I forgot some of you guys were Scientists

My last entry reminded me some of you were scientists, maybe even Chemists. So here is my dilemma. I have an idea for a children's sermon on how the blood of Christ washes your soul clean. So, what I want to do is to take a beaker full of fluid probably like clear or milky and explain how sin enters your life and it turns dark (at this point add something to turn the fluid black or darker). Then give a little talk about how the blood of Christ cleanses your soul, pour in another liquid or powder, doesn't matter, that then turns the beaker red, then the final thing is to add the last thing that turns the fluid milk white or clear (I figured clear was next to impossible so I am shooting for white). What do you think? Possible or impossible. I know going from dark to light is the hard part especially as quick as a children's sermon, but if it precipitates something at the bottom I can work in a whole filter thing to a new beaker in the context of the sermon. Let me know. I have asked some others and I get blank stairs.

Give Mine Another Month

I am not counting calories as intently as Matt, but I have gone to one plate of food at Dinner. I also don't buy food from the local restaurants. And my biggest vice especially when I am tired is Soda Pop and a Little Debbie Snack Cake or three. I am only having a soda on Sunday's and have gone to the caffeine free kind. I have cut out the snack cakes (I know that is awful for a guy who eats so well otherwise). I looked around the store and found if I want something sweet, one serving of plain animal crackers (which with kids in the house we usually have) or two small peppermint patties. Both items relatively low in fat and mostly 80% unsaturated. My alcohol content has been five glasses of wine and a beer since January 1. In a two month period last year those numbers were turned around which is also helping on the calorie end.

I have also gone to making sure my breakfast is a protein (yogurt, nuts, cottage cheese) and fruit. My lunch is under 400 calories. And as mentioned one plate, not heaping, things nicely separated for dinner.

So my plan was genius, cut out the amount of junk and eat less total, who would think that would work. I weighed myself at my in-laws on Wednesday (we don't have a scale at my house) and I was under 220, it is a needle so it looked 218 ish. This would be 7 lbs since my Feb 7 weigh in. My activity level has increased considerably this week. I will be interested to see my weight at the official weigh in on March 7. I know I said I was going to wait to announce how things were going, but everyone else is talking, a New Year's resolution of mine was to be more sheep like, so I am just following the lead.

I don't have any races planned until April, so I think 10 more lbs would be awesome, hopefully that can be accomplished by April 1. I, too, shall re-think at that point. Oh, by the way most days when I do the mental math on the calories I have been under 2,500 so I assume I missed something worth a 100 to 200 calories, so I would say 2,400 to 2,800 a day for me currently. The mental math three weeks ago told me I was pounding a good 3,200 or better most days. I likes to eat :)

Why has this turned into Matt, Shawn & Craig love fest. Where are you people? We need team members, supporters, chiming in. You Supporters, we know your not doing it, you know your not doing it, let's here from you. You team members, what have you got going on? I don't know most of you so this is your chance to let me in, so when we are in New Hampshire it is like we are life time friends getting together for a big reunion. What are you working on? Scotty I haven't got to barb you in weeks, months ... What's happening? How is Dad life going? Do you ever get to blow up anything cool in the lab (I have some ideas for you)? Eric, I know I have set myself up for humorous comments from you? I know you are dieing to make fun of me? I can feel it. Get involved, this is about life, not just swimming, biking & running.

Are you inspired? Come ON!

Me too

Well, I weighed myself this morning expecting to be terrified, since I have been eating everything and doing virtually no exercise other than an occasional push-up or dumbbell press. In the last two weeks, I have consumed two family sized bags of Doritos (with Jalapeño cheese dip!), gone to KFC, eaten 2 pounds of hamburger in one meal (yikes!), consumed many boxes of cereal, mostly at midnight, and generally disregarded all sage advice about how to lose or maintain weight. I have run no more than 5K. So imagine my surprise when I got on the scale, and I was still in the same place I had been the last time I weighed myself. I had to try to explain this to myself. Here is my reasoning: All my muscles are turning back into fat, which weighs less.

I guess if I just run and don't lift at all, I would be a lot better off as far as running goes. Biking could probably benefit from some deadlifts and squats. Swimming would probably be best prepared for by swimming, so maybe that's the way to go. I doubt I'll be able to stick to that. I like being strong. Now I'm hoping I can go through another cycle of dieting and drop 10 pounds this month.

Time to change the diet

Tomorrow being March 1st and about a week out from my first race of the year, it's time to change my diet. So I'm going to start adding in more calories to give myself more energy to work with. I've read many places that it might be possible to continue to lose weight just as fast because I'll be able to exercise more/ more intensely. We will see.

