Wow, has it been a month?

I can't believe that it has been a month since I've last updated. Well, there really isn't much new. I'm getting my 3 runs in a week but I'm stuck at 4.4 miles per week because I'm getting some pain down in my heel. I'm getting about 2-3 rides a week, but nothing really hard or long. It's OK though. Finally, I'm swimming 2 times per week at about 650yds each. My foot is feeling OK. My shoulder is feeling better as well. I think the bicipital tendonitis has cleared up, but I have some other painful adhesions in my shoulder. Oh, over the Christmas break, I've been taking yoga about 3 times per week. I've also completely lost track of my shoe mileage so I'm going to assume about 5 miles per week.

NB shoe mileage: 75 miles

Update

As usual, my boring update about me doing nearly nothing. I ran 4 miles last week which is getting better. I'm still having a bit of pain in the foot though. It seems more muscular than inflamed fascia though. My shoulder seems to be getting better as well. I was feeling a bit frustrated on Thursday so I went out and did a hard bike ride at lunch. I was high from that ride until Friday night which was great. I need to do more of those because lately when I get on the bike, or any workout in particular, I'm such a pussy about it. This is one thing that I know that I lack when I'm training by myself. I need to train with others to push me because it is going to be tough for me to do it on my own. And as I push myself, I get in better physical shape which makes me feel better. I'll get back to Texas Iron soon, though.

NB 1062 mileage: 49 miles

Shoe Mileage

Not much to say here. I'm trying to get back into a regular workout routine because the holiday pounds have already started creeping on to my stomach. I'm up to 196.5 on Friday. No more! I ran 3.7 miles this week with the longest run of about 1.5 miles. If I keep this up, I'll be at 15 mpw by the end of February.

NB 1062 milage: ~45 miles

Back hurts, crappy run

My back hurts. It is my lower back. I think my lax posture while sitting in my office chair is getting to me. It's been hurting for about 3 days now. Not good. I did go for a run this morning and it felt like my legs were made out of lead. Not a good run, but at least I was running and I ran 1.3 miles. This is the first week where I'm ramping up my running again. We'll see how my feet hold out.

NB mileage: 38 miles

Swimming

I'm swimming again. Well, kind of. I was in the water twice last week. I went to Big Stacey for a 20x33 on Tuesday and then Dick Nichols on Saturday for 25x25. My shoulder felt OK, but I had some aching in it since Friday when I did some weights. I see my PT today so I'm going to address that with him. The weird thing is that it doesn't seem to be the biceps tendon anymore and more towards the anterior deltoid. We'll get it taken care of, though.

I rode once, maybe twice last week. Luckily, I didn't have any flats! I did get 3x1 mile runs in last week. I was going to ramp one of those runs up to 1.3 miles but I didn't have my head in the game at the gym yesterday. This week is where I'll ramp it up more. I think I should be fine because I've been doing 3x1 mile pretty consistently the last few weeks and haven't had any heel pain issues. The only time I really have heel pain is when I'm on my feet a lot or when I wear dress shoes without my orthodics.

Two weight sessions were also done. That's about it for me last week.

Tire Issues

Well, I've had some tire issues recently. I don't know what the hell is up with my bike but I keep flatting. I flatted about once every other ride and decided that it was time to replace my tires. They were shot and in some parts, the rubber was completely worn throw so that the fabric underneath was showing. Not good at all. I replaced the rear tire and went for a ride 2 weeks ago. I flatted on my first ride on that tire. I checked it out and I had a pretty big slice in the tire and also a piece of wire piercing through it. The front tire had developed a leak in it or something because it would hold air for about 12 hours even if I replaced the tube in it. It wasn't as bad as the back tire but it was still bad. And while I was replacing a tube on the rear tire, I pinched a brand new tube so it had to come back off. Then, when I was riding today, I flatted about a mile and a quarter from my house on the rear tire. I seriously have no clue what the hell is going on. I'm going to try to go for a ride tomorrow for maybe an hour and I'm going to take 2 spare tubes and 2 CO2 cartridges as well.

Other than that, I was sick earlier in the week and didn't work out much. I ran yesterday morning and swam 20x33yds in Big Stacey. My PT wanted me to get into the pool. My shoulder felt OK. I strained my biceps tendon a few times but it wasn't that bad. My shoulder is getting better though. I can't wait to be back in a regular workout schedule. I can live without swimming, but I really want to get back to running. I'll get there.

NB 1062 mileage: 33 miles

Resigned

I've resigned to post only 1-2 times per week at this point. Not much is going on so not much to post. I got in a decent ride on Saturday and then a short ride on Sunday. The ride on Sunday was short because I got a flat tire. I'm sick of changing flats, damnit! This was a brand new tire, too. I think it is the area that I'm riding in (Circle C) and the residential streets have a lot of crap on the side of the road. I found a piece of glass and a small wire in my tire. I didn't have any CO2 so I had to call my roommate for SAG support. It wasn't bad because it was a gorgeous day outside that day and I just sat on the curb enjoying the breeze. Oh, I did go for a run that morning. And I did another last Wednesday which was incredible because it was about 58 degrees outside for the run. Those were my 2 runs last week. I did one on Monday as well as weights. My weigh in was 190.5 as well.

Eh, not much else is going on. Oh, I am done with my iontophoresis for my shoulder so that cuts down the number of times I have to see my PT. I don't mind seeing my PT, but when it takes 30 minutes there, an hour there, and then 30 minutes back, it takes up a lot of time every week.

NB 1062 mileage: 28.5 miles

Busy and stressed

I've been stressed lately because I've had so much to do. I don't have much time so it is tough to get my workouts in. When I don't get my workouts in, I get stressed. More stress causes me to sleep less. Lately, I've been waking up 1-3 hours before my alarm and unable to get back to sleep. To sleep, I need to workout more. See the problem?

Last week, I only ran twice and did my shoulder exercises twice. I really need to be doing these 3x per week at least. I think I did get 3 rides in though. I volunteered at the Longhorn 70.3 on Sunday. It was fun and it was nice to kind of help out but be a bit lazy as well. I drank beer and cheered people on.

My Monday weigh in was 193 which is crap, but I weighed in at 190.5 this morning. It was excess weight from drinking on Sunday.

NB 1062 mileage: 25.5 miles

Iontophoresis

I am currently learning about iontophoresis because I'm using it right now. My doc has me doing this some medication that I forget the name of but I'm pretty sure it is a NSAID on my left shoulder/biceps tendon. We'll see how it goes but I have to go by 3x/week to get this patch put on. It's pretty cool, though.

Other than that, I'm did bike rides on Tuesday and Thursday. I also ran twice this week for 1 mile at a time. My PT, Dr. Phil, wants me to cut back on the running since I said that my PF was acting up a bit when I was ramping up my running. That's fine with me because I want this fixed for good. I guess I'll do the 3x1mi for a few weeks and then start ramping up. I'm also doing some shoulder stuff as well. No swimming and no yoga currently. It sucks because I'm feeling a bit fat and lazy. However, yesterday I was feeling slim and I weighed in at 189 this morning so I am making progress that way.

NB 1062 mileage: 22.5 miles

Where was I?

Where was I? It's tough to update this when I'm not working out much. My morning weigh in was 190 which isn't bad considering I'm doing volume training only 3 days a week and I've been going out a decent amount lately. I rode on Thursday and Saturday this past week and ran 2 days. I'm up to 3.3 miles last week and then 3.7 this week. I'm also doing some PT exercises in the gym. Between the running, weights, and riding, my legs always feel dead and heavy. That'll change though. My foot is feeling much, much better. The problem is that I have some aching pain now that I'm running again. I don't know what's up with that. My shoulder is a lot better as well. And that's about all that I have to say for now. Oh, I did a 1 mile run around my neighborhood this morning but I'm going to count that towards last week's total.

