Even more less fat

You look at a label for food these days and everything says "Less Fat!" There are always caveats like "less fat than the regular brand", or "less fat than a pound of bacon inside 2 pounds of ground beef", or "Less fat than Fat Albert". They can legally say less fat, because those caveats are true.

Well here's my caveat of the day; I am now 3 1/2 pounds less fat than the Ben of just two days ago. That's right, another run and swim even followed by proper refueling (G2 and a tasty Odwalla bar), and I lost 1 1/2 pounds last night. Wouldn't it be great if it just worked like this every day? I know it can't continue like this forever, but I'm certainly going to keep watching my portions and eating the right foods to do whatever I can to support it.

One of the things I've been doing is properly refueling within 30 minutes of the end of my workout, though I have been reading that eating within 15 minutes following a workout is even better. It's been mostly a lack of preparation on my part that has been getting in the way of that. Usually, I'm doing something right up until the minute it's time to leave to workout and we wind up leaving 5 minutes late as Rach waits for me to get my stuff together.

Because of this we're usually racing to get home so I can get my refuel in within 30 minutes. I've been using the products from the GU/Fluid sample pack I won at World Multisport Expo. In particular I've been working my way through the Fluid samples. I had the chocolate and tropical so far, and I have to say i liked them quite a bit. The Chocolate I put in milk, because chocolate water has never appealed to me. The tropical was in water, and it was not quite as good as the chocolate, but I "choco" that up to personal taste. I haven't tried the berry yet, but if it's got any raspberry qualities, I will probably respond negatively to it. We'll have to see.

Notes:

- Tonight is a 1 hour ride in zones 1 and 2. I don't have the Garmin piece I need to track speed on my bike while indoors right now, but I can at least do RPM and heart rate for the period. I'm hoping to get the speed and cadence sensor before the season starts.

- I'm pretty much in love with Training Peaks. I just need to find the financial wherewithall to upgrade to a premium membership in order to be able to modify my training plan so that the workouts all fall on the days I want in a given week for weeks I need to make a change.

Eat less, lose weight, who knew?

This post will be short and to the point; I lost 2 pounds yesterday. And I didn't work out. I simply counted my points, consumed healthy foods, and most importantly ate healthy potions of those foods. I was supposed to have a recovery day on Monday, but I really wanted to ride, so I switched it to yesterday.

I recognize that the weight loss is a combination of my body recovering and burning some fat to recover glycogen stores, but I know too that the portion control is really where the weight loss I am desperate to achieve will come from. While all of those meal plans talk about feeling full, I know that going to bed feeling a little bit hungry is what's going to help me with my weight loss. Because if there isn't food there to digest, my body will find the nourishment it needs in the fat I have been carrying around. 

Because I messed around with my schedule and I don't want to miss any workouts, tonight I'm swimming and running, and depending on how I feel, maybe getting in a bike ride as well. I'd love to be riding outside today, but it doesn't seem to fit with our schedule as currently planned.

This is EXACTLY why I do it...

There are some things in life that it can be difficult to figure out what the return on investment is. My favorite example: Making the bed; what exactly is the point of this when you're 100% guaranteed to mess it up in about 12-14 hours? Others though, have an obvious and immediate benefit. This blog falls directly under that category.

If you have read yesterdays post, you'll have seen that I did a pretty good job with my training all weekend, but I also did a "great job" of eating too much during at least 2 meals this weekend. The value the blog gave me there is that it let me expose honestly that I ate like crap to more than just my wife who at that singular instance wasn't going to fault me because it was her birthday dinner. One of the regular readers of this site, Edie, responded with the following terrific comment:

It sounds like Benny B is rebelling against Benny A.
To put it bluntly, I also find it a little unsettling that you can even justify that any kind of caloric burn will make up for eating so much crap. It isn't like you over-indulged in anything super healthy.
You know I'm cheering you on Benny, but it sure sounds like you need to find a way to take care of yourself a little more. It would be an awesome present to give your wife.

I have to admit this cut me to the core, and is 100% a correct vision of where I often stand in my weight loss struggle. I didn't see it the comment until after we got back from the Cheesecake Factory, where I had the small victory of eating no cheesecake, even on Rachelle's birthday. Rach and I had a fairly long talk on the subject of portion control and why I have such a problem with it. I don't have an answer yet on how to solve it, but the fact that I don't has lead me to leave all options open at this point on how to resolve it. It's not a problem 100% of the time, but it's clearly what has stopped me from losing weight in accordance with the training I have been doing.

