This photo is what it took to once again make me get serious about losing weight :

I do not want to look like that on the bike. Period. I know I should care about getting skinny because it will make me healthier, or it will make me faster, but really, its vanity. Well, vanity, and getting faster anyway.

Regardless, it’s time to get serious about weight loss.

Here’s the goal: weigh 180 pounds by October 1^st.

Here’s the three point plan to reach that goal:

• Up the exercise.

Currently, I am trying to get back on track with my marathon running program after getting a bit off balance with the triathlon. I’ll keep to my running schedule through October for the marathon, but I hope to fit in a fair amount of cycling as well and swim at least once a week. I don’t plan to do another tri this year, but I would like to stay fit in all three sports, and the extra exercise (without the extra punishment of adding more run miles) will have me burning more calories and hopefully losing more weight.

• Seriously watch what I eat.

I am not the world’s worst eater, but I sure have room for improvement. I don’t eat fast food, but I do eat too much and too late in the day (especially the dreaded ten p.m. dinner). I also don’t always make the best food choices, often going with the sandwich instead of the salad.

Here’s the commitment I am making today: Six days a week, I’ll make the best food choice available. I will stick as much as possible to fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and a reasonable amount of carbs. I’ll control my proportions and stop eating before I am full. I will eat a number of small meals during the day as opposed to three large meals, and I won’t eat dinner after nine o’clock at night (let’s be reasonable, this is New York…)

• Drink less of everything but water.

Look, let’s face it, I am not going to lose weight having a beer or two most nights. That’s going to have to come to an end. I’m not giving up alcohol, but giving away those empty calories is just plan stupid. Its time to cut way back.

This is a lesser point, but I drink way too much fruit juice as well. You know how many calories are in a glass of orange juice? Too fucking many.

I am toying with the idea of posting regular photos and weight updates on here. I wonder if that would up the three people a day quotient this site currently gets, or drag it down even further….

Race Report: New York City Triathlon

Prerace:

I really underestimated the amount of shit that has to get done before you even start a triathlon. There’s the pre race briefing, where they tell you where everything is, and how the water in the Hudson is clean (honest!). Then you drop off the bike at the transition area the night before and after a fit full night of sleep, I was up at 3 a.m. to set up my transition area.

When I got to the transition area at five am, the sun wasn’t even up. The floodlights were on in the transition area, and not having a clue as to what I was supposed to do, I looked at the people around me for a guide as to what to do. I laid out the equipment and chatted with a number of much more experienced triathletes around me until six a.m. when I headed off to the race start.

The Swim

The swim course was from 100^th street down to the boat basin at 79th, and as soon as the pros went off a couple minutes before six, it was obvious the current was going to be in our favor. I saw one woman float on her back down the river and still finish the stage in the allotted time.

Before the race, I was terribly nervous about the swim since I had had such trouble in the Liberty Swim in May. I told myself to just put my head in the water and go for it, counting my strokes and not worrying about where I was in the race.

When the horn went off, I was at the back of the pack, but all the open water swimming I have done recently must have paid off, because by the time I got out of the water, I was feeling strong, and at the front of the heat.

It took me 19:56 to finish the swim. That’s a full ten minutes faster than I was expecting. I felt strong coming out of the water, and was confident that I was going to at the very least be able to finish this thing.

The Bike

I need to do a lot more work on my biking. I got fucking destroyed by the dudes around me. I think this was for three reasons:

1. I had taken the bike leg for granted and hadn’t trained nearly hard enough for it. I didn’t put in enough long rides and had done no speed work, so it isn’t surprising that I was getting smoked.
2. Add to my lack of training the fact that I was riding a mid eighties steel bike and many of the guys passing be were riding time trial bikes or at least bikes with the aero bar setup. I need to rethink the design of my bike and possibly invest in a new handle bar set up. My sub par equipment isn’t an excuse for how badly I preformed on the bike, but a more tri specific set up would certainly help.
3. Finally, I didn’t know how to pace myself since the run was still to come and that affected my speed. In hindsight, I could have gone out a lot harder on the bike. Lesson learned.