NB 1062 mileage: 19.5 miles

Shoulder update: bicipital tendonitis

After having two MRIs, the first one without contrast and the second one with contrast, it is confirmed that I do not have a SLAP tear in my shoulder. I have a bad case of bicipital tendonitis. This is very good because surgery is required in only 5-10% of cases. I'm taking a conservative approach with it and treating it with PT and NSAIDs. I see Dr. Phil on Monday to start the PT stuff again and we'll go from there. I'm excited that surgery isn't required and I plan on being back in the water in January, hopefully.

Also, running is still going well.

NB 1062 mileage: 14.5 miles

I'm running again

I'm running again. Not far, only 1 miles 3 times a week, but I'm running again. I'm using my new orthotics and my feet feel much, much better. I get very little heel pain anymore, but I still do get it from time to time. We'll see how it goes but I'm actually pretty excited about this.

As for biking, I've been ramping it up a bit lately. I rode 3 times over the Labor Day Weekend so that was good. I got really burned on Wednesday during a lunchtime ride. I also saw a snake, too. Big one. Then, I got 2 rides in this weekend with a 3 hour on Saturday and then 1:45 easy today.

My shoulder is still a mess. I saw another doctor last week to get a 2nd opinion. He also doesn't think I have a SLAP tear, but I have really bad bicep tendonitis. This is better because it doesn't require surgery and 6 months of recovery. I'm imposing a self declared 3 month break from swimming. The last 4 times that I've swam since the Celestone shot, I've had my shoulder aching. It's time to give it a rest for awhile.

New Balance 1062 mileage: 10 miles

No surgery, yet

Well, I haven't updated this in awhile. I don't have to have shoulder surgery, yet. I saw a doc and he gave me a shot of Celestone into my shoulder. It felt great for about 30 minutes and then hurt like hell for the rest of the day. I'm glad that I asked what possible side effects were because I would've been freaking out otherwise. It seemed to be great after about 24 hours, but still didn't feel quite 100%. I went swimming about 6 days later. I got 600m in before it started hurting and then I had to call it quits about 1000m in. I went back into the water 3 days later and got 1800m so that was an improvement. I saw one of my team of physical therapists, Phil, and he gave me some exercises to do for my shoulder. He also gave me a 2nd ortho surgeon to see to get a 2nd opinion. I see them next week and we'll go from them. This shoulder has been bothering me for over 4 years now and if I can get it fixed with surgery, put me under the knife tomorrow.

I finally got my replacement orthodics after losing the last pair. I can start running again and I'm happy about that. Also, my PF seems to have gotten a lot better in the last month. I used to be able to stand on my feet for only an hour before it would hurt so bad that it would be sore for 2 days. Now, I have to be on my feet one and a half days before it starts to hurt and it doesn't hurt that bad when it does. Also, I've done a lot to strengthen my posterior tibialis muscle and that has done a lot to make sure that my foot strikes the ground better. It shows and I'm happy about that. I'm going to start running again. I've been off of it for over 8 months so I'm excited about being back into it.

Shoulder surgery

I got the results back from my MRI. It confirmed that I have a small SLAP tear. I'm trying to get in to the orthopedic surgeon next week for an eval with surgery hopefully the week after. I want to get this done!

Also, I'm having a blast watching the Olympics but it really cuts into my training, though. All I did yesterday was sit on the couch and watch TV. I actually got up and rode about 2 hours today so that was good and I'm feeling great now.

Hmmm, shoulder update

As I said earlier, I saw Dr. Phil today about my shoulder issues. Long story short is that he suspects that I have a SLAP tear and a posterior inferior impingement. To go forward with this, I need to confirm this with an MRI on Wednesday. Then, I see him on Friday and go forward from there. In some ways, I don't want surgery but in other ways, it'll be nice to know what is wrong with my shoulder and get it fixed. The last 8 months have been very frustrating because I want to swim hard and consistently but I haven't been able to. Right now I'm not to do anything that irritates it which basically means no yoga, no core workouts, no swimming, and no pushups.

Thursday was a weights day and a skipped bike workout. I was tired from work since I was on my feet all day long. Nothing today and then I have some biking to do this weekend. Friday's weigh in was 188 so that's good. I was down 2 lbs but that was entirely from this past week. I'm getting back on track though. Well, until I go under the knife.

Midweek Update

Not much to add, here. Yeah, I know that I've been boring lately but there really isn't much going on since I'm not racing this year. Monday was a core workout where my shoulder was killing me by the end of it. Tuesday was a lunchtime bike ride. It was actually pretty pleasant that day. I decided to ride at lunch when it was only 90 degrees versus doing the Tuesday Nighter when it would have been 100 degrees. Wednesday was a decent swim. I felt pretty good and my shoulder wasn't giving me too much grief. Speaking of, I'm going to see Dr. Phil on Friday about my shoulder so hopefully I won't be bitching about it so much soon.

I Crashed

I did the Tuesday Nighter on Tuesday night. And I crashed. I got dropped pretty quickly but I lasted more than 2 minutes than I did the week before. I got passed by a guy and I was feeling decent so I was going to pass him back. I was going to go around a right hand turn since I like taking RHT aggressively. As I was making the turn, I spied a huge truck coming up the opposite lane. I hit my brakes and I must have hit them too hard because I hit the pavement. I think I hit my back brakes and put too much pressure on my right handlebars. This twisted my front end to the right and I end ed up falling over the the left. That was lucky because I just got my bike back 3 days earlier from a fucked up derailleur. I remember being almost completely on the top of my head and looking up at the sky with my feet in the air. I got up and was mostly OK. My left hamstring hurt like hell and my left ankle was bleeding. And to add insult to injury, I got a flat as well.

I pulled off to the side, changed my tire and went on gingerly. I swam on Wednesday night and was only able to do 100yds. I hurt my groin in the wreck and every stroke I took caused all of my muscles to flex and it hurt like hell. That was after weights at lunch. Thursday was yoga, Friday was off, and Saturday was a 2400m swim.

Today was a pretty big day. I did a 1:50 ride from my house. It was windy but the weather was actually almost pleasant. Also, I felt like crap for the first 30 minutes but after that, I almost felt athletic again. I should be feeling great in about 2 weeks of consistent training. In the afternoon, I did yoga and felt great at yoga as well.

Oh, Friday's weigh in was 188.

2 hour ride

I got a 2 hour ride in yesterday. I meant to go only 1.5 hours but I had a route in mind that took me 2 hours. This was after a 2600m swim in the morning where my shoulder wasn't acting up that much. Saturday was a lazy day because my 1 hour nap lasted from 2:00pm until 6:30pm. The new Batman movie kicks ass though. Friday was weights with a 1.25 hour bike ride on Thursday where I discovered that Southwest Parkway has been covered in the hellacious road surface known as chip seal. That sucks.

Weigh in this morning was 189.5 but I made some of my cookies last night so I doubt that that'll stick tomorrow morning. Sophia is back from the shop and is ready to ride with 3 bottle cages as well. I'm going to be trying to do more volume for the land cardio instead of pussing out with a 1:15 bike ride on Tuesdays.

I'm rambling now so I'll just end it here.

Swimming with one arm

I swam on Saturday morning and my shoulder was acting up. This is frustrating because the pain in my shoulder keeps moving around. I'm really going to start getting some PT done on it to get it better. I figured something out on Saturday though. I figured out a way to get to swim without hurting my shoulder too much. If I'm doing an interval at 90%, my right arm is going at 90% but my left arm is going only at 40-50%. My left arm just goes through the motions without adding much forward motion to it. I make up for it by kicking more which makes my coaches happy. After that was a 1.25 hour bike ride with Texas Iron.

Sunday was the Couples Tri. Long story short is that I showed up to do parking, but I ended up coordinating the entire run course and was one of the last people to leave. It was fun, though, and I've never done anything like that before. I think I did well.

Monday was a 190 weigh in with a core workout after work and then a 2500m swim after that. I think that doing a core/weights workout immediately before a swim workout with a bum shoulder is a very, very bad idea and I'm not going to do it for awhile.

Tuesday was a Tuesday nighter ride where I felt horrible and I was dropped by the B pack in under 2 minutes and I'm not even joking at all. It felt good to get on the bike though. I need to get Fiona tuned up though because she's very noisy when I ride her but Sophia needs to go into the shop which is going to happen today.