With just about 6 weeks left until the first race of the year, I really need to find a way to solve this problem. I have been successful in the past when I have a single plan for eating. Eating the same thing every day, even to the point of the same meals, makes it easy for me to avoid temptation.

That's a very simple thing to implement when you're single, but less so when you're married, and your spouse really enjoys variety to the point where she often doesnt know what she wants for dinner until literally dinner time, and often not even then. So as at least a first step I'm going to try to find ways to marry our food needs (variety vs healthy, portion controlled foods) without having us have to spend an hour a night in the kitchen. I'm still looking into other items, and I'm looking for a good way to make my food journal public without having to post it in each days blog (because who wants to read what I'm eating each day?)

Lastly, on a far happier note, Rach has blogged about her experience with the NCAA championship game. While she didn't win, it was certainly a memorable experience, and I was just in the stands. It's a good read.

The Tale of Two Bennys

In Chales Dickens famous "A Tale of Two Cities", we see parallels drawn between the French revolution and life in London during the same period of time. Today's post will make a similar comparison in A Tale of Two Bennys (it both kind of rhymes with cities and happens to be Rach's nickname for me).

Benny A: Benny A had the kind of weekend he could only have imagined a scant 4 years ago: Friday night he swam for 40 minutes getting in nearly 1 miles worth of distance in the pool. Saturday he did a nice hard 45 minute effort on the trainer with medium resistance. Sunday, he really got after it; a hard 30 minute trainer ride followed by a moderate 25 minute run. Then following a couple hours of time spent in compression socks, he headed out for his first mountain bike ride of the year. 30 minutes in the saddle split between easy single track and the paved bike trail.

Benny B: Benny B made sure he didn't go hungry this weekend. Saturday night he had a big plate of spagetti. Sunday, he took his wife out for her birthday lunch, where he had 3 glasses of coke, 3 fairly large potato skins, some fried crabmeat ravioli, and about 10 chicken wings. Sunday night after the lunch wore off, he had a half peanut butter sandwich and a few chips.

Clearly Benny A and Benny B are the same person; and I think the above illustrates succinctly why my weight loss has been so slow to come. Based on the info I have, my calories out were still greater than my calories in. Further, this doesn't take into account any digestive delays (if you catch my meaning). But with just 6 weeks until the season opener, I really can't afford to continue to eat like this basically every weekend. With the Men's Frozen Four and the trip to Foxwoods coming up, I have some challenges yet to overcome. I broke even on weight from friday until monday AM, which considering the amount of work was a letdown, but considering the food choices is probably a blessing.

While there are some negatives to take from this weekend, there were also some huge positives: Just look at all the work Benny A did. And while the legs were pretty tired after 90 total minutes of work on Sunday, the fact that I'm raring to go today shows real promise for my increased fitness. Sadly, today is a recovery day, so I not only have to watch what I eat, but I can't go work out either. I guess I better enjoy my rest days when I have them, because they are pretty few and far between from here on out.

Notes:

- Today is Rachelle's birthday, so if you follow her on her blog, on twitter, or on facebook, take a moment to wish her a happy birthday if you would be so kind. Also, she's written her feelings about being a part of a national championship game, and coming out on the wrong side of it. Once she gets the pictures in place, she'll post it and I'll link it.

- I am really hungry today.

- lastly, I still owe my almost $100 to match your donations to the fundraising project, which I assure you will occur this week. Just got a bit behind with all of the travel and such.

It's Friday, and I'm going to stop being a wanker

I hope everyone is having the awesome day that I am. Last friday, my group at work finally moved out of the basement and into new digs on the first floor of the building. I get to see daylight out my bosses window every day now, and that's never a bad thing. Plus, Rach had to get up early today so I was first one in the office. Reminds me how much I enjoy getting up early.

So, last night I had a run and swim scheduled, which gave me a chance to try out the integration between Training Peaks and my Garmin 305 as well as the brand new integration with my Finis Swimsense. I don't always like training, but I do love gadgets. Gadgets plus new technical/statistical things to think about make training pass quickly.

