Tuesday, December 30, 2008

New Year Revolution

OK, maybe not a revelation or a resolution but a "revolution" an overthrowing of the old, a reversal. December has been miserable. With snow, sickness, family, holidays, work and little time or physical capacity to ride or train. I've held my own on nutrition through this period, not gained or lost but now that it's over except New Year's Day, I can get back moving again. So January MUST be better than December.

The sun is out this week in Germany, but it's -6 C with a windchill of -15 which is about 21 degrees. I figure if I go ride 25kmh the windchill is 8 F. Ouch! But it's SUNNY, honest sunshine. I can feel the vitamin D just by looking outside at the sun as I sit at my desk.

The new year ride looks like it'll be outside and the weather should be clear but in the low 20s. I think it'll be slow but I'm just going to ride and enjoy it.

I mentioned the holidays being tiring? After days of literally bouncing around from excitement about Christmas for a couple days, we got the boys in bed by 10pm and put the presents out. We got to sleep around 10:30 pm. My youngest son, who just turned 6 on this past Sunday, came running down the hall at 1:40 AM (yes, that's right 0140 or as we in the military say "oh dark thirty" or in this case "holy %#$@ it's early) on Christmas morning after having peeked into the living room and it was all over at that point. No going back to bed, so we got ourselves and our 8 year old son up, made coffee and within 30 minutes they tore through the presents. There was no tracking who gave what to whom. Imagine a feeding frenzy of piranhas and during the middle of it trying to get them to chew their food and stop eating with their mouth full. Not gonna happen!

They didn't get a nap or rest at all and it took us a good two nights to recover. I've discovered that when you have a bad night sleep you need at least two good nights to get recovered. Sleep is SO important!

What am I going to do on New Years? Well ride either in or out and pull together a training schedule for January and then update my blog on the 2nd after I register for Nove Colli in Italy. I'm not sure where the 100 miles came from, I think we started doing that in Tucson with Ralph Phillips and his clocktower group back a few years ago but it's become a standard. I've had to do it inside on the trainer and that's harder than outside!! Almost as hard as the masochistic sessions on the rollers in a dark room . . . get your bike on the rollers, turn down the lights, no tv or music and just go . . . for two, three hours. That was training in the 1980s and I think into the 90s, don't know if anyone does that anymore. It really was hard!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

taking more time off

I'm almost done . . . with the stinking holiday and winter! Ick! Of course skiing last Saturday nearly killed me but it was fun with the family. My boys have no fear and it's great seeing them enjoy something so much.

No new year's resolutions, just going to remind myself about why I'm losing the weight and what I want to do in 2009. I got accepted on a team in Nurnberg that races track and road so I'll have some social interaction. Nurnberg is only an hour away so that's not too bad.

Merry Christmas to all, hope Santa brings you some good bike gadgets, spare parts and puts some lube, a tube and a Hammer Nutrition Bar in your stocking.

Oh, and on New Years Day? . . . do 100 miles. It's for your own good, I'm going to.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Flu and Chili

OK, my wife told me so but I stubbornly said "nah, I haven't been sick in years" so I didn't put it as a priority to get the flu spray. Well, Happy Thanksgiving sniffles led to a full on head cold Friday and Saturday. No problem, as long as it's above the neck right? Sunday was so so but Monday and today have been death but not warmed over as I don't have a fever. Couple degrees above my normal of 95 but I have all the other symptoms: headache, shakes, nausea, weakness (couldn't physically get out of bed this morning), stuffy nose etc.

Obviously no training in days not even the strength or motivation to get on the trainer and just turn the legs. Heck, walking downstairs takes twice as long as normal! But I can still stretch, just need to move slowly but the aches seem to be better afterward.

So where am I at now? Well, I don't trust the scale since I know any loss is probably due to dehydration so if I'm really low I'll drink more water. The nutrition is good, still struggling to make sure I eat. But aerobically and strength? I'm going to really be hating the first workouts and rides after I get better. The kicker is that after all this I have to go back and start again although my weight will be less, my fitness really is suffering.

