Velo Loco

Help me win access to be a Staff Photographer for a night!

2012-01-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

Helpme get a chance to be a staff photographer for the local country station 93.1the WOLF for the next Eric Church Concert. You know I love photography, and you may not know that I also love country music. I've entered a contest to win a chance to do backstage and concert photography for an upcoming concert here in Greensboro.

If you will click the link below and register with the site you can vote 50 times. (Disclaimer, yes they will probably email you, you can immediately (as soon as you've voted ) unsubscribe.

Eachperson can vote 50 times. So please just keep clicking the vote button untilyou hit 50!

http://wolfgang.931wolfcountry.com/Contest/lJPR1x/UGC/ViewEntry?submissionId=3648

Myphoto was taken at last year’s Jason Aldean / Eric Church Contest when Eric wasdoing a shot of Jack out of an airline bottle.

I'd love it if you would vote and share with your friends to vote too!

Thanks!

Feeling Good and Bad

2012-01-10T06:44:00.000-08:00

I weighed in today at my lowest weight since Christmas eve. That has me feeling great!

In other news I feel like crap. My throat was so sore when I got up I could barely swallow. That's how the drainage started several weeks ago and it disapates throughout the day. But it turned into bronchitis and robbed me of energy over the holidays.

So after a staff meeting at 10 and driving to a committee meeting at noon, I'm headed to the doctor before I come back to work.

I have a trip to Austin coming up Thursday and I've never been to Texas so I'm excited about it. I don't want to feel like crap for it.

If you've been to Austin what are your MUST Do's?

We're touring Mellow Johnny's, taking a bike tour. And have a couple of MS functions but have Friday night and Saturday day to have some free time.

Damn Roller Coaster

2012-01-06T06:39:00.000-08:00

Despite working out last night and eating an uber healthy dinner, the damage from the beers the night before and the unhealthy lunch (and to be honest too much nibbling through out the day). Up .8 today.

I have to eat healthy today and tonight because tomorrow my parents are taking me out for my birthday. I know it was last week, we've all been a bit busy.

We headed to P.F. Changs since it was my choice and I haven't eaten there in over a year and a half.
I guess Sunday I'll just have to go hungry. :-)

A few photos from the start of the Polar Bear last weekend of Me, then my dad.

Hope you have a great Friday!

Uh - oh

2012-01-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

So after the beers last night I was actually down .2 today.
But following that up with a burger and a cup of chili for lunch was probably not the smartest idea.

It's a cardio night and I need to throw some intervals in there. That and lots of water, maybe I can limit the damage.

Do you just go through the motions?

2012-01-03T20:07:00.000-08:00

Do you ever just go to the gym to go through the motions?

I did a very uninspired 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer tonight. I felt like I needed to be there and needed to burn some calories. But it wasn't fast or too sweat inducing either? Maybe if I'm going to do the 30 minute quick cardio days I should at least warm up with some quick running to get the blood and sweat flowing.

Thoughts?

Wheels - Off and On

2012-01-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

Today's theme is wheels.

1 - The wheels can fall off quickly with my eating. After 4 days of eating like shit I had to get the wheels back on the wagon and I successfully did that yesterday. It started with a good Mexican dinner on my birthday, good as in it taste good. Not good in the fact that I left feeling like I could throw up I was so full, and not good in the weight gained the next day. Pizza the next night. Followed by Boston Market. Chicken - good. Mac & Cheese and Loaded Mashed Potato's not good. What did I do to correct that, why eat Chili's the next night of course.

Looking back at it, I suppose there are a few positives. I ate good for breakfast and lunch each day which limited the potential weight gain. I also continued to workout every day.

2- The second set of wheels are the ones attached to my bicycle, which I rode again for the first time in four or five months on the 30th. Nothing to write home about really. A slow tempo ride of 16.5 miles. It was good to be back on the road and great to be back out with my dad.

I had really started missing my bike. Cycling is my passion, if I had to choose one form of exercise that I had to stick with forever it would be cycling. I often think when I run, or swim(okay that hasn't happened if FOREVER) that I'd rather be on my bike.

So we rode the local Polar Bear ride, which had a forecast of excellent weather, sunshine and in the mid 40's at the start topping out with a high around 61. Dad and I chose to do the 25 mile route. We started in the very back of the pack so we could ride our own ride and not get caught up in the large groups that hammer up the first hills etc, we knew that we would flame out if we tried that.

We rode great, even though from mile 10-22 the wind was crazy brutal and it got chilly. We ended up passing loads of people on the way in, especially during those last 10 miles, which felt good. We've both been exercising pretty regularly over the past month (me) or more (him) so it was nice to see the legs and body respond during what was the longest ride for either of us in half a year.

I'm glad the Polar Bear wasn't today, because it is COLD and windy today. Man it'd be a tough ride. But the weather looks nice for the weekend. I hope to get in another ride on Sunday and will be getting my trainer back from my dad this weekend so I can start riding at least once a week at night.

I'm so glad that I got back on my bike wheels and got those wheels back on my wagon for my weight. I anticipate being under 225 before the trip to Austin next weekend and my goal is to workout enough there and make smart decisions to gain less then 1.5 pounds (stretch goal is no weight gain).

Still on the Roller Coaster

2011-12-31T06:15:00.000-08:00

Damn you weight gain.
I worked out on my birdhtday. A hard 30 minutes of cardio and 45 minutes of lower body.

Then I destroyed the hard work with eating like a pig at the Mexican restaurant that night.

Yesterday I was up 2.6 pounds. I expected some of that to come back off after eating some better yesterday and bike riding for an hour and 20 minutes.

But then sometimes I can't predict how my body will react to workouts like cycling. Often I'll be up for a day and then down the next.

I can tell you that after not riding for five months that 16.5 miles kicked my ass. I ate lunch, showered, watched some tv with Tara and then took a 2.5 hour nap.

Today I was up .2.

Maybe we'll get things turned back in the right direction heading into 2012. If not, at least I still have a few days off work to move the needle.

Close the year out strong! That's the best way to set up a great 2012!

Happy New Years Eve!

30! Where did the time go?

2011-12-29T06:52:00.000-08:00

30.
That's right, today I hit the big 3-0. And to tell you the truth it's hard to believe. I mean where did the time go. I feel like it was just a few years ago that I was graduating high school with all my friends and we were heading our separate ways to make new friends and begin exciting new lives.

I may do a look back at the last 12 years in an upcoming post (and when I say may, that usually means it won't happen). But I can tell you that the last 6 years have been awesome and I'm looking forward to the next 6 or 12 or even 30 (although according to some of my close friends, I probably won't make it that far. After all 30 must be the new 90. Thanks Aliceson!! :-))

I started a new chapter in my life just over six years ago, and although it was a short chapter during the first 6 months I developed friendships that I believe can last a lifetime.

5.5 years ago I met the most amazing person, who I'm not lucky to call my wife. 3 months into that chapter, we were head over heels in love and I had a surgery called UPPP and a tonsillectomy to try and cure sleep apnea so I could ditch my really cool darth vader mask I'd been sleeping with. Along with my parents, who get a huge shoutout in my book of life for being the best possible: parents, role-models, friends (subtract a few ornery teenage years), therapist, cycling partner, business planners, and more. Anyway aside from my parents, Tara came up to winston every day and spent time with me, brought me food, adjusted my pillow if I needed it and did it all with a smile and genuine care. I knew then that if she would have me that she was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We dated for 2 years before getting engaged, were engaged for a year and have been married for just a few days over a year and 6 months. I could sum up this chapter with, Derek meets Tara and lives happily ever after. But then, my book would be really short, but who doesn't like a short story with a happy ending?

I also would be amiss not to mention that not only is Tara an awesome person to have in my life, that her family is incredibly awesome as well. I know everyone has heard of the "in-law horror stories", because I've heard my fair share of them, but I'm so thankful that I don't have any to tell. Tara's parents are as awesome as you can get. Marrying into a second great family is an added bonus, and they've always made me feel right at home.

In the time since we've been together we've done so much that it would be impossible to list but as an overview, here are some places we've traveled too:
Charlottesville VA, twice (half marathon & later UVA basketball game)
Orlando, Florida (Disney marathon)
Asheville (great that Jason, her brother lives there)

The Beach, numerous times
Hawaii - one amazing honeymoon

Chicago - last summer for a photo seminar, we spent the days before and after exploring

Atlanta - a few times

Los Angeles - most recently for a whirlwind, last minute weekend trip to see Dancing with the Stars

Concerts - there have been a ton of those: Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, (see a theme), Rascal Flats, Taylor Swift, and a ton more

Weddings: We've had the pleasure of seeing so many great friends get married

There have been so many other funny, cool, etc moments to list them all. Fun new year's party's, fourth of Julys (some harrowing experiences along with one particular funniest moment of my life post 4th of July), Christmases, Birthdays, and more.

So the last 6 years have blown by in a whirlwind and as the coaster on my desk says: "Life is a succession of moments, to live each one is to succeed." I've been a notorious "planner" in the past, something that can sometimes lead you to always be looking ahead, but taking the time to enjoy everything as it happens is, to me anyway, what life is all about.

So, as I grow older, I believe that my birthday wish will be for another great year filled with family, friends, and fun memories. If that happens, then the rest of my book of life is sure to be a best seller!

(if anyone out there is reading this and wants to publish my memories, because you think it will make us both rich, just let me know, I can start today!)

So, that's a tornadic trip through my last 6 years. And now it's onward into the 30's.
I'm going to start by finishing this cup of coffee, and then since I'm off work until next year (woohoo!) I'm going to the gym. And, because I'm old and have things to do after that the post office, dry cleaner and bank. Then I'll spend some time with my amazing wife.

Have a great day!

30/30 Update

2011-12-28T05:25:00.000-08:00

Down 2 pounds since the 2 day Christmas feast!

My bike has been at my parents house for a while. My dad rode it a few times when his was in the shop for repairs and I haven't needed it, but I think its time to get back in the saddle. I'll be getting my bike back by next weekend, possibly this weekend.

Do I dare set a goal of one trainer session a week at night and then a ride on the weekends if the weather cooperates? I've got to think about it, but I very well may be laying down the gauntlet for myself starting soon.

Thankful for amazing families

2011-12-27T07:17:00.000-08:00

I'm sure I've said it on here before but I'm blessed with 2 amazing families. My family has always been there for me and Tara's parents are the best in-laws anyone could ask for.

We had two full days of events on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and we had such a good time.

I love being able to spend time with both sets of parents over Christmas and am so thankful that we have that ability.

Of course we both received wonderful gifts from everyone but the most special part of Christmas for us is getting to spend time with those we love.

I hope everyone had as beautiful of a Christmas as we did.

