End of Month 1

So, it's the end of January.  I didn't really start this whole weight-loss thing on January 1, like I did last year, so I don't really count this is one month.  Looking forward to seeing how February turns out, though.

Not much to say today.  Cold and snowy here.  Definitely won't be doing any outdoor riding this weekend.

A little tired.  The morning-and-evening workout schedule is getting to me, but I'm trying to stick with it as much as possible.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Naked steak taco salad at Qdoba
• Dinner:  Chicken Caesar salad

Exercise:

• 45 minutes on the elliptical when I woke up this morning.  Watched an episode of Burn Notice on Netflix.  Slowly cranking my way through the entire series during my elliptical workouts.
• 30 minute walk at lunch
• 30 minute ride on the trainer.  Spinervals 23.0 - Technique.  Relatively low-key workout.  Got the heart rate up a bit, but it's such a short workout that it's not really a big deal.

Today's weigh-in:  189.2

Mmm..... smoothies

Sometime last year, I wrote a post about the smoothies I was drinking.  Well, I'm still going.  Nearly every day, I have a smoothie for breakfast.  Seems like a pretty healthy way to start the day.  Much better than the cereal and bagels I used to eat.

I was planning on having a lot of variety in my smoothies, but instead I pretty much make two different smoothies.  You would think I would get tired of it, but I don't.  They're pretty good.

In case you missed my previous post about smoothies, here is what I typically do:

• 1/2 avocado.
• Couple fresh strawberries.
• Some frozen fruit, from a bag of frozen fruit medley.  Typically, either a triple-berry mix, or some kind of mango-pineapple-peach blend, depending on where I'm shopping.
• Handful of spinach.
• 1 raw egg.
• Maybe a spoonful of vanilla Greek yogurt.
• Scoop or two of vanilla whey protein powder.
• Topped off with some water.

Then, just throw it on the blender and blend it up. There's some stuff in there that doesn't sounds very good, but once it's all blended together, it just tastes fruity.

Our blender came with some single-serving attachments, which is pretty handy.  Previously, my wife and I were drinking the same smoothie, so I would just make enough for two, in the regular blender container.  But lately, her trainer has asked her to cut out the fruit, so she is doing her own thing.  So, we each make our own single-serve smoothies.


Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar at my desk, after my walk.
• Dinner:  Bacon-wrapped chicken breast, and some broccoli and cauliflower

Exercise:

• Strendurance Workout B
• 30-minute walk at lunch 
• Spinervals 34.0 - Super High Intensity Training.  (SHIT?)  I really liked this workout.  First time I've ever done it.  Just straight-up hard interval sets, and only 55-minutes long.  And this is the first time I've brought power data into Strava.  Interesting to see that.  More about TrainerRoad and VirtualPower in a later post. 

Today's weigh-in:  188.2

Easy day today

Pretty straightforward day today, not very difficult.  It's late, and I want to get to bed, so I'll just cut to the chase:

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Steak salad at Qdoba
• Dinner:  2 pork tamales.  Yum.

Exercise:

• 45 minutes on the elliptical.  4.9 miles.
• 70 minutes on the trainer, Spinervals 21.0 - Aero Base Builder IV.

Today's weigh-in: 188.8. 

Strendurance

Today was a 3-workout day.  I think it might be the only one in my current training program.  Most days have two workouts.  Typically a bike workout and either a short cardio or short strength workout.  Today, I got to do them all.

I haven't been posting for a while, so I had done a post about Strendurance.  As I've said before, Spinervals is a video series focused on cycling on triathlon training.  But they also offer training videos for other types of fitness that will assist in an overall training program.  They have some treadmill workouts,  yoga, team sports training (with Ray Lewis!), a crazy swimming video and strength training.  The strength training videos are known as Strendurance.  I'm not sure if the word come from "strength and endurance", meaning it's supposed to be working on both, or "strength for endurance athletes".  Either way, they are pretty good workouts.

The Strendurance series consists of 7 half-hour workouts on one disc (or as a number of individual video files, if you buy the digital versions like I do).  There are six workouts, A-F, meant to be done in a 12-week progression, and a "maintenance" workout you can do to maintain your fitness after that buildup.

Because I just re-started this blog, I missed talking about Strendurance when I actually started doing them, so I am already onto Workout B in my progression.  I'd done Workout A twice a week for the past two weeks, and now I have two weeks of Workout B.

I'm not sure what the future Strendurance workouts will be like, but Workout B is a 25-minute workout pretty similar to Workout A, with just a few more reps.