Fortunately, the fit day program has some "reporting" to it. Here is what my average has been for the last month (Feb):
2451 Calories a day (actually a bit higher than I expected)
50% 323 grams from Carbs
24% 62 grams from Fat
23% 131 grams from Protein
4% 12 grams from Alcohol (lower than I expected, Ha Ha)
Max weight during that window of time was 188. I weighed in this AM at 180.

Looking at that same report from Jan 31 back. I only had tracked about 2 weeks. (jan)
2144 Calories average per day
42% from Carbs
28% from Fat
29% from Protein
1% from Alcohol
Max weight Jan 3rd 198. Min weight 187. Jan 31st weight of 188.

I know that I made adjustments in my diet to reduce my fat % along the way. The biggest change being my use of butter. 2nd biggest change being salad dressing choice. I now choose balsamic vinaigrette most of the time.
The 3rd change may have caused the protein drop as well. I don't eat steak or hamburgers as often.

So what do I do for this change. I decided this might be a good place to start.
0.8-1.0g of fat
5-7g of carbohydrates
1.2-1.8g of protein
per kg of body weight per day for highly active athletes.
1g of fat has 9 calories, and protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram.

Currently 81.81 Kg
Carb Range should be 410-572g. Currently 323.
Protein Range 98-147g. currently 131.
Fat Range 65-147g. Currently 62.
Calorie Range: 2617-4199. This is a big range. Maybe with this plan you have to eat according to your planned workout for the day?

So maybe my plan from Jan is a better place to start? 180x16 is 2880 calories, 180x17 is 3060.

Or a similar calculator
Which gives me: 3072 Total calories per day
Protein Grams: 135 Grams Per Day.
Protein Calories: 540 Protein Calories Per Day.
Fat Grams: 51 Grams Per Day.
Fat Calories: 461 Protein Calories Per Day.
Carbohydrate Grams: 518 Grams Per Day.
Carbohydrate Calories: 2071 Carb Calories Per Day.

Another Calculator with some good reading.
One more article.

So it looks like I should shoot for 2800ish then expect that I'll go over by a few hundred as I did with my previous plan. I'd like to continue to lose weight but I'd like to do it by increased workouts. I'd be ok with losing half a pound a week at this point. That would get me to 175 or under by June 1st. Which on most "fitness charts" would put me at the lowest point of "moderately overweight". Ha ha ha.... sigh.

Brooklyn Half Marathon

As you might have noticed on the sidebar, I signed up for the Brooklyn Half Marathon today. One of my friends from college will be running with me and maybe one of the guys from swim class.
It's familiar territory as the course passes just a few blocks from where I lived in Brooklyn from 93-99. Can't say I spent much time at Coney Island or Prospect Park but we drove Ocean Parkway quite frequently.
I'm hoping this will be a good target/focus to work towards. I keep thinking that I'm weak on the bike and I should maybe focus on that... I guess I've decided that building my run endurance is probably going to help me the most in overall fitness.
So my plan is to modify the Hal Higdon intermediate Half Mary schedule into my workout schedule once I get back from Florida. Here's hoping that the warm weather will follow me up from Florida.

NY Times Article. Weight Training/Endurance Athletes

Weight Training/Endurance athletes
Not sure there is really much to take out of this to be honest. I think I've said this before about a NYTimes article...

100's Day

As of Today only 100 days until the Mooseman. At my kids school they celebrate 100's day, which is the 100 day of school that year. It gets moved because of school cancellations, but they have a big party. It was a big deal for Levi in kindergarten and it was a big deal for Eleanor a couple of weeks ago.

100 Things from the web:
Before you Die I just did number 48 the other night.
Ordering Pizza
In an Elevator

I couldn't find 100 things for triathlon but here is top 10 for somethings:

Swimming
Before a race
Cycling inventions

A couple Triathlon Blogs Not as cool as ours:

Triathlon Magazine Blog
Mooseman report Blog
Another Report from a Blog
A Photo of T1 AT the Moose
Audio Report about Mooseman
Mooseman Athlete from Last Year - Nice
You Tube Prep Report fro Mooseman
What the Finish will Look Like

Happy 100 Day!

MapMyTri

http://www.mapmytri .com/find- workout/united- states/wv/ weston

This link was sent to me about a local triathlon.

If you search Bristol, NH it has a couple Mooseman maps.

Matt Never Rests!

Incredible. From the spreadsheet Feb 12 was the only day he didn't workout. As Garth & Wayne would say, "We are Unworthy".

Wetsuit Decisions

I had been looking at whether I should rent or buy a wetsuit. I figured if I found a rental in the model I wanted to buy then I could buy with a bit more confidence as I would have already raced in it.

Well today I found what looks to be a great solution.
Buy a Wetsuit
I think I'm going to have to make this happen after the Florida trip. It might cost me a few more dollars but I think it will be worth it.
Anyone else want to make a trip to the city?