Today was a weight session at lunch and then the Couples Tri volunteer party tonight. Should be fun.

My left foot is feeling better. It has been sore the last few days because I was on my feet a lot on Sunday which made it sore. I really thought it was getting better but it felt better because I haven't tested it out much. I see a PT next week and I should have my replacement orthotics by then as well.

I'm partially back on the wagon

The last few days included a weight room session on Wednesday, a 2500m swim on Wednesday night, and a 1:15 bike ride on Thursday night. However, my weight was 189.5 this morning. Ugh. Go down, damnit! I think I'm pretty well back on a routine again because I'm trying to work everything else around workouts. I've learned in the past that I can't just jump into doing doubles every day because that is one sure way to get me sick and burned out really quickly. I'm trying to ease back into it. I have noticed that my appetite is up a lot this week as well.

I don't know if I mentioned it or not here already but my brand new orthotics that I received about a month ago were lost within 2 weeks. I left that next to a pool in my shoes when I was in Atlanta and they weren't there the next day. Sucks because I haven't run during this entire time. I should be getting new ones next week hopefully but we'll see about that. Also my AC went out yesterday and the temp in the house when I want to bed was 86 degrees. Not fun at all. I actually wanted to go to work this morning because it has nice AC there.

Tuesday Update

After being off of work for a week without access to a gym and working out maybe 3 times in 9 days, I'm back into it. I went to the gym yesterday followed by a core workout where I really pushed myself a bit. I was amazed that I was able to do the top half/bottom half pushups where I did 10 bottom halves fine. I wasn't able to do more than 1-2 bottom halves about a month ago. I was really concentrated on my lower back strength because that is figuratively and literally a weak spot on me. I weighed in at 190.5 in the morning but 189 today. No working out for me today because my bike ride was rained out.

Better luck next month

Like May, I had a crappy month of training and I ended up putting on about 4 lbs for the month. I finished at 189 and I need to get back into things. I went for a core workout on Monday, a bike ride on Tuesday, swimming tonight, and plan on another bike ride tomorrow. I've just had stuff come up. I need to get back into a routine and stick with it. I'm feeling very slothenly at the moment.

I ran 1 mile and I'm sore

I ran 1 mile yesterday at my PT visit and I'm sore today. I guess that is what taking 6 months off of running will do to you. My quads are feeling it the most but my ankles and shins are a bit sore as well. It felt good to run though. I'm still having heel pain but with my orthodics and some neuromuscular and mechanics work, my PT thinks I can start to run while letting my heel heal at the same time. I was on my feet a lot the last 2 days and my heel wasn't hurting as much because of me thinking about modifying my mechanics. I think I'm on the right path!

I weighed in at 184 on Friday and then 185.5 on Monday. Sucks, but I'm still 14 pounds down on where I was in January. I rode for about 2 hours nice and easy which was fine. This weekend, I want to go a bit harder though. I also put in about 2200m in the pool on Sunday. My shoulder was fine. I didn't loose that much speed, but I did lose a lot of endurance. It felt really good though and I'll get the endurance back soon enough. I'm going to shoot for about 2 swims per week and keep lifting weights for my shoulder.

Bad May

I had a pretty bad month exercise wise. My left shoulder started acting up again which prevented me from swimming for most of the month. However, the gym at work opened back up and I've been doing exercises to strengthen it. I just didn't work out that much the entire month and my lack of weight loss showed it. I was pretty much flat the entire month fluctuating between 185 and 187. I'm trying to buckle down, eat less crap, and exercise more. I actually ate pretty well this month but it was the exercising that I've been negligent at lately. I've been working on the house on the weekends and during the week it has just been hot after work. Riding isn't bad but it still isn't comfortable. Oh, my bike is screwed up at the moment as well. It is in my car right now and it is going to the shop after work today. Something is wrong with the headset and it doesn't like to turn very well. Not good. I'll get it fixed and be riding next weekend though or use Fiona instead.

Summer is here

Well, summer arrived this week in Austin. That means that it'll be at least 90 degrees every day until early October. I skipped my ride on Tuesday because I didn't have any sunscreen but the high temp of 99 for the day wasn't encouraging. I did the J&A core workout on Monday and Wednesday and it wasn't that bad being in the heat. My cardio for the las few weeks has been lagging but I've been really good about working on strength. I've been to 3 of the last 4 core workouts and I'm getting in the gym 2-3 times a week. My core strength has improved dramatically recently and the core workouts aren't that challenging anymore. I still have a few things to work out though. I got about 1000 yards in last night at the pool. I was just testing out my shoulder. My lats were wanting to go fast, but my shoulder wasn't. I'm going to take about 2 weeks off of swimming and really work on the shoulder stuff before I get back in the pool. It's really frustrating because I was making some great progress in the water and now I have to fight to get some of it back.

Long Time No Update

Well, it's been 2 weeks since I lasted updated. There hasn't been much going on during that time. My foot is still hurting from the PF but it is slowly getting better. My shoulder is hurting again but since the gym at work is open again I'm strengthening it and it is getting better as well. I haven't been on the bike that much lately because I've had other things going on such as finishing up class last semester (I got an A in anatomy) and working on getting a new job as well. Seriously, not much else is new. I've been a bit lazy the last 2 weeks but I'm getting back into it now. Oh, I'm also down to 185 as of this morning and that's good considering the lack of exercise the last 2 weeks.

How are you doing?

I ate too much food

I think that's a good sign that I ate too much food. My incredibly awesome administrative assistant came back from being off of work for about 2 months due to some neck issues. She ended up having her C4-C6 fused because the disks degenerated as well as having some bone spurs growing into her spinal cord. Anyways, she's much better and some of the other women around work made her all kinds of goodies as a welcoming back breakfast. She had leftovers by her cube and I ate way too much. In reality, I didn't each that much, but I was absolutely stuffed and I still am! I ate at 9am this morning and I don't want any more food for awhile. That's a big change for me because I can be stuffed and about 2 hours later, I'll get hungry again.

The gym at work opened up again today. Not all of the equipment is there though so the stuff that I need to do my PT exercises wasn't available. I think I did pretty good and making up for it though. What surprised me was how weak my erector spinae have become. I started out with 10lbs of 20 reps and my back was on fire after that and I was struggling to make the last 5 or 6 of them. I used to do 3x25 with 25lbs no problem! Holy shit, I need to be doing more core stuff! This was definitely a wake up call.

It's not because I'm lazy. . .

It's not because I'm lazy, because I don't think I am, but I've been suffering from a lack of motivation or discipline or whatever you want to call it lately. I haven't worked out since Tuesday when I did the Tuesday Nighter. Wednesday was off, Thursday was a missed bike ride because I just didn't feel like it, Friday was missed yoga due to happy hour, Saturday was because I wanted to play with my new phone and Sunday was because I needed to do things around the house. It isn't like I'm overtrained or anything like that, but I just can't seem to get the motivation to work up a sweat anymore. I need to get back on the horse and hopefully something will kick me in the ass soon to get me going.

Monthly Weight Loss Update

Well, 1 month ago today I weighed in at 190. This morning, I weighed in at 185.5. I lost about 4.5 pounds in April which is good, but it could've been better. I went from 190 on April 1st down to 186 on April 10th. Since then, my weight has been fluctuating between 186 and 189 from eating crap, drinking even more crap, and not exercising as much as I should. However, April showers bring May flowers or some shit like that, right? Well, this month I'm going to blossum and get down to 180 by the end of the month. I've gained the discipline to get my weight down and my gym is now open so that I can strengthen my shoulder and my left calf so that I can swim and run more.

Oh, speaking of my leg, I was cast for new orthodics yesterday and I should get them in 2-3 weeks. They are expensive, but I need them. To be a bit more specific, I have a tibial varum of my right leg and a bad forefoot varus of the left foot. With the forefoot varus, what is suppose to happen is your heel and forefoot are both to be on the ground at the same time in a certain alignment. I don't have that alignment. If my heel is on the ground properly, then I'm walking on the outside of my foot with my first metatarsal barely touching the ground if at all. If my forefoot is on the ground properly, I have a severe calcaneal eversion which makes me put a lot of pressure on the medial side of my heel which is what is causing my PF issues. It is good to know this because I can be conscious of it and do things to help out. I'll probably always have to have orthodics though because it is very unlikely that my foot will reform into a better shape. That's about $400/yr I have to spend on orthodics but I need to be able to run without pain.

