Try this again

I read somewhere that successful people keep a journal. As one who desires success I figured I would bring up the old Blog and start using it again. Today I started a new workout. I am combining cycling with a 3O day ab and 30 day squat work out. Unfortunately for those few readers I get on here, you have to put up with the obigitory before workout pictures. I also experimented with making pizza on the grill which may have been counter productive to my fitness quest. Well unfortunately I couldn't get the pics to download so I guess they will be in the next addition..

First official day of my fitness journey.

Today was the first day I started my journey to getting back in shape. My starting weight is 203.6. My goal is 185. I started the day off with a breakfast of a two egg omelet with green peppers onions and cheese. For lunch I went with turkey wrapped around a cheese stick. Supper was whole wheat pasta with chicken and veggies and a spinach salad. I did cheat with a 64 calorie beer and a small bowl of Ice
cream. I waxed the car which hopefully burned enough calories to make up for the beer and ice cream. I did a 45 minute interval workout. I didn' t have alot of time and it was getting late so I rode to high school and did .4 mile loops around the parking lot. The first four laps were easy warmup. The first four intervals were progressive. First 20 mph second 21 then 22 and 23With an easy lap between. After a few easy laps I completed four hard laps with no break. Finally I did four all out intervals. When I got home
I did 50 pushups with my perfect push-ups and 50 sit-ups.

My knee is still a little swollen so I am keeping it wrapped and icing it. I hope I can keep up the exercise. The knee feels pretty good when I walk on it. So far the hip has been fine. It sucks to get old.

First ride back at normal altitude.

We made it back from our Colorado and Midland Tx vacation
Around 4:30. I decided to see how my lungs
Would respond to a ride back at a normal altitude. When I rode in Colorado,
My lungs would give in before my legs. Tonight my lungs were great so I
Was able to push my legs. I did a 16 mile ride with a 18.4 mph average. My knee was a
Little stiff but felt pretty good.

The journey back to being fit

It has been over a year since I posted on this blog. If you look through my older posts and pics you will see l used to be in pretty good shape. After a year of enjoying alot of shiner bock, riding my motorcycle, advanced arthritis in my hip and knees, and knee surgery; I find myself in the worst shape I have been in. My six pack is now a keg. My legs that took me around oahu at 20+ miles per hour fatigue after 20 miles at 14 miles per hour. My weight has gone from 177 to over 200. My waist from 32 in to 37.

The knees and hip are going to be a major challenge. I can't run which was the easiest way to get in shape. I am hoping I can use my bike as the primary mode of exercise. I also want to lift weights and do my physical therapy exercises to supplement

I spent the last week in Colorado. The thin air really made me feel I was out of shape. I did get four rides in with some serious climbing. Hopefully I will be able to reep the benefits when get back to San Antonio. I also climbed the Manito Springs stairway to heaven. http://www.cospringstrails.com/hikes/incline.html I did pretty good but the way down took its toll on my knee. Luckily a wrap and ice pack seemed to help get the swelling down.

I am officially going to start my diet and exercise plan Friday 1 July. I
Have to take my pt test next month and my goal is a 90. I plan to use the blog to track my progress. Wish me luck.

First Nice Ride

Today I managed to get a nice ride in. I headed out and started seeing alot of other riders. It took me a little while to figure out that I was riding the same route as the Fiesta century. Unfortunately I didn't have the legs or the time to do the entire 100 miles but I did get a nice quarter century in. The riding here is a little different than Hawaii. The scenery is alot different and there is a heck of a lot less traffic. The roads are a mixture of semi-smooth to rough chip seal. I did find an interesting creek.

Getting back in shape

A year ago I was in the best shape of my life. That is me in the middle of the picture. Unfortunately, this year the run of Holiday and Promotion Parties followed by the move and resulting month of fast food eating, added about 20 lbs back on as well as made me lose the fitness that lead to two state cycling champainships. Now that we are starting to get settled in our new house, I am going to try to get back in shape.

The last couple of weeks we started back on a variation of the South Beach Diet. Unfortunately, I was in a class this week that offered cookies on our breaks which I didn't do a very good job avoiding. I also had pizza and beer tonight. Tomorrow though I am going to tighten up the diet, give up beer for at least a week and start cycling again. I will try to keep this updated as I go through this journey.

