Day 184: Good Gravy, 3000+ Feet!

Update: 205.2 lbs, 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. 7 lbs to 60 lb goal.

"The hills are alive...." with the sound of one big sweaty mexican trying to climb some hills. Or at least will be in about 59 days. That is roughly the time left until the LAF Challenge, which I just found out is gonna be tougher than I thought.

I was trying to find a route map for the Livestrong Challenge this morning and stumbled across a blog entitled 'Return to 100: Livestrong Challenge,' which had a posting about the elevation for the Portland ride. At least, I think it's about the Portland ride, but this guy clearly lives in California, and rode a challenge down there last year...but the elevation map says Portland on it. Anyway, I also went to the official site and saw that over a 15 mile stretch we'll be climbing 3000+ feet during the ride. Sweet Fancy Moses. I think the most I've ever climbed total before was about 1000 feet, and that was over twice the distance.

As I continued on reading Keijiro's blog, I found the post recalling his experience of last years ride. Gotta say, it gave me the sweats just a bit -- dehydration, cramping, medical teams telling him he may want to get on the bus and ride back -- everything I've worried about in the back of my head, not knowing what to fully expect from a 70 mile ride. Keep in mind, the longest I've gone before is 30 miles, and in the past 3 weeks I've only been on my bike about as many times due to Summer Golf Fest '07. I realize now I'm going to have to seriously man up and get back to training if I intend to come back alive, and with a sticker that says 'yes, hard to believe it, but Lopez actually finished all 70 miles.'

In my morning of terror as I read this version of the challenge, I sent a link over to the other half of the Flying Torellis, and Nick proceeded to tell me that it couldn't possibly be as bad as the time he had an impromptu army hike of 25 miles, unpreparedly in cotton socks that ended up being soaked in blood when he was done, with blisters "the size of potato chips." I didn't ask if he meant little Frito sized ones, or ginormous Wavy Lays sized ones...but in either case, it still sounded pretty brutal. His point was that somehow, someway, we'll dig down and gut it out, and live to tell the battle stories to anyone who will sit still long enough to listen. And I know we will, I just don't want my finish to look like something that only the producers of Everybody Loves Raymond would come up with, rather, I want it to look like some feature spotlight at the end of a SportsNight episode.

So, time for some serious training. Two months to go, I can do this! At least I think I can, and either way, it's gotta produce some good laughs for the future.

Hasta!

Day 182: Moving Again

Update: 205.2 lbs, 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. 7 lbs to 60 lb goal.

I'm sitting in Starbucks here in North Salem seeing how long I can just suck down the bandwidth before they kick me out. I had a meeting this morning, another one coming in a few, and possibly a third this afternoon. I don't think my brown butt can take these hard chairs for that long though, so I'm sure I'll bail before they have to ask me to leave

Well, it's been a touch and go kind of couple of weeks, but I can finally say we're moving again (and by 'we' I mean all four cheeks and a couple of chins), making forward progress. I'm down a pound today from my lowest previous point, weighing in at 205.2. Wow, that's like saying I'm just about 5 lbs away from 200...and man, that's gonna be cool.

We golfed with a client yesterday and after 18 he turned and said 'Go again?' Next thing you know, I'm teeing off on the number 1 hole for the second time that day. Let me just say, 36 holes of golf on 3 hours of sleep is a chore. I know the nay-sayers will come out saying I have nothing to complain about, and honestly, I'm not really complaining - just saying I was plenty beat by the end of the afternoon. I had hoped for a slim window to open up where I might be able to sneek in a nap, but I was on grill duty last night, and then we had to get out to pick apples, some really fragrant flowers and stop off at two different households to drop off our ill-gotten produce. By the time we got back, it was time for nighty night.

So, no golf today...gotta get some work done. I actually got out and did a quick loop today, which was amazing. The weather was perfect. My legs weren't too sore from riding the day before....heck, I hadn't ridden for most of the week before. Somehow, I'm going to need to get some miles logged though...September is coming quick, and I'll be at the starting line of the 70 miler with very little proper preparation.

That's it for me, gotta list a mile long to finish today. Tee time is 6:30 in the morning, so no time to dilly dally!

Hasta!

Day 180: Someone Back The Truck Up!

Update: 208.2 lbs, 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. 10 lbs to 60 lb goal.

Yeah, you read that right, I marched right back up to my 50 lb goal, and I'm not afraid to post it.

I'm not going to go on and on about this, because I know I end up leaving these guilt ridden posts behind, but let me just say that from last Monday forward, I have not been very diligent. I've not been logging all my calories, and just kind of ballparking it - mostly having good success, but also knowing that I had some pretty crazy food days in there. So rather than detail it all out, let me just give some highlights to the week that bumped me up two pounds from my lowest point so far:

Monday: Girls Enchilada Night - This wasn't for me, but after having just a few small pieces of pizza at Paddingtons with Greener, I then came home and proceeded to pound down a few churros, two cheese enchiladas, some lime frosted cookies, and an iced latte. And that was from around 9 to 1 in the morning.

Wednesday: Airport Day - Wasn't too bad, but we did stop at Chilis. Even though I ordered the Tilapia, I also had some Texas Fries off the girls plate, and then had some fries off of another plate, and half of a childs chocolate milk. Then got caught off guard with a surprise pizza night at church, so I had both Italian casserole AND a couple slices of pizza. Another day I put down too many calories.

Friday: Calamity Janes - I didn't order the 1 pound burger, but the Texas Tornado (or whatever it was that I ordered) with sausage and other fixin's on it, certainly wasn't a low calorie option. You can see some great pictures on Kristi's Random Thoughts page, and even see some more of the food we hurked down. I drank about half of one of the kids Oreo milkshakes and finished all of the burger and all of the fries on my plate. (That's C-dubs monstrosity at the top.)

Saturday: Leftovers - No real plan for the day so I ended up having frozen pizza and chips mixed in with birthday cake and other not-so-great things. I don't even remember...by Saturday it was all turning into a blur.

Sunday: Muffins and More Pizza - Those dang Costco muffins - 600 calories each. I think between the muffins from the birthday party, and the ones in class in the morning, I had 1200 calories in muffins alone. Then for dinner last night, more leftover frozen pizza, and some cucumbers. Yeah, I tried to do *something* healthy.

Today I'm back on track so far. If I can keep it up, I may just finish with some sort of normal day, and then hopefully can get back to a normal pattern again. Last week was easily the most ugly of my effort so far...and if I only go up two pounds out of it, I'll be ok with that.

Hasta.