LT Workout For Sure

I did the Tuesday Nighter and I actually was there on time. The B pack left and I was quite surprised. I was able to hold onto the pack for a full 2 laps. Most of the time I barely make 1/3 of a lap. I just have to say that it is really cool doing 25-30mph in a pack of 20 people about 1' from each other. It's fun as hell. My heart rate was 152 bpm or higher for about 55% of the time with a max of 178bpm. At one point it was a bit crazy because someone passed me on the left going around a left hand turn. Well, they brushed my shoulder and I ended up getting a bit squirrely. I thought I was going to completely bite it, but I didn't and was able to keep the rubber side down. Everyone else started yelling at this guy because he shouldn't have done that. It was fun and hopefully I'll have a good ride next week as well.

Taking a break from Texas Iron and falling off the wagon

I've fallen off the weight loss wagon lately. I was at 186 about two Fridays ago. This morning, I was 188 or so. This past weekend and the weekend before was a bit too much food, a bit too much beer, and not enough exercise. I'm getting back on it though. Well, I'm trying and I'll try to be around 180 by the end of May. I was on track to be 184 by the end of April but that isn't going to happen without some colon cleansing.

I'm taking a break from Texas Iron for awhile. The main reason why I'm doing Texas Iron is tie all the workouts together to get something more out of my workouts. I can do 3 swims, 3 bikes, and 3 runs a week. Doing the correct workouts is what I'm really trying to get out of it, but right now all that I'm doing is 2 swims and 3 bikes a week. If I'm not getting that much out of it, I can't justify the $75/month. I'll be back at some point once I'm running fully again. Hopefully it'll only be a month, but it could be as much as 6 months.

On the other hand, my PF is getting a bit better. Dr. Phil thinks I have some calcaneal eversion and wants to modify my orthodics to fix it a bit. I also have some tough ass exercises such as doing exercises for my posterior tibialis with 50lbs and my peroneals with 60lbs.

Other than that, not much else to add. I'm swimming twice a week because of my shoulder, but my biking is getting decent. I did the Taco Ride on Saturday and I did it under 1:30 which is the fastest time I've ever done that ride. My heart rate was 153bpm or above for 63% of the time. I was booking it.

Yep, that's about it. I just don't have much else to add at the moment.

Change in plans for exercising

Lately, I've been doubling up my workouts during the week. Monday will be off, Tuesday will be a swim and a bike, Wednesday will be off, Thursday will be a swim and a bike, and Friday will be off again. The weekend gets whatever I feel like but it is usually a swim and a 2 hour bike ride. Next week, I'm going to bike on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and then swim on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday morning. I keep having days where I work out a lot and need to eat a lot followed by days where I don't do any exercise and therefore my caloric intake is down those days as well. I think it is causing a bit too much of a difference in my energy levels and I'm going to try to even it out a bit and see how I feel.

The reason for this is that my workouts on Thursday were crap because I felt like I had absolutely no energy that day. My sleep has been off a bit between work and school and the biggest change is my diet and I'm dropping weight pretty quickly now. I'm down to 186 as of this morning and that is about 14 pounds off of my high of around 200 over the winter, but I need to slow it down for a while. It's starting to affect my training and that isn't good.

Tuesday was a decent swim in the morning with a Tuesday Nighter later that day. The thing about the Tuesday Nighter was that it was my 3rd one that I've been to, but I've participated in only 1 of them. The last 2 times I've showed up late riding from work. Wednesday was off and Thursday was a lazy swim in the morning and then a Texas Iron bike ride after work. We did some hill repeats and this is where I really didn't have the energy to get up the hills quickly. I ascended pretty fast, but I still felt like crap.

I had my orthodics adjusted this week and my heel is feeling much, much better now. The incidences of pain that I had where I was walking around are about 80-90% gone, but the heel is still sensitive to touch. It is getting better and I really want to run again soon.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The good stuff is that I took it pretty light this past weekend. My weigh in on Friday was 186.5, Monday was 188.5, but today I was back down to 187. I had a decent swim on Sunday morning and this morning.

The bad stuff was that I went 19:36 at the time trial on Thursday night and the last 3 times were 19:37, 19:39, and 19:45. I can't get much faster no matter what the conditions. Other than that, I didn't ride my bike the rest of the weekend partly because of The Ugly.

The ugly stuff was that as I was warming up for the time trial, I came --> <-- this close to getting hit by a car. I've been buzzed before but I ended up on the ground this time. I was barreling down Mopac for the warmup and there is a part where cars cut across to get to the tennis club. Someone went in front of me and I thought it was a bit too close. The person behind them was a complete idiot. They started, saw me and stopped. Not a problem until they decided that they could make it in front of me and started going again when I was doing about 28mph. Luckily, they stopped the second time without running me over but it was very close. I had to turn to the right or I would've hit their front bumper. I was in this mess of trying to stop, turn, get out of my pedals, trying bailing and trying to not bail at the same time. I got past the car and hit the ground. I got up immediately just in time to see the car drive off without stopping to check to see if I was OK. I have some nice bruises, I was mentally rattled a bit, and I have some scratches on my bike. I was pissed but lucky as well and now I don't want to talk about this anymore except for the fact that by the end of this weekend, there will be a Please Be Kind To Cyclist sign at that intersection.

Whoa, doggie!

Did the Tuesday Nighter again last night. I don't know what was up with me, but it felt like I was doing a cyclocross race. I had absolutely no energy riding out there and because of that, I ended up being late and riding by myself. I started feeling better the last half of the ride, but I'm still perplexed at what happened. Maybe my nutrition was off for some reason. It was hot but not that hot. Anyways, on the way back in, I put my head down and just kept pedaling. At one point, I looked up and there was this dog sauntering out into the road. When I got closer, it started coming after me and I had to pedal really quickly to get past him. I didn't know if he wanted to run alongside me or tip me over and eat my face. Either way, I used the adrenaline rush to get the hell out of there.

I swam 2800 yds this morning. I took it pretty easy to see how my shoulder reacted and it wasn't bad at all. It was good to get a nice, easy swim in where I work on form a bit. That's it for the last 2 days.

188!

My weigh in this morning was 188. After my weigh in of 189 on Friday, that means I'm officially no longer above 190. And I've lost 10 pounds since about February 8th. I'm almost back to my race of 187 before I did the Longhorn half last year. I think I have it figured out again and I think sub-180 is pretty doable at this point. It's only 8 more pounds and I've lost 10 so far. Should be cake, right? The biggest thing that I've done is just watch my calorie intake. I've reduced the candy and other sweets that I munch on at work by about 80%. Another trick that I've learned is that if I come home from class and I'm going to be going to bed within an hour for whatever reason, I'll just have a cup of cottage cheese for dinner. Yes, I know, but I don't mind it and a cup of it is enough to fill me up. I could load up on a normal dinner, but I keep hearing that if you eat right before you go to bed, it isn't that good for you if you are trying to lose weight. I'm eating a lot more fruit as well. I'm finally seeing some progress and it feels rewarding. Finally, if your doc says to avoid the sun because the antibiotics you are taking will make you sensitive to the sun, they really mean it!

I was a dirty, dirty boy

I took a shower earlier today at about 5:30pm and it was my first shower since Friday morning. Yeah, I know it's gross. I didn't shower on Saturday because I was working in the yard all day long and I was going to go out with one of my friends later that day and I was going to shower before that. He bailed on me so I lazily sat on the couch until I nearly passed out. I went straight to bed and got up this morning to swim of about 2000m. My shoulder was acting up a bit which wasn't a good sign. After that was about a 1:45 bike ride. It was an absolutely gorgeous day today as well. Not a cloud in the sky and about 75 degrees. Nearly perfect except for the wind. After the bike ride was some more yard work and it was a perfect day for that as well. Then, it was time for a shower where I shaved my head, my legs, and my face of which all of them were badly in need of a shave. I'm exhausted at this point and I'm looking forward to 9 hours of sleep tonight and a rest day tomorrow.