The run was Week 3, Day 1 of my Couch to 5k Training. I'm re-starting week 3 because I never finished it last week because of the trip to Erie. I didn't go all out because I figured this would be a good recovery run after Wednesday nights hard ride. I felt pretty good, but had an issue with my Garmin that I need to look into. (Link to run in Training Peaks: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/sw/TMXDMVLXEY35QANG7TQRJEJJ7Y)

Following the run I did 1000 yards in the pool: a 400 yd warmup, 8x25 (25 easy, 25 hard), then 4x100. My total time was 32 minutes, which is pretty good considering I did a lot of sprinting in those last 600 yards, and took several minutes of breaks. My swimming is coming around already and I'm really happy with that. (link to swim in Training Peaks: http://www.trainingpeaks.com/sw/R4JVYM26GJFNOQTQ7G3WFATASQ)

I got home and downloaded the workouts to Training Peaks, and it was super easy to get my run and swim not only into the system, but they automatically synced up with the workouts on my plan for that day. The Swimsense one is so automatic, you don't even have to select which workout you want, it just ports right over whenever you upload a workout from the watch to the Finish website. The Garmin one is slightly more work as you have to select which workouts you want to move, via the Training Peaks device manager, but even that is a piece of cake.

------------------------

The other thing I want to talk about was yesterdays post, which if you read it early enough you would have seen me making smart ass remarks about how if I could only average 10.9 MPH while pulling 100 watts and being exhausted that "it was time for me to consider another sport, maybe shuffleboard". A reader mentioned it jokingly, but after re-reading it, I pulled the comment and looking back I'm glad I did. 

I've come a long way in 2 years of racing, but that doesn't give me the excuse to be myopic about my performance. Just 2 years ago next month, it took me 2 1/2 hours to finish a sprint triathlon. a 12 mile bike with hills was 90 minutes of suffering for me. I've always thought that if I ever got any good at this sport (which I'm still not, and that does not appear to be in jeopardy anytime soon), that I would not be one of those douches who says things that belittles people slower than them.

While I didn't mean it that way yesterday, it sounded like I did, even when I read it knowing what I meant. I meant merely that I was proud of my progress and I didn't like that the computer was telling me I was slow and weak when I clearly wasn't. I need to remember I'm not that far off in time, or performance for that matter, from 90 minute 12 mile rides. Some people out there are just where I was 2 years ago and while I want them to see training will get them faster, they dont need to see it like that.

Notes:

- Tonight, another long swim, and then tomorrow a longer ride. Its probably going to still be too cold to ride outside, but I want to at least try. I'm going to put my aero bars on in the morning either way.

Broken lab equipment and heat == suffering and results

As I mentioned yesterday, I went out to Springfield College last night to take a lactate threshold test. This test is used to give you guidance on how to train within certain heart rate zones; basically giving you a metric for determining how hard your training was that day for your body and not just basing it on how you felt during that particular workout.

I was really excited to participate in this test for a few reasons; It was being run by a twitter buddy ShaunaSmash, who is using the test as part of her graduation project for school. Aside from being better able to match my training guidelines, it also gives me guidance as to where my current "redline" is as for what I can sustain. I want to avoid going too anaerobic for too long, especially as I'm building up my training base.

The test itself is pretty simple; the person administering the test draws a drop of blood to measure the lactic acid in your blood. Then you warm up on the bike (or treadmill if you're testing your run threshold) for 5 minutes. At the end of the warmup, you go as hard as you can sustain for 20 minutes. Or at least it's supposed to be about 20 minutes (6 miles).

Unfortunately, the computrainer system being used for the lab was not recording information properly; the MPH was wildly inaccurate, the wattage output was at least 30% low (and possibly more), and even the RPMs were probably in doubt. So, a lot of the information I would have expected to have learned yesterday was mostly useless.

However, because I brought my own heart monitor and because the lactate measuring device was working, I was able to get heart rate results and blood lactate measurements. Because Shauna was performing the test with a different goal in mind, I didn't get the ramped blood results every few minutes to base zones on, but based on the pace i set early in the ride, the lactate buildup i could feel in my legs, my heart rate, and the blood readings, my lactate threshold would appear to be around 3.8mM and most importantly 165 BPM while cycling.

Using this information I can set my zones properly for my training, and understand how far I can push myself and still stay on the safe side. The cost of this information was a good bit of pain, as the computer was recording speed so slowly that it took me 34:30 to ride 6 miles basically going close to as hard as I could go, and in a room with no fan so I was super hot. Thankfully, the prior participant and Shauna's testing bore out that there's no way that was accurate. (edited because the sentence that used to be here was rude): I'm glad the machine was wrong, because it made me feel like I wasn't even close to what I have done in the past.

I'm going to learn something about myself tonight

With 86 days left until Patriot Half, It's time to start ramping up the training volume. I've been reading a lot recently in both cycling and triathlon magazines about athletes using short, high-intensity workouts can take the place of some % of slower high volume workouts. I've been following this approach as of late as Rach and I have both had a lot of demands on our time in the previous couple weeks.

