Picture Pages N-1

If you like me are a child of the 70's and 80's you may remember a program called Picture Pages. Picture pages was a very short program that was part of Captain Kangaroo, and later other programs where you purchased an art book to follow along with the show. I remember fondly doing these puzzles and drawings, but being EXTREMELY disappointed pissed off (especially for a child) when the Mortimer Ichabod Marker that came with my book didn't make cool "space noises" like the one on TV did.

So what, you may be asking does this have to do with anything? Well, I'm going to be starting my own Picture Pages effective today. My Picture Pages will be a little different though, as they will literally be a page with pictures. Sometimes I get behind on posting photos related to previous events, and when they finally become available, it doesn't really make sense to go back and add them to the post.

First, a couple of shots of me at Paddy's. For a mid-October day, it was really quite warm. The thing that stands out to me the most is I look very fat in these pictures. It will be really interesting in a few months to be able to see the drastic difference in how I look running with the weight off.

My hair looks like it's exploding out the top of my visor

I simply loathe this picture. Fat everywhere.

And today's final picture: The long awaited picture of me on rollers. it was taken last week on the night I did 15 minutes for the first time. Compared to running, I don't mind how I look on a bike. I do need a way to get the fan higher as even on high at that height it doesn't do much to keep me cool. 

Getting somewhere by going nowhere

Notes:
- Last night I did Day 2 of Week 5 again. 5 walk, 8 run, 5 walk,  8 run, 5 walk. The best part is that I'm getting more out of the running sections. I did a bit over 2/3rds of a mile during both runs. I've got runs scheduled tomorrow night and Friday before Sunday's race, and I'm going to do Day 3 both times. If I complete it both times, it's on to Week 6 next week.

- Tonight, it's back to the rollers, and maybe a swim too, if I can fit it in around cleaning. 

An Award Winning Weekend

This morning: 321#; 22 pounds & 46 days to go. I went a tiny bit backwards over the weekend, which is obviously not the ideal situation. But for once I feel completely justified in the reason behind it.

This weekend was Wheelworks Multisport year-end party. We celebrated by getting together for food and drinks at a bar here in Boston. Other than the very occasional Friday evening beer while sitting on the couch watching hockey, I've been abstaining from alcohol. Not that I'm a big drinker when I got out anyways, but I like beer, and so it is something I sacrifice as part of the training and weight loss process. But this weekend was special as it was an opportunity to look back fondly on a season full of special events.

Most importantly, we got to do it with the people I've come to consider friends. Some of them we've trained with, some we've raced with, and some we just stood around, drank a beer and complained about how much training sucks with. But it's still great to see them, and having an opportunity to enjoy the year we spent together was nice. I also had a terrific Belgian white ale, the name of which I didn't learn. And did I mention there was cake? Normally I don't like raspberry, but whoever made this cake made it just right, and the chocolate cake combined with the raspberry filling was the perfect balance.

Now, that award I mentioned. We do team awards every year at the year end party. Some of them are serious, like our "Mr & Mrs. Triathlete" awards, or the awards for the folks who spend all year leading training rides. Some are less serious like our "Best Cheerleader", or "Person most likely to stop you from swimming the wrong way across Walden Pond". Though it was rumored (and for once, it was not rumored just by me) that I was nominated for multiple awards; the club was kind enough to give me "Most comfortable in their own skin" award.

I believe this is the inaugural year for this award. It was given in recognition of being out there, racing at my current level of fitness and well, fatness. Apparently, they think it takes courage to race at the size I am. And I agree, it does take some courage to toe the start line, at any weight. Every athlete who dares themselves to train, to push themselves outside of their comfort zone, and to give everything inside them on race day to realize the goals they train for is someone with courage and dedication.

I will admit that to race at my size you have to make an agreement with yourself that you might not be suffering the most, but you might be suffering the longest. I think it does take some courage to make that bargain. But to be completely honest, I'm fueled far more by fear than by courage. Fear of being this fat for the rest of my life. Fear of health problems that either impede me from enjoying my later years, or worse maybe even killing me. Rachelle is already 13 years younger than me, and women outlive men by about 5 years on average here in the US. I might not be able to do anything about the age difference, or our genetic pre-dispositions to reach a certain age. But I'll be damned if I'm making her go through 18 years at the end of her life without me.

I was really honored to receive any award, let alone one that was so personal. A nice cap to my year. Now, back to training for next year.

Notes:

- While I ate and drank in celebration on Saturday night, I didn't throw away the whole weekend. I took Friday as a recovery day, as my legs have REALLY been feeling my return to exercise since being sick. Saturday afternoon, I got my front wheel fixed and got out on the Esplanade. I have to say I think the roller workouts are paying off already. I did almost 40 minutes of pedaling time in a 50 minute workout, and averaged over 15 MPH. There are a lot of starts and stops, and places where you have to slow due to road crossings, path congestion, etc. Usually, we'd average around 13.5 for an interval of that size. I was able to get to cruising speed much faster, and was spinning my way out of my middle chain ring. I wound up spending the majority of the ride in my big ring, even when on the short inclines. Cruising speed was around 17 MPH, and felt pretty easy.

