 3560 we are taking my calories up to 3500. Started that yesterday and I thought I'd never get all that food down. Eating 3500 calories of good nutritious food is tough! Although that is more sustainable for a life-time than going way down in calories.

Based on my not walking, I am going to have to move my 10k out to February or March. That's okay as I don't want to screw up my foot on a long term basis and then have to take off a lot of time.

The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good (sorry Clint)

The Ugly? My foot is worse than ever. I can barely walk on it. The Dr saw no stress fractures and I haven't worked out on it for almost two weeks. Now the inside is hurting, as is the arch. I am wondering if the chiropracter screwed it up.

The Bad? My shoulder (actually rhomboid area) still hurts a little but is getting better. It never hurt before my race but has started hurting since which tells me it's either my new stroke I changed to or the chiropracter. I'm going to stop the chiropracter visits and see what happens and will probably modify my recovery stroke a tad. I really, really miss swimming! I have not been in the pool in two weeks. I am really bummed today.

The Good? I have been corresponding with Colleen the nutritinist from D3 Multisport. I gave her all my data and RMR and she apparently thinks I need to eat more. I am going to have a consult with her next week and get this nutrition thing figured out!

Hope all you bloggers have a great weekend!