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.