Strendurance Workout B:
Warmup:

• 30 sec of Flix
• 30 seconds of squats
• 30 seconds of high-knees
• 8 burpees

Set 1 (x3):

• 20 seconds of squats
• 20 seconds of pushups
• 20 seconds of crunches (on mat or ball)
• 20 seconds of back extensions (on mat or ball)
• 20 seconds of mountain climbers

Set 2 (x3):

• 20 seconds - shoulder press
• 20 seconds - upright rows
• 20 seconds - tricep extensions
• 20 seconds - curls
• 30 seconds - jumping jacks

Set 3:

• 8 squat thrusts
• 8 push ups
• 8 squats
• 8 jumping jacks

It doesn't seem like much, but it all happens pretty quick with very little rest time.  A lot of work in a little time, which is nice.  Easy to crank out in the morning before getting ready for work.


Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar at my desk.  Actually had a lunch seminar at work today, but they didn't bring anything I wanted to eat.  I ate a pickle and drank some water.  Everything else had lots of stuff I don't like:  feta, olives, mushrooms, avocado, or big, carb-y bread.
• Dinner: Mini Paleo Pizzas

Exercise:

• Strendurance Workout B - strength training from Spinervals
• 40 minutes on the treadmill in the fitness room at my daughter's gymnastics class
• Spinervals 17.0 - Aero Base Builder II.  80 minutes of aerobic base training.  My scheduled workout was actually a 2-hour Zone 3 workout, but I just didn't have time for that tonight.  Spinervals 17 was listed as an alternate workout, so I did that instead.

Today's weigh-in: 187.6

Spinervals 38.0, plus some running

Not much to say today.  Got up early and cranked out a 45-minute run on the elliptical this morning.  At work today, I managed to convince myself to go for a walk at lunch, and didn't stop anywhere to eat, opting for a protein bar when I got back to my desk.  Then, after some pizza for dinner, I jumped on the bike for a short Spinervals workout focused on technique with one really good power set at the end.

Tomorrow should be interesting.  I have three workouts scheduled.  Running, strength training, and riding on the trainer.  Think I'm going to try to do the strength work in the morning, running on the treadmill in the fitness room during my daughter's gymnastics class, hop on the bike after dinner.  Ugh.


Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar
• Dinner:  Homemade pizza.  Well, we bought the crust.  Some kind of yummy artisan crust.  We made two pizzas.  One was the standard pepperoni and sausage.  The other was our attempt to copy the fantastic Hamptons pizza from The Secret Stash in Crested Butte.  Olive oil, lemon pepper, mozz, prosciutto, shaved parm, and arugula.  With some lemon squeezed on top.  It wasn't a perfect copy, but it was pretty damn good.

Exercise:

• 45 minutes on the elliptical, 5.0 miles
• 30-minute walk at lunch
• Spinervals 38.0 - Develop Technique and Power

Today's weigh-in:  189.0

A much-deserved rest day

Rest day today!
Today was a rest day, and I really appreciated it.  My schedule got a little mixed up last week, and I ended up with too many hard days in a row.  Yesterday's team ride wasn't too difficult, but I was pretty beat from a number of hard days.  I was supposed to have a rest day yesterday to recover, and then a long, hard day today.  Instead, I made today the rest day.

Today was supposed to be Spinervals 26.0, a 3-disc 100-mile indoor training ride which takes about 5 1/2 hours.  I've done it once, last summer after breaking my arm.  It sucked, and I have no desire to ever do it again.  It's a really miserable way to spend a day.  I'm also glad I didn't decide to try a century ride outside today.  It was getting a little colder, and very windy.  That would have been miserable.

Although yesterday's team ride was only about half the distance I was supposed to do for my training plan, I think I actually got a lot out of it, and don't regret it at all.  Being outside with the team on a beautiful day is way more fun that riding my training for half the day.

Lifetime Fitness
I went to Lifetime Fitness today, and thought I might get some lap swimming in.  Even though today is a rest day, I figured swimming is so unrelated to cycling that my "bike muscles" would still be resting, and I could burn some calories.  I helped my wife with her strength workout for about 45 minutes while the kids were playing in the kids area.  Then, we got the kids and went to the pool.  My wife was going to sit on the edge of the pool and watch the kids while I did laps in the lap pool.  I managed to get in 6 laps before my daughter came over and said they were testing all the kids in the pool, and if you couldn't pass the swim test, a parent had to be in the pool with you.  She passed the test, and they gave her a wristband.  My son, though, didn't pass, and so needed someone in the pool with him.  I'm not sure he's been swimming since last summer, and he must have forgotten some stuff.  So, I hung out in the pool with him for about a 1/2-hour, and then we packed up and left.  So, I didn't really get in the workout I had hoped for.  Oh well.  Like I said, it was a rest day.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Chipotle - steak salad.
• Dinner:  Chicken paprikash, but by itself.  No noodles.  First time we ever made it.  Pretty tasty.  I think I've only had paprikash once before, at a Hungarian place in Barberton, OH.  That was probably 20 years ago.  Not sure how this compared, but it was yummy.  And the kids loved it, which is really surprising.