My new plan, which I signed up for the other night through Training Peaks, is a 13 week plan that was the perfect fit for the time remaining until Patriot. I used the USAT membership discount and saved 10% on my subscription. The plan doesn't detail every workout, but gives you a guideline as to what to build into the workout, focusing on heart rate zones. While there are some fairly basic field tests to roughly setup your heart rate training zones, the most accurate way is to use your lactate threshold.

Using the heart rate monitor from my Garmin and the results of the blood tests taken tonight, I should be fairly accurately be able to pinpoint my heart rate zones, which should allow me to more accurately follow my training plan. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous; the bike I'll be on will measure wattage, so I'll finally have an accurate measure of how strong/weak of a cyclist I am at this point. I'm also excited to see exactly what I have right now going all out on the bike for 6 miles. Just a month and a half til season opener sprint, and I want to see what kind of speed I can put out on the bike.

Notes:

- I've started thinking about my next fundraiser incentive. So far I'm drawing a blank. May be that I'll just have to rely on human kindness for a while.

- I put those gift certificates from the local bike shop to good use already. I gave Rachelle my aerobars after last season, so I picked up a new set for me last night. Went with these from Profile Design. Similar to my old ones in that they aren't connected to each other so they can be more properly spaced for my wide shoulders, and are long enough to accommodate my long torso and arms, especially on a frame that might be a bit short in length for me due to my short inseam.

Yes, come to think of it, you actually can buy speed.

Back from the dead (actually, the comatose), this post is kind of Erie

Good morning!

Sorry for my unscheduled absence yesterday. I spent the day recuperating from a long weekend spent driving. It was a weekend I know I'll never forget, and I'd like to share a bit of it with you today.

Friday Night - Rachelle and BU Women's hockey were in Pennsylvania at the site of the Women's frozen Four, taking on Cornell. After a balanced first period, BU took command and won 4-1. Much celebration ensued, which included me jumping around and screaming in my living room. It also meant I would be making the long trek out to Erie, PA to watch BU take on Wisconsin in the National Championship game.

Saturday Morning - The reason I wasn't in Erie for the whole weekend, is that the World Multisport Expo was in Boston on Saturday AM. Wheelworks had a booth, and the Multisport team helps staff the booth to get the word out about the team, and to recruit members. My shift was from 11-12:30, which gave me time to explore the show, and to help setup. The show was an unmitigated success, from both a personal and a team perspective.

Personally, I found some nice stuff for really cheap prices including some training gear for Rach and I that were just $5 each for high quality tops and bottoms. Plus, I found a pair of the shoes Ive been wearing recently for $50. And I won a couple prizes in a raffle put on by the regional collegiate triathlon association, including a nutrition sample pack from GU and Fluid and 2 gift cards for $25 each to a bike shop right down the road from my house.

From a team perspective, we had quite a few new members who are looking to sign up, and who attended the social held following the Multisport Expo. I missed that because at that point I was somewhere near Albany, New York on my way to Erie. But I heard it was well attended, and we'll probably be adding new members.

Saturday Night - When I finally got to Erie, I got to see Rach and my father-in-law who was my roommate-in-law for the night, and also an old friend. My friend Leigh is a women's/girls hockey coach and came to town to help with coaching a couple of seminars. I haven't seen her in a few years, and it was really great to get to spend an hour or so catching up. Plus, whenever I see my wife after a few days, things are always made better. All that and a couple beers made the 8 hour drive ok.

Sunday - I could talk about how I got up in the morning and did a 10 minute ultra hard effort on the exercise bike at the hotel, or that Rach's dad and I went on an adventure and broke the law to take a look at some train engines at the GE Transportation plant in Erie, or that for a $4 buffet, breakfast at the hotel was really good. Instead, I just want to say how proud I was of the BU women for their outstanding season. I am so fortunate to be married to Rachelle, and the wonderful women of BU Women's hockey.

All of these girls, their families and the coaches really took us in and made us feel welcome and part of the family. While they fell just short of a national championship, losing 4-1 to Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon, they had a tremendous season with a very young team. They played hard, and did things the right way along the way, and can hold their heads high. Where ever we wind up after Rachelle graduates in the spring, I know that this is a chapter in our life that we will always be thankful for. Plus, we now have a very cool trophy on our mantle that each member of the second place team received. I'm sure Rach will blog more in depth about this weekend, and I'll link to it when sher does.

Sunday Night/Monday Morning - After the game, I joined the team for dinner, and then headed out for what wound up being a 12 hour drive back to Boston. It took me 3 1/2 hours longer to get back even though I was driving in the middle of the night. There are a lot more construction areas, and what I can only assume was an accident as I waiting on I-90 for 2 hours. yech. I got home at 6:30 AM, having left at 7:15 PM the night before. Not fun.