Oh, and I turn 43 tomorrow . . . yippie! and I have to cook a pot of chili tonight. OK let me explain. In Germany the tradition is that on your birthday you bring in food for your co-workers who help you celebrate your birthday by eating your food and shaking your hand. Don't ask, I just know this is the cultural thing. So I found a recipe for Barry Goldwater's Arizona Chili (since I'm from Arizona and my dad and Barry were friends - he had an awesome house, was there a couple times) which I need to start tonight. No canned beans, will soak them tonight and they'll take 5 hours to cook but since I'll be up coughing at 4 am that gives me plenty of time. :-) Probably not a lot of spices since the food here is pretty bland. Oh, and it's no big secret just google barry goldwater's chili and you'll find it on the net.

So, get that flu spray or shot and take care of yourselves. I'm going to crawl back into bed now and dream of riding through sunny Spain or Italy or Tucson.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving . . . so whaddaya thankful for?

I'm thankful for Leonardo Da Vinci inventing the bicycle (I think he did) and for all the cyclists, mechanics, designers, etc. who make cycling such a great life sport.

So I'm in hold mode or plateau or whatever. Lost some weight but I'm having to relearn my body sensations for satiety and hunger. Oh, and I turn 43 in a week. I hate my birthday, just another reminder about getting older. Anyway, enough self pity.

Winter really hit this past weekend, after a major computer crash which has finally been resolved. Snow and more snow with sub-freezing temps. There is no desire to go out and ride since it is so miserable. But I can ride inside and am stretching.

40-50km in the mornings on the trainer and stretching seems to be my standard. Nothing else really new. I know I owe my loyal readers a longer post which I'm still working on. But enjoy the holiday and family.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Time and energy fly or get suck out of you

I can't believe a week has passed. I kept meaning to write but work has been chaos with really extra long days and stress. Although I stuck to the nutrition I lagged on exercise and sleep was a problem too later last week through the weekend. I think that sleep is the biggest killer to the active lifestyle. Unless you sleep you're too tired to perform and don't really have energy to exercise. Yeah, I know the saying that if you do it then exercise will GIVE you energy. But if you've only slept for 2-3 hours at a stretch and been interrupted the rest of the time and that has gone on for nearly a week it's pretty hard to convince yourself that riding 2 hours is going to help you.

But this is another week and the stress and workload has died down. I've slept pretty good the last two nights so tomorrow I'll get back to the trainer. Supposed to snow this coming weekend and get colder so indoors is still it for a while.

I got the saddle and I have to say that I never really appreciated the whole prostate cut out thing before. It looked painful but it really does reduce/eliminate pressure "there" for men and I imagine for women too.

So, overcome, adapt and move on again. The back still feels good and am working on neck stretches to keep that loose. Hopefully I'll have more posts this week and more exciting. Is anyone reading these beside me, Josh and Graeme? Let me know, I'm still interested in feedback as to strategies for overcoming obstacles.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Short but sweet today

Well, I dropped three pounds the past week. Pretty good but I can do better. Didn't get as many workouts in as I wanted but I really have the nutrition under control. My problem now is forcing myself to eat when I should to keep my strength up.

The ear problem cleared up with the muscle relaxants and I'm figuring out ways to deal with this new manifestation of my body's reaction to stress. The back is still doing really well and with the neck I'm focusing on not clinching my jaw, doing neck stretches and some balms I have that work really well to reduce swelling and muscular problems. So I learned something new and gained some new strategies.

Promise to write more this week. Last week was a bummer and my uncle's brother died on Friday but having been riddled with cancer it is for the best. Just hope my uncle doesn't get too down since he's now lost all his immediate family (parents, wife and now brother).

Oh and tomorrow is Veteran's Day. I try to go for a LONG ride on days like that so I don't have to think but I probably will anyway. Vet day and Memorial day are hard because I think about my friends I've lost and the experiences. But if you know a vet then thank them, many have been through worse than me so I shouldn't whine and I do try to be thankful. Anyway, you see where my mind goes . . . so I go riding and leave the mind at home! Plan is for at least 4 hours and may try for the Czech border again.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Feeling so freaking good!