Lazy on updates

I've been lazy about updates this week so let's do my usual quick recap. Monday was a rest day. Tuesday was a swim in the morning with T3. I only did about 2500m that morning. My upper body was feeling fatigued from the 3 tough swims last week. I had a great week of swimming last week, but I decided to make this a rest week a bit. On Tuesday night, I did the Tuesday Nighter unofficial bike race. I did the B pack and I was dropped after a lap. It was quite humbling. I rode out there from work and I got about 1:15 in the saddle. Wednesday was a weight session. Thursday was a workout at Steiner Ranch with Texas Iron. Everyone else did a brick workout but I did a pure bike workout and got about 55 minutes of riding in. It wasn't easy because we did a major hill climb on 620. Friday was suppose to be a swim in the morning but as I was driving out, I was seeing lightning. There's nothing worse than getting in the water, swimming 200m, and then getting out due to lightening. I decided to turn around and head into work. I arrived at about 5:30am. I also skipped a weight lifting sessions because work got in the way. What else? My Monday weigh in was 190 and my Friday weigh in was 189. I had an OK training week. I got some tough bike rides in but I slacked on swimming and weights a bit. I'll try to be more consistent next week.

I got my bike ride in!

I'm just going to recap today. I swam my lats off in the morning with a swim. I'm still surprised that I was able to hold those paces for that 8x100m. I'm starting to put some things together about using my lats more and stacking my hips when I swim. It's progress and it feels good. I then took a 3 hour nap that felt great. After that, I went for a 2:10 bike ride. BTW, I'm a bit grumpy when I wake up from naps and it takes awhile for me to get going. The first 30 minutes of the bike ride reflected this. It was a bit of a harder bike ride with my heart rate in the 140-150bpm for the entire time. That isn't super hard, but it's harder than what I've been doing and my heart rate was pretty consistently in that range. Also, my legs were pushing it almost the entire time. After that, I came home and did about 3 hours of yard work. Yard work is enjoyable, but it is exhausting. I mowed, put some sod down, and then put down fertilizer, fungicide, and bug treatment. For dinner, I went to Zen because I was starving and didn't want to wait for dinner to be made. Now, I'm sitting my butt on the couch, icing my foot, and watching The Girls Next Door which is one of the best TV shows ever!

Overall, I had a great day.

The Weather Man Sucks!

The weather man sucks! He's almost always wrong and he ruined my workouts this weekend. I went to swim this morning and I had a great swim. At one point, we did 8x100m on a 1:55 interval. I did the first one in 1:30 and all of them were 1:34 or lower. That's awesome! Afterwards, I wanted to go for a 2 hour bike ride, but it is raining. The only other thing that I'm suppose to do today is some yard work. However, I can't do that when it is raining as well. The forecast yesterday said there was a very small chance of rain. I'm going to take a nap (yay, naps!) and hopefully it'll dry up so I get go on a bike ride and do some yard work.

I didn't get a workout in yesterday. I was about to go on a ride, but it was 58 degrees. That's a bit too cold for me and I was going to be miserable. I ditched the ride and was going to do it today, but the rain issue came up.

Friday was a weight lifting session and a 1:15 bike ride. My weigh in was 190 on Friday morning. My foot is still bothering me. I'm about to try wearing an air cast to see if it'll help me heel get better. Well, it's nap time for me now.

Great Swim, Lazy Bike Ride, Part II

Yep, I pretty much had a copy of my workouts on Tuesday. I swam in the morning and I actually had a pretty good swim. I lifted weights yesterday and I could feel my muscles feeling a bit better today. My shoulder wasn't as wonky. The main set of the workout was a 600m swim. I was able to do it in about 10:06 which is about 1:40/100m pace.

The afternoon workout was a bike ride with Texas Iron. Everyone else did a transition workout at Barton Springs. However, it wasn't a good workout for me. I just did some 1 mile loops after a 20min warm up. It sucked and I didn't feel like I did much of a workout today at all. I tried to do one mount/dismount but as soon as I dismounted and started walking across the parking lot bare foot, I stepped on a rock with my left heel. That is the one that is hurt right now and it was quite painful. I decided to not do that again. I'm grumpy now.

Great Swim, Lazy Bike Ride

Well, that was my workout summary for yesterday. I had a great swim in the morning with T3. It was early but I made it there. After getting pissed off at my usually Tuesday meeting that pisses me off, I went for a bike ride. It wasn't a great bike ride for many reasons but the main reason was because of the wind. I estimate that I had a 20mph or so wind pretty much the entire ride but sometimes it was coming at my straight on, sometimes it was a crosswind, and sometimes it was a tailwind. That made the ride very difficult because the crosswinds would blow me all over the place and I couldn't get into aero because of that. When I had a tailwind, I would be in a 53-12 pedaling and my heart rate would be low. Headwinds are just miserable. I did get out for about 1:10. I have weights today and then a rough repeat of Tuesday's workout on Thursday and I'll definitely have 2 good workouts that day.

I want to run!

I want to run so badly right now! However, this damn foot is still holding me back. I may try to start running again next weekend because I think I found the magic bullet to this issue. I have a Dorsi Wedge that I've used in the past. It's kind of cumbersome sleeping in it though. I've been sleeping with it on every night for the last 4 nights and my foot feels great today. Absolutely fantastic. I'm going to get in the habit of sleeping with it every night to get this cleared up really quickly. Between this, the exercise, and my orthodics, I think I have this thing nailed. The only thing that Laurie tells me is that she doesn't want me running until my heel pain is gone. I want to run, damnit, so I'm going to do everything that I can to get rid of this now. The only other symptoms that I have is that my heel is sore when I'm on my feet all day long.

This past weekend wasn't much. I did a 1:45 hour ride on Saturday and then a good swim practice on Sunday. I went to go do yoga on Sunday, but it was closed for some sort of religious holiday or something like that. My weigh in this morning was 191. Damnit! On a good note, I did have a good swim on Sunday morning. After feeling like crap on Thursday morning, I've been building myself up mentally since then for a good swim on Sunday and it was successful. The interesting thing to note was at the end of the workout, we had to do 6x100m fast on an interval. My times for the first 4 were 1:34, 1:35, 1:37, 1:35. Mo told me to stack my hips more when I was swimming since I was getting tired. I followed his advice and the next two 100m intervals were 1:31 and 1:32. Not bad at all.

Hard bike ride with Texas Iron

I had a hard bike ride with Texas Iron last night. We did the Shoal Creek loop. Most of the others did a brick workout but since I'm not running at the moment, I just did a bike ride. I did 4 loops and each one was in the 9:28-9:38 range so I was pretty consistent. My heart rate was in the 160-165 range for each one with a few spikes and drops in there as well. My LT isn't high enough at the moment to push 170bpm or higher for nearly 10 minutes. Even doing 170+ for 4 minutes kills me at the moment. I'll break through that pretty soon though.

Yesterday morning was a horrible swim. I just felt completely off and uncoordinated. Chrissie said that my stroke looked fine, but I felt horrible. I cut it short after about 2600m. Here is the thing that. I really wanted to have a good, strong swim workout.

I didn't work out on Tuesday or Wednesday due to my anatomy lab test which kicked me butt. I don't know the score yet. Also, I blanked out and realized this morning that I misidentified the cerebellum. How the hell could I do that?

My weigh in this morning was 190 even without working out 2 days this week. Woohoo! I was hoping to break through the 190 barrier but I guess a weekend of spinach and rice cakes will get me there on Monday.