Exercise:

• 6 laps in the pool.  Barely worth mentioning.

Today's weigh-in:  190.4
I kind of expected it might go up a bit with my rest day.  Back into it tomorrow, with some running and a bike workout.

Race Recon

My workout schedule got a little messed up this week.  I ended up at a Colorado Avalanche game on Tuesday, which caused me to miss a workout.  Then, I had to re-shuffle some workouts the rest of the week to make up for it.  I ended up ended up with three hard days in a row, and was scheduled for a rest day today.  But instead, a group of the Category 5 riders from the team were getting together to do a little course recon for the first race of the season, and a little team-building.

So, after three hard workouts, instead of resting, I ended up doing another 45 miles or so with a mix of climbing and flats.  We had a good group of 5 riders, 4 Cat 5 men, and one Cat 5 woman.  We got to know each other a bit, got in some good paceline practice, and in general had a good workout.

The Cat 5 crew

After that ride, I'm definitely looking forward to my rest day tomorrow.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Salad with chicken
• Dinner:  Slow-cooker Asian Beef, with Brilliant Sauteed Broccoli

Exercise:

• 47.5 miles from Berthoud to Carter Lake, with 2 loops at the lake.

Today's weigh-in:  189.6

2014, here we come!

I'm a little late on this.  We're well into January, and I just posted my 2012 recap yesterday.  So let's get right into my 2014 look-ahead, or before I know it, it's going to be 2015.

My 2014 plan is going to be a little different than 2013.  For one thing, I weigh a lot less.  In 2013, I started at 226 lbs, got myself down to about 172 lbs.  I've also gotten more into running, so I'm planning on some easy-ish running events this year.  But the biggest change is that I joined a bike racing team, which really effects the type of events I'm going to ride this year.

Weight:
As I said, I went from 226 to 172 lbs last year.  Unfortunately, I've managed to get back up to 190 lbs since my low back in July.  I have a couple problems:  1) I love cheesesteaks, and there is a fantastic cheesesteak place about a block from my office.  2) I love Coke.  Nectar of the gods.  Once I completed my goal cycling event last year, the Triple Bypass in July, I wasn't as focused on keeping my weight down, so I started to indulge in my cheesesteaks and Coke again.  Bad, bad, bad.

I am planning to skip going out for lunch all the time, and try to bring lunch to work or eat a protein bar at my desk, probably while I'm writing this blog.  I like to get out of the office, so I may just walk during lunch, and come back and eat something quick.  (Hopefully I won't walk past anything too tempting).  I may also start riding at lunch again, which takes up all my lunch hour and keeps me from going out.  Like last year, I will treat myself to a delicious cheesesteak for every 10 pounds lost.  That seemed to work, and made the cheesesteaks taste even better, in my opinion.  I'm also planning to skip the Coke, and stick to water.  I don't carry cash, so I can't be tempted by the machine at work.  I've just got a water bottle at my desk, and I plan to drink tons of water every day.

While I like to think I have some measure of willpower, I don't completely trust myself, so I hope my various measures of "keeping myself busy" will help prevent some of the temptation of delicious sandwiches and sweet, sweet Coke.

I also run into the problem of going out for dinner.  The family typically goes out to dinner once a week, maybe twice.  Depending on where we go, I may or may not have good options.  Fortunately, water is always an option.  For food, I am basically aiming for high-protein, low-carb, which may or may not be easy.  I usually look at salads first, to see what kind of salad I can get with some chicken on it.  Sometimes I'll have them double the chicken, too.  If they don't have anything that looks good, I'll try to aim for salmon or something, and probably some broccoli.

As for exercise, I am not too worried about exercise for weight loss.  I am focused more on nutrition.  The exercise part will come naturally as part of my training plan for the cycling season.

Training:
As I said, I have a lot planned for this year.  Although I am not training for a specific endurance event like I was last year, I am now training for a full cycling season with a team.  And besides the racing team, I will also be participating in a number of longer endurance cycling events, as well as the occasional running event, usually with my daughter.