New Job, new state, new house, maybe it is time for a blog update

Since the advent of my facebook account, I have been very delinquent on updating my Blog. I am not sure if there are any readers out there who happen still to follow the blog, but alot has gone on in my life since my last entry. In November, I found out that I did make Chief.

Since then there has been a whirlwind of activity. The promotion put me in the unique situation of being an overage in the Air Force's eyes so I had to find a new job. The list of options came out towards the end of November. My choices were Minot or Grand Forks North Dakota, Colorado Springs, Fort Walton Beach Florida and San Antonio. I applied for the positions in San Antonio and Colorado Springs. Both the position and location appealed to me for SA and the CS offered the best location. I lucked out and got my first choice with an original report date of 11 Feb 10 which I was able to move back to mid March.

Heather made it to Hawaii for one last visit for Christmas. We had our final Christmas Beach visit. We completed the Holiday with my promotion/New Years Party. January flew by. I attended a week long Chief's Orientation Course where I learned about everything from how to tell which water glass is yours at a formal dinner to how to manage your assignments. My parents, sisters, nieces, and Stephanie all flew out for the Chief Induction Ceremony. This was probably the coolest military ceremony I have had the privilege to attend.

February's activities focused on tying loose ends at work and getting ready for our move. We started March with the packing out of all our worldly possessions and cleaning our our house before turning it back over to the housing office. I was able to squeeze in a few rounds of golf and a bike ride or two. We left Hawaii, on the 12th and landed in LA where we rented a car and drove to Oakland to visit my sister Gina and pick up the Escape for our drive to SA.



We spent the first week looking for a house before I started the job. We purchased our first new construction home out side of Cibolo. Courtney wanted us to move to Cibolo so she could go to the High School "Steele High School" due to the name of course and their outstanding band. Right now we have moved into the house but are living with out furniture except for a few folding lawn chairs and air matrices.

I can't believe how fast these last months have flown by. I am really looking forward to the challenges of the new job and enjoying living here. I made it out for my first ride and can't wait to get back into riding. Hopefully I can be better about updating this blog.

Summer 2009

It has been a long time since I updated this thing. I am sure the few of you who read it are suprised that I am updating it now. I am flying to San Antonio Texas and can't sleep so I Am using my iPhone to type this up then I will transfer it to the blog. 

My last post was in may so I guess I should cover the summer. Heather graduated in may so we all flew home to illinois. It is hard to believe I have two done with college. While we were home we traveled to Missouri to attend a dedication of the ROTC lounge at Rolla to my brother Josh. 

June was also a busy month. One weekend chris and I were on the big
Island for a bike race while Courtney was on Maui with the girls scouts. The race was a stage race made up of 3 seperate races.  I ended up with a first second and third taking the overall first for my catagory. Later in the month chris and I went to San Antonio for a conference while Courtney went to ca to visit my sister Gina. San Antonio was great we got to spend time with our friends Rose and Tony.

Heather came home for a visit in July. We always have a lot of fun at the beach and on the bikes. We even trieD paddle surfing. I also won the cat 4/5 state crit for the masters division. 

I started august by traveling to japan.  This time I went to Okinawa and I didn't see any snow but I did sweat a lot. My buddy curt came out for a week.  The last weekend of the month my buddy john and i were riding on the windward side when a truck crossed in front of us. John wasn't able to stop and ran into the side of the truck breaking his collarbone, 3 ribs, and 3 vertabre.  He will be off the bike for 3 months. 

The highlight for Labor say weekend was the dick Evans round the island race. One of my goals for this year was a top 20 finish.  I didn't think I had a shot but some how I pulled off a 17th place finish. 

I also tested for chief on 10 sept. I had deci ded this would be the last time. If I don't make I will retire next summer. I felt pretty good about the test  I just have to wait until November to find out.

Finally I decided to purchase a new car.   I had planned on buying a vette then a mustang convertible but I ended up buying a ford escape....four cylinder.  A little bit of a diversion from the powerful cars I started looking at. I think. My buddy Ron was a bit disappointed but I decided to go with something more practical that could hall Ginger and the bikes. It does have a 5-speed manual transmission so it is fun to drive and it gets good mileage.  Maybe the muscle cars will come when we get back to the mainland.    