30 in 30

2011-12-26T17:14:00.000-08:00

I've got a birthday coming up here in a few days and it will be my 30th. That seems crazy to me. The speed at which the last 12 years have went by, most notably the last 5 have been insane. I've had an amazing time since meeting Tara, but how has it been five years since we met?

So I am not waiting until the new year, or even my birthday to get started on one of my main goals for 2012.

I will loose 30 pounds by the end of my 30th year. My heaviest weight of the month was 231.2, so by December 29th, 2012, I will weight 201.2 or less.

I hope you'll accompany me on this journey.

I hope to have a full 2012 goals list up soon, but to start with you've got my number 1 goal in writing.

I gained a few pounds over the holidays and look forward to seeing those fall back off.
I took yesterday off from the gym but got back in there for a half an hour today. I took it easy b/c I've been so tired from the bronchitis, but think that I'll be back at 100% here in a few days.

What are your goals in 2012?

Boom!

2011-12-23T08:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got up early again and was getting ready to head to the gym when I walked out of our bedroom and discovered our hot water heater was broken and leaking water everywhere. I got it turned off, called the emergency maintenance number for our apartment, and went to the gym anyway.

Last night was dinner with a friend and I had some amazing sushi. We saw MI:3. It was great to catch up with him but we probably could have skipped the movie and just talked more because the movie wasn't great.

That was Friday in a nut shell.

Slept in this morning (which is rare) and when I weighed today I was down 2 pounds!
Boom!
Hell yeah!

I know some of it was due to the time I weighed (shut up!) and I'm okay with it, b/c I would have been down some anyway. Take that fat belly! It's game on and you're going to get flat!

Its Christmas eve eve, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday no matter what you're celebrating this year.

Success Is...

2011-12-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

Success is something different to everyone of us, and can be different every day as well.

Today's success was an early morning workout. I am not a morning work out person. I'm stiff and sore when I wake up and I generally don't like waking up early enough to get in a workout anyway.

But today I knew I couldn't work out after work because I have a photography job from 5-8. So, morning was the only option.

My workout was boosted by the fact that I also lost .8 today. Things are looking good for 2012!

What will your success be today?

Ready for that scale!

2011-12-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

I ate great today.
I worked out super hard.
I'm ready for that scale in the morning!

Disclaimer - if I gain, I won't be disappointed, I did eat a half a pizza yesterday and drink 4 (delicious) beers, and loose weight today. Plus I know that sometimes after a hard workout I retain water. Just the way it is folks.

However, I haven't been this excited to step on the scale in a long time.

My workout tonight was 30 minutes high intensity cardio and 30 minutes of hard / heavy upper body weights.
Cardio was 15 minutes all out on the elliptical, 10 stair master, 5 running intervals.

Doing some reading and hitting the hay early tonight.

In the right direction

2011-12-20T08:36:00.000-08:00

The scales went in the right direction for a few days now. I lost everything I gained from last friday's splurge by yesterday and really expected to gain today.

I had a great breakfast and lunch but knew that I was having beer and pizza while playing poker with friends last night.

However I lost .6 today. That was a nice surprise but we'll see what tomorrow holds.
I was dreading weighing particularly b/c I didn't sleep well. Trixie had me up at 4 and 6:30 with an upset stomach, but she seems to be feeling better.

Yesterday was a fairly easy day on the workout front with 30 minutes elliptical and 5 minutes of stairs.
Tonight should be an ass kicking weight routine.

Happy Tuesday!

Keep on keeping on

2011-12-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

The scale and I did not have a good morning saturday. I wish I could blame the scale but I ate to much crap on Friday. Sweets in the morning, pizza at lunch, and chick fil a with slaw and fries for dinner.
I was up 1.6 pounds.

I did make it to the gym for 35 minutes of cardio and some weights, so it could have been worse.

Saturday I buckled down and had a solid day of eating and worked out hard.
1 hour on the elliptical machine and 30 minutes of intense weights. A full body kick ass workout.

Sunday morning I've dropped most of the weight that was gained, and as I write this (sunday night) I've had another solid day of eating and another hour on the elliptical trainer.

Its been a pretty great weekend with not a lot on the agenda, time to work out, time with Tara and time to do a little cleaning.

I'm looking forward to the coming week and of course spending time with my family on Christmas.

Friday's Weekly Weigh-In

2011-12-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Good, Bad & Ugly

The good is that I've worked out every day this week. And I've had some great workouts

The Bad is that I gained .8

The Ugly - see above

I did eat one bad meal, and lost .2 the next day. I know that my body reacts to working out by retaining water sometimes. I'm thinking that happens less as it gets used to working out but that will be figured out as we move forward and continue working out and eating better.

Make that two bad meals. Today for lunch it was our staff holiday outing. I had four pieces of sliced bread with olive oil and 2 slices of pizza. I was stuffed when we left.

But I did get a great 45 minute workout in tonight after the hour and a half yesterday.

I'm so close to turning a corner with these workouts and starting to loose some weight i can feel it. I think that I will probably need to track calories and that's a pain in the ass, but not as big of a pain as being overweight.

1st run in a month

2011-12-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

I just did my first run in over a month. Seriously I haven't ran since the half marathon.
Didn't realize it'd been so long but i've been focused on other cario at the gym, for one b/c running is hard as hell, but for two (whatever, just go with it) it gets dark to damn early.

I wasn't planning on exercising tonight b/c I'm headed out in a bit to have dinner with my old crew in Winston, the VGP. Don't ask, its just us.

So I had a little time but not enough to make it to the gym. So I grabbed a flashlight in case I ran out of dusk, and headed out the door. The temperature was good and I didn't need the light.

2 miles in the books.

Monday at the Gym - OUCH

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to have some friends over for dinner on Monday but one was sick and we decided to reschedule for the following week.

So, as going to the gym and losing weight are now my top priority until I can ingrain the proper healthy lifestyle habits, I decided to take the opportunity to work out. I took my ipad thinking I might do the elliptical and maybe some biking as well. Reading is easy on the ipad and I don't think it hinders my workout much, if any.

As I walked past the group exercise room I noticed the class hadn't started yet. I checked the schedule and the class "strength" was just getting ready to start at 5:30. I noticed there was another class starting at 6, so although I just lifted yesterday I thought how bad can a 30 minute class be? And it was being taught by Jessi, whom I've taken classes with before and really like.

So I jump into my first group X class in over a year ( I did a bunch of these before my wedding in June 2010)
After 10 minutes I've had my ass kicked, and since we got started at 5:35 but I'm thinking another 10 minutes we'll be stretching and cooling down and I'll head to the bike. As we neared 6 we showed no signs of slowing down and I remembered that the 6 oclock class is the spin class on Monday's and I was in a hour class.

Shit.

Okay, I sucked it up, and pushed through, skipping a rep every now and again on the shoulder exercises b/c I honestly couldn't do them my shoulders were on fire (note to self - this means they need more regular work). Honestly from my lack of working out over the past two months until this week I enjoyed the stretching we did during cool down. I plan on doing more stretching, I've always neglected this part of my routine.

So, that was a hell of a success. I'll be doing all cardio tomorrow, and wednesday I hope to control my food choices as I eat out with friends at my favorite wing place. Back in the gym on Thursday, that's for sure. We'll see how the weigh in goes on Friday. I hope that it is lower than last weeks 229.

Shut the Fuck Up! - Yelling at myself

2011-12-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

I'll explain the title in just a minute, bear with me.

If you haven't seen the movie Friends with Benefits, I highly recommend it. It is so funny.
There is one part where Woody Harelson, playing a hilarious gay man tells Justin Timberlake about his guidebook to life.

"Hey, everybody wants a short cut in life. My guide bookis very simple.
You wanna lose weight? Stop eating, fatty!
You wannamake money? Work your ass off, lazy! You wanna be happy?
Find someoneyou like and never let them go."

That really kind of resonates doesn't it?

So let me ask this, mostly rhetorical question, because I'm 99% sure I know the answer.
Do you talk to yourself? Not out loud but the internal talk that I'm sure we all have. Sometimes positive, too often negative? Or just asking questions, when you're trying to figure things out?

If not, then I'm proclaiming you the crazy one and not me, because well this is my blog.

I'll lay this out there: I'm unhappy that I've gained 10 pounds in the past 2.5 months. Who does that???
So as I try to figure out what to do, I make one great decision. I took my ass back to the gym.

They gym is the place where I have moments of clarity. I wish I could tell you that I go to a park and meditate in all of natures beauty and that's where I find my inner peace, my clairty, but it's not. I find clarity with my trusty ipod nano, generation 2, black, that I've had with me since Christmas of 2006. I bought myself a Christmas present that year and it has been one of the best presents ever. It has been with me through 50 pounds of weight loss, then 20 pound gains, 30 pound loses, more gains and by got it will be on my hip during this next stand as I loose weight and keep it off. I love that ipod. Its dependable, predictable, and most of all fills my ears with my music. Hard rock, rap, country, gym music, Christmas music etc. So do I find clarity watching the sunset, yes sometimes when I have a camera or a loved one, but not the inner clarity that I find with loud music pumping through my ears and moving my whole body as I do ANY exercise but especially lifting weights.

I was bench pressing sunday, thinking about should I watch calories, or carbs? What is it going to take for me to get serious and loose weight? Will I be able to keep it off? I finished my set, sat up and as Jay - Z says on the black album, I thank god for granting me this moment of clarity. My inner voice got pissed off and promptly told me to shut the fuck up. Quit being wishy washy, losing weight isn't rocket science, quit freaking thinking about doing it or talking about doing it and take Woody's advice, stop eating fatty! (note - i know that doesn't mean STOP eating but eat correctly and proper portions, no lectures on eating disorders please).

And do you want to know what I did? In my internal conversation, I said okay. Done. Thank you.

Now usually I don't take kindly to being yelled at, but since I was yelling at me, (yes I hear the voices in my head, get over it) there wasn't much to do other than deny, make excuses and be unhappy or take the advice and make it happen.

I worked out several days last week and am so happy that I found my moment of clarity.

SUCCESS!!

2011-11-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

I've been really struggling with my weight lately, gaining back nearly 8 pounds in the past 2 months.
I finally have gotten a better hold on eating with portion control, etc during this past week.
Last Friday was very disappointing because I'd gained 2 pounds in that week along. Loosing weight sucks, but being over weight and unhappy sucks worse.

So over the weekend I was down .4, not huge, but the first time I'd managed to loose weight over a weekend in quite a while. Tuesday I was down a bit, Wednesday up over a pound and not really sure how, Thursday down over a pound and today I was down again.

Overall in the past week I have lost 2.4 pounds and am at 223.4.

I really don't like being above 220, but 225 is a weight that REALLY REALLY makes me unhappy.