When life gives you lemons . . . ok, life gave me a 5 year old who gets up at 4 am to come into our room. So, he's my alarm clock now. Much to his chagrin when he came in this morning, I got up went downstairs, made coffee and got on my trainer for 30 minutes. Did spin ups and high cadence (100rpm+) intervals then did Body Weight 1 on Cyclo-Core finishing with stretching. The 5 year old and my wife slept soundly but my 8 year old boy got up during my bike session and we did the circuit and stretch together. I need to get him a small exercise ball though, he keeps falling off the big one, which I think he enjoys doing! But I finished by 6 am and was really charged up!

Foggy day but not unpleasant although I'm going to be tired this afternoon. Will try to get to bed early and do another morning workout tomorrow. Those hindu squats are killers!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

I feel like the stock market . . .

I ended up short of my goal for the month. 298 to 294 so only 4 pounds but this was a wild month of weight swings (298, 291 up to 301 at one point early last week) but I think I've stabilized. Lots of things happened good and bad in October, the weather, being sick, having to revise my training system/program. But 4 pounds is still 4 pounds I don't have to drag around. So I go into November with things worked out and with a goal weight of 284 which is 10 pounds. I'm not going to do cumulative and overreach by adding what I didn't do this month to next. One day and one month at a time and I'll get there but I want to get there healthy and flexible and happy.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

What an amazing week, good and bad!

Well, the week didn't start too well. We hit daylight savings time here this past weekend so on Monday it was a nice light ride into work but it was pitch black and rainy by 5 when I left, even with lights it was a bit scary although the dark winding road I use was fairly surreal under those conditions. It just brought it crashing into my psyche that winter is here and I can't ride to work. So the week was spent getting my Tacx trainer updated with the Cyclo-core workouts. You have to hand jam them into the program. Very tedious but I got most in.

The clogged right ear went into the left ear and really was bothering me. Balance all screwed up. Finally took the plunge and went to a German doctor here in town. Turns out, according to him and totally unexpected to me, that a huge amount of neck tension was causing me Eustachian tubes to block. The doc prescribed a muscle relaxant so I started hitting that and putting tiger balm on the mucsles of my upper neck. Guess what!? It's worked! Of course a couple days fried out on happy pills meant no workouts but all in all I feel a lot better.

Oh, by the way, with continued stretching my back pain and knots have gotten better and it's not giving me a problem. Whatever you do . . . STRETCH!

I was feeling so good that this afternoon I got a wild hair and decided to load up the real life video of the Tour of Flanders for 83.5 km of torture on the trainer! I think I did too much, 4:17 and I'm wasted but I did it! OK, not fast and I took a couple breaks to stretch but I did it. Maybe it's that I'm feeling better or maybe I needed to burn some stress (since I hadn't ridden this week) partly since I found out this morning my uncles brother is dying of cancer in about everywhere you can have it. They opened him up to take some out but after seeing the extent they just closed him up. We figure he's got a few days to a week. I'm sad but there's nothing I can do, a terrible helpless feeling. I can't be much support for my uncle either. Sort of useless.

The hands are sore and shaky for holding the bars for nearly 5 hours. There's a lot of vibration that rumbles through the frame so it's pretty hard on the body. Time to get the kids to sleep and then I get to do Graeme's Cyclo-Zen stretch before bed!

Ciao!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Happy tree lifting day!

OK, that's not really what Saturday was about. In Germany there are church holidays (every holiday seems to be mixed with some reason or another to party, called Fests) such as this weekend in my town called Kirwa's which is supposed to be the annual rededication of the local church. This is joined with a party for late teenagers when they take center stage around the kirwabaum or kirwa tree to dance the day after the tree is put up and after a night of seeing how much beer they can drink. So Saturday we walked the two blocks to our castle to watch the tree go up. Unbeknownst to me all the able bodied me are enlisted to push the tree upward with a precarious leveraging of long poles lashed together at the top. This particular tree was not that big apparenlty, only 22 meters or 72 feet. But a tree this size is HEAVY! So, with two other guys on our pole (there were five or six sets of poles each of varying lengths and used as the tree is elevated from the horozontal until it slides into the 5 foot hole) we heaved for TWO HOURS, well around 1.5 hours, hefting this thing up. Imagine grabbing a pole and doing squats for that long with each effort about every three minutes. So I felt at the end like I earned the liter of beer! Of course today I was so sore, my legs, arms and back are tired! A good workout all in all but probably not on the cyclo-core program.