Done by 7:48am

Well, my workouts are done for the day. I'm sitting at work munching on breakfast and my workouts are finished. That's a nice feeling. I got up at 4:15 this morning to go swim. Surprisingly, I was pretty wide awake. I swam 3100yds at Courtyard and I was pushing it a bit as well. I was feeling really good. The main set was 16x100 and I did pretty well the first half. It is weird because my swim stroke can vary greatly even during a single workout. I did the first half of the main set fantastically because I was focusing on using my lats. I really wasn't changing the position of my arm at all but I was using my lats to propel myself through the water. I really like this feeling because it feels like I'm swimming very strong. Also, it lessens the burden on my bad left shoulder and my shoulder thanks me for it. Unfortunately, my lats aren't too happy and when I really concentrate on doing this, I can get about 700-1000 yards before my lats are done and my form goes to shit.

Other than that, my weigh in this morning was 195. I don't know how the fuck that happened. However, last week I've decided to forage from the candy jars at work a lot less. We'll see how that helps but it should help greatly. The problem is that last night I made some chewy gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and they are absolutely delicious. I'm a huge fan of chewy cookies and these are almost like eating raw cookie dough. Hopefully the lard asses at work will go through them by 10am today so I don't have eat anymore myself. BTW, xanthum gum is freaking expensive.

Also, I got chafed in my armpits when I rode yesterday. I didn't realize this until I sprayed my armpits this morning with deodorant. That woke me up a bit.

I'm done!

I'm done with my workouts for the weekend. All that I did was 2 bike rides. I did about an hour hard yesterday. I was going to do more but I got called in to help out at Performance Wellness in the afternoon. It was fine. Today was a 2 hour bike ride. I really think that my bike legs are coming back pretty well now. I'm not to the point where I was last October, but I'm not far off either. The reason why I say that was today was windy as hell. I was able to power through the wind pretty well and my legs felt fine. They were burning a bit, but they weren't anywhere near giving up. Also, I rode 2 days in a row and my crotch wasn't sore and that's a good sign! I was going to swim this morning, but I skipped that. I went to Sue's party last night with every intention of leaving by 10:30. I didn't leave until 12:30. I felt like I needed to sleep instead of swim but to make up for that, I plan on being at the pool at 5:30 tomorrow morning.

Light Weight Lifting Session

The only workout that I did today was a light weight lifting session at lunch. However, I'm exhausted right now. I've been running around doing errands all day long. Also, some good news. My morning weigh in was 191.5 this morning. I'm actually losing weight again!

Breakthrough

As I've mentioned before, I'm not running. It's because I have some heel pain that I've been battling for 2 years now. It finally got pretty bad and that is when I went to see Dr. Laurie. I've been seeing her since December or so and I've made a bit of progress, but not what I was expecting. But I made a breakthrough last Monday. Laurie noticed that when I tried to dorsiflex my foot, it would try to dorsiflex but would also tend to evert pretty badly as well. Long story short is that the neuromuscular connections had gotten off somehow and/or the muscles in the posterior compartment of my lower leg had become really weak. With them weak, the muscles of the anterior compartment were pulling on them all the time which caused the inflammation where the posterior muscles inserted into my heel. I started doing some exercises to strengthen the posterior muscles and I've been doing them pretty regularly as well. Then, I also put my orthodics back in my shoes. Today, she was working on my foot. She was doing stuff that had me jumping off the table and sweating after 30 seconds not even 2 weeks ago. Today, it didn't hurt at all. Fucking hallelujah! I may actually be running again soon. I'm so happy that we've finally figure out what the hell is wrong with my foot and I'm amazed at how quickly it healed when the problem was discovered. I'm happy if you can't tell.

Today's workout was a tough training workout with Texas Iron. It was a good one and I needed it. Time for bed soon because I'm exhausted and I've got only 6 hours of sleep each of the last 2 nights.

Before I talk about my workouts, I want to talk about my orthostatic hypotension. It's annoying and it seems to be getting worse. However, I seem to have gotten really good and running around lightheaded with my vision going black with being on the verge of passing out.

I swam this morning. I haven't swam in the morning in over 2 months. It was tough. I almost Colleened the workout when I woke up this morning since it was so cold and dark. However, I powered through and went to the pool. I got in about 2800yds this morning. It wasn't bad. I'm trying to do more morning swims. It is nice because it gets me up and moving early and I'm at work by 7:30 or so which means I can leave early. In addition to that, my normal schedule is class on Monday and Wednesday and swimming on Tuesday and Thursday. This doesn't leave me any more weeknights to do other stuff. Since I'm starting to do more two-a-day workouts, I need to balance my time a bit better. At lunch, I did a brief weight lifting session. I had to cut it short because I had a "homework" assignment to do. I'm shadowing Dr. Phil as part of my requirements for getting into PT school. He had me look up some articles on femoroacetabular impingement. I looked up a few of them and really read one of them. I found it pretty interesting and stuff like this just reinforces my career change as the right thing to do for me.

Attack The Hills Ride

Before I talk about my workout, I want to complain about cycling. With swimming, all you need is a suit, goggles, and a towel. With running, you need shoes, socks, and shorts. With cycling, you need a bike, pedals, shoes, helmet, glasses, blowout bag, water bottle, gloves, cell phone, keys, air pump, jersey, and shorts. Before my ride today, I forget the shoes, air pump, and water bottle. Damnit.

I rode after work today. It was perfect cycling weather, too. It was sunny and about 70 degrees without much wind. You don't get cold but you can sweat a bit if you work hard. I was going to ride right after work, but see the first paragraph for why that didn't happen today. I came home and quickly got everything ready and left. My goal for this workout was to "attack the hills" and knowing how I ride, it turned into "attack everything". I only wanted to ride for an hour so I went out Southwest Pkwy. It has some OK hills I tried to attack every single one. I got my heart rate up to over 170bpm a couple of times. When I would crest the hill, I would relax a bit and then I would feel like I was going too slow so I kicked it up a notch. This went on for the entire ride. I only got buzzed once too and I was surprised at that since it was the middle of rush hour traffic. Overall, it was a great ride and has put me into a fabulous mood for the rest of the night.

Weekend Workouts

Not much new this past weekend. I did my 2 hour loop from my house. I think it is funny because no matter how fast or how easy that I do it, I always get back to my house in about 1:55. Sunday was a morning swim and then an afternoon yoga which I haven't been to in about 3 weeks. Laurie adjusted my back on Saturday morning to see if that would help out with my low back pain when I biked. It was better and didn't start hurting until about 1:15 into the ride. I have some gunk built up in my left shoulder when I swim and that feels weird. My foot is feeling much better, too. Oh, my weigh in on Monday morning was 192.5. I guess that's it.

I'm not a wuss like Colleen

Yesterday was a nasty day in Austin. It was cold and rainy for most of the day. I decided about midway through the day that I just really didn't want to swim that night. My typical schedule is class on Monday and Wednesday nights with swimming on Tuesday and Thursday nights. This leaves me no weekday nights to do stuff. Skipping the swim workout would be nice since it would allow me to have a weeknight off. I left work latish and was driving home and was determined to sit on the coach and/or do stuff around the house. It was going to be fantastic. However, at one point in the road, I go left to go home and I go right to go swim. I was going left until about 30 seconds before the split in the road. I decided to go right. Damn! I ended up getting to the pool about 5-10 minutes late but I jumped in my lane. It was freaking cold, too, and the wind was blowing pretty fiercely as well. I swam about 3000m last night. Also, I noticed that I'm getting faster, too! I can now swim 100m in 1:35 pretty easily where I was struggling to get it under 1:40 about 2 months ago. I feel better, too. I got out of the pool and quickly got dressed. Yes, I was out there in the cold unlike Colleen, but it still wasn't comfortable.

This morning's weigh in was 192.5. That is up 0.5 from last Friday, but down 2 from Monday's weigh in. I have sub-190 in sight, now! Within 2 weeks, I'll be under 190. Damnit, it is going to happen.

Windy Ride

I needed to get some good cardio in today so I brought my bike to work. I rode during lunch and it was a perfect 65 degrees which is my ideal temp to ride in. Unfortunately, it was windy and as usual, it was the windy from the southeast. It was about 27 miles or so and I did it in 1:40 for an avg speed of about 16mph. However, that time is including stops. Also, it was windy as hell so going out was a bitch but I barely pedaled coming back in. I saw about 4 other cyclist and it was just a great ride today.

