1000 miles from nowhere...

I just crossed over the 1000 mile mark on my personal odometer today.  It happened somewhere in the middle of my 2 mile run today.  That is 1000 miles on the treadmill, stationary bike, eliptical machine, running track, the trail in George Bush Park and the streets of Cypress.  1000 miles of exercise, countless calories burned, countless mindless thoughts brought into my head and enough Pandora to make your head spin.  January 20 i started to track my miles, actually, January 20 I started to actually do cardio workouts.  Here is to the next 1000 miles.  Ian

Wednesday Night

I have planned my next 2 1/2 weeks of training.  I must say that it really kicks off on Monday July 2.  My nutrional side of training goes into affect, or effect, whatever, on that day.  I am moving to a more organic nutritional spread.  My goal is to allow for at least 50% (aiming for 60%) of my caloric intake to be fresh fruit and vegatables.  The fruit is easy.  I can snack on apples and bananas and grapes all day, vegatables is going to be harder.  I will probably start out with carrots and celery, but I want to get to brocoli and other vitamin rich foods.  This will be strange.  Over the last 6 months of really changing my eating habits I have not restricted myself to what I can and cannot eat, just how much I can eat. 

I don't want to call this a diet.  I have been successful with portioning.  I have lost 64 lbs since January 20.  I lost an additional 23 lbs from October until january 20.  But that was with wishy washy dieting.  I actually lost about 35 lbs by mid december but put back 12 by January 20. 

So healthy eating is the next phase of this lifestyle change.

As for the training, it is becoming second nature and I am not skipping a beat in that.  I did nearly a kilometer in the pool today.  So that was a personal best.  I have to end this week of training through Saturday so I can start on the true triathlon training that I need to do.  I am stepping up my time in the pool and the treadmill, and on July 8 I am trying my first test of biking the triathlon distance and then putting the bike up and running the triathlon distance.  July 11 I will do the same.  I will then come home after both of those trials and hit the pool with my swim program that I outlined in an earlier post.  That, combined with the weights should really give me a good idea of what I have gotten myself into.  The outdoor heat will also be good for me. 

Ian

Training and Nutrition

Ahhhhhh...Training and nutrition...don't they just sound fun?  I have outlined the next 2 weeks of training to truly emphasize what I am trying to accomplish, whether that is on 8/4 or on 9/30.  I have to train and get ready in case my number is drawn on the first Saturday of August. 

I have outlined a new swimming program as that is probably my weakest area right now.  I have 2 of these to do this week and then I will be doing them 3 times a week for the first 3 weeks of July.  The week of July 22 I will switch to a different swimming regiment.  I have never done open water swimming, and I have an insane fear of fresh water.  Actually my fear of water includes oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, tap and anything that is not bottled, in a bath tub or a pool.  So this is going to be interesting when my foot first touches that lake and that crud goes between my toes.  I am freaking out about it right now...But back to training. 

My pool that I swim in is 20 meters long in the lap zone.  This makes for a lot of laps.  Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I will do my swimming weather permitted.  I will always have Sunday as a make up day as well.

• Warm Up 7 laps (140 meters)
• Distance 10 consecutive laps twice (200 meters x 2)
• Drill 7 speed laps (20 meters x 7)
• Sprint 5 laps with only arms (20 meters x 5) 
• Cool Down 5 consecutive laps (100 meters)

I just got me some Nike Jammers, the tightest swim trunks I have ever owned and some goggles.  I read somewhere that swimming with thte regular trunks I have been swimming in is like runing with a parachute.  We will see.  Off to the pool I go.  Ian

2 miles

I accomplished the 2 mile run this morning.  That is now the single longest stretch of running that I have ever done.  It was at about a 12 minute mile pace, which i can live with.  I always participated in organized sports growing up.  I played 13 years of Soccer, 4 years of football and 3 years of baseball.  I never ran continuously in any of those.  Maybe a half mile at most.  Last September i was trying to jog but my big fat self was too heavy to be supported by my knees.  anyways the longest I made it was a 1/4 mile without stopping.  Years ago I would run 1 minute, walk 2 and repeat.  This was the first time I made it 2 miles and that is pretty awesome.  I have to make it to 3.1 miles by August 4, and I think that it is in the bag.  I am going to try to run a trial run of 3 miles by the end of next week and continue to just workout at a 2 mile a day pace.  I have to get back on the bike as well.  I think this Tuesday or Wednesday will be the next bike ride for me.  I am going to see about doing 300 meters tomorrow without stopping so that should be fun.  Ian

Waiting list!!!