Monday Night -  After a lot of sleep and a little walking around to get some of that sitting out, I finally signed up for a training plan. I picked a 13 week half-ironman plan from Training Peaks, because with their Swimsense integration now complete, I can import every workout I do into Training Peaks, and have data and metrics afterwards to track my progress.

Tonight we run and swim.

And your winner is...

Two things we can be absolutely certain about in this post are:

1. I have the most kind, generous, and supportive friends, readers, and family around.
2. I will never win a blogging award for best video work. (There are some great shots of my nostrils though).

Also, please excuse the rambling, I still have to work on my on-camera presence. So without further ado, please watch this video to see the actual raffle take place.

I've already contacted Derek H., and he is very excited to have won. I'll be sending out his package on Friday, and putting him in contact tonight with the vendors who will be shipping prizes directly to him.

Also, I did the math and with my current donations, I owe another $100 to match your donations at 50% during the raffle period. I'll be making that donation on Friday, with hopefully a little more if I lose some weight this week.

Finally, hanks again to all of you for your donations, and to the wonderful sponsors listed at the top of the page. Because of you, I'm now 1/3rd of the way to my fundraising goal, and I still have several months to get there. Please support them if you're so inclined, as they make fine products and are also good corporate citizens.

Cross-training, sort of...

This morning, I dropped Rach off at work, after which the team flies to Erie, PA for the Women's NCAA Frozen Four. Last night, before she packed and prepped we made use of our BuyWithMe deal for admission to the Frog Pond at Boston Common for outdoor ice skating.

Being that it's March, and we've seen temperatures in the mid-50's, the ice wasn't in the best condition. In fact, I think it's safe to say ice skating shouldn't be held on a surface with 1 to 2 inches of rise and fall across much of the surface. Sort of like "skating the river" in Mystery, Alaska; except with 100 people around you who skate for crap.

We chose last night because the deal was going to expire, and Rach wouldn't be here when it did, so that means we'll be joining the group run next week.

Notes:

- The drawing for the raffle will be held as soon as I get home, and I'll contact the winner via email. I'll record the drawing process and post the video tomorrow. I was simply too tired to do it at midnight last night.

Today's the day!

Well, this raffle has flown by fast, and as I type this, around 11 hours are left for folks to get in on it. As it stands, a $10 donation has a 1 in 28 chance of winning the prize. To clarify, neither myself nor my family members donations are eligible to win the prize. If you have already donated, I want to thank you very much for your help. If you have yet to donate, today is your last chance. I'll be closing the raffle at 12:01 AM 3/16.

Now that's out of the way, I can stop feeling like I work for a Public Television station for a while and talk about the really cool stuff. I did a KICK ASS swim workout last night. 1000 yards, so it wasn't high volume, but it was high intensity. The warmup was 400 free, and while I did that fairly slow, I did it without breaks. Considering my last swim was a couple weeks ago, I felt like going 400 non-stop was pretty good.

Then we had 8x25, alternating between 25 easy and 25 hard. I felt really strong during this interval in particular. The workout called for rest periods every 25, but I only rested every 50. And I beat Rach for each 50, which definitely felt good. I swim several 25 yd segments in under 25 seconds, so I was pretty happy with that.

The last 400 of the work out was really brutal 4x100, with increasing difficulty. It broke down like this:

• 75 easy, 25 hard
• 50 easy, 50 hard
• 25 easy, 75 hard
• 100 hard

My arms felt like rubber after those and the 100 hard was really more like a relative "100 hard". I was really happy with the outcome though, and I'd have some stats to show for it if I had remember to bring my Swimsense with me to the pool. I'm hoping to do that same workout later this week, capture the data, and do it again in a month to check for improvements. 

Tonight, we're doing a group run from one of the sporting goods stores nearby. When I say we, I mean Rach, because I'll be dropped off the back right away, but that's alright. We have a chance to win prizes and such, so it's worth it.

I feel like a heel, but it's only 36 hours til the raffle ends

Since I last had a chance to blog:

• I partied hard and long into the night on Friday
• Wound up with sore feet from walking many miles
• lost a pound, and then gained 2 pounds
• BU Women won their regional quarterfinal of the NCAA's and will now go to the Frozen Four
• Oh, and Japan got rocked by an earthquake and soaked by a tsunami

I didn't get a workout in from Friday to Sunday. I had every intention of running on Friday before the conference, but was glues to the TV as the worries about the tsunami heading to the west coast of the US were intensifying. I did however eat pretty well on all but Sunday, and walked at least 5 miles Friday and Saturday. 