For some more news, I put my orthodics back into my shoes on Monday and my feet are feeling so much better now. It's quite amazing. Also, my gym is having political issues so I don't have any access to it until the new one at work opens up which may be next week or next month.

Good Swim

Not much to write about. I had a good swim tonight. I was swimming strong and I felt like I was really pushing it. The workout was fun and I told Mo about it as well. I was pushing the other 2 guys in my lane. At the night practices, I'm usually one of the fastest people there. I haven't been to the morning practices in awhile and there are usually faster people there, but the lanes tend to be more crowded as well. My weigh in yesterday was 194.5 which was expected, but my weigh in this morning was 193.5 so I'm going down after splurging this weekend.

I killed Bambi

Before I get to my story about how I killed Bambi, let me review last week really quickly. Thursday was a pretty good swim with T3. I swam people out of my lane so that was a nice feeling and I was the fastest in the water that night. I'm afraid to go back to mornings because I'll definitely get my ass kicked. I do feel like I am getting faster though. My Friday weigh in was 192 so I've lost about 6 pounds since February 5th. That's a good sign. My weigh in tomorrow won't be close to that because of what I did this past weekend.

This past weekend I did the Leakey Death Ride. It's a ride put on by Richelle every year. I keep hearing that it is a fun time and I wanted to actually go this year and break in my sleeping bag and tent that I got last year and haven't used yet. I decided to go about a month ago and was actually looking forward to it. We camped at the Lost Pines State Nature Area in Vanderpool, TX. Each day is a ride if everyone feels like it. There are also some trails for those that want to run.

I meant to leave at around 1pm on Friday. I left at 3:45pm. Yeah, I was running behind but oh well. The trip up there was uneventful for the most part. The roads were very scenic, twisty, and turny. It was fun. I don't venture out of Austin into Texas much so this was a nice break. I was driving along and there were deer all over the place because it was getting close to dusk. I came upon a group of deer with about 4 on the right side of the road and 1 on the left. I thought it was pretty effective to honk my horn when I got near them to spook them away from me. Well, this time the one on the left ran in front of me at the last second. I was going well over 60mph and probably close to 70mph when it ran right in front of me. I heard a thud from where it hit the front and then there was a definite pause of a second or two. Ok, it could've been less than half a second but this was one of those time stands still moments. After this 2 seconds, I hear the thud, thud as my car tires run over something.

I pull over to the side of the road to make sure that the deer is dead and to see what happened to my car. I check out my car first. You hear all of these stories about people hitting deer in the road and it nearly totals their car. I checked my front bumper and found no damage because deer guts and deer hair. I check it over pretty carefully and I see no major damage at all. I walk down the road to check out the deer. It's out in the middle of the road and the speed that I was going as well as running over the damn thing, I'm pretty sure that it didn't suffer. I get up to it and check it out and it is definitely dead. It's still twitching for a few seconds but it stops pretty quickly. I'm glad that it was dead because I didn't want to have to run over it again to put it out of its misery. There are guts all over the place and then I see why it really didn't do much damage to my car. It was only about 40 pounds and it was definitely a fawn because it still had white spots. Yep, I just roadkilled Bambi. I drove back to the campsite which was about 5 minutes away and took these pictures. BTW, my car still smells like deer. I was calm, cool, and collected through all of this. I don't know why, but I was surprisingly. I felt bad for killing the deer because I don't like killing innocent animals and this is only the 2nd time I killed anything with my car. I did learn that I should be a lot more careful when there are deer out and about.









Got to the campsite and pitched my tent and slept that night. I have to say that my recent tent and sleeping bag purchase were damn good purchases because I'm really happy with both of them.

The next day was the ride. Richelle and Sharron tricked me into doing a 58 mile loop instead of the 40 miles that I wanted to do. I had brought my road bike because it has a triple chainring and I've heard about the killer hills here. I got out on the road and my hands went numb in about 5 minutes. Not a good sign but I get going. The temperate was fantastic. It was the low 60s and overcast at the beginning. It got warmer and the sun came out later though. The majority of the big hills are at the very beginning of the ride. I think it took us nearly an hour and 20 minutes to go 18 miles. The first hill was the worst though and I think that hill was a mile long. I got warmed up really quickly after that. It was very, very pretty though and the descents were scary as hell. After those 20 miles or so, it was more or less flat the rest of the way. One bad thing was that there was a lot of chip seal which is very uncomfortable to ride on. My ass and my arms were sore about half way through the ride. We chatted in our group and didn't have any major incidents during the ride. It was great. Sharron and I picked it up a bit at one point, put it in the big chainring, and was hauling ass. That was fun. We got back to the campsite and I think I nearly ate everything in sight. I had couscous and a package of tuna for dinner and that was a decent camping meal. The temp the rest of the day was nice but it was windy as hell. We all went to bed and the wind kept up the entire night. It was tough to sleep through but I got a decent amount of sleep that night.

We got up the next day and almost no one rode. The wind was brutal and I hate riding into the wind so I had no problems skipping it. Without a ride, that means it is time for breakfast! Rob and Cindy were heading to breakfast while most other people ran. I joined them because I wasn't running. We got to the Lost Pines Cafe in Utopia, TX and had a damn good country breakfast. I had French toast, ham, and hashbrowns as well as Rob's hashbrowns and Cindy's bacon. Yum! We headed back and I found out that Lisa and Lynda were now going to breakfast. Alright, second breakfast! We went there and I had some scrambled eggs and a bit of Lisa's delicious hubcap sized pancakes. When we were leaving, we saw a stray dog across the street. I walked up to it and it scurried away a bit but I worked my dog whispering magic and it came up to me and enjoyed me petting it. It was a sweet little dog, too. Lisa came over to pet it and then Lynda went back inside to get the dog the leftover pancake. She came back out and the dog definitely was hungry. You could tell it was protective of its new food and it was really funny. At first we thought it was trying to eat the entire pancake at once but it was just trying to get it all in its mouth to walk away and eat it somewhere else. It would try to pick up all the little pieces and when it would pick up one, two would fall out. Imagine carrying your laundry around the house. It finally put down the pancake, ate a bit of it, and then carried the rest off the entire time it was dropping a piece here and there and picking it back up. It did seem like a sweet dog.

We were off from the cafe and about 5 minutes around the corner, we saw the last bit of a wreck. Apparently, a couple of guys were riding their motorcycles when one lost control and bit the dust. Since both Lisa and Lynda are two (very hot) nurses, they pulled over to help. The guy that bit it was off to the side of the road sitting down. His buddy was pushing the injured guy's bike out of the road. The nurses took over and were examining the downed guy. He seemed to be doing pretty well and he was very receptive for the help. Luckily, he was wearing a helmet, chaps, and a ton of protective gear. He seemed to have his wits about him and was doing decently well. Another couple of guys pulled up and called the ambulance. Within about 2 minutes, we heard the sirens starting to wail and they were there in about 3 minutes. The nurses relayed all the information to the paramedics. He probably had a concussion and the patient realized it. He was actually pretty cool. I know a lot of tough guys that'll just try to get up once something like this happens and try to walk it off. Luckily, this guy didn't do anything like that, just sat down, and was very cooperative. He got strapped to a stretcher and loaded into the ambulance. He had a neck brace and that was just a precaution. I snapped some pics with my camera phone and they are below. I thought this entire ordeal was interesting and it makes me glad that I am going to go into the medical field soon.












The guy seemed like he was going to be OK so we went back to the campsite. We exchanged numbers and email addresses because it seemed like nearly everyone wanted to go to Big Bend so we'll keep in touch about that. I really want to go now! I miss how much fun backpacking is and I've been browsing REI all night long for gear that I want, I mean gear that I need. The drive home was uneventful. Now, I have to finish cleaning up and I'm going to hit the sack soon. My back is really looking forward to having my bed again.

Overall, I had a pretty kick ass weekend. The good thing is I think I've met some more people to hang out with because even though I've been here for nearly 4 years now, I still have issues meeting people to hang out with.