I'm so happy with this weeks success, seeing a positive trend make it easier to stay heading in the right direction.

In other news, you need to buy an iPad 2 Raffle ticket, they are only $5 and they are for a great cause. And if you pick up one of those awesome calendars I've been telling you about for $20 (plus $4 for shipping and tax) you will get 7 tickets in the iPad 2 raffle.

www.HabitatCalendar.com

Win an iPad for $5

2011-11-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

Alright folks, we've upped the ante in my Habitat for Humanity Fundraiser.

You can purchase a ticket to win an iPad for $5.
Or you can purchase a calendar for $24 (after tax and shipping) and get 7 entries!

www.HabitatCalendar.com

Lets build a house!

Happy Monday

2011-10-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well I didn't eat great this weekend but did end up doing a lot of walking with my 3 photo sessions that I had for Ardeur Photography.

I only gained .2 over the weekend and think that I have a good shot to do really good this week.

Friday my mom came down and helped me take care of some business and I got a lot done for work and my business.

Saturday we had a work event, then a photo session. Saturday night had a great time doing dinner with friends at 13 Bones.

Sunday started with a group meeting for marketing class, then 2 photo sessions before hanging out with a co-worker and a former co-worker getting to talk and watch some football.

So, where did the weekend go? Unless I'm forgetting something I don't have too much on the agenda for this upcoming weekend but its still early.

Hope you have a great week!

Weekly Weigh In

2011-10-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to post this on Friday because fellow blogger and I Ben, have decided to try to motivate each other in our weight loss journey.

Friday's weight was 223.6. It makes me shudder to really through that out there because I can't stand being over 220. I don't remember what I weighed last Friday but I think around the beginning of the week I was 223.8, but I can't confirm that. I did go over 225 mid week and battled back.

However, this was an unsuccessful week. My goal is to loose at least 1 pound per week. That isn't an unrealistic goal, so I know I'm not setting myself up for failure with it, so I need to get down to business and make it happen.

I'm having a great but busy weekend and can't write anymore b/c I need to head out the door for a group meeting for school.

Have a happy Sunday!

Habitat for Humanity Fundraiser

2011-10-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

Did you know that it takes $65,000 to build a Habitat for Humanity house?

Now you can help build the next Habitat House.
www.HabitatCalendar.com

Here are a few other facts from http://www.habitat.org/how/factsheet.aspx

Habitat is not a giveaway program. In addition to a down payment and monthly mortgage payments, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor (sweat equity) into building their Habitat house and the houses of others.
Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable loans.
The homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments are used to build still more Habitat houses.

I have a good friend who works for Habitat and when she was telling me that they were gearing up to start fundraising to build another house, I racked my brain to figure out how I could help.

My photography company employees a very talented nature photographer and I've taken many of his images and turned them into a 2012 calendar.

Here is a sample of the images.

The Calendars are $20 each and Ardéur Photography hopes to be able to make at least a $5,000 contribution to Habitat for Humanity Greater Greensboro.

Please consider purchasing a calendar and sharing the information to all your friends and family on a way that they can help and walk away with a beautiful calendar.

As each picture was a careful photograph, each calendar is a piece of art, and will be hand signed and numbered.

As an added bonus, on January 1st - one lucky person will win their choice of a Kindle Fire or a $200 Apple Gift Card. The winning Calendar number will be posted to the Ardéur Photography blog (www.ardeurphotographyblog.com) with the winning number.

Calendars are available at:
www.HabitatCalendar.com

Busy Month and Back to Running

2011-10-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I've blogged anything so I may try a quick recap here and then expand in future posts.
September was busy, fun, and amazing.

The beginning of the month brought Labor Day weekend in which we had dinner with our close friends and a family picnic the next day.

Weekend 3 was the Bike MS: Tour to Tanglewood in which I worked the entire weekend. Along with shooting a beautiful wedding.

Weekend 4 - an impromptu trip to Los Angeles to see Dancing with the Stars live. (this is the part I should expand on in a later post)

Weekend 5 - into October with a trip to Asheville, NC for Tara's brothers wedding. We were both in the wedding and we had a great time.

Me and my beautiful wife in front of the gorgeous car the bride rode up in.

So, you might remember I'm running a half marathon on November 12th. And by the lack of posting you can probably figure out that I havne't been running, or if you couldn't you know now. I only ran 4 times the entire month of September. I got sick, and then I got BUSY!

So this week was the time to get back on it. I've still been trying to catch up on everything so Monday night was class, Tuesday I just went to the gym and reacquainted myself with the elliptical, and Wednesday night was all business for www.ArdeurPhotography.com .

Last night was the night to run and with perfect weather what a run it was. In the morning I thought I'd probably run 2 miles after work but during the day I was feeling so good that I decided to jump back in with a 4 mile run. Ambitious, yes, completed, YES! I didn't time myself, but I'm sure it wasn't fast, but I don't care. I had a great run, and feel very confident about the remaining training time to get in 3 runs a week and just to enjoy myself at the Thunder Road Half Marathon!

Amazing Run

2011-09-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

I don't have time for much of a post but I did want to share that I had an amazing run yesterday. I haven't run much in the past two weeks due to a cold then, I was just wiped out tired over the weekend but, I ran 2 miles yesterday and felt like I could have wnt 3, 4, 5 or 6 miles. I just felt great.

Running for the joy of running and exercising was great.

2 more miles this afternoon and then I won't have a chance to run again until next Tuesday.

Busiest Week of the Year

2011-09-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Saw a good bible quote today, one that I need to remember this week.

Corinthians 10:13 God is faithful & he will not let u be tested beyond ur strength...

Thanks to @shawneyJ , olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson for posting.

August Mileage Totals & Training Plan Decisions

2011-09-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

I finished August with over 36 miles in my legs. That's the most miles I've run in a very long time. I need to look back and see what my highest ever month was.

The weeks broke down like this: (note the last week had a few september days in it is why the weekly totals don't match the month)

1 - 1.8
2 - 11.83
3 - 6.65
4 - 10.2
5 - 10.85

I've printed out 2 different plans from Runners World Smart Coach and I think I'm going to have to fuse them together. One is for goal running 11-16 miles a week and one is for like 6-9 miles a week. I'd prefer the one with more running, but honestly think that's biting off more than I can chew at this point. So that might be a good plan for me for a spring half with continued training through the winter but I don't want to put to much strain on my feet/legs/mental fortitude to start with. That's got to be my best strategy because I've often bitten off more than I can chew and the fall has some very busy weekends in it. I don't want to be feeling bad for missing runs. I'll show you what I come up with here soon.

Run Happy!

Under Armor's Marketing Goldmine

2011-09-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

The Under Armor marketing guys took a page right out ofNike’s playbook last night. There hasn’t been this much conversation aboutuniforms since Oregonfirst started wearing their crazy ones.

Love them or hate them, last nights uniforms were different,and the talk of the NATION. They blew up on twitter. Everyone commented,college football players, sports writers, Lebron James, and more.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Incredibly-Maryland-s-new-uniforms-are-even-mor?urn=ncaaf-wp5948

People wondered why they went with the strangestcombination, but its all about marketing. Great job Maryland and Under Armor.

Love them or hate them, last nights uniforms were different,and the talk of the NATION. They blew up on twitter. Everyone commented,college football players, sports writers, Lebron James, and more.

People wondered why they went with the strangestcombination, but its all about marketing. Great job Maryland and Under Armor.

In all seriousness, they have some combinations that don’tlook crazy at all.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Actually-Maryland-s-new-turtle-themed-helmets-a?urn=ncaaf-wp5324

More Pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65516705@N00/sets/72157627497241630/

I wish that UVA was getting something crazy and differentfrom Under Armor or Nike.

And remember that Nike gets full licensing rights to NFLJerseys starting in April of 2012. Its going to be crazy to see what thosedesigners and the teams come up with.

So, do you love them or hate them?

Running vs. A Cold

2011-09-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

I developed a slight cold towards the end of last week but didn't want to be deterred in my running. I had really hoped to run each day of the long weekend with a "long" run of 4 miles sometime during the weekend.

I decided for 2.6 on Saturday, which was shortened to 2.3. I was wore out while running, my legs hurt, I just felt SLOW. Now feeling slow is not something unusual for me because I am a very slow runner but, I just didn't feel like I was moving. Maybe I shouldn't have chosen the hard and hilly 2 mile route, but I did.

After I got back and did a few things I ate lunch and that was all she wrote for me. I slept from 1-5. Luckily I felt good that night as we celebrated a friends new job with a great dining experience at The Melting Pot.

Sunday I got up and ran again, opting for the easier of the 2 mile routes. I was feeling good as I reached the turn around point and decided to make it a 3 mile run, but as I started up the hill (the turn around is at the bottom of a hill) my hamstrings told me to stick to the plan and turn my ass around. I obliged and completed the run. I felt better than Saturday but not great. Sunday brought a family picnic and it was so great to get so see and spend time with mom's side of the family. I wish I got to see everyone more often.

Monday was a complete and total rest day. I left the house for a quick trip to the store to pick up a few things but otherwise was a homebody. I did some website work, got some stuff done on my upcoming Habitat for Humanity fundraiser (more details soon!) and read 3 magazines.

Today its back to work and I feel a lot better, but still have a little head congestion so I'll probably rest again today before returning to training on Wednesday.

My friend John (I'm Johnny C) has a goal to beat his brother in an upcoming 13.1 and I'm stealing his tagline for that and using it for myself.

My Operation Domination will be posted about later this week but as a preview it involves the 13.1, and weight loss.

After a gluttonous weekend that saw me gain 2.4 pounds I now tip the scale on the wrong side of 220 again. I'm at 220.4. I have a more strict eating plan to follow along with the mental determination to loose weight for good.

Stay tuned for complete and total domination of my remaining 2012 goals.

How was your weekend?

Bring on the weekend!

2011-09-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

Monday - nothing remarkable happened. I did pick up The Carter IV and its not a bad album but I'm not in love with it at this point. I really wish my marketing class was better. I'm learning from the book but the class seems to be a gigantic waste of time. I really love marketing and actually ordered a few books on it recently to keep plugging along with the marketing for Ardeur Photography. The best part of Monday was the post marketing class beers that is quickly becoming a tradition for Fabish, Gumar, Throckmorton and myself.