After road-biking season last year, I quickly turned to getting ready for this year.  That meant October and November base training, and a really hard December.  I train using Spinervals training videos and a training plan provided by Spinervals.  Last year, I wrote a post about Spinervals on this blog.  They have a huge library of videos available, and I own most of them.  They also provide training plans.  As a paid member, they provide me with a really good off-season training program.

The Spinervals Super6 program is a 6-month training plan that runs from October through March.  The first phase was a 6-week base-building program, just to keep up your fitness after the season.  In December, they amp'd it up with a full month of really hard work.  I'm currently in the middle of 6 weeks of aerobic-endurance and strength workouts.  This consists of a lot of harder aerobic-level work mixed with really difficult strength, speed and power work.

For every phase of training, I am given a training calendar on TrainingPeaks.com, listing my workouts for each day.  The workout calendar is carefully planned with the right amount of effort at the right time, with rest days when I need them.  For my current phase, I typically have two workouts per day, which is rough.  There is generally a cycling workout along with either a strength or cardio workout.  They are a little more flexible on these other workouts, and they are mostly a supplement to the cycling work, which is the main focus.  I'll talk about the workouts in more detail on my daily posts.

Right now, my current plan takes me to about mid-February, a week before my first race of the season, which is perfect.  I can do some recovery rides during the last week and be ready for the race.


PSIMET/Zilla
As I said, I'm now on a bike team.  I wrote about finding a team last summer.  At the time, the road racing season was basically over, any everyone was gearing up for cyclocross and mountain biking.  So, I did some training rides with them, but haven't been all that involved yet.

I am currently a Category 5 (newbie) racer for a local team called PSIMET/Zilla Racing. The team is officially based out of Westminster, Colorado, but we have riders from all over the Front Range.  It is currently cyclocross season, which I'm not involved in.  We are gearing up for the road racing season to begin around the end of February.  The season's racing calendar is set, but only one event is currently open for registration, the Gebhardt Automotive Cycling Classic, more commonly known as the Carter Lake Road Race, on February 22nd.  I am currently registered for that race, and eagerly awaiting registration for additional races.

The team seems like a really great group of people, and very welcoming to newcomers like me.  They are very focused on training, not just riding.  I have done a couple clinics with them so far, learning a lot of the skills needed for actual racing.  I am hoping that we are doing more than the other teams out there, so come race-time, we are much more prepared.  I am actually heading out for a ride tomorrow with some of the other Category 5 riders, to do a little team-building, preview the course, and practice riding as a team.  Stay tuned throughout the year for updates on this whole racing thing.  Wish me luck!


And now for the boring stuff...
I'm going to start regularly tracking a lot of things like I did last year.  Logging daily activities, what I ate that day, and daily weigh-ins.  I'll also have links to activity logs on Strava, if anyone wants to check those out.  Maybe it will be interesting for you, maybe not.  But it's good for me.  Last year I found myself going back to old posts quite a bit, maybe for dinner ideas, or trying to remember "that one time I crashed", and stuff like that.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit/protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Naked steak taco salad from Qdoba.  Already breaking my rule about eating in the office, but maybe I can just start that next week.  But it's a salad, so that should be ok.
• Dinner:  Buffalo chicken salad, with double chicken.

Exercise:

• 45 minutes on the elliptical when I got up this morning.  4.8 miles.
• Spinervals 39.0 - Aerobic Base at 10,000 Feet, after-dinner workout.  I really like this particular workout.  Not incredibly difficult, with plenty of variety for an aerobic base workout.  And I know a few of the people in the video, which is cool.

Today's weigh-in:  190.6

2013 Recap

So, I was planning on continuing my daily updates throughout all of last year, and then doing a big year-end post, followed by a new-year kick-off.  But none of that actually happened.  As I mentioned early last year, my big goal for the year was completing the Triple Bypass ride in July, and getting my weight down to 165 lbs.  Once I completed the Triple Bypass, I kind of had a feeling like I met my goal, and tracking my daily progress wasn't as important.  So my posts started becoming more sporadic, only posting when something interesting was happening.

But I should have a pretty exciting year coming up, so I figured I should get this thing going again.  So, let's get 2014 started with a recap of 2013 . . .