I made the waiting list for a triathlon on August 5. Of course I have to train for it as if I am in it, but I won't know if I am in it until the night before. If I don't make it in this one at least I will have done some great training over the next 6 weeks. It is also the day before we leave for Disney World. Should be fun! On a complete side note, I am not a John Lennon fan. But I saw this and it just makes sense. Well I will post it later as my iPhone will not let me post pictures to this page. Ian

Houston Triathlon September 30...

I had this plan to start triathlons next summer. I plan on riding in the MS150 next April and figured I would start the tri thing at the Tejas Triathlon in Sugarland next June. That did not go as planned. I just registered for one on September 30. 104 days to train now. I am not ready yet. I need to work on my swimming and running. The bike I have down. I am getting a new bike in late August. I have a plan for the running. I have a plan to gradually increase the time and speed that I run on a treadmill. The last 2 weeks before the event I will start running on the street and will probably start running the event course a well. This is going to be extremely interesting. Kennedy does not expecte to win, but she wants a top 10 finish. I will be participating in the Clydesdale level, which is men over 200 lbs. if everything goes to plan, big IF, I am targeting a race time weight of about 240. 29 lbs to get there and with the insane amount of cardio I will be doing over the next 104 days I think I will get there. Wish me luck. Ian

I probably should not type on an iphone

Lot's of errors in that last entry.  That is what you get for typing on an iphone.  I am heading to the gym.  I am going to run the treadmill for about 20 minutes, the eliptical for 20 minutes and the stationary bike for 20 minutes.  That will be a nice hour.  I have to go swimming as well.  It is a chest tricep workout date as well.  I am going to weigh in after all that.  Time to get back on schedule and start traing for what might be my first little triathalon.

Well crap, it has been too long...