Tuesday - I thought about heading to the grasshoppers season finale but instead opted for an unscheduled evening. I ran 4.25 miles and Gonna Fly Now from the Rocky movies was one of the last songs I heard. I remembered back to playing that with the Brass Ensemble at UNCG and contacted the music library via an online chat feature and they had the CD. I drove over to UNCG and made a copy of that and a friends senior trumpet recital. Cool being able to reminiscence and listen to some stuff like that sometimes. Also picked up Jay-Z and Kayne's new album that night. At this point Watch the Throne is better than The Carter 4 to me. If you haven't figured out I have a super eclectic taste in music. Classical, Jazz, Rap, Pop, Rock, Country, you name it I probably like it. (sorry Metal fans, I just can't do that)

Wednesday -2 mile run and weights. Nothing exciting to report.

Thursday - Caught up with a good friend and former intern at lunch. Left work early and went to Virginia to see my cousin Samantha play volleyball. It was fun getting to see her and even better that I got to hang out with a lot of other family members during her game. Her mom was there (and explained quite a bit of what was going on to me!) and another cousin and her kids who I adore were in from Iowa. I knew they'd be in town for our family Labor Day cookout but didn't know they'd be there last night. I hope to get to see all of my cousin's sporting events more often and am making an effort to pencil some dates into my calendar for that.

I have to check the training plan but its either a 4 or 5 mile run this weekend and I'll probably do another 2 this afternoon. I don't know if I'll go to the gym or just run and take it easy the rest of the afternoon. I've got some tv shows recorded I want to watch and need to clean up the house a little bit.

Its gonna be a great weekend with dinner at the Melting Pot with friends tomorrow night and a great cookout on Sunday. Top that off with Monday off and all of a sudden you have a nearly perfect weekend recipe.

Have a fabulous Labor Day Weekend & Run Happy!

Be Thankful Today - Tomorrow's Not Guarenteed

2011-08-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'm so thankful that this is not the post it could have been.
I was on the phone with my mom last night and she said, that's strange your dad just got home, and its only 7:30. He usually doesn't get home from riding until between 8:30 and 9.

He picked up the phone as well (because that's how we roll, we all talk at once, its just simpler that way right?) to which I asked, how was your ride?

He proceeded to tell us that they never got to ride because of an accident. He was the first one to get to where ever his group meets at and he had just pumped up his front tire and was proceeding to get ready and pump up the back tire. He was standing next to the rear tire of his truck at that point and heard a very loud noise. He turned and looked and there was a truck careening right towards the tailgate are of his truck. he turned and tried to move but even though things seemed in slow motion they were moving fast.

We're so lucky that the truck hit his truck just a foot from where he was standing. He only got a few cuts (not deep) on the back of his leg form the grill of one of the other cars. His shorts pockets and jersey pockets (gym shorts still on at that point) were full of glass from the shattered windshield of the other vehicle.

What he says he thinks happened according to the police is that a car ran a stop sign and then had a collision with this other truck that sent it his way.

It could have been so much worse, just another few feet and he would have been hit, possibly killed. At this point we don't know what the verdict of his truck is, it is drivable. Or his bike, the wheel is warped and we're not sure of structural integrity of the frame right now.

How scary. I'm more than thankful that the lord wasn't ready to take my father. I have a great relationship with my parents and that's something else that I'm so grateful for. We talk almost daily, we spend a good deal of time together and I couldn't have better influences in my life than my mother and father.

Be thankful for what you have today. And let the people you love know it. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. Live your life with no regrets.

13.1 Streak will continue!

2011-08-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

My dad and I are lacing back up and heading to Charlotte in November for the Thunder Road Half Marathon. We have run at least a half marathon every year since 2008. I actually thought that we'd run another half in 2009 but I can't seem to figure out if thats true or not. Regardless, there was 13.1 miles covered in that Disney Marathon(updated - we had signed up for and planned on doing Rock and Roll VA Beach in 2009 but didn't train and weren't ready for it in 09 so we didn't go), and I didn't start to really enjoy running after the Charlottesville Half until late in the year in 2009, we had fun at the Victory Junction 5 miles and ran 2 good Halfs early in 2010. Injuries for dad and wedding activities for me limited the running after that but we still finished Rock and Roll VA Beach 2010.

I usually just use runners world's free training plan. I'm going to look at those today and pick one, it won't be one with crazy high mileage or anything but I'm really looking forward to it.

My Goals for Thunder Road are as follows:
1. Have Fun
2. Finish
3. Show up for it weighing 208 or below. After some more weight fluctuation over the weekend I was down 1.2 pounds today to 218.6. (side note, maybe I should have a few beers every night, it seems that's the key to weight loss, haha)

We started running distance events in 2008.
Charlottesville Half Marathon - 2008
Under Armor Baltimore Marathon
Victory Junction Half Marathon

2009:
Disney Marathon
Lots and Lots of Biking
Victory Junction 5 Mile

2010:
ING Atlanta Half Marathon - PR 2:23
Flying Pirate Half Marathon
Virginia Beach Half Marathon

2011:
Thunder Road Half Marathon

2012:
Now that I'm enjoying running I'm going to try to keep this streak alive as long as possible. Suggestions for 2012 Races?

Week in Review

2011-08-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

Monday - If you didn't read the MBA decision post you should. That being said, class started Monday night and I was actually really looking forward to it because it was Marketing, and thats something I really enjoy.
The book for the class is pretty good except for the fact that the chapters are 30 pages. But we get to class and the professor is of a different nationality, and this is an all new experience for me. His English is fine but there are some very hard stops in his sentences, and not just at the end of them. It makes it pretty hard to follow along with, or it did last week anyway. Hopefully things will get easier. Otherwise I didn't really like his teaching style so as strange as it sounds I'm looking forward to the reading but not to the classes. Going to class is only 7.5% of our grade so I might have to skip out early some, who knows. We have 3 exams, no final, a group case and a group project that make up for the majority of our grade and we have a really strong 8 person group so I don't imagine that we'll have any problems with the group work.

Tuesday - I ate lunch at my desk so I could leave early and get home. I needed to get home early so I'd have time to run a few miles before I took off to Winston Salem for the VGP Fantasy Draft. It was the original three VGP members drafting, eating pizza and talking a little smack to each other. I always have such a good time with these guys but we don't hang out nearly enough. Hopefully we can get a sunday morning tee time lined up for September.

Wednesday- I finished a great book by Austin Carty. His blog is here and there is information on his book on his blog. I strongly encourage you to at least swing by his blog, but to consider getting the book. It was amazing. I've given my copy to my mom to read but think I'm going to pick up another copy to start rereading. Its a collection of stories that are so well written you won't want to put it down. I will be doing a more in depth review of the book and it's affect on me in the future.

After finishing that book I went for a run. 3.1 miles, the longest run I've had outside to this point. It went great for 2.5 miles and the last .6 was pretty tough, my legs were ready to be done.

Thursday - We had the VIBE party for Bike MS. VIBE's are people who commit to raising over $1000 and turning it in at least 3 weeks before the Bike MS Tour to Tanglewood. I helped load the truck and then was in charge of setting everything up for the Prize section at the party. As per the usual I am a whirling dervish of clean up and packing up when its time to go which if you ask my co-workes they'd probably tell you thats my most valuable asset. I had the truck packed and loaded with the help of two other volunteers in 10 minutes after the party was over so I could get home. I took my Carabbas home and it was great to be able to chill after a hot sweaty night with good food and Burn Notice and Suits (which is my favorite new show of the year)

Weekend: Friday - worked half day and went home to Pilot Mountain to spend time with my parents. I stayed up there to Saturday to do photos for Hill Events at the Tour de Gaps. Afterwards another fantasy football draft in Auction format (really, try it out, its cool) and then home. Ran 3.1 Saturday and 2 more Sunday morning before my Brother in Laws wedding shower. His wedding is like 5 weeks away. Wow, thats so close!

Total Miles: 10.2

I probably should do more posting in the week so I don't have a novel on Monday's, huh?

MBA Decision - Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

2011-08-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

(I hope you're now humming or singing to yourself)

If you read this blog you'll know that I had am amazing, life and business changing experience in Chicago at the Jerry Ghionis workshop.

It was during or shortly after that workshop that I had to start making some real decisions about my future.

In all honesty, I signed up for the MBA just as much because I thought it might help me in the future as it would currently let me defer my student loans. That might be an ugly truth but it is what it is. I think of it as a win-win debt deferral program. How you may ask? Well you're in the right place to find out an answer to that.

I am taking student loans to go to school, that equals more debt. However I'm paying off debt that isn't student loans such as my car loan, a loan I took to help out during my divorce several years ago, etc. So it is essentialy trading old debt for new debt, with a lower interest rate. Not much of a win, but a win nonetheless. The other win comes from graduating the MBA program with the same amount of debt I had going in, but then I'll have a Masters Degree. Win-win, right?

Now, the why I might not return decision. Last semester was the toughest semester of school of my entire life. With Economics and Accounting I spent 2 nights a week in class for three hours and then usually 2 more nights a week with a study group, sometimes only 1 week night and a 4 hour session at Panera on the weekends.

Huge huge huge time investment. My photography business was going well and I had weddings lined up but I was always so tired that putting on the game face for the wedding, which I truly love doing, was harder than it should have been and the day after left me feeling like I'd just run a marathon, with no time to recover before the race started again.

The time invested into school was soul crushing. Less time with my amazing wife, less time doing what I'm truly passionate about, less time to work out, just plain ole less time.

The Verdict - part 1
I decided to drop down to part time status, which for evening MBA's is only one class for this semester and possibly next semester to see how I felt about finishing the degree.

The Verdict - part 2
I discovered that I could finish within the allotted 5 years (max time you can be in the program without an extension from some board ) by taking 1 class at a time for the next 3 years. That my friends is doable. I do enjoy the learning and although my dreams involve being a full time photographer I can use these classes to push me further ahead in the business side of photography. So my fellow friends in the MBA program can laugh and poke fun but as they head back to class on Thursday nights I'll be hitting the gym, spending time behind the lens, working on new marketing initiatives, planning a beautiful weekend with my more beautiful wife, and sometimes, just unplugging from it all to watch tv, or read a good book (foreshadowing - I just finished an amazing book which you'll be hearing more about soon!)

I will get my MBA, but on my terms.

And with that there is a huge decision gorilla off my back

-Lastly - no suggestions on the blog name, really? I'm going to have to rename this baby all on my own?

Click the link

2011-08-24T07:31:00.000-07:00

Check out this blog by Colleen over at IRONDIVA

http://cbkingery.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-feel-old.html

Its pretty crazy but also very interesting

Week in Review

2011-08-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

If you've seen my last post you know that last week was busy but I got off to a good start with running 3 miles on Monday.

I didn't make it to the gym again until Friday and it was clearly one of those days when I should have stayed at home. Do you ever feel like you should rest, but if you haven't worked out much recently that you're just being lazy and not really needed the rest? I have a hard time reading my body vs. mind correctly sometimes, am I being lazy b/c I want to lay on the couch or do I really need the rest.