We hit daylight savings here so it is now dark at 5pm so my weekly commute home will be in the dark from now until spring. YUCK! At least I'll have some light in the morning although it's supposed to snow this week. YUCK! Cross time!!!!!! I watched the cross world cup and it looks hard but I think if I just take off across the terrain here I'll get a good equivalent workout.

Weigh in tomorrow but I'm not worrying. Whatever happens will happen and I'll take it from there. Cheers to all!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Bouncing back and up

OK, the results of the bad week are in and I put on a couple pounds. This is the opportunity to assess what happened this past week, what I could have done and learn what to do next time.

The list I made last night of the distractors all came into play leading to this morning. Despite trying to get to sleep early (got my 5 year old to be by 8:30) the following happened: my mom called from the States at 9 although I had left a message 15 minutes earlier that we were going to bed; my 5 year old woke up at 10:15 and I had to get him back to bed; around 3 am the 5 year old came into our bed to sleep; just before my alarm went off at 5 my 8 year old got up. The alarm didn't go off at 5 because I got up before it and started the coffee, with my 8 year old getting up too. I looked at the thermometer and it was 32 outside but not raining so I could ride to work after my morning workout. Unfortunately, my laptop with the workout I loaded took 15 minutes to configure some updates that happened during the night so I missed out on the trainer workout. Then I tried on the super winter stuff I got and I think it shrunk so it doesn't fit and I ran around the house trying to find my gear, winter boots, wool socks etc. Eventually got everything together and out the door late to ride to work. VERY COLD! ride but I goofed again and didn't check the forcast and it's going to be around 60 today, so the jacket, winter shoes, wool socks and helmet with winter liner will give me a good sweat session on the way home!

So, my day is dorked up right? Well, here's the thoughtful part:

1. I can do the trainer workout tonight and then stretch so missing my planned workout this morning because of all the stuff is overcome by shifting it to another time.

2. I can't do much about the weather being warmer except to enjoy it and remember to check the forcast ahead of time (again which I couldn't do because the laptop was tied up and the boys were on the other computer).

3. The boys will be tired tonight so they'll get to be early and I'll be more able to get up early tomorrow to workout.

4. I put on 3 pounds, which I can get off and more this week. The back is better today and I'll see the doc about the ear sometime, maybe, so all is not lost.

All in all nearly everything that could go wrong that I anticipated did occur. But I can overcome that and still pull a successful day out of it. I did ride to work and while it was very cold and my muscles were stiff I concentrated on spinning rather than pushing a big gear. Although I didn't ride yesterday I did play soccer for about two hours with my youngest and I did feel it today.

So a bad week and a bad night/morning aren't the end, you just need to think ahead about what distractors will occur and plan a way around it. I feel better knowing I have anticipated this and that I can overcome it.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Nervous time

I knew this week was going to be a challenge and it has. Unfortunately the challenge came in the form of a flare up in my back pain and a clogged middle ear that's still sloshing around. I could not ride . . . I tried a couple days in the early morning fog and dark but the low back pain from spasmy muscles which also hit my mid back nearly put me down. I did adapt though. While I didn't do the full strength or yoga workouts I emphasized the stretching routines which helped. That and doing nearly the whole workout in the sauna at the gym!

From experience I know that once I can warm up my body in the sauna and lay back and let the hot boards work on the tense back muscles I can stretch and loosen everything up. The pain would go away. Eventually I would get tight but those stretched and the at the desk energizers REALLY help! I think it's stress.