Stuff

Had a good run Saturday, a little problem doing steps about 5 hours after run, but I got better by Sunday morning. Definitely a muscle thing, no joint pain and walking on flat was fine. I need to run more during the week, but just trying to keep some mileage up on the weekends. Could not get time Sunday to run or do anything (I really wanted to do). Was out late Saturday, took Tamara & kids to a play, "Wiley & the Hairy Man". Very good, at Fairmont State University. Then church, we had to get there early to teach a class on parenting (that could be a shock to some people, based on my younger days responsibility level). Then Tamara had a choral concert after lunch on Sunday at WVU. A two hour event, three hours with getting there early for rehearsal. No offense to Genine, but one of the pieces was a viola & organ duet with a choir humming and chanting in the background. It was a good 25 minutes long, I appreciate an artist as much as anyone, but after about 10 minutes I had my fill. It was all love songs, luckily some were humorous jazz ensembles about love. I think I heard at least 5 different languages not including the chanting/humming. They always have a piece in Latin, plus French, Italian, German and English.

Then we stopped at Panera bread for Dinner, I got a chicken salad, dressing on the side with an Apple. Gorgonzola cheese was the only thing with lots of fat. Only ate half the salad (rest is lunch today) and the apple. Weight loss is going good now, I will save the results for March weigh-in. I don't want to predict something I can't back up in case I fall off the wagon or there is some official scale discrepancy.

Running during the week has been an issue, but I have come up with a solution. I have stated before I hate my treadmill, also it is in the basement, which is not a pretty place to be. So, Tamara called me into the room last week while she was watching TV. She had stopped on HSN (we only get 12 channels, by choice, on our cable, so sometimes it is tough to find something to watch). She said what do you think. I said if you use it too and we can do it in the living room then let's go for it. We bought the:

Brenda DyGraf's AirClimber Stepper with BodyCord and Workout DVDs

I saw Brenda on the TV, it was probably worth the price just for the DVD's (this was a very male oriented statement and I was just kidding, kinda). I am excited to have an aerobic exercise that I can do without the spiders and out of a dimly lit area.

Bike is not all the way together yet. I am not sure why because I am excited to have it, but he dissembled it quite a bit to get it to me. Should have done this week, unless this week turns out like last week. I am still looking to take my Presidents day holiday or at least 4 hours of it. The first 4 hours was spent in a lawyers office finalizing my will, which by the way is a smart thing to do if you haven't done it yet. My understanding is that without one probate can be a hassle. I didn't make any living will decisions. If I can still blink maybe I can be useful to society, of course you could argue or some could, I am not too useful currently, so maybe that is not something I want to define now.

More Graphs from the bike

Each Gear 1 Minute:

This is the 39 front ring. Stepping through the gears holding a cadence of about 77.


This is 39 on the front ring stepping through gears, holding about 85 for a cadence


53 on the front stepping through the gears, 70 for a cadence. It falls off at the end.





I did this because I wanted to see if the power was actually tracking properly.

University Swim Coach Clinic

I had to post this video. I've been watching a ton of stuff trying to get the big picture. It's much easier to practice if you understand how it's all supposed to work. I feel this video hits many key points well. Maybe because I've been looking at this stuff so much. You tell me. I liked his comments regarding sprint vs distance swimming, I'd never thought about that at all.
The 2nd one I thought was good because of the exercises.

Another Race for Us

I thought maybe we should enter this race.

Looks a little less demanding.

Bike Trainer and Polar Software

So I started with small chain ring on the front 39. And Big on the back.
The back is 26,23,21,19,17,15,14,13,12
So at 1:00 I'm on the 23.
That jump in power at 5:00 has to be wrong, don't you think? The switch is from 19 to 17.
Yes I also only did 30 seconds on the 12 cog. HR was 168 that's tough effort for me.
At 10:00 I'm on the 53 on the front and 26 on the back again. As you can see I didn't get very far into the progression.
I was hoping this was going to be more informative, but I think I need to adjust something when I'm on the 39 and 17-12 to get the readings right. Thought I'd share anyhow.

Swim Tip: Don't do this

If you use some product to keep your goggles from fogging and it says rinse completely. Make sure you really rinse it well.
Last night I guess I didn't get it as clean as I should. A bit of water got in as we were doing the 1000yd swim and I just let it be, didn't think anything of it. At the end of the night my right eye looked EVIL. Didn't hurt terribly just really bloodshot.

Here is what NOT to do. Don't put Visine or any other eye drops in. I tried this thinking it might help. It just about sent me through the roof. Just use water and an eye cup or just leave it alone.

Workout Options

This is one of the routines I did yesterday at the gym.

Crossfit dumbbell workout

I did 3 sets with 40, 50, and 60 pounds in each hand. Not quite up to the guy in the video, but I think I can get there.