Friday I got in the gym and did a 10 minute stair climber warm up, then I headed to the treadmill for what I'd planned being a 2 mile run. My legs hurt from the start, I just didn't feel like being on the treadmill. I pulled the towel from over the display at six and a half minutes, and when the clock hit seven minutes I pressed stop and got off. I tried to make myself do some weights, but I picked up the dumbbells did four curls and put them back down and promptly waked out of the gym. It wasn't my day to be working out.

Saturday I had to be up at 5:45 to go work the bike MS training ride but I did go for a run. As soon as I got home from the ride, without even going inside, wearing my old running shoes, and a cotton shirt I ran a 1 mile out and 1 mile back route and put in two miles. I was freaking dripping with sweat (since I started at 1pm) but my legs felt so much more fresh. It was nice.

Sunday I did 30 minutes on the elliptical whilst reading Marketing Management and then ran just over a mile.
Oh yeah I did watch this again yesterday.

Talk about an unabashed action movie. Just what the doctor ordered up for a lunch time treat. 103 minutes of action, with a hint of moral story thrown in there for fun, but mostly just bloody, non stop action.

Total running for the week = 6.65. It was down from last week but the second most miles I've run this year so I can't complain too much.

Goals for this week is at least 8 miles broken into 3 or 4 runs. I won't be running tonight because my class starts. Other goals is to drop at least 1.4 pounds and get below 217. I had an up and down weekend with weight and thankfully ended up only gaining .2 pounds. Current weight is 218.2, when I drop below 217 it will be my lowest weight since February or March and then I'm trying to crack below 215 by early September and below or close to 210 by October. Goal 1 is 205. Goal 2 is 195. Goal 3 is 185.

Lastly, I haven't seen one of these in a while, but after some research and talking with a friend I will probably let you know where my next one will be later this week.

Busy

2011-08-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

What a boring blog post title. I went to thesaurus.com to look for something better, but didn't find anything worth using.

Last week was a very busy one and I’ve wasn't able to make make it to the gym as much as I'd like.
At this writing (Friday morning) I've only been once, on Monday, but it was a solid workout. I did my 5 minute warmup on the stairclimber and then ran 3 miles in 34 minutes. A good weight routine afterwards and I was beat.

Tuesday I was all over the darn place, I didn't stop moving until 9. Work was crazy busy, I went by The Wedding Galleria to drop off stuff, by Songbirds to pick up a dress for my model, went and visited a Congressman's office on behalf of the National MS Society with a group, then back to work. When I got off work it was off to meet the model and give her the dress, back to Bella to set up my new display (picture coming soon) with my fabulous parents help, and then head downtown to meet our model and do our walking Bridal themed photo shoot (pictures for that coming soon as well). We wrapped up around 8:30 and headed home. I was going to cook for everyone but was just too exhausted so we picked up Japanese and we all ate around 9. Tara had her grad school orientation that night and starts classes next week as well.

Wednesday was a good busy day. Meeting, then lunch with Barbra, work, a 2 hour coffee break with one of my great friends Allan, and then I worked until 7 since I'd snuck off for a few hours during the work day. Since it was actually closer to 7:30 when I got home I didn't go to the gym then either. Tara had to run a few errands so I didn't cook fur us until after 8:45, but while she was gone I unplugged for a while and read 3 magazines.

Thursday- busy, the theme right. Work has been a beast but thankfully I had half a day off. To update my contract at bella, pick up and return the borrowed wedding dress and then a great bridal portrait shoot at the Loft at Union Square. Becca was beautiful and I can't wait for Brain to see her on September 17th!

Friday - finally slowing down. Whew - Heading to the gym tonight, probably only running 2 miles and weights.

This weekend I have a training ride to work on Saturday and some R&R time that evening.

Hold on, do I REALLY like running?

2011-08-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I ran 5.5 songs, 2 miles. It wasn't too bad.
Tuesday I ran 2 miles.Again, not too bad, the songs were shorter so when Iuncovered the display I still have a quarter mile to go.
Friday I ran 2.25 miles. Felt good, weights went well too.
Saturday I ran for a total of 37:30 minutes and it was 3.58 miles. Thanks toTara for wanting to stay an extra ten minutesI had my longest run of the year. I'm not sure but I think I'm beginning tolike running again.
Sunday I was napping when Tara got ready togo the the gym, but later in the afternoon I went outside and ran 2 miles.Almost decided out there to run another mile, glad I didn't though, my calvesand right achilles were sore by the end.
Last Week = 11.83 Miles

You know what happens when I start to enjoy running don't you? I starttinkering with the idea or running a race. Stay tuned to see what type ofdecision I might make. (NOTE - it will NOT be a full marathon if I decideanything)

One day I just started running

2011-08-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

So I'd been working out on again off again since February when I was doing pretty good.
March & April pretty much killed the workouts with the two hardest classes I've ever taken simultaneously.
May rolled around and I think I was recovering from burnout, the mental and physical kind that comes from hard work and a good amount of stress.
June - now we're talking, I decide to get back on the bike. May have even written a post on this blog about being back in the saddle again. Except, while I was enjoying riding by myself and slower I went all in and tried to latch back onto the group I used to ride with. I rode with them two tuesday's and a row and it was obvious that they'd been riding all year and I was coming back after a year off the bike. To say I ate their dust the whole ride would be an understatement. I busted my ass and clawed back on to the group until about 15 miles in to each ride, at which point they would stop at the turns (this is customary for this ride, not just for my slow ass) and I would pull up as soon as I could.

So, then the Chicago trip happened and I actually worked out in the gym 3 days during that trip plus the ton of walking didn't hurt anything, but I did eat to much. Damn you amazing Chicago food.

So I get back to NC and have to start working out again.

Did I want to bike, nope, it was HOT, over 95 almost every afternoon, and I didn't want to ride in that HURT LOCKER. Did I want to run, nope, looks like my interest in running had returned to a dislike.
Overtime starting in 2007 my thoughts on running have went like this
hate, dislike, sort of like, enjoy, dislike, dislike, hate, dislike, start to like, enjoy, stop running, dislike

To tell you the truth I wasn't really interested in any workouts, I just wanted to work on my business at first but found a weight routine in a magazine that I thought was hard but obtainable, so I went. 30 minutes on the elliptical and roughly 30 minutes of a full body weight routine. I did that for about 4 weeks, maybe 5.

My shoes were getting pretty worn out so I went to the great local running store and started from scratch and got some new shoes.

Then 2 weeks ago, I hopped on the treadmill to run five minutes, but I was close to half a mile so I decided to finish the half of a mile. Two days later I decided to run again and the first minute went fast, then I didn't think the next 30 second's would ever go by, so I covered the display with my towel and ran for 4 songs. Figuring at a 3 minute average I'd do a mile, but it actually averaged about 4 minutes so I ran for 17 minutes and close to a mile and a half I guess.

Stay tuned for what happens next...

(really, no one with any suggestions on a blog name?)

Updates

2011-08-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, its really been since June since I had anything to say on my blog?
I guess to better state it, its been since June since I've taken the initiative (I really need to learn to spell that work correctly on the first try, I have never done it) to write anything.

So my summer has been amazing, and I wish that it wasn't coming to a close. I rather like the fact that Tara gets the summers off so if I run home for lunch I get to see her.

We had a great trip to Chicago in late June / early July. I attended a workshop by Master photographer Jerry Ghionis (www.JerryGhionis.com) and it was life and business changing. Tara and I had some time to explore Chicago as well and we really loved it there.

We saw a Cubs game on the Sunday we left, drove to Louisville and spent the night. We stayed in Louisville so we could go to the Louisville Slugger Museum on monday before finishing our trip home. The whole trip was great.

I've got some crazy big plans that I have to start saving right now for.
Summer 2012 - Honeymoon part III - in LA
Summer 2013 - Honeymoon part IV - in Europe
Summer 2014 - Honeymoon part V - tropical adventure - Cabo, Hawaii again, who knows.

And then, we might start talking the crazy scary B word.

In other awesome news I've re-branded my photography company to Ardéur Photography and couldn't be more excited about that.

Tara got into graduate school and will be starting, one week from today. I'm so happy for her and proud of her. She's such a great teacher I know she'll do great at this as well.

I'm trying to figure out what path I want to take with my MBA. I will be meeting with my adviser in 2 weeks to discuss getting an early extension granted so I can take one class at a time to finish the degree. We'll see if that's possible. I can't do a full time job, run a full time photography business and go to school full time. One class at a time will work much better for me.

There's a start to the updates. Next post I'll talk about getting back started running and how I'm enjoying it. I think I've finally turned a corner with having fun on the run.

Lastly, this blog needs a new title. I'm open for suggestions so please let me know what you think.
Derek

Esquire Review

2011-06-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

I love magazines. I have a tendancy to get more than I have time to read sometimes, but I enjoy the articles, the short storys, etc.

I regularly read:
Mens Health
Bicycling
Shutterbug
Popular Photogarphy
Digital Photo Pro
GQ
Mens Fitness
I get Bloomberg Business Week b/c I'm enrolled in grad school, its "free"...haha

I used to get Runners World and Triathlete as well but had to let some go.

I picked up a copy of Esquire the other day because Bradley Cooper was the covery story and I wanted to read more about him. I started with that article, and thats something I usually don't do. I usually start by flipping through reading some of the other general interest stories.

I'll have to say that I really didn't enjoy this magazine. I wasn't a huge fan of the writing style or the content. Not much useful in there for me, but everyone's got their own interest I suppose. I'll happily stick with MH, MF, and GQ for my mens magazines.

I'm BACK in the Saddle again!

2011-06-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

After nearly a year without doing much riding I've finally climbed back on and am having a blast.
I've ridden the past 4 days, and have gotten over 150 miles in so far this month. I know its not a ton, but all things considering, I'm feeling good.

Tuesday night was my first ride back with the B group that I rode with so much 2 years ago and just a bit at the beginning of last summer. One of the guys said when we got there that he had a hilly route planned out, unless someone didn't want to do it.

Shit! Did I want to ride a hilly route in my first ride back with the gang, no, but did I say anything, heck no, bring on the pain. Or some of you might know HTFU.

Off we went, and my goal was to hang at least 10 miles with the group, I honestly didn't know if I'd be able to stay with them any longer or even that long, b/c I didn't want to slow their ride down tremendously. They usually stop and regroup at turns, but I told them if I was way way back to not worry about it, because we were on roads I was somewhat used to.

Okay, that wasn't entirely true, I know the area pretty well but we rode some roads I'd never been on before and I know that it was probably the hilliest route that I've ever rode with these guys and I've done 30+ rides with them. I put parts of the route in map my ride and one of the hills we went on near the rock quarry had a section of >10% grade.