So given the horrible week, how will the weight come out tomorrow morning? I probably put back on a couple pounds because I feel my tank is still about a quarter full and I haven't drained it out with a long hard workout. I mentioned the weather before and had some challenges with winter coming on. I have to be at work at 8 so I need to leave at 7:15 but the sun isn't coming up until 7:45! So I bought some lights for all the bikes I usually ride.

Before I close, thanks to Graeme for getting the Zen disks to me so quickly. And for the saddle! I'm honored, don't think I've done anything to deserve "winning" anything yet, but thank you very much!

I compiled a list of distractors and ways to overcome them which I'll post tomorrow but I think it would be great that if you would drop me a comment with one of YOUR distractors and how you overcome it. Please?

Monday, October 13, 2008

YEAH! I did it, now the hard part . . . maybe

I had a bad weekend. Did pretty good on the nutrition but fell off yesterday, Sunday, although I did pretty good. My youngest wnet to a birthday party and I did let myself have one small speck of cake but also had my salad. I knew the day would not allow me to follow the schedule so I jiggled it a bit. We went to a restaurant but they were out of pasty so I had a burger. All in all I adapted and did meet my goals.

So I woke up today early and after weighing I treated myself to a long ride and basically just went wherever I wanted! It was foggy so you don't notice the 6% grade until you feel it in your legs but I decided to amble through the hills. It was fun and I got a good workout in. Now for some more house duty and a stretch tonight.

I'm behind the curve on planning this week out but am working on my strategy to overcome distractions. The basic thought I need to keep in my mind is that no matter what happens in each day I NEED and WANT to workout whether this means a ride or a strength workout. As long as I do SOMETHING then I win and get closer to my goal.

Right now I have a 5 year old pestering me so I need to go but while I know that there is alot of planning and documenting to do the biggest thing I can do to make this easy is to believe in ME. I know I can do this and I've done harder things before so I can do this. And it's really not HARD to exercise, ride the bike and eat well. What is hard is to overcome inertia and get moving but once you get moving you keep moving.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

I'm so hungry, and weak . . . oh wait, that's good!

Day Four and it's the very low carb day of the Cyclo-Fuel Fat Loss week. I get carbs tonight but the ride into work this morning was horrible! I felt so weak at the beginning but better toward the end. No energy in the legs so it was easy pedaling up hill and not pushing a big gear on the flats. Just get there I told myself. I think I was hallucinating too, I remember seeing a log by the side of the road and it looked like an eclair! Mmmm . . . NO I can't let myself think that.

Here's something to think about though (I was thinking about this in bed last night having a craving then turned it around): We have Burger King here and I like the Whopper no cheese. Occasionally I'd get the double without cheese but mainly the single. Don't like fries so that saves calories and hate soda (I stopped drinking fizzy drinks a couple years ago). A Whopper is 670 calories. I want to loose 80 pounds which is 280,000 calories. This equals 418 single Whoppers without cheese. That's a LOTTA FOOD! Oh and while we're at it that's 107 POUNDS OF MEAT!

Anyway, I'm hungry but not that hungry and I have choices.

So next week is rapidly coming and I need to keep on with PHASE TWO - the plan. I'm going to start the Cyclo-core Off Season Intermediate Plan and adapt it to include more riding since I'm bike commuting. Josh Liberles has some good morning rituals I'd like to incorporate but I need to stretch and do core in the morning and do stretching in the evening. Even 15 minutes is paying off in loosening my core and tight muscles and relaxing me.

I will gear the workouts to the templates in the Fuel plan, what I mean is to watch the workouts I have on certain days and eat what my body needs. As a top level master/senior amateur racing cyclist (which is what I need to think of myself and my new life as) I need to eat what my body needs to be able to function optimally.

Now that I have somewhat of a plan (I'll refine it this weekend watching Paris-Tours) I need to especially focus on the last Phase . . . PHASE THREE - the plan to deal with distractions.

I mentioned that this is like D-Day, well I got the troops together and hit the beach this week. I know now where to push the bridgehead out to continue the advance but PHASE THREE is really the plan for when the counterattack happens. To be prepared you need to anticiapte the issues and this is questions, questions and more questions.