I am sitting here, no I am lying here in bed alone listening to the damn cricket outside my window that has drive my wife out of bed and into the living room. It is just chirping away. My wife can't fall asleep with it going on like that which keeps me up listening to her whine about the damn cricket. Now I get to stretch out in bed and ponder on why it has been damn near 3 years since I have wrote in this blog. Not that anyone has missed my misguide attempt to become the next Pulitzer Prize winning author or anything, but it is a great outlet for my thoughts and ideas and prayers and life. A lot has happened in the last 3 years. Three years ago I thought it would be cute to write stories of my past and had this idea that I would be able to put it all on paper and someone would publish it and I would be a star. That is just silly. I graduated from the University of Houston a few years ago and that was a huge deal. I think I stopped posting right about then. So let me summarize. I have had extreme highs since then and the lowest of lows as well. I am writing on fathers day as this is part of the extreme highs. I have a wonderful life right now. A wonderful family. A great spiritual contact with my god. It took the lowest of the lows to get here. So where do I start? January 2010 and I take a position with a new home builder here in Houston. I am still helping with a roofing company that I was with. I am no longer getting paid to roof as I have a nice salary and commission structure at my new job. I am making crazy money and I feel like I should be happy. I am not. I am one of the top 3 salesmen out of about 40 in Houston. I still feel an emptiness. I have been sober for about 4 years when my wife calls me to let me know we are having a baby. That emptiness fills up quickly. I am not scared. I am not worried. Life is good. End act 1... A couple of months later we toto the doctor for her visit. It was a fine October day in Houston. Mid 80's for a high. That cold northern air creeping in at night and leaving a wonderful fresh air smell. I can still recall the look on her face as the doctor is telling us things in doctor talk. I don't speak doctor. All I know is that they give worst case scenarios, and hope for the best. We arrive at a specialist's office. It is a different place and a few weeks later so a the tests can be ran. The first words out of the specialist's mouth is, "your son...oh wait did you want to know the sex?". Those words will never leave my mind. I cannot explain to you the joy in my heart. The be t words. Ironed into my psyche like a hot brand. He has down syndrome. Ok. What does that man for us? Terror has taken the place of the joy I felt only moments ago. I cannot remember much after that. I returned to work. I will work and ignore it and the whole situation will fix itself. We did everything we could the next few weeks to figure out what the hell down syndrome was and how were we goi g to deal with this situation for the rest of our lives. And then I get a call from some guy in Florida saying I owe his company over $40000. What the hell is that about? Apparently I am still a consigner on a line of. Refit with the roofing company I was involved with. My old roofing buddy ran up a tab with a supply house that he could not pay. What is going on? Just a few months ago everything was right. How could it get worse? Well, don't ask that. A little after 7 months of pregnancy we go into a routine check up for Ethan. We are going to name our son Ethan. I wanted to name home after me but not exactly after me. Teachers and classmates can all pronounce Ethan and not but her it like the name Ian. I still remember sitting I the Libby watching some crap like Ellen on tv on that chilly February afternoon. That nurse just doesn't look right and she is coming to get me? The doctor sat us down and explained that Ethan's heart was no longer beating. He was gone. This is just not fair. What did we do to get our hearts tugged like this? We had done everything to prepare ourselves for Ethan. We had joined support groups and local orginizations to help us with everything that we could expect to go through. Just last week we had seen his heart beat on the sonogram at the hospital. We had pictures of sonograms and 3d pictures and heartbeat wave music files and he was you g to be my special little guy. I might have stoically stood there to support my wife over the next few days. Terrible days that she had to carry our dead son inside her and live with that torment. I stood by for weeks and months. I froze. I shutdown on the inside. For the first time in a long time I was hopelessly lost and could not find direction. Work suffered. I quit. I ran back tithe car business half heartedly and was quickly removed from that as well. I sat in my putty pot and let my wife sit in hers. I lost all hope. I sat unemployed for months. We lived off the good fortunes of great paychecks from the year with the homebuilder. It was running out. The debt from the roofing company and the hopeless state I was in dropped me down a few pegs. I finally got a new job. I would be making about a third of what I was making the previous year, but it was work. It was also in my field of study from UH. The overall financial burden led us to bankruptcy and the foreclosure of our home and the surrendering of my Escalade, just remnants of my past. Material items that can be replaced. Shoot, i paid our bancruptcy attorney with the proceeds from the sale of my first Rolex. Ethan could not be replaced. I trudged along down my road of happy destiny. I knew that there was a lesson to be learned from all this, I just could not see it yet. So it had been about 7 months since Ethan left us. The dreams we had for him will never leave us. I was coming around at my. Ew job and was realizing that I was good at what I was hired for. My wife got her job back with her old boss she was forced to leave because of the nature of her pregnancy and every once in a while someone would ask her how her baby was, and every once in awhile she would break down. I had let myself go on all levels. I was spiritually, emotionally and physically bancrupt. I was a mess. I stepped on a scale and the number that read back to me was staggering. 356. What happened? I had just picked up a five year chip for my sobriety and my life was damn near as bad as when I started. I had to do something. I have had a cosmic change you could say. I slapped my face and told myself to get up and start moving. God is not out to get you. He has given you a set of experiences that may seem unique, but since they have a name someone has already experienced them before. Maybe not in such rapid order, but they have experienced them none the less. I came out of my shell that I went and hid in. I started walking, biki g, lifting, jogging and swimming. I started to talk about my experiences. In my recovery I hear a lot of sob stories about people having a bad day or a bad week and try to back out. I had a fucking bad year. I stayed sober. So can you. I would not feel sorry for these people, I would instead tell them to get the fuck over it and turn it to god. Stop playing the victim. I changed everything about everything. I have good habits now. I have life back. Every time I go tithe gym and workout or hit the trail and ride or go jogging and it gets to that point where I want to stop and quit, I put this image in my mind. I imagine a young Ethan cheering me on through my struggles giving me unconditional love. I imagine what he would sound like and what he would say to me about my struggles. This is what gets me up at 4:50 in the morning when all I want to do is sleep. I want to so dearly meet him. I want to make him proud of my accomplishments. I get the awesome experience of Kennedy, my daughter. She is my livi g motivation. She heads to the gym with me and shows me what she can do. Every time I can she goes swim Ing and tries to keep up with me. She wants me to be happy again, and she makes that happen. She has had it hard with this all as well, and I hate to see her hurt. I know that there will be more pain for her from best friends and boyfriends, and she will not always run to me for help, but for now she does Nd she is my living motivation. On a different note I have lost 87 of those 356 pounds. For you at home counting that brings me down to 269. I weighed in at 272 in September of 1995 before the football season that year. I got down to about 250 by graduation in 96. Back York 300 my freshman year in college And back down to 220 my sophomore year. I have flex Ed between 290 and 330 for the last 7 or 8 years and peaked at 356 in October of 2011. I got fat. 56 inch waist. 21 inch neck. 58 long suit coat. Big and tall stores. I bought clothes from a normal department store for the first time in over 10 years last week. That was awesome. I need to get to around 230 and I will be happy. I am going to blog about that journey from here on out. I want to share my journey. I want to make Kennedy and Ethan proud of their dad. I want to be their role model and example. I love my daughter and am so proud of what she has become, and I miss the joys that should have been with Ethan. Life is not always fair. So with that my first step has been taken to run in the Bridgeland TriathLon on August 5 of this year. I am on the waiting list so hopefully I will be selected to participate. If not I will be run ing one on September 30 in Houston. I will be training over the next 6 weeks for this event as I will not know if I am in it until August 4. I am doi g this to make Kennedy proud of her father and for what Ethan was never given a chance to do. Wish me luck. Ian