Considering all the opportunities for bad eating and being lazy, I felt like I got through this convention in pretty good shape. No workouts, but frankly with how my feet felt after each day, I couldn't have worked out if I wanted to. Rach and I have a swim, bike, and a lift on tap for tonight.

Finally, as I referenced in the title, the raffle ends at 12:01 AM EDT on 3/16. That means there's just a little less than 36 hours remaining as I type this. I know with the recent and ongoing problems in Japan, that it makes sense to put your money into something that needs help this minute, and I find that tough to argue with. The one point I will make is that once the disaster in Japan has begun healing, and after we've turned our attention as a nation to the next natural disaster; cancer will still be there. Young adults and their families, struggling with this issue will still need help understanding how to best fight this horrible group of diseases. And while these disasters grab and hold our attention, the every day issues will continue to be ongoing for people struggling with cancer in their lives.

I'd also like to point out that as it stands, a $10 donation gives you a 1 in 23 chance of winning the raffle. Those are pretty fantastic odds to win a pretty fantastic prize pack.

Pre-PAX preparations and progress update

Yesteday's blog was a late, but important entry. So if you haven't read about the reasons why you should donate, please take a moment to do so.

Lots of tidbits (It's really been a bunch of lists this week):

• We've now reached the 20% plateau in fundraising gang. $310 to date, and because I'm matching donations at 50% during the raffle, We're actually at the $350 level, with a couple more donations I've been promised that should arrive soon.
• I'm going to be out of the office tomorrow, so no Weight Watchers meeting again, but it's looking like I'll be down at least 2 more pounds this week, which would mean another $20 to the cause
• TrainingPeaks is FINALLY planning on launching the Swimsense integration as of 3/16 (planned). This means I will have a single place I can upload all of my workouts (after I get the wireless bike speed sensor for my Garmin) without having to manually type anything.
• I'm going to make sure I get in a workout tomorrow and Saturday, even with PAX going on. Sunday will be my recovery day, and it will probably be recovery as much from the conference as it is from the workouts. I think Saturday is drinking with friends night
• I did 40 minutes easy on the bike last night. Rach was sick and needed some care.
• Week 3, Day 2 of my Couch to 5k today. It's gone well so far, and the shorter runs in week 2 I was able to do even faster than expected.
• I won a contest for a free CD of Grammy nominees, and now am in the running for a stand up jukebox in a "Don't forget the lyrics" contest at a local radio station two weeks from now. Should be fun

No update tomorrow, but I'll be back on Monday with a vengance.

Why you should donate to my raffle

So, I'm not exactly good at begging. But with just 6 days to go left in the raffle, and a pretty awesome prize pack for the winner, it's time to pull out all the stops. So here are the many reasons to donate/enter the raffle.

• Like NPR, I keep having to interrupt my normal silliness with fundraising posts until I meet my goals.  
• I will lose 1 poundand donate $10 for every $20 donated by someone other than myself. So far I've lost 6 pounds.
• Donate $50 or more, and you can submit a dare. I'll do it, so long as it doesn't break laws or seriously offend someone
• I don't want to have to sell off our prized hamster Lil' Wingels in order to meet my donation minimum
• Because I'll do you proud by finishing an Ironman distance race.
• Do it for Rebecca Tabat, Rachelle's cousin who was too sweet of a girl to be gone this soon. 
• Because the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults does good things for people who really can use the help. Between college scholarships for students with cancer, patient navigation services, one on one or group support programs, university outreach, and even helping kids set up websites to share their journey; Ulman Cancer Fund is a charity worth donating to
• Because Rachelle is always telling me to spend less time blogging and more time cleaning. If you donate, I can go clean Lil' Wingels cage.
• I'll have more time to train and therefore will fare better in all my races
• Because you're a nice person

So that's what I've got for now. I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple vendors who might be able to add some items to the prize pack last minute. Now it's time for me to go spend an hour on my bicycle.

