Milestones

Last week was Father’s day, and also my 40th BDay, I can not believe how much better and younger I feel today than any other stage in my life. So well, that I did not feel any jitters as the day approached.

To celebrate my 40s, I hooked up with a few friends and we did our own triathlon, it was called The Big 4 “O” race. It was fun, fast and best of all, a BLAST. We’ll repeat the event in a couple of months and hopefully can gather a few more athletes to join us.

My wonderful wife threw a party with a bunch of friends, mostly relatives - even a DJ and great Latin food. It was awesome. Honey – I know you read this, so, I love you! Thanks for treating me like your king!

The last two weeks were business as usual in regards to food intake and workouts. I have been able to do at least each sport during the week and then repeat on the weekend. My waist size is down to 32 and my weight stable at 182 LB. It feels good to fit small in your oldest jeans. Yay!!!

The 4th week of the month proved to be a little more difficult but as I added my workouts into my schedule, they take visibility and have a better chance of getting done.

While traveling for business, I met with an old HS friend, we had some good times remembering other good times. I also had a few extra beers (carbs) which I immediately felt on my waist. But I also completed a 5.7 mile fast run around Ft Lauderdale's downtown area. Although a very bad lightning storm made me stop and take cover, the rain cooled the air nicely.

Then, on Saturday, did a 32 mile bike ride – it was done mostly at a slow pace so we would burn fats, not carbs; but also so the folks riding with me would learns the route and hopefully get their own chances to ride and train around here. As I came back home I had a chance to see the Kiddy - 4Th of July Bicycle parade at my community. Then it was family time.

Sunday morning was my first real set of running intervals training. This is a method of running to help you gain speed. In which, instead of running hard and fast for 3 miles you would calculate the time you want to be running at (ex. 8 minutes per mile x 3 miles = 24 minutes). At this point you would break your run into many pieces that include 24–1 min sprints, or 12–2 minute sprints, etc, plus a predetermined rest time between sets.

As my first workout of this kind, I picked 15 x 1 min sprints with 2 min rest intervals. As you can quickly figure out, this workout takes time to complete. The entire workout consisted of 1-10 min warm up, 15 sets of intervals, and 12 min cooldown. The last 2 sets were very difficult to get to the speed I was shooting for, which is very important for this type of workout as that is what we’re teaching the body to do.

All in all it’s been a nice couple of weeks. The clock might be advancing but I am feeling younger, I am training harder than I have ever done and keep moving towards my goals.

Not bad for a 40 year old man!

My next race is in 2 weeks and I have yet to get comfortable with my swimming. Next weekend is July 4th, so until then, train hard and God bless!

A week before my 40th

Good thing - Melva's problem has been diagnosed. Bad thing - she has 2 herniated lumbar discs. Good news - strengthening exercises should help. Bad news- this is an issue she'll have to deal with the rest of her life. Good thing - this could be very encouraging for her to stay fit - the rest of her life.

Back to the blog.
Funny thing how I seemed not to really care one bit, and today it dawned on me; I'll be peaking the hill in 7 days. Well, at least I can sat that I am as fit today as I was half my life ago - let's just keep the time in between, a secret.

My weight this morning: 181.5LB this is the lowest I've been in many years.

This week I took my triathlon training back to the level where it should have been last month, and it's already showing. I have easily survived my new lo-carb lifestyle and will continue living like this. I am looking to get a full physical within this month.

Father's Day is 10 days from today. I have already given myself a BD and FD present with my new bike, new body and new healthier lifestyle.

Another month, another race, another goal met

Wow, it’s been a month already since last wrote. Thank GOD, tha’s pretty much the only negative news.

Today, I’ll share that I am so happy to have exceeded my work expectations in my evaluation, especially in May I was 25% over budget. I just complete my second race of the year, and my 40th birthday is just around the corner. It doesn’t get any better than that, does it? Well, it does. I have a new triathlon bike, so my other two bikes will be going on e-bay soon. I also want to confirm that my weight has remained steady for yet another month, except for Friday this week when I ate some 3 slices of PHut’s meat lover’s – big mistake. I must have gained 2-3 lbs. just from that meal - carboloading turned fat loading. This month I also dropped my training by about 30% and can tell I’ve lost some toning, so June will be back to training goals and routine.

This AM was my second race, Publix’ Sprint Series in Sarasota. After my internal alarm went off at 3AM and no chance of falling asleep again, we ogt ready and took off at 4:30 – the whole gang, my support crew and I. It had been raining and lightning all night so I wasn’t sure what we’d find. The waves were very rough and there was a very strong side current, after an attempt by the organizers to modify the swim course, they ended up cancelling the swim. Instead of a swim/bike/run event we all did a duathlon, run/bike/run. I for one wasn’t very happy cuz I know the second run can be really really tough.

Immediately after the gun went off, it started to rain and lightning again. The rain was coming down so hard it felt like hail. This was a beach run, which makes it even more difficult – loose sand, holes, puddles, tide, etc. I was on the third group, 8 minutes after the elites. The first run went better than I anticipated, per my calculations, I ran 8:15 miles, meaning I should have finished it in just over 25 mins.

The bike leg was an awesome experience for me. I passed people from the go. Must have passed about 20+ riders, even whole packs. I also learned that the USAT regulations require all passes be made on the left side. Another dude caught up with me on the last 3-4 miles and we just used each other’s effort to pull each other to go faster.

When I arrived at the transition area, I had a brief technical issue which set me back about 3-4 sec but the actual transition was so fast that I came out ahead of the people who got in just before me. I have to admit that my legs were spent before I got to the second run; they were not responding with speed when I asked them to. I swear, most of the people I passed on the bike went right by me on the run.

At the end, I finished as I had hoped – SPENT. I left my heart out on the course, gave it my all, with an unofficial time of 1:28:10. I hope to find a picture of me and Isabel crossing the line together. Melva and OJ also sacrificed their morning to join me here and we all got soaked in the rain.

Now, it is back to serious training. I can now tell I have lost some muscle tissue and gained a little bit of fat from my reduced training in May but I am not going to settle for this, even though I am wearing size 32 pants (from 38 in Jan). Now that my new bike is ready, I will start doing more bricks and some swimming.

In restrospect, this month worked out not as I wanted but as it should have. I exceeded my work goals even on this weak economy. This has allowed me set a strong foundation for an even stronger year. God has truly blessed us at home with a steady job, income and so much more than we need. We have also done our part in sharing our blessings; the kids finished school very strongly with excellent grades. Although Melva has bene suffering of a brutal lower back pain we’re hoping last week’s MRI will help diagnose and treat it soon.

My next race is on July 12. Just 5 more weeks down the road, so I will go now. Gotta go work my butt, erase that, belly off. C ya next time.