First time mtn biking after 6 months Time to get a new Helmet

Sunday I decided to go for a nice mtn bike ride at Royal Summit. I was suprised when I got there because there were a ton of riders. Come to find out, there was a race. I would have liked to have done race but I had to get back by 1200 to pick up Courtney and I didn't have $10 on me. I had a nice ride to the top then road around for a while before stopping to watch the racers. The course was kind of cool. It started at the top and went down the singletrack then carved back up the hill on more single track. After watching for a while I decided to give the singletrack climb a try. I made it up pretty until I attempted to adjust the volume on my IPOD. The next think I knew I was planting my forhead into the ground. Another Rudy Project helmet bit the dust leaving a nice mark on my forhead.

After I got home, I cleaned up the garage.

Hiking Up Biking Up

Last Sunday, Courtney and I joined my wife's cousin Paul for a hike. We started out hiking the Judd Trail which is a nice easy trail just off the Pali Hwy in Honolulu. The hike is very popular as well as having areas that were used during the filming of the series "LOST", http://www.lostvirtualtour.com/lost/filming_locations/juddtrail/index.html As we hiked we intersected the Nuuana trial which headed up the ridge.

We decided to take the high road and climb. The trail switchbacked up until it intersected Tantalus Drive at the top. We kept climbing until we were on top then stopped to rest and take in the great views of Honolulu and the pacific ocean.

On the way down we stopped at a very popular swimming hole. The water was a little murky and it was kind of chili so we just relaxed abit and didn't take a dip.

This morning I finally made it up to Scholfield for the Saturday HACC ride.
We had a very good turn out and for the first time I remember, we all wore the same HACC Jersey. Today was a climbers ride as we climbed Koli Koli, Pupakea and Pinneapple twice. I felt very strong and managed to be the first to the top of each hill.

Tonight I finished the day with a great Steak, Sweet Potato and corn.






Tomorrow I am going to give mtn biking a try.

North Shore Beach

This morning I overslept so I missed the HACC North Shore ride. Instead, I settled for 40 miles of intervals on Hickam. Not a great trade off but pretty good training. After I got home, I woke Courtney up for some homemade Blueberry Banana Pancakes. This weekend and next, it is just the two of us as the rest of the family are in Iowa watching Heather Play softball and enjoying that fine Midwest Spring weather, temps in the 50's and thunderstorms. After we finished our Brunch we took the cans and bottles to the recycle place then I drove to the bike shop on Dillingham. The shop catered mainly to the beach cruiser and singlespeed crowd but it did have 3 tandem bikes that were very reasonable.
When I finished at the shop, Courtney and I headed up to Wiamea Bay. It was kind of late when we got there but the parking lot was still full so I had to park at the botanical garden on the other side of the Kam. The park closed at 5 pm so we had to cut our time at the beach a little short. The water was not to bad but the air temp was starting to cool so you got pretty cold quickly after getting out of the water.

After we finished at the beach we headed to Halewa for shaved ice and ice cream.

We stopped and picked up an order Chris made from JC Pennys that had a new dress for Courtney. She really looked nice in it.

Catching up the Blog

I have been real bad about keeping the Blog up to date. Sometimes you get so busy it is hard to find time to post.

One Weekend, Two Tired Legs and Three Race Numbers

Two weekends ago, I had the crazy Idea that I could do a 10K run/race on Saturday, a time trial up Tantalus Sunday morning and finish it off with a crit Sunday afternoon. I mentioned it to Bryant and he was game for doing the same so I was locked in. Saturday morning Chris and I got up to head to Ford Island for the run. We were running a little late so I went straight to the start line failing to pick up my chip. I guess I should have read the flier so I would have known they were using chip timing. Oh well I was able to keep time on my my trusty Timex Ironman. Chris's Cousin Paul and His wife Mel were supposed to do the run. Unfortunately they were runing late as well and werent able to find a parking spot so they gave up and headed home.
I made some gateraid before the race to help with my hydration and energy. Unfortunately it didn't settle too well and my stomach bothered me most of the race. I started out with a couple of sub 7 min miles but slowed down each mile after the first. My final time was 45:19 pace 7:31, about 10 seconds off my Aloha run time.