If I could have whatever I want

I try not to be too materialistic, but sometimes there are things you just WANT. Like way down in your gut kind of want, that immediate impulse of really desiring to have something. I don't mean to sound selfish or anything but these are a few of the things that I'd really like to have:

• Hitting my Team Fight Fundraising goal. YES, this is a shameless plug, and NO, I didn't plan it that way when I came up with the idea for this post. I didn't think of it until I started the list. But since we're only 1 week from the raffle ending, I can use all the help I can get. 
• World Peace. Yes, I know this isn't a beauty pageant, and yes, it is only #2 on my list but seriously; world peace would be nice. Then we could put all our fine metals into bicycle making instead of bombs and bullets. And maybe with democracy popping its crazy little head up all over the middle east, we might be able to get there sooner than anyone ever though.
• A 6 pack. Not beer, though that'd be nice too. Something from Belgium perhaps. But seriously, my stomach is my big problem with my body, so it's the one area I would improve the most, sort of go in the opposite direction. I'm losing the weight, but I want to gain the muscle too.
• The Fuji D-6 2.0. It looks like a weapon, and it is an awesome color of blue. I'm not nearly the triathlete I would need to be to use it, but that doesn't mean I can't like it.

Fuji D-6 2.0

• A house. This will happen eventually, but not until Rach finds a job where we're likely to be in town for more than a couple years. 
• A better golf game. Considering Tiger's game is in shambles too, I guess I shouldn't complain
• These triathlon shoes: SIDI Genius 6.6 Carbon. At $449 they cost almost as much as my bike, and twice what my wetsuit costs, but they supposedly help you get more out of every pedal stroke, and that's something we could all deal with.

SIDI Genius 6.6

• Membership in a airline club that guaranteed me 1st class when I travel, so I could relax for trips to the occasional destination race. I'd also like my bike to fly free.
• A power meter. I don't care which, I just think it would be fun to know how slow and weak I really am, and be able to more exactly track that. 
• A bunch of stuff for my train set. Yeah, I know, but I gotta do something when I'm not on my trainer in the winter.

Notes:

- Had a light night on the trainer last night. My legs were tired, so I listened to my body and got off the trainer after just 15 minutes. I'm doing a reverse brick tonight. 30 minute run then a 1 hour bike.

The Week of REALLY Awesome! (and a post full of lists)

If the week before last was "The Week of Awesome"; this is going to be the week of "REALLY Awesome". We have a ton going on, and it's going to be fun:

• Work was bad for a while there, but has improved. I'm expecting a good week, and am going in with a positive attitude (I find that helps a lot!)
• BU Women's Hockey (the team Rach is the Athletic Trainer for) gets to host their game for the first round of the NCAA Championship Saturday at 3.
• PAX East, the big video game conference here in Boston is Friday-Sunday. I have the day off on Friday to be at the conference, so I get a short work week to boot. Several friends are coming into town this week, with the notable exception of Chuck, who still owes me a certain singing video. (Ive not been on him about this because I owed him a couple game reviews til this past weekend)

This past week was also pretty good:

• I lost 3 pounds, and therefore put another $30 towards my donation total. Im down 6 pounds now, and I'm on track to hit the goal that should have me wearing my wetsuit comfortably by the end of April. 
• I've almost reached the 15% goal in fundraising. Still a long way to go, but lots of progress.
• I did 52 miles total workout last week, 3 bikes, 3 runs. I took 2 days off, and still had 6 workouts. No swim though. Gotta get on that. 

I'm still working on getting an official plan to follow for the rest of Half-Iron and Rev3 training. Right now, I'm just sort of ramping up mileage, throwing in bike intervals as I feel I have it in me. I've basically been listening to my body, going hard when I think I can, and occasionally when I know I can't (Shut up legs!)

It's going to be a busy week, but I have a plan for you guys:

• Tommorrow, I'm going to share with you some stuff I want. Not necessarily stuff I'll ever own, but stuff I'd love to buy if money grew on trees; or at least on 1 tree, and I owned that tree.
• Weds, A list of reasons why you should donate to my raffle (with hopefully a couple surprises)
• Thursday, we'll talk about how this triathlon season will be different from last year

You'll notice there's no Friday on the list. That's because I probably won't have a Friday post because of PAX East. 

Making the raffle more FLUID, and putting a new "Sheen" on things

There are some really great corporate citizens out there willing to step up and provide products for the raffle. Today, FLUID nutrition was kind enough to donate 2 of their 16 serving containers of recovery drink to add to the prize pack. They'll be shipping these directly to the winner; so if you win, you'll be able to choose from their chocolate, berry, or tropical flavors, or try two of the three. This takes the total value of the raffle prize package to over $700!!

If you haven't yet, I hope you'll consider donating, for a chance at a great prize that continues to grow. I have feelers out to a few more companies so this might not be the last announcement I get to make.