As they say in the metatag, it's tougher than it looks. I've decided to try to do more deadlifts, squats and lunges in an effort to maximize my pedaling power, since I don't have many other strengths in this athletic endeavor. This routine is pretty good for the quads.

I tend to enjoy the workouts that involve using the whole body in realistic ways, which doesn't happen so much with machines. Of course the potential for getting hurt is much higher, but I like to think the potential for being functionally strong is much higher too.

I'm digging the kettlebell too. I'm glad I finally got to play with one. If I weren't in the gym, I would try more adventurous stuff like throwing it up in the air and spinning it around, but I'm afraid of dropping it. I gotta buy my own. The one at the gym I use is 35 pounds, but I think if I were gonna buy one, I'd like to go with a 50 pounder. Why duplicate the one I can get there?

Maybe I'll have to make a video about functional strength and put it up on YouTube. It would be more convincing if I had washboard abs, of course. Maybe when the sun comes out and it warms up, I'll burn off all my fat and make such a video.

Swimming Woes

The Master's class in Morgantown was canceled this semester due to lack of interest. So, I have to have a long discussion with my current pool managers to see when the remodel will occur. Because the University in Morgantown is my other choice, that is still in the reasonable stage, but they really limit non-staff and students. I can get a pass that allows me to go every Monday and Wednesday evening for $35 from Feb 25 to April 25 This follows the end of the swim team season and the end of the semester. It works out to about $2 a visit if I go twice every week.

The local clubs or gyms that have pools are getting close to $100 a month. Well if you want to go month by month which is kind of what I want to do. At $100 a month I probably should have signed up for a class at WVU and just not gone, take my "F", just to have total access to the student rec center and the literally endless amount of hours that it is open. Something like 6am to 11 pm weekdays. and 10 pm weekends. To be young in college and not care about sleep or waking up for that matter (or be Shawn) . I know some of you are probably saying what is he lamenting about even the high choice is still not bad. Well, I live 15 to 20 miles from these places, with current gas prices that would be almost $5 in gas for a swim workout. Maybe I will bike to class, of course that is in the dark (both ways currently) in a state were road shoulders have not been invented yet. We are happy to have guardrails, it keeps the drunk drivers from plummeting to their death into the ravine.

Union Holiday/ BRICK!

Wake up at 5AM, make oatmeal/applesauce/fiberone caramel mix. Drink some Mango Juice then some Blueberry Juice. Set the laptop/DVD up in front of the bike in preparation for the brick.
Oddly it's 60 degrees and raining outside, going to make for a nice run later.

Swim Class, not too awful. Again he's really trying to get my technique down so he's not having me sprint as often as he typically does. To be honest, I don't think I was rotating as well today. I think I was more on it last week. We do a repeat of ( 4x100, 8x25), I'm forgetting some stuff I'm sure. Then I do 600 with Pull Buoy. I stay another 15 minutes after class to work on Total Immersion drills to see if that will bring the balance and rotation back. 1 12oz Gatorade during the workout.

Back home about 8AM. 2nd Breakfast (hobbit style). 4 Eggs 2 yolks (omega) 3 spouted wheat toast (no butter), more blueberry juice. Prep the bike with 2 full bottles of Gatorade. Luna Bar within reach for more calories along the way. I intended to go the full 27 miles on the bike, then go run 10k. I chickened out, I decided that I should go 20 miles to make sure I had a chance at a good run. I did chug down about 44 oz of Gatorade on the bike and the Luna bar.

I didn't realize it was getting even warmer out and it had stopped raining. I should have just changed shoes and been off and running. Instead I took about 5 minutes before I got running. It didn't take long to settle in just under 9 min/mile pace. I think my biggest problem during the run was the stitch that kept getting me. Left side in the area just under the lowest rib. Could be diaphragm issue I suppose, I never really got my breathing in through my nose. I had to walk twice for about 20 seconds to let that stitch chill out.
Got home chugged down more juice and water 32 oz and stretched out.
My watch tells me I've burned 1750 calories between the bike and run. Add another 800 in for the Swim... 2500 total. Good to know for future fueling.

Overall, I'm pleased. No cramping issues. I should have weighed myself before the bike and run. Could have been helpful for hydrating info. As it was I decided to weigh myself after stretching out and I was the lowest I've seen. 181.5, which means I'm still plenty dehydrated. I'm not surprised. I'm actually considering more fluid on the bike. I've got 2 bottles already and I might add another holder behind the seat. Once it warms up, I'm guessing I'm going to need all of it.

There you have it. Now I've got to get the nail out of the car tire and get it patched up. You know, real life stuff.

16 Weeks to Mooseman

Why does that sound like it's right around the corner?