Highlights:

• Elephant Rock - This was supposed to be a big ride, with a large group from my office.  Unfortunately, I broke my arm a few weeks before, and ended up just riding (one-handed) the 8-mile family ride with my wife and kids, meeting up with my co-workers at the end.  Although I did it, my arm was killing me, and I probably shouldn't have ridden.
• Triple Bypass - This was my big ride for year.   112 miles or so, and a crap load of climbing.  A really great ride.
• Wacky W - A couple years ago, I did the metric century.  In 2013, I opted for the full century ride.  unfortunately, it was really, really hot, and I had to stop about 10 miles from the finish.  I was disappointed, but it was a nice ride anyway.
• Best on Hess Time Trial - my first racing event.  I placed 9th out of 26 in my category.
• Crested Butte - While the kids were spending some time with the grandparents back in Ohio, my wife and I got in a short trip to Crested Butte.  I managed to get in a few good mountain bike rides.
• Plenty of rides with the kiddos.

Lowlights:

• Crash #1 - The worst one.  I was out for a lunchtime ride during work.  I was a couple miles away from the office, and reached down for a water bottle.  I was taking a drink with both hands off the bars when my wheel just whipped around, throwing me down.  I stuck my arm out to brace myself, slamming it into the pavement.  I broke the radial head on my right arm, and wasn't able to put weight on it for about a month, and not really able to ride on it for about a month.  To keep up my training, I spent a lot of time riding the trainer with one arm.  I was able to get back on the road shortly before the Triple Bypass.
• Crash #2 - Pretty minor.  Just riding home from work in the rain.  I took a turn onto a wooden bike path bridge, and my wheels just went out from under me.  I hit the ground hard, but wasn't going very fast.  Bruised my ass a bit, but otherwise not a big deal.
• Crash #3 - Another pretty bad one.  I was riding with the Lifetime Fitness Cycle Club.  Close to the end of the ride, I apparently got a flat tire, and didn't realize it.  I made a quick right turn, my wheel slipped, and I went down hard.  I got some pretty disgusting road rash on my right arm and leg.
• Crash #4 - This one wasn't bad at all. I hit a patch of ice on a commute to work.  I crashed, but fortunately into some snow on the side of the path.  Got right up and kept going.
• Good Sam Bike Jam cancellation -  This was supposed to be my last big ride of the year.  I was riding this as part of a sponsored team from my office.  Exempla Good Samaritan Hospital is a big client of ours, and we appreciate the opportunity to support their Foundation by sending a team to this great event.  But you might remember the heavy rains and massive flooding that hit the Denver/Boulder area in September 2013.  This flooding caused massive destruction that we are still recovering from.  Most of the roads are open again, but many consist of temporary repairs.  Some are only passable with a single lane, and many are just packed gravel in spots.  Large sections of roads were just completely washed away, particularly in the mountain canyons.  These canyons provide a significant amount of the beautiful cycling rides throughout the area, and were a major part of the Good Sam Bike Jam.  The event was supposed to occur just a few days after the flooding, but once the organizers did some course recon, they realized it was just not possible to hold the event.  Most of the roads, and the towns they passed through, were completely destroyed.  The Foundation was still supported by registration fees, and the food, staff and supplies that were in place for the ride were donated for the flood relief efforts.  While I understand there was nothing they could do, it is still disappointing to miss such a great event.  Looking forward to the 2014 ride!

Running:

In addition to my biking adventures, I also did some running.  It was nice to break up bike training by going out for runs around the neighborhood once in a while.  But the best part of running was doing running events with my daughter.  We had a great time, and are looking forward to more events in 2014.  Here are the running events we did together last year.

• Cottonwood Classic 5k - Our first event.  Her school was participating, and she really wanted to do it, so we decided to run together.
• Taste of Louisville 5k - We had so much fun at our first one, we decided to do another.
• Firecrackers and Flapjacks 4-mile - A fun 4th of July run.
• Run the Rocks 5k - Very difficult 5k, but spectacular scenery.
• Update:  And I forgot to mention running with my sister-in-law Amy for her first 5k!  She's been doing the Couch-to-5k program, and she was scheduled to do her first complete 5k run at the same time I was visiting the family in Ohio this summer, so we ran that one together.  Great job, Amy!

Some 2013 stats:

• Highest weight:  226 lbs, January 1
• Lowest weight:  172.4 lb, June 27-July 3
• Distance, bike:  5,452 miles
• Distance, run:  157.5 miles
• Distance, swim:  11.3 miles

So, I never got my weight down to my 165-pound goal.  But I got thisclose.  Still losing 53.6 pounds isn't too shabby.  I've managed to put some of that back on, but not too much.  But I'll talk a little more about new weight-loss goal in my 2014 kick-off post, coming soon.

But looking back over the whole year, I think it was extremely successful.  Sure, there were some setbacks, primarily the broken arm, but I managed to continue to work hard, complete the Triple Bypass ride, and have a lot of fun at the same time.  Stay tuned for an awesome 2014!