------------

You may have noticed there's been a small extra bit of crazy going around lately, emanating from the mind and mouth of Charlie Sheen. While his tirades are sadly the remains of a drug fueled multi-week bender, bi-polar disorder, or most likely both; much of what he's said lately has been down right hilarious. T-Shirt worthy even in some cases. In fact a few of them are things you'd swear came from a motivational speaker. Here are a few of my favorites:

We are High Priest Vatican Warlock Assassins!

I'm an F-18 bro, I will destroy you in the air and deploy my ordinance to the ground

I cured it with my brain

There are parts of me that are Dennis Hopper 

That last one might not sound like a motivational speaker, but it sure is funny. I could literally quote him almost all day, and he's only been speaking out like this for about a week. I just wish I could get wicking t-shirts with his slogans on them. I'd train in those every day.

------------

So, with all that out of the way, a little about me. I haven't had a single bad meal since Sunday, and I have worked out every day this week (including this one as soon I finish this post and hop on the bike). I almost didn't last night though; I waffled so hard I even tweeted I wasn't going to. But after I had a small dessert following dinner, it stuck with me all night, and at 11 PM I got dressed and headed out for a run. I've lost a couple pounds this week too, so tomorrows weigh in should mean a donation from me.

Notes:

- I know I'm still behind on updating my readers who write, but I promise I will no later than this weekend.

- Got another donation yesterday and with some work ones we'll be adding in the next few days, we're almost at 15% of our goal. Great work team, keep it up and most of all, thank you!

Thanks Steve!

First, this post is almost totally silly, and almost not at all triathlon related. 

Now, In this world, it's all about who you know. 

Need to draw attention to a little fundraising event? How about a re-tweet from the guy who founded the fund you're helping, and just so happens to also be the CEO of LIVESTRONG. 

Want to get people more interested in your prizes? Manage to get Apple to release their newest version of their visionary product with a TON of new features right as you give away a giftcard to help pay for it.

Alright, I admit, I didn't have any sway over Apple's timing of the announcement of the iPad2, but you gotta give me props for awesomely good timing. 

And with all the new features of the iPad2 (9x more powerful, lighter, thinner, new case, a bunch of other new features all at the same price), you gotta think Mr. Jobs was really just wanting to make sure there was something really good out there for the raffle winner to buy with the Apple gift card.

Now I just have to figure out a way to get myself an iPad2.

Notes:

- 30 minutes on the bike last night. My right thigh is sore, so it wasnt a super hard workout, but something between a spin and decent resistance.

How do you know you're an amateur triathlete?

Living the rock star life as I do, I often forget I am a mere amateur triathlete. While I am blessed with awesome connections (being Retweeted by the CEO of LIVESTRONG even got my cousin's attention on Twitter), my current meager racing skills limit me from reaching the top of the podium. Unless that podium is the chair I need to use to change the lightbulb in the closet. Which I sometimes pretend it is.

Always trying to be helpful, here are the ways I find I am reminded that I am an amateur triathlete:

• I'm finally putting my Learn Perl in 21 days and Spanish for Dummies books to good use; they're under the front wheel of my bike to keep it level on the trainer.
• My "official service course" (bike lingo for place your bike is fixed) is my own tool box
• Some athletes fight to get more aero(dynamic); I'm just struggling to get enough air.
• I need to gain speed to be Back of Pack
• Can I still consider it a brick workout if I have a 5 minute break between the bike and run to put the laundry in the dryer?
• Though several people have recognized me at races (it's not hard to notice someone moving that slowly), no one as of yet has asked me for an autograph.
• The team car NEVER shows up to change my flats.

I'm sure there are a great many other ways to be reminded you're an amateur triathlete (or any other type of athlete), feel free to share yours in the comments.

Speaking of that brick workout with the laundry break; that actually happened last night. I was really tired after a long day at work, and I've been trying to reduce my caffeine intake. Around 8 PM I gave in and had 6 ounces of Coke Zero so I could motivate myself enough to at least ride the trainer. I had a run scheduled, but I figured 30 minutes on the bike was better than nothing. Getting on the bike rejuvenated me; following the laundry stop in the basement, I put on my cold weather running gear and went outside for my run.

The chill isn't completely gone from the air here in New England, but 40 degrees at 10 PM is a lot better than 20 degrees like it was just a few weeks ago. There's still a lot of slick spots out there, but New Balance actually pays the city to keep the path clean on the Esplanade, and they've mostly done a good job of it. Even as temperatures dropped into the evening last night, the path was wet but not icy.

Notes:

- Some of my co-workers have been kind enough to indicate they'll be making donations towards TEAM FIGHT, which will hopefully show up in the next day or so.

- I am going to the pool tonight. I've been biking plenty, and the running is on schedule, but once a week in the pool is not enough.