For instance, what happens when I need a ride and I wake up and it's snowing? Or what do I do if my kids are up late and have trouble sleeping which leads to when I wake up and am dragging my sorry fat butt out of bed, that I can reengergize and salvage the day physically, nutritionally and emotionally? Those questions are the ones we all seem to have . . . how do I deal with distractions to be able to keep on track?

I need to stretch now, been at the desk and feel my back knots cramping up more because I've been slouching! More later, I'll write in the morning on how great the carbs were (pasta with olive oil and cheese with toasted spelt bread and butter) and if I feel really jazzed in the morning.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Day One, Phase Two . . . huh?

OK, it's Monday 6 October and D-Day. Day One is the first day of the Fat Burning Week of the Cyclo-Fuel plan to jump start my metabolism. Phase Two is the second part, planning, to achieve the Phase One goals I identified previously. I have this week to work on it since the fat burning week is an all in one program.

Bad weekend though, did too much yard work raking up fallen apples and cleaning up in the garden which triggered back muscle spasms and a wicked migraine that lasted most of Sunday but with two shots of anti-migraine meds I was a zombie yesterday!

Then the weather hasn't cooperated and we blew the power out to the first floor which means that until the electrician comes I don't have power, light etc. for my trainer and computer set up. I have a Tacx VR Fortius and 17" screen laptop set up for winter training and for bike stuff so that's where I download my Garmin data and other stuff into. So this morning I look out the window and it's not cold, maybe high 40s, but the trees are all over the place and the rain is coming down. Typical fall but also at this high latitude, we are about the same as Maine, the sun doesn't come up until later and sets earlier so riding is a challenge in the dark even if the weather is ok. That's why I have the good trainer!

Anyway, day one is here so off I go! I'll let you know tomorrow how today goes but my adaptation to overcome the training distractor of the weather is to do an hour on the trainer tonight when I get home and be extra careful of my eating today.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Counting down . . . three two one! This is #3

Made it through the VERY stressful end of fiscal year where we spend all the money by midnight on September 30th. Long night and two days later I'm still destressing and recovering. The weather is miserable, rainy, cloudy, dank and dreary . . . typical europe! So Monday is D-Day in the war and with the help of Graeme Street and Josh via Cyclo-club and with the cyclo-core training programs I will hit the beach!

However, I need to state publicly my goals, the plan and the strategy to overcome resistance. I wish I had a little Borg from Star Trek which could jump in and say "Resistance is futile" whenever a distractor pops up to try to block my progress. But I'm the Borg . . . anyway this post will go over my GOALS.

I already mentioned I want to loose a certain amount of weight and I've calculated that to be 10 pounds per month. That's the first and immediate goal. I'm NOT thinking about overall how much to lose or things like that, just 10 pounds per month. So that's the weight part of the goals. Then there's the issue of my back and overall strength. My goal is to increase my flexibility and every month to make more progress on completing the Cyclo-core training workouts and on being more flexible with a stronger core to help eliminate my back pain.

That wasn't so bad and they are reasonable, measurable goals for short term success and to gauge my improvement. Longer term goals are harder because you want to be realistic. Not being terribly realistic myself I needed to scale back my ambitions for right now. I won't be getting back on the track and planning on Masters World Track Championships next fall. I won't be racing in the Senior 2s here in Europe. What I can do is finish the longer route of Nove Colli in May in under the time it took me to do the shorter route two years ago. The the ultimate goal is to complete the challenge for the Club des Cingles Mont Ventoux by climbing the basic three routes to the top in the same day. This is a challenge for any cyclist but especially for a big guy like me.

Now I have short and long term goals. I may throw some fun events in along the way but this is the plan. You notice I left out nutrition? I haven't talked about that because that's not a goal but a segment of my lifestyle change that will morph along with me. But keeping it basic I figure I need to eat lots of complex carb vegetables, fruit and lean meat. Stay away from processed food, fast food, simple carbs and the other easy stuff.