- Sunday, I went back to day one of week five of my Couch to 5k plan. I'll be running that same workout this evening, and then moving through the rest of the weeks plan to finish with a 25 minute run on Friday. This coming Sunday Rach and I are racing the America's Hometown Thanksgiving 5k in Plymouth. This is the race where I set my PR last year, and I'm hopeful to better that time this year on a fast and flat track.

- In other news, I have volunteered to join the club board as the person responsible for PR and Media. I'm not sure what the position fully entails, as it's a new position. I'll be helping with the sponsorship newsletter, and maybe getting notice out to outlets on club events. It'll be nice to give back in a way I am easily comfortable with.

- Oh, and I still have pictures to post of me on the rollers. And somehow the title of this post doesn't mention rollers.

I will not mention rollers in this title... oops

Just notes on a busy day:

- Comments should now be working. The new template was a little grumpy about them and is currently set to use a pop-up to enter them. I prefer inline comments. Remind me why i changed the template again? *sigh*

- Im down to 318.0. 19 pounds, 50 days. I don't know how my math was screwed up previously. 19 days left in November, 31 days in December = 50.

- Last night I did almost 15 minutes on the rollers. I learned the fan needs to be on a chair, and the speed needs to be set higher than "low". Without those two aspects, it isn't very helpful. It's still hard but I'm getting stronger. Once I'm actually using the fan effectively, I'll probably be able to keep cool enough to go longer.

- Looks like our November run schedule is being dropped down to just the America's Hometown Thanksgiving 5k. Rach has practice Thanksgiving morning, which eliminates both of the races we were considering for that day.

Rolling away

Can you believe I am still milking the fact that I am using my rollers for cheesy titles? Seriously, even I am amazed at the length of time I am able to beat this dead horse. While I am hysterically historically known for my ability to draw at least a smile from my wry and witty awful puns, this is really pushing it.

Last night I got back on the rollers as my first workout following my weekend of cold recovery. I'm now up to about 10 minutes of being able to keep my balance while riding the rollers straight through before I need a break. By need a break, of course I mean am drenched in sweat and am wobbling all over the rollers.

I reached out to the fine folks in the Clydesdale section of Bike Forums with the question as to why riding the rollers is so challenging. I completed a 56 mile ride this fall, certainly I shouldnt be working so hard to ride just 10 minutes. I was informed of a few things that made obvious sense, but that I hadn't really stopped to think about.

- Rollers require you to pedal constantly for motion and to maintain balance. When we ride our bikes on roads, once we get enough momentum, we can mix in some coasting time, especially on extended flats or downhills. I know I've done it in every race, and on a lot of training rides. I've been told I'll see a huge benefit from riding like this because it will build my pedaling endurance.

- When we ride, we're cooled by the air travelling around us. When on rollers, there is no air travelling around me. That means I get no relief from the mid 70's temperature of our apartment, and that's just the starting point. All the extra heat I generate has nowhere to go so it just builds around me. The BF folks suggested I put a fan in front of me (duh), which will also give me a focal point to ride towards.

- Being new to rollers, I'm nervous about my balance. Nervousness causes us to tense up as we ride, grip the bike tighter, clench abdominal muscles, etc. Spending time with the rollers will allow me to relax, relaxing will allow me to spend more time on the rollers. Sort of a catch 22/vicious circle there, but gutting through the nerves will eventually pay off.

The end result was that I rode for 10 minutes, sweated a ton, replenished with water, and woke up down 2 pounds from yesterday. This morning I started the day at 320.4, so I have 21.4 pounds to lose and 48 days in which to do it.

New look, same outlook

The past few days I've really made sure to take it easy and use the time to recover from being sick. I am finally feeling dramatically better today, and I am looking forward to getting back to working out tonight. I had planned to yesterday but still was really tired by the time I got home from work. So I made the decision to take one more day away from physical activity and went to bed early.

I haven't been wasting all of that time sitting around though. Much of that time I spent looking at new blog layouts, getting ready for next year. I found one I really like, and have implemented it. There are still a couple of the old features I need to re-add as well as some new ones I will be adding. In addition, the picture at the top is a placeholder until I can get the image I want ready.

I try not to spend too much time talking about the actual act of blogging, because it isn't something everyone cares about. But I know that many of my readers have their own sites, and take the time and effort to care for them. I'm probably a bit more involved with mine than some other folks are because I created web sites as part of making a living in the early and mid 90's.

I don't put the effort in to write much HTML anymore, but I do from time to time feel the site needs an upgrade. The changes this week were prompted by the fact that I'll have been blogging for a full year as of next Friday. Originally I was going to wait to unveil the new site until then, but I wanted to get all the kinks out and new features in place so that they'd all be ready by then.

While the look is changing a bit, my outlook hasn't I'm strong in my resolve to focus clearly on the path to the big races we're doing next season, and of doing those races as a thinner version of me. My eating of recent save one meal on Sunday has been very good since last week. And now that I'm feeling better, I'll be back into our off-season workout plan tonight.