Friday, April 2, 2010

I'm no fool, April

Regular readers will likely have noticed that I didn't provide my normal first of the month weigh in yesterday. Much the same as I try not to walk into McDonalds with money in my pocket and a rumble in my tummy; I try to avoid an open forum on April Fools Day. I even went so far as to plan out an elaborate post regarding how recent events had made me realize I don't have the time to waste losing weight the traditional way, and that I'd be getting gastric bypass and lyposuction. Henceforth the blog would have been known as preppingforsurgery.com.

Thankfully, my better angels held out, and I refrained from such tomfoolery. Unfortunately, I had trouble refraining from less than healthy foods this month, and in the end I wound up at 314 for the month of March. This means my loss was 4 pounds for the month, and a bit of a retreat from the 313 I registered about halfway through. I'm finding that some weeks are easy and the numbers come down almost completely on their own. Other weeks are far harder and that getting through even just a single day has its food and exercise challenges.

That said, between the recent loss of Rebecca and the changing of the seasons, both personal motivation and opportunities to workout are on the upswing. We're spending time with the family this weekend (Rachelle's sister is already here, and her father arrives tonight), so being careful about eating as we show them Boston will be something I need to watch. And the next two weekends lend themselves to eating less than ideally, so I'll have to stay vigilant while allowing myself to still enjoy the meals with the family.

We're now just a little over a month until our first race of the season, the New England Season Opener Triathlon. It's a wholly outdoor race at a time when the air temperature is significantly higher than the water temperature. This means wetsuits; either renting or buying, finding a place and time to train in them. I dealt with wetsuitrental.com last season and they were super nice. In fact, I found out the other day that the wetsuit they let me try out last season never shipped from work, so I have it back in my possession. I'm going to work with them on a rental price for the suit assuming it still fits, and we need to get Rach something too. Ideally, I'll be able to get a sale price on one of last years suits for her before too much longer.

The other big challenge for this season is running. I've done a little in the past couple weeks, and of course there is that jog/shuffle I employed at the end of last racing season to finish off the Nantasket Beach race and the road races that followed. Unfortunately, I may have actually been a slower runner than I was a walker using that strategy, so I've slowly started on a couch to 5k plan. This mixes walking and running in time or distance amounts (depending on the plan) to build up the stamina to run a 5k. As I've mentioned before, 10 minute miles are my goal for this season, and I'm hoping to do around 12 minute miles this first race. That would take almost 10 minutes off my race time. With my improved swim stroke and better cycling endurance, even the first race of the season is shaping up to be a success.

Some tidbits:
- We'll be travelling to New Hampshire tomorrow to visit with Rebecca's family. I'm going to get some kind of workout in before we leave because it's too nice to miss out on an outdoor ride or run. I am determined to start and finish this month right, instead of something in the middle.
- I am actively looking for pedals and cleats to go with my new bike shoes. If you know of a place with closeouts on cleats and or pedals, let me know in the comments or via email.Thanks!
- Ive got some posts planned already for this week including the process of getting fitted for our team uniform. This will be less than pleasant and most likely pretty embarassing, which is why I'm oh so excited to share it with you
- Finally, happy easter/passover/religious celebration of your choice. Enjoy the time with your family.

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