I'll go into this more in post #2 on the countdown to D-Day where I'll discuss the specific PLAN to achieve these goals. Thanks for reading!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Survival Guide to Oktoberfest

Dread, fear and loathing . . . or in other words, my wife dragged me to Oktoberfest in Munich today, Saturday, and I didn't get a ride in. Worse, what do you do when you are surrounded by huge flagons of beer, bratwurst, smokers, candy and in general you're in the midst of over 500,000 people engaging in the sorts of behaviors YOU have tried so hard to get rid of? Well, you suck it up and take one moment at a time. The smoking was easy although it's a pain to be around smokers, we didn't have any trouble with the beer. You have to get inside a beer tent first but they all seemed to be full but we found a biergarten (an outside patio like place) where after a not too arousing pat down we found a place and got some beer. Strong Paulaner ale like the Germans drink since they're five years old and leave their mothers breasts. Of course most mothers can drink a lot too so even breastmilk is probably 40 proof most of the year!

Anyway, we did pretty good, just the one beer then a baked potato on the concourse and some almonds to cap the meal off. OK, Graeme Street would slap me . . . they were roasted sweet coated almonds, but only had a few! When we finally managed to extract and work our way against the crowd - imagine a sea of women in drindl dresses and men in lederhosen along with a whole lot of fashionable Italian boys (seems this weekend is when the Italians swarm up over the alps) coming at you and you have the picutre - we got to the train, then to the car and fortuantely stopped on the autobahn where I scored a cappuchino, banana and apple! Ah!

So now we're at home and looking at a quiet night. I plan on doing some planning and reading tonight to keep preparing for the change. But I survivied Oktoberfest and didn't put on weight!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Another weekend

Well, I purged out a lot of old cycling team uniforms. I don't know why I kept them, nostalgia or thinking I could get back to that but it's not true, I need to go forward and all that old stuff is just baggage and clutter. Oh I kept my college team jersey and a few from important events I will use for training inside or out but anything team related I didn't earn is gone.

Got the Jamis built up with Campy triple so now all my bikes are Campy and I don't need to think about how I'm shifting and having different hand positions.

So . . . where am I, where am I going and more importantly how am I going to get there? One and two are in progress but three is pretty easy. I'm going to basically throw out all the old training stuff and advice, plans etc. and go with simple. I'm going to use Cyclo-core for workouts and stretching plus riding, just riding for now. I can do intervals and other more structured training when my base fitness and weight get where I want. Nutrition with Cyclo-Fuel and I'll start with the fat burning metabolism jump start next week.

That's about it for now. More later!

Monday, September 22, 2008

It's sooooo late . . . zzzzz

OK, not the healthiest day but I wasn't able to sleep last night so I put the time to good use and really cleaned out some stuff that needed purging. I got rid of all my old team uniforms from Hammer Racing in Colorado (geez its a lot and I know it was expensive too!) and just old crap. Except the closet in the bedroom which I wasn't able to get to 'cuz the wife and our 5 year old are sleeping. So, I made some progress. Found some music and books that got misplaced in the move and even found a great book by Mike Magnuson called Heft on Wheels which is about a really fat guy like me who got his butt in gear and in shape. Worth reading again; it has been in storage in Colorado for three years and got here with the last shipment of our stuff.

I'm fighting to stay awake now but at 3:30am it's very hard and I may doze for an hour or so. Most of my energy is spent but as part of the next assault on the barriers holding me back from my life, I needed to purge the old. There's a lot more to go but it's a big start and a good psychological push since I've been mentally holding on to the time I was at Hammer but I know with the back injury and weight I won't get back to that point, so out with the old and move on!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

I want my life back! Now where did I put it?

Hi, welcome to my weblog. This is about a guy who was healthy, strong and fairly slim who got lost along the way and sidetracked by life, injury and other stuff. Willpower creates the conditions for change so RIGHT NOW I'm doing the equivalent of a D-day invasion and making a massive surge to make another change to my environment to enable me to get back to where I was so that I can go forward.

I weigh 298 pounds and want to get to 225 by May 2009. That's about 10 pounds a month.

Thanks and we'll see how it goes!