Sub 190 and I feel great!

Some days you just feel strong. Anyone who does any sort of training for any sport I am sure has days where you feel like you would blow away your usual efforts. This was one such day. Too bad I wasn't racing or anything.

First off, to set the tone, last weekend was not a great one so far as eating well. Basically for Sunday and Monday the wheels fell off the truck and it was ugly. Maybe not as ugly as it might have been on days about 3 or 4 months ago, but it was not good. I am guessing that I consumed between 3000 and 4000 calories each day, maybe more. I figured that I would be hard pressed to lose any weight this week.

Tuesday and Wednesday were days when I didn't get to ride as much as I had planned but I did really well diet-wise.

Today I left a little bit earlier and climbed up to Skyline before cutting over to my usual route. The climb up to Skyline added 3 miles to my ride--not that big of a deal--and also about 500-600 feet of climbing within the first 2.5 miles of the ride. Usually my first 2-3 miles are totally downhill, so this route is obviously more work. But man, I felt great. I mean it still hurt to climb up Barnes to Skyline before I drop down to the Sylvan area, geesh I felt like I could have just ripped the chain apart I was hammering so hard. After work, on my ride home I felt the same way. I had a bunch of energy, it was surprising.

I got home, it was nearly 10PM (we were busy again tonight and I got a flat on the way home which I had to fix--hooray for CO2 cartridges) and after hanging the bike I said hello to the wife and went into take a shower. I hopped on the digital scale and PRESTO the second digit was not a "9", but an "8"! Holy Cow! I had to have Bridget come in and witness the numbers on the scale. My weight was 189.6 lbs. Wow!

So I have touched the 180's. I ate right after the shower so I am no longer sub 190, but maybe tomorrow morning--we'll see. I never count my night time weights as official weights. It has to be after I wake up, before I eat to count.

Anyway, I felt great and if I seem to be patting myself on the back a little much--so be it. I am excited. I am planning on doing the Scoggins Valley Triathlon at the end of August. If I was trying to push myself I should do the olympic distance, but I am going to do the sprint distance instead. I did the sprint distance last year and so I want to do it again so that I can compare my time last year to this year at the lower weight. I finished that hilly course last year in a little over 1hr 40min. I would like to knock about ten minutes off that time. I feel like a hammer, and I hope that it is more than in my head.

So it goes to show that if you have a bad couple of days, don't give up. Get back on the horse and keep at it.

By the way, at 189 and change I am 6-ish pounds away from my goal. I still have a gut. Weird. I lean over and it is kind of ugly. Luckily I am thin enough that any shirt I have on hides it, but when I am naked--ugh. Those fat cells just aren't ever going to totally go away. I am resigned to this fact. I don't think I will ever have six pack abs. Not that those are a goal, but I do think that anyone that has been bigger and then has them later has had lipo. I could be wrong, but according what I have read and heard fat cells just get smaller, they don't go away totally. So I still have all of the fat cells that I did when I was nearly 240 lbs. Yuck. But I can't imagine doing something like lipo so they will just have to stay here with me.

Wow, 240 lbs. I am about 50 pounds lighter than I was in 2002. I have difficulty imagining it.

OTHER NEWS:
My White Brothers Rock Solid fork is gone. Sold it and I have the Manitou 29er fork coming to take its place. The order is supposed to take 2 to 4 weeks which means that I may not have a mountain bike to ride for that long. I only placed the order for the Manitou a couple of days ago. We are heading to Black Butte Ranch the middle of August and I would really like to have it by then, but I don't have any control over it so I ain't going to worry about it. There is some good road rides I can do so I am not worried.

I also ordered some Neuvation wheels. I got an employee/team deal on these wheels and the price was less than the price of a set of Mavic Aksium wheels, but they weigh the same as a set of Mavic Ksyrium SL's. I just want some light-ish wheels that I don't have to worry about. These fit the bill. The M28 SL5 wheelset weighs 1490 grams and according to a couple of guys that have them, they are pretty bomb proof. I can even upgrade to ceramic bearings if I want. If I like them I will pick up another set for the wife. I could buy a "cooler" wheelset, but why? I will save my wheel money for some Zipp 1080's for next years half iron man.