I finished the bike leg in 1:30:25. That can definitely be improved on.

The Run

It was well into the nineties by the time the run started, and all I was interested in doing was finishing. I passed more people than passed me. I finished the run in 62:48. My run could always use improvement, but I’m not going to beat myself up over ten minute miles in those conditions.

Total time for the event was 3:05:02. All in all, I’m proud as hell to have finished the thing, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. Now, I have to concentrate on training for the Hartford marathon, but I have to say, I’m hooked triathlons. Is it too early to be thinking about a half iron man?

1. Interesting article in today’s New York Times on the preparations the U.S. team is making for the hot and polluted conditions marathoners will be facing in Beijing. Since I am now seriously training for my fall marathon in the heat and pollution of Brooklyn, New York, there are some lessons for me here.

2. You know how much I want to do a five mile run tonight? Not very much at all.

3. Updates on this weekends race, and my training schedule for the Hartford marathong very soon. I promise.

I'll be posting much more mindnumbing at some point later this week, but for now, I let the world know that I finished my frist tri, the New York City Triathlon in 3:05:02. Not the greatested time in the world, but nothing I am terribly ashamed about. I am already hooked on this sport and can think a of a hundred things I need to work on.

Like I said, they'll be much more later, but in a nutshell: It was really hot out there.

I have my first triathlon this weekend and I am nervous as hell. I think I am better prepared for this than I have been for any of my previous races, but still, I’m scared.

I am trying to honor the pseudo taper I told myself I would do, but to calm my nerves, I did a brick workout on Sunday that was as long as the entire bike and run segment of the race. And I swam a little over a mile in the pool this week.

Other than that, I’ve been pretty good though keeping my runs to five miles or less.

Once the race is down, I’ll post the result here….wish me luck.

Tuesday, I did a fifty mile plus bike ride up and over the George Washington Bridge then through the rolling hills of New Jersey. I sang Bruce Springsteen to myself as I was blinded by the sweat pouring down my face. It felt good.

The GW/NJ route is roadie central, I felt like a fat loser even though I was averaging 17mph. The two much more experienced bikers I was out with were generous enough to wait for my slow ass at the top of many a hill.

Got home exhausted and skipped the five mile run I was planning on doing.

Yesterday, I did a 3.5 run with H-rock in the nasty ass humidity and felt great. It was probably the two days off in a row, but my legs felt like they could have carried me forever. Tonight, it’s five and a half or so in the park.

Two week update:

Just got back from the first week long vacation I have had in three years. I was nice, I am tan.

I ate like a pig, but H-rock* and I treated the vacation like a training camp and worked out every day. The totals for the time (from Friday June 23 to yesterday July 2) are below.

I feel great about the week. I gained a little weight, some of which, I am telling myself, must be muscle, and ran, biked and swim just about every goddamn day.

The part of the trip I feel best about is the open water swimming. I was in the ocean everyday and feel much more comfortable swimming in the wetsuit now than I did at my last open water swim. I hope to get at least one more open water swim in before the NYC tri, but even if I don’t I feel confident I’ll do fine.

Here’s the number and goals for the week. This week is all about balancing the marathon training with triathlon training. I hate to say it, but I’ll be happy when I can just concentrate on the Hartford Marathon.

The Numbers:

Swim: 2.75 miles in 1:35:00 minutes (all in open water)

Bike: 48 miles

Run: 26 miles in 4:10:00 for an average pace of 10:00 MPH

Core: none.

This is the graph from my workouts this week. This should be a little heavier on the bike rides, I think, but I am happy to see the number getting bigger.

Weight: 192 (up two pounds from last post).

Goals from last post:

Sleep at least eight hours a night. (DONE!)

Do at least two open water swims (DONE!)

Stretch everyday (eh, close?).

Finish Volume One of Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism. (DONE!)

Begin making core-conditioning part of my weekly workout plan. (yeah, no so much.)

Goals for Next Week:

Do core work at least twice.

Stretch everyday.

Sleep at least eight hours.

No chips, and no beer during the week.

Do one open water swim.

Btw: *H-Rock is my life partner/ girlfriend / lover.