Sunday morning we got up early and headed to tantlus. I could already feel the fatigue in my legs before i got on the bike. All the way up I kept telling myself, "why did you do the run". My time was in the mid 23 min range, the say as my training ride the week before and still 2 min faster than last year. I wonder how I would have done with fresh legs.
The afternoon crit was my best race. My goal was to avoid getting dropped. I finished with the 3rd chase group in 10th place. I am glad I took on all three races even though I probably would have done better in each had I not tried to do them all in one weekend.

Holy Week

Our family tradition has always been to attend all the Holy Week Services culminationg with Easter Vigil. This year was special because good friends of ours were completing thier faith journey and asked us to be sponcers. Courtney served at the massWe had the luck this year to have the Bishop visit us during Holy Week so the Confirmation Mass was Easter Sunday. We finished the weekend by having dinner at our Friend's house. It was a very nice time.

Around the Island Ride

Chris flew to Iowa on Wednesday so she could spend some time with Heather before she graduates and see some of her Softball games. I was going to try to do a 10 K run at Kbay on Saturday and follow it up with some mtn biking but then Shannon emailed about plans to do a alternate route around the Island Ride so I changed my plans. We met at the Shoppette at 6:15 and headed to the Pali. I had my first and our only flat heading down the Kailua side at about 40 mph. Luckily it was a slow leak and didn't give completely out until i got to the stoplight at the bottom. It is an eary feeling riding on a low rear tire. The weather was perfect and we kept a nice pace only stopping a couple of times to refill our water bottles and empty our bladders. Shannon showed me a great route from Kunia to the bike path avoiding much of the traffic and stoplights that area is known for. I hope I can figure it out next time I head that way.

After we finished up the 86 mile ride, the girls and I grabbed a pizza and headed for the Kam beach with Ginger. She really enjoys it out there running around and playing with the other dogs.

Well I caught up on the blog finally. There are probably a ton of spelling and grammer errors because Chris isn't hear to proof my posts. Hopefully I will do better at keeping it up todate.

Three Busy Weekends

Things didn't slow down for us after we returned from the Big Island. Courtney's school hosted the last practice for the Honor band on Friday and hosted the honor band concert on Saturday. As president of the booster club, I was pretty busy helping out. The Sunday after I returned, I competed in the Momentum Crit. This time I decided to try my luck with the big boys and race in the expert class. Luckily a couple of the strongest riders were not racing. I managed to stay with the front group and was in pretty good shape for the final sprint. I finished 7th.

The next weekend I competed in the State Championship Team Time Trial with Bryant, Steve C. and Shannon. I knew we would have a pretty strong team. The race went very well, we worked together and came across the line fast enough to win the overall Mixed title and were the 6th fastest team.

There weren't any races the next weekend so I was able to spend some quality time with Chris. Friday night we went to JR Rockers and listened to the band. The band was very good and played a nice mix of classic rock and more modern stuff.

Saturday morning we ran some errands and decided to stop and test drive a couple of cars. I have been getting the hankering for a sports car. I have always loved Corvettes and told myself that if I make chief next fall I am going to get one. However, a couple of other cars have caught my eye since, the saturn sky and nissan 350z, so we decided to check them out. Both were fun to drive. The z had more power but the sky was a convertable. Chris had me stop so she could take my pic.

What do you think?

Saturday night we decided to check out the Country Bar on Pearl Harbor. Stephanie decided to join us. It was nice not being the oldest or the youngest people in the club. It had been a long time since Chris and I attempted to 2 step and attempt we did. We still haven't mastered it but I was able to do the electric slide with Stephanie. My only complaint about the club was the lack of Draft beer. I thought it was kind of silly since they brewed their own beer on the other side of the building. I guess they figured folks at a country bar would prefer longnecks of Bud Light or MDG not a tall glass of a micro brew.

Sunday was very relaxing. We took Ginger out to the Beach by the old Kam housing and let her run on the sand bar. She seemed to have a good time and got some much needed exercise. However, she ended up hurting one of her front paws and was limping for the next couple of days. She is fine now but we were quite concerned for awhile.

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