184bpm

That is what I got my heart rate up to today. It hurt a bit, too. I did a spin this morning and did 10x1min fast, 2 min easy over the course of 60 minutes. I also needed to burn off some stress so taking my heart rate higher usually does that. I really haven't worked out the last 2 days because I've been studying for an Anatomy test. It was a good workout this morning and I'm happy with it.

Nice ride

I had a nice ride yesterday. I rode with some Texas Iron people. We did about an hour and 45 minutes. I got some nice cycling tan lines now as well. Damnit. Well, I was going to get them sooner or later. I swam with T3 this morning. I had every intent to go riding afterwards, but that didn't happen. I needed to do things around the house and my body was telling me to rest so I did. I'm about to go to bed soon and hopefully I will be able to actually sleep tonight.

Eh, my foot still hurts

Eh, my foot still hurts. Against doctor's orders, I went and did the elliptical machine today for about 30 minutes. I did it just to confirm that doing it still bothers my heel and I was write. I had to do it to make sure that I had two data points instead of just one. It looks like now all that I'm capable of doing is swimming, biking, weights and yoga. Running and elliptical are out. Bummer. However, Laurie and I have think we've found what has been keeping my heel from getting better. I'll post more about that tomorrow.

Also, I can't sleep right now even though I'm dead tired. I think I had too much sugar today in the form of Girl Scout cookies.

Hard swim

I had a hard swim last night thanks to Chrissy pushing me. I swam 3450m and my chest was hurting by half way through it. I also lifted in the morning and I find it strange but I really think that I swim better after lifting weights earlier in the day. I can't explain it. Oh, I think the 4th pair of tri shorts in 2 weeks is about to go see-through. Damnit, this is going to be expensive replacing all the shorts at once. My weigh in today was 193.5 so I'm finally start to win the Battle of the Pudge.

I got my heart rate up!

The only exercise today was a 60min spin with 10x1min fast, 2min easy. I was able to get my heart rate up to 172 or so on some of the intervals which hasn't been that high in awhile. It felt great, too. The last time I was on a spin bike my legs felt dead and tired. I had a pretty good bike workout today. My ass was a bit sore still but it is getting better. Also, I've thrown away 3 pairs of tri shorts in the last week from them being worn out and see through. I'm sure most people don't want to see an outline of my junk flopping around when I run.

Triple

Lately, I don't do a double workout that often. Maybe once or twice a week at most. School has been keeping me busy as well as the house and work so I've been taking it easy with the workouts for the most part. Yesterday was my first triple in quite a while. I lifted weights in the morning before work. Also, it was the day where I decided to increase the weight for a lot of exercises as well. At lunch was 60 minutes on the elliptical. This still made my foot sore even though it was a no impact exercise. I gotta run that by Dr. Laurie. In the evening was 2700m swim with T3. That was fun after the weights this morning. Oh, I slept like a rock last night, too.

I'm tired

Well, I went for a 2 hour ride today. It was a great day since it was sunny and about 65-70 degrees. I felt great and it wasn't bad at all. My ass didn't hurt much either. Afterwards, I was tired as hell but I felt great. Eh, that's all I have for today.

A sore ass and the taste of sweat and sunscreen

I've ridden twice in the last 2 weeks. My ass is really sore each time from the ride. That'll get better though. Each ride was about 25-35 miles so I'm getting a decent base in. I'm not going that fast though and it feels good to be back on the bike. I don't think I've lost much bike fitness either.

I swam tonight. I don't know what got into me, but I definitely felt like swimming strong tonight. I felt well the entire night and was able to push it a bit too. My shoulder felt great, too.

I ran this morning for the first time in about a month. My heel starting acting up the rest of the day. This isn't good at all. I guess I'm biking more since I can't run at the moment.

I'm not feeling healthy

I had this feeling since right around Thanksgiving. Yes, it is the holidays but even at this point after the glutony of sugar rich foods, I still feel unhealthy. I'm exercising more days than not, I'm getting about 8 hours of sleep a night, and I'm eating somewhat healthy (for me, not *that* healthy but I would still get called a health nut by 95% of the population). Even with all of this, I still feel like crap. I don't know what the hell is going on right now. I was sick the weekend before last weekend and I've been a booger factory since then, but I should be feeling better by now, right?

This past weekend was a 4.5 mile run on Saturday and then 2800m swim on Sunday. I still wasn't feeling that strong. Monday's weigh in was 198. I did 4.5 miles yesterday around the track at work and I have another run tonight with Texas Iron.

New Balance mileage: 101.5 miles

Weekly run mileage: 13.5 miles
Weekly swim distance: 5500m

I'm swimming again

I swam about 2700m last night with T3. Before that, I ran 3.1 miles around the track at work. I weighed in at 195.5 this morning. I'm recovering from being sick decently well, but I still have some sickness lingering. Not much else is new.

New Balance mileage: 92.5 miles

It's On! 196.5!

I weighed in at 196.5 on Monday. I have no excuses about holidays or vacation or any other shit like that. I will be at 185 by the end of April, hopefully.

I ran some speed loops around Barton Springs last night with Texas Iron. I wasn't feeling that great from being sickish for about 3 days. It actually probably wasn't that smart of me because I was somewhat sick to begin with, it was cold, I was sweaty, and I didn't have warm clothes on. I felt like ass when I woke up this morning, but I did a decent run last night of about 6 miles total.

New Balance mileage: 89.5

I'm sick

I'm sick. This sucks. I've been feeling bad since yesterday. I did get out and do a 7 mile easy run though. I felt better afterwards, but I've been a lump on my couch since then. Not much else is going on. It's been an easy week workout wise. I did some volunteer work on Thursday and Friday. I haven't swam because my shoulder is really acting up. Seriously, not much is going on workout wise with me right now.

New Balance mileage: 83.5

Weekly run mileage: 15 miles
Weekly swim distance: 3300m

Kick Ass Book!

In addition to being a balancing bad ass, I got The Human Body Book today from amazon.com. This is so cool and disgusting! It's amazing! I haven't looked through it much yet, but I'm sure I'm going to waste half this weekend reading through it.

Badass Balancing on the Bosu Ball

I did some volunteer work at Performance Wellness today. I had some down time between patients and I wanted to play a bit with some exercises that I was showing patients. One of the exercises was doing leg squats on a Bosu Ball. Instead of having the black part down, the black part is up and you stand on it, balance on it, and then do squats. It's really tough. I started doing it and quickly figured out. Of course, I had to try to make it a bit harder, I decided to try to do squats on the Bosu ball, but with one leg instead of two. I did a set of 10 reps on each leg. Yeah, I totally kick ass! I told Dr. Laurie about it and she called me an insane bad ass as well.

This is good for me because yesterday I went and did yoga for the first time in a few months. Man, it was tough. I have lost a lot of my flexibility and balance and that prompted my one legged insane exercises today. I'm happy that I was able to find my balance back today.

Town Lake Trail distance changes

I normally run around Town Lake for all of my long runs. The trail is crushed gravel so it's easier on my joints, there are water stops, and the "scenery" is quite nice. I used to use the distances from this map, but a new map was published and this is it. If you compared the two maps, I usually run the 3 shorter loops and the changes in the distances is quite significant. The short loop went from 2.9 to 3.47 miles, the middle loop went from 4.1 to 4.55 miles and the long loop is now 4.94 miles instead of 4.5 miles. I measured out the longer loop using MyMyRun and it also got around 4.94 miles or so. A lot of other people have complained how the old 4.5 mile loop is closer to 5 miles and this map reflects it. With that stated, I like to think that the newer map is more accurate for the short and medium loops as well.

Now, today I ran a medium loop and then a short loop. Based on the old distances, I ran 7 miles, but ran 8 miles based on the new distances. This is huge because it's a difference of 8:43/mile versus 7:38/mile. What the hell? That's around a 10% improvement without me doing a single thing. Ok, that's not bad at all, but it's frustrating that I've been using wrong distances to calculate my pace around Town Lake for years now. I guess I'm happy that I'm running "faster" now.

New Balance mileage: 76.5