I was with the group pretty solid until a bit after 10 miles and I ended up getting dropped on the climbs about 5 or 6 times, but I didn't get spit out far enough that they didn't wait. I rolled up to the turns at most a minute after the middle of the pack and finished the ride with everyone. It was a great 28 miles and they joked, but its true, that rides like that will whip you into shape fast. I'm glad my legs responded to the challenge.

Wednesday night I was going to do around 10 easy, but the route turned out to be close to 14 and I was feeling good so I pushed a little bit.

I made up for that tonight, I wanted to keep my average under 15 to recover. I was shooting for somewhere in the 13ish range and accomplished my goal, and ended up with a 14.2 average for 15 miles.

I'm taking tomorrow off and then riding the a training ride Saturday. The loacl bike MS event has 10 shop sponsored training rides throughout the summer, and granted I have to work 2 of them ( I try to ride those too), I like to go out and support the shops and get a marked route, with a few hundred folks and a supported rest stop for free.

My legs have come around quicker than I thought they would and I'm excited to be riding again.

Until next ride, stay loco!

Run, Run, Ride!

2011-06-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

I went home to Pilot Mountain this weekend because I did the photos for the 3 Mountain Madness ride. I've ridden the ride several times, doing the 75 mile route and 2 of the 3 mountains in my best riding year of 09. I love this ride, its my hometown ride, the mountains are hard ( I've ridden all 3 just not in the same day) and overall its just a great ride. Wonderful support and volunteers, etc. Anyway, their normal photo company couldn't do it this year and I'd asked about it before so my team and I took the photos for the ride. (If you're curious to see them go HERE ).

Anyway I went home Friday afternoon and after a great meal at a local restaurant with my parents my dad and I went for a 1.5 mile run on Main Street around 10pm. I'm starting to like running at night, its cooler, its different and its fun.

Saturday we got up and did the photos. I was at mile 17 and everyone was by there by 9:40 so I headed home to chill with mom and start processing the photos. Dad was on Hanging rock taking photos of folks there.

When he got home, we went for another run. From their house, we ran a quick out and back for another 1.25 miles. Its much hiller than main street but we had a good time. After that we grabbed lunch and I got ready to go to a friends wedding with my wife.

Sunday morning Dad came to Greensboro this time and we headed to Hagan Stone park to ride a 40ish mile ride with a stop at Homeland Creamery for homemade Ice Cream. The ride ended up being 43 miles, we had a blast and rode pretty solid too. Unfortunately the Creamery doesn't open until 1 on Sunday's so no ice cream for us today.

That'll probably be the most miles I put in for a week on the bike for a while, because I have quite a few business things I'll be taking care of before my trip to Chicago at the end of the month. But, then again, I'm going to try to squeeze in the miles when I can.

This week:
Bike - 81 miles
Run - 3.75

I hope everyone had a great weekend and this week is awesome for you.
Stay Loco!

Winning!

2011-06-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

I've been LUCKY in contest lately.
I'm going to post about my most recent win today, and then another great win in a few days. (Sorry Ben, I totally didn't ever post about winning your great contest!)

Kristen at Inspired by Dooce had a review of Ryders Eyeware on her blog last week and in addition to the review she had a contest to win a pair of sunglasses. I entered in every way that she outlined you could for a total of 3 entries and I found out yesterday that she selected my name from the bag of names (check out her blog and you'll see its true)

I really like the Defcon's but need to check out the others before I send Kristen a list with a few types I'd be more than happy to have.

Thank you to Kristen & Ryders for the great contest. Please click on their links and check out those pages. A great blog and a great company.

Stay Loco!
Derek

Back on the wagon!!

2011-06-02T07:05:00.000-07:00

I'm baaaaacckk! In the mood to exercise.
After the beat down school laid on my exercising this spring, and having no desire to do anything for a few weeks afterwards, other than take photos, edit, etc, I had a great 29 mile bike ride on Monday with my dad. I haven't been able to ride again this week but I hope to this afternoon. It won't be but a 10-15 mile ride due to the heat, but I can't wait to get out there.

Pretty good pics taken with dad's i phone while riding huh?
Speaking of my dad, here's his picture taken with my blackberry.

The last night, I decided that since I wasn't able to bike or go to the gym (wife was out with the girls, and since we're in a guest suite apartment while our AC is broken we don't have the crate for the dog) I'd go for a run after dinner. I went out and ran a mile at 10 last night. And you know what, I kind of liked it. I might run again tonight, and who knows, maybe some more this weekend.

Now here's a question. I started shaving my legs around 4 years ago and think they look good that way, but damn its a hassle ( not complaining, I know you ladies do it all the time), last summer, I didn't shave that often but did before riding, but I haven't shaved in about six months and its pretty nice not to deal with it.

There are pro's and con's to both, shaving looks better and is cooler, not shaving is much easier and less time consuming.

So - should I shave these things?

Broken AC - and a lifesaver

2011-05-31T08:41:00.001-07:00

As much as I want to own a house (we aren't sure we'll be staying in our current location for more than a few more years, due to wanting to move back "home" about an hour from here so when we have kids they'll be close to their grandparents and we'll have support) there are some damn good benefits to living in an apartment.

Thursday of last week I noticed that our place was not as cool as normal and I let the office know on Friday. The maintenance man added freon to the unit and it was cooling properly again. However Saturday afternoon it started acting up again and I went back to the office on Sunday.

Turns out there's a leak with the freon and it couldn't be fixed or worked on until today. However, the guest apartment you can rent at our complex was rented but they put us in their model, which is furnished, w/o a tv or internet connection though. We stayed there Sunday night and all day yesterday. I am quite happy with them for bending over backwards to help us out b/c the ac unit isn't working at all right now and during the day yesterday it was 88 in our apartment (went by to pick up a few more things), and this morning it had cooled down to 83.6. I would have had to rent a room somewhere if they hadn't helped us out.

I heard from them a bit ago and a piece has been ordered, the air handler(maybe, any one know anything about HVAC?) has been ordered and won't be in for a few days. We're going to be in the guest suite apartment (with a TV!) for the next few nights.

I know that if I was a homeowner it might have been fixed by now but I'd be out a TON of money. Currently its only costing me to put our dog in doggy day care for today and the next few days.

I owe the apartment office lady a nice six pack. She's a lifesaver.

Lance ?

2011-05-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Its hard to question your hero's in life isn't it?

This stems from a conversation with a good friend last night. We are both Lance fans, our fondest memories of the Tour de France come from his domination of the field in the late 90's and early 2000's.

He's done AMAZING things for the cancer community.
And he's never failed a drug test.

However the more information that comes out the harder it becomes to believe that maybe he didn't use performance enhancing drugs. To this point, I still choose to believe that he didn't. But I sometimes wonder if I believe that because that's what I want to believe or thats what I really believe.

I do know that if George Hincapie ever comes out and says, Lance and I doped together, just like everyone else. Then, without a shadow of a doubt I'll believe it to be true.

The thing is I don't know if I care if its true at this point. There are so many reasons (and yes, rationalization is an ugly thing sometimes... I digress). Its pretty much come out now that everyone at the top of the sport was use PED's, so if he was so what, right?

Another reason that I don't care is that cycling wasn't doing enough to stop it. Thats the exact same way I feel about the steriods in baseball. MLB didn't do hardly anything to stop it, they just rode the Homerun era wave out of the strike shortened season and were happy. Then when they got in trouble in the public eye they tried to backtrack and make it all better.

Lastly and mainly, in my opinion Lance Armstrong has done more in a charitable way by starting Livestrong than any other celebrity, clean or otherwise, and millions of people have been touched by the work that they do.

Bill Simmons wrote an interesting article for Bicycling a few months ago about how he feels about it, and there are countless other articles stating various points but I think this is one of those times when everyone has to make their own decisions about how they feel about the situation. Livestrong has meant a lot to me in my battle to overcome obesity after my divorce not all that long ago. So right now I believe lance, because I want to believe.

But more than anything, now I want clean cycling. I want everyone to be on a level playing field, based on god given talent and hard work. I want the victor to know they were clean and rejoice in those celebrations. I love cycling and I don't want to hear about the drugs, I want to watch the races, see the classics. Look at the riders faces as they agonize over cobblestones and up mountains I can only dream of. I want to see the elation in their faces after a breakaway win or out kicking the bunch. Cycling is a team sport where you ride for the strongest man, or sometimes the luckiest. Weather it be Chris Horner in the ATOC this year or Jani Brackaviz in the Tour of Georgia in 07.

I have no idea if I said what I wanted to say or just rambled on for the last 15 minutes.

So, what do you think, how do you feel. Do you care?

Until next ride stay loco

Three Thing Thursday's

2011-05-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, I know, no need to lecture me.

1. Worked the MS Dinner of Champions tonight and it was great. Mack Brown the U of Texas football coach was the honoree and he did a great job. Funny and inspiring all at the same time.

2. Plans for the holiday weekend include:
relaxing and having fun - possibly including a dip in the pool (see #3)
editing and processing all the photos I have to do (finish 3 weddings, a heart ball, a convention, and maybe something else)
resuming a diet and exercise program including at least an hour on my bike, who I've neglected horribly and it's not happy about it!

3. Here in NC summer has arrived and it pushed spring out so quickly I didn't even get to say goodbye.

Until next ride keep it loco!

A Borrowed Blog Post

2011-04-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

Go read this post, I think its pretty spot on. Sometimes we just don't notice things.

http://inspiredbydooce.blogspot.com/2011/04/ladies-dont-take-it-personally-when-he.html

I thought about posting something that women might not notice, but at this point, I don't have anything bad to say. Maybe I'm too tired to come up with a ~~witty~~, smart ass thing to say, or maybe it's because on my wifes first day of spring break ( from teaching) she spent quite a bit of the day cleaning and catching us up on house work (she's awesome!), or maybe I'm too damn tired from school and can't wait until finals are over (next week 2 finals and I'm done for the summer)

Anyway, be like Kristen and just accept that sometimes (maybe even more often than not) we just aren't going to notice the changes at first. However, I will point out that if you move something to see if your guy notices, he very well may and not say anything about it because it doesn't bother/effect/apply to him. Move something of his and he's much more likely to notice. :-)

Getting Close to another goal

2011-03-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

Its been about 10 days since I posted and I'm not going to run down the whole set of days.
I will say that I bounced right around between 212 and 213 for a while but broke on through down into the 11's yesterday and lost another .6 today.

My Starting Weight of the diet was 227.2
My current weight is 211.2
Total Lost - 16 pounds.

I'm ready to loose another 1.4 pounds get get under goal number 3.

I'm getting closer and closer to goal #4 which is a big one for me right now for many reasons. 1, its that much closer to being back under 200 pounds. And 2, it is my wedding weight and I feel great about that.

I started semi tracking my weight loss last fall and to see the improvements made sine February 13th are really great. The weight loss doesn't happen as rapidly, especially during the 3rd phase when almost all foods are added back in, such as whole grain bread and pasta. After the third cycle I'll move back onto the first cycle and repeat things until I get to my goal weight and then there are cheat meals on the weekends. (Tara and I did already have a cheat meal last weekend, we had Mexican and it was great!)

Weight Chart Since the Fall:

My parents and wife are also doing great with weight loss. The whole family is rocking!

Hope everyone's having a great week.

What a busy week!

2011-03-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

Day 29
Weight 214.4

Day 30
214

Day 31
213.6

Day 32
213.4

Day 33
213.8

Day 34
Starting Weight 213.8
Current Weight 212.4
Total Lost 14.8

So I'm writing this at almost midnight and I'm interested to see what tomorrow holds. Today was the first day of phase 3 which re incoorporates some bread/pasta etc but mostly calls for the whole wheat varaites. I grabbed a sub from Jimmy Johns today because it was fast and I didn't have most time, that was on white bread.

This week is another busy one.
Today I had engagment photos this morning, busy day at work, class tonight, a fantasy baseball draft (i know, i know, but I didn't schedule it)

Tomorrow, busy day at work, american heart association go red for women photo shoot, study group

Wednesday - pick up shirts and pepsi for the walk, other wise a day to go over everything and make sure itsdone

Thursday doesn't seem too crazy yet, class that night

Friday - load truck for zoo, set up tables and chairs, and a wedding to shoot that night

Saturday - zoo walk and meeting with a wedding planner to hopefully get Derek Hill Photography added to her vendor list

Sunday - STUDY!! Accounting exam is on monday.
Wish me luck!

Day 28 - 17 Day Diet

2011-03-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

Starting Weight 214.4
Current Weight 213.8
Total Lost 13.4

Back to my lowest of the year!

Its monday and I've got to go back to school tonight. Having spring break was perfect and probably just what I needed to rest/recover/clean/etc, so I'm not going to beat myself up to bad for not getting any extra school work done. I am now a little more behind the 8 ball to get on track and start working on my term paper.

Have a GREAT week!

Updates & a GOOOAAALLLL!!

2011-03-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this just before midnight on Sunday and I just realized that I hadn't posted anything since Wednesday. Wow, its been a great weekend with lots of family time and basketball watching.

Wednesday Night I attended a photography seminar that was AMAZING! If you ever get a chance to hear Sandy Puc or Jerry Ghionis and you love photography you have to go. It was the best money I've ever spent on photography.

I went home to have dinner with my parents and an uncle from out of town on Friday night and we had a great time talking and watching some basketball.

Saturday my wife, her dad, brother and brothers fiancee were all at the ACC tourny and I did a lot of photo editing and uploading, while watching basketball of course. My mother in law and I went and looked at some furniture and then everyone went to dinner.

Today I dog sat and watched basketball. Tonight after the selection show I finished up Ellen's bridal portraits, I can't wait to share some of them after her wedding and have been catching up on other stuff as well.

I'm sure more has went on since Wednesday but that's probably it in a nut shell.

Weight Updates:

Day 24
Start - 216
End 215.4

Day 25
Start 218.4
End 215.2

Day 26
Start 215.2
End 213.8
GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL #2 has been met!!!

Day 27
Start 213.8
End 214.4
Total Lost - 12.8

I think that I probably gained water weight yesterday but we'll have to wait and see. I also didn't eat the right breakfast (as in too little food) and I've been hungry all day b/c of that. I'm headed for goal #3 and can't wait to get there!

17 Day Diet - Day 23

2011-03-09T07:20:00.000-08:00

Its seems odd seeing day 23 in the post about a 17 day diet, but if you've been reading you know there are cycles of 17 days that you go through.

Day 6 of Phase 2 (23rd day)
Starting Weight - 217
Current Weight - 216
Total Lost - 11.2

After a few days of slight gains or staying the same it was nice to see a good drop this morning on the scale.
I'm not just a pound away from hitting goal #2.

I've been back in the gym quite a bit lately and its been nice to get back in the goove. Last night I did weights and some cycling (while reading econ - life of an MBA student, I have to multi task sometimes). The night before was just about a2 hour workout. 1 hour of spin, walked a mile while waiting on my wife to get there from her PTA meeting and then we ran for 30 minutes.

Updates

2011-03-07T07:45:00.000-08:00

I'm going to just do a quick run down of updates and will focus on getting back on a more regular blogging schedule this week.

Phase 2 - Day 2 - 216.4 (down 1 pound!!)
Day 3 - 216.8
Day 4 - 217
Day 5 - 217

I didn't eat enough fruit over the weekend and paid for it by being very hungry at times Saturday and Sunday night. I snacked on sliced chicken but may have had to much sodium. I haven't deviated from the plan too badly but will really focus on getting back into the groove of drinking enough water today.

Although I haven't lost any weight in 3 days I expect that to change tomorrow and I'm still excited that I've lost over 10 pounds!

Tonight I plan on taking a spin class from 6-7 and then running with Tara for a half an hour afterwards. I'm going to make the most out of being able to workout during spring break. Well not Wednesday night because I'm attending a seminar for wedding photographers.

Have a great week!

1st Phase Completed onto Phase 2!!

2011-03-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

Quick Post to get caught up. The weight is still coming off, but as with any weight loss you always wish it was faster.

Day 16
Starting Weight 218.4
Current Weight 217.8
Total Lost - 9.4

Day 17
Starting Weight 217.8
Current Weight 217.8
Total Lost - 9.4

Extremely happy with not gaining weight after day 17. I had a meeting with a committee at Pizza Hut, and I had a large salad and some un-za. Thats what I called raking off the cheese and veggies from the bread. Try it sometime and you'll be so surprised how little food there is on a piece of pizza that isn't bread.
Day 1 Phase 2 (Day 18)
Starting Weight 217.8
Current Weight 217.4
Total Lost 9.8

Tuesday I ended up working from home some b/c our network at work was down and I was able to sneak out for a quick bike ride. I'll post about it later, but its a 6 mile loop I'm using as a time trial fitness test loop.
I guess I did okay for the first time, I expect to be faster next month.

Wednesday I ran 2 miles in the gym.

Like Riding a Bicycle?

2011-02-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

Whats like riding a bicycle you might be asking yourself, well riding a bicycle is like riding a bicycle.

If you can use that metaphor to mean anything that you ahven't done in a while that comes back to you when you start then the act of riding a bike should count as well, right?

Anyway, I got Cyclone (if cars can have names bikes certainly can too) out yesterday, got the tires all pumped up (those do not have their own names), put on my new computer(okay so I bought it last fall, but if you've been reading you'll notice the lack of cycling posts since then) and got out on a PERFECT North Carolina Day.
Its hard to believe that its still February here with 75 degree sunny weather yesterday.

I rode my standby 15 mile loop and it went great. I didn't set, not attempt to set any sort of speed records, I just wanted to get out for the first of many (okay so I've ridden two other times this year) rides. I wish that every day would be like yesterday, it was absolutely amazing.

Much to my surprise, I hadn't forgotten how to ride, my feet still clipped in with ease, my legs turned and proved to be the only pistons my V2 cycle needed. The Roubaix still handles and rides like a dream, the only discomfort was, as is always the case when you first start riding again its a pain in the ass. Literally, not figurativly, gonna have to log some miles to get used to being in the saddle.

Diet Related Information:
Day 15:
Starting Weight 218.4
Current Weight 218.4
Total Lost 8.8

I've already lost over half of a pro bike.
Its funny to think people are always looking for new lighter pedals, shoes, bottles, etc for their cycling, when the easiest way to cut weight it to trim down the engine. If you don't believe me grab an extra 20-50 pounds and do anything, run, walk, garden, vacuum, cycle and tell me it isn't harder. (apologies to any super fit person who is at their perfect body weight reading this, you may feel free to continue to spend thousands of dollars reducing a few grams at a time on your bike)

A Great Contest for a Great Cause!!
Lastly, my friend and fellow blogger Ben from Becoming Timberman (which should probably be Becoming Cedar Point or something b/c he rocked Timberman last year) is having an amzing raffle to help his fundraising efforts for Team Fight - The Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults.

Check out his blog here: Becoming Timberman
Check out the raffle HERE: (you can win over $650 in prizes including a $200 dollar apple gift card for a $10 donation, enter NOW!!)

2 Weeks Down!

2011-02-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I was able to get to the gym and play some basketball, then walk a mile with my wife. Had a great salad for lunch and then got ready for a photo gig for the Iredell County Heart Ball last night.

Had dinner at golden coral afterwards and had grilled chicken tenders, coleslaw, green beans and a salad for dinner, with no bread. The coleslaw was supposed to be carrots but they were out of carrots and about four other things (that I didn't want) but I'd never heard a list of we're out of......., like that at cracker barrel.

Starring Weight 218.6
Current Weight 218.4
Total Lost - 8.8

Tonight I'll be eating out again at a great local restaurant in my hometown. We're heading "home" to celebrate my Mother in Laws birthday. The only think I'm going to miss eating at 13 bones is the bread, its sooooo good. When I get to my weight goal and can have cheat days on the weekend, I'll go back and have some of the bread.

In other workout news I ran 2 miles (okay, ran and walked, sue me) Friday night and worked out again yesterday. I hope to get out for a 10-15 mile bike ride today but it depends on how much time I have before we have to leave.

Day 12 & 13 Recap - 17 Day Diet

2011-02-26T06:31:00.000-08:00

Day 12 was a little disappointing because I gained .2 and was back right on the nose at 220, but I had a feeling I wouldn't stay there for long. On the days I'd gained I'd lost a decent amount the next day. That proved to be true today when after day 13 I lost 1.4 pounds.

I'm really pleased with my choice to try the 17 day diet. The principals are easy to understand, and having a plan to follow when seeing good results makes things easier to stay on. It is quite a bit different with the carb reduction in phase 1, but more vegetables are added in the next 17 days, and after that whole grains are back in moderation. Bread, pasta, rice, etc. But I must say I'm especially looking forward to the fourth cycle when the cheat meals are available on the weekends. I know I won't be cheating too badly because I still have a long way to go, but for now I'm celebrating some great successes in the first 13 days!

I'd also like to make mention that both of my parents are also on this diet, one day behind me, it was actually their idea to try it after they knew of a few others who'd been so successful. They are both doing great as well!

Day 12
Starting Weight 219.8
Current Weight 220
Total Lost - 7.2

Day 13
Starting Weight 220
Current Weight 218.6
Total Lost - 8.6

GOOOOOAAAAAAAL #1 MET!!

2011-02-24T06:42:00.000-08:00

I set several incremental goals for my weight loss and the first one containted the most weight. I wanted to loose 7 pounds to meet goal number one because that would put me under 220. The rest of my goals are in 5 pound increments.

When I weighed this morning I got my wish and lost .6 and that puts me just under 220.

I've been able to do really well eating this week but haven't worked out at all. I've met with Study groups Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday for 3 hours and had class Monday for 3 hours. That's too much school! I left the study group last night before it was over because I had just had enough for the day. I'll be studying some today at lunch and leaving work an hour early to finish reviewing any last minute stuff. Tonight is the Macro Econ final and regardless of the outcome, I'm just ready to take it and get it over with at this point.

Day 11 Recap
Starting Weight - 220.4
Current Weight - 219.8
Total Lost - 7.4

Day 9 & 10 Recap - 17 Day Diet

2011-02-23T10:39:00.000-08:00

This one will b short and sweet.
Life is very very busy this week with school.
Study groups on Sunday, Tuesday, & Wednesday. Accounting class was Monday night and our Macro Econ final is Thursday.

I have been very good about following the diet as far as what I can and can not eat, there have been a few days when I've eaten less than I was supposed to due to how busy things are. All in all I'm very proud of myself, I've almost hit my first goal of 220 or less!

Day 9
Starting Weight - 220.6
Current Weight - 220.8
Total Lost - 6.4

Day 10
Starting Weight - 220.8
Current Weight - 220.4
Total Lost - 6.8

17 Day Diet - Day 8

2011-02-21T06:57:00.000-08:00

The trip to the scale paid off huge today. After really working hard to do the best I could on Saturday, Sunday was such a busy day that I didn't have time to eat that much. Just a few eggs for breakfast and then a quick snack on some left over chicken around 3:30, before cooking a great stir fry dinner.

I did have a lot of water Saturday, probably something between 14-20 glasses (8oz) all total after golfing, going to the party and going out afterward, so I spent a lot of time yesterday in the bathroom.

It entirely possible that I gain a little tomorrow after loosing 1.4 pounds today. But for the moment I'm going to relish being at my lowest weight in a long time. I didn't start tracking my weight until November and it was 223 at that point and has went down, up, down, up and finally going down and staying there. .6 Pounds away from goal #1!

Starting Weight 222.0
Today's Weight 220.6
Total Lost - 6.6

17 Day Diet - Day 6 & 7 - Sucess in the face of Temptation

2011-02-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

I've made through a week, and the first 7 of 17 days in cycle 1.
I'm really pleased with the results at this point and can only hope that they will keep going so well.
As I stated in the first blog about this diet
(http://roubaixramblings.blogspot.com/2011/02/17-day-diet-day-1.html)
I'm just a few pounds away from reaching my first goal milestone.

Last Night we attended a surprise birthday / retirement party for a wonderful lady and I had the pleasure of being the photographer for the event as well. I did great in not eating things that I shouldn't. If I'd have been in the fourth cycle I would have been able to indulge in all the goodies but I'm on a mission to loose weight right now so I abstained, and it wasn't easy.

They had delicous barbecue and bbq chicken catered with coleslaw, mashed potatos, bread and HUSH PUPPIES! For dessert there was delicous looking (and smelling as we were seated a mere 5 feet from it) cake.
I at bbq and coleslaw, with a tiny portion of baked beans, and a piece of the bbq chicken. So while I don't think those foods were explictly on my to eat list, I made great choices and stayed away from the potatos, the fried foods, the bread and the cake.

If that weren't temptation enough, I played golf with my friends yesterday and I had picked up a salad to eat on the way so I had that, and at the turn they all had a delicious looking hotdog. Man, I did great yesterday!

I wasn't sure how weight loss would go, with the bbq having the potential to be high in sodium, etc.

I lost weight again today and have lost 5.2 pounds in the last week. If I can keep loosing a little bit every day I just might make it to that 10-12 pound loss in the first 17 days. Its great motivation to see the weight coming off and makes the temporary sacrafices worth it.

Day 6:
Starting Weight 222.8
Current Weight 222.6
Total Lost - 4.6

Day 7:
Starting Weight 222.6
Current Weight 222.0
Total Lost - 5.2

17 Day Diet - Day 4 & 5

2011-02-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

Its the beginning of day 6 and things are still humming along on the first cycle of the 17 day diet.

There was a minor setback on day four, I gained .2 pounds. I think there were several contributing factors including the olive oil and seasoning dressing that I had with the grill chicken salad for lunch, but I was also very thirsty and drank more than 8 glasses of water, I drank more like 14 glasses of water and 16 oz of green tea as well. So I was possibly over hydrated. I followed everything else well so although disappointed it wasn't devastating, besides I'd still lost a good amount of weight.

Yesterday the only deviation from the diet was that I didn't eat enough that is prescribed because frankly I was just to busy to eat the snacks. So I didn't get any fruit yesterday but I'm doing better today, breakfast of yogurt and an apple should hit the spot.

For dinner last night I threw another quick meal together.
2 pieces grill chicken on the forman. 1 bag of steam fresh broccoli. 12 cherry tomatos cut in half. 2 tbsp of shreeded fat free cheddar cheese.

After chicken and broccoli were cooked I added all ingrediants into a skillet and cooked for a fwe minutes to get the cheese melted and onto everything. Plus I like the grilled tomoato taste. Seasoned with a little lite soy sauce and had a nice fast meal after school.

Day 4:
Start 223.8
Current 224
Total Lost - 3.2

Day 5
Start 224
Current 222.8
Total Lost - 4.4

I have just started a nice long weekend. Took today off as a vacation day and we are closed Monday for Presidents day. Lots of photo editing to catch up on today, golf and some photos tomorrow, studying sunday, and probably again on monday but at least there is time to get caught up on all the photos that need editing and the school work. Next week is the last week of school before 2 weeks off. That is going to be awesome with no class for a few weeks. A real chance to shut it down and relax? Yeah right! A real chance to get started on that 12-20 page term paper for accounting.

Have a great weekend!

ps - if you decide to look for this book its only avaialbe online at this point.

17 Day Diet - Overview

2011-02-16T18:26:00.000-08:00

The diet is called the 17 day diet but is really 4 cycles of 17 days.

Its written by a doctor and he provides some research and medical facts about how those who lose weight rapidly have better success at keeping it off and get less discouraged.

Cycle 1: Accelerate - To promote rapid weight loss by improving digestive health. It helps clear sugar from the blood to boos fat burning and discourage fat storage. (my take, carb reduction in both sugar and other formats, can still have some carbs such as 2 fruits a day)

Cycle 2: Activate - to reset your metabolism through a strategy that involves increasing and decreasing your caloric consumption to stimulate fat-burning and to help prevent plateaus. (mixes higher and lower calorie days, back and forth)

Cycle 3: Achieve - To develop good eating habits through the re-introduction of additional foods and move you closer to your goal weight.

Cycle 4: Arrive - Ongoing, you stay here from now on as sort of a lifestyle change. TO keep you at your goal weight though a program of eating that lets you enjoy your favorite foods on weekends, while eating healthfully during the week.

The Doctor expects that people can easily loose 10-12 pounds in the first 17 days. It makes sense though because by cutting the cards, drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day and having a generous intake of protein it can make a big difference.

What do you get to eat?

This changes by cycles as more foods are added in as you progress. For example corn is in cycle 2 but not cycle 1.

Plenty of protein, but not to the Atkins extent where your snacks were pepperoni. The protein has lots of benefits including taming your appetite, it boots metabolism through stepping up the action of the thyroid, keeps blood sugar on an even level, etc. Lean meats, turkey, chicken lots of fish, etc

As many cleansing vegetables as you want.(defined in the book, but such as green beans, carrots, Brussels sprouts,

Cutting out High Sugar stuff, even high sugar fruits, but a lot of the processed carbs. People can become "carb sensitive". When that happens he says your body can no longer burn fat effectively, and a good deal of the carbs you eat are packed away as fat. You become carb sensitive by eating too much sugar and refined cards, chronic stress, and women are predisposition to be this way more than men. (not me, I'm very carb sensitive)

There's a chart that lists where your weight should range for your height and its broken down into small boned frame(not me), midpoint, and large boned frame. I think of myself as at the midpoint and that is 188 for my height. I will probably learn to do a cartwheel when I get to 188.

There is a long list of foods you can eat with each chapter, it's not overly restrictive and it includes sample days menus for each 17 days. In cycle 1 there are like 8 lean proteins, 30 cleansing veggies (eat all you want), low sugar fruits around 10 of those (limit 2 per day), probiotic foods (2 servings per day).

That's the 17 day diet in a nutshell. Feel free to email me for any other details about it as I continue this journey.

It seems like there is some real basic principals here but I wanted a plan to follow and something to judge my efforts on. I am hoping that it works and I get used to the change, however its been good so far.

You are also supposed to exercise for at least 17 minutes a day. Mom says it recommends 17 minutes in the morning and afternoon. 17 or more I guess is the goal.

17 Day Diet - Day 2 & 3

2011-02-16T05:36:00.000-08:00

Day 2 and Day 3 are now in the books for the 17 day diet and I'm happy that day 4 in under way.

There really might be something to the doc's claim that eating the ample amount of "cleansing" veggies will really ramp up your energy supply. Either that or yesterday was a fluke of nature. I had a busy day at work and class Monday night and had a cup of coffee in the morning and at 5:30 before class started. (coffee is allowed but you're expected to use Truvia the sugar substitute, so I did, and I also used low fat milk) I was tired after school but attribute the coffee to my staying up so late Monday night. I got really into cleaning out e-mails and the like. Since I didn't end up in bed until 2am I was already thinking about if I should stop at sheets or should I make the extra few mile trek over to Tate Street Coffee Tuesday morning. I did neither and had a ton of energy all day. I hope I feel like that every day! (note-it was tough to get out of bed today, we'll see what happens with the abundance of energy)

The eating is still going great, but I really did have a crazing for one of the reese cups sitting on the kitchen counter. I made it without eating one and am proud of that minor victory. After I get to cycle 4 of the diet I would probably eat one if I wanted it but make sure to not overindulge.

Tara and I did get to the gym last night and that was nice because my working out has severely suffered with school. I just did 30 minutes on the elliptical but I'm being reasonable and not trying to start out with any herculean amounts of time or weight training. My goal is to work out at least 3 times a week, hopefully to get the 17 minutes of walking or other activity in daily but to really make it to the gym 3times a week.

I'll be posting a quick overview of the diet in the next day or so I know some of you've wanted a little more information.

Now for the important stuff the weigh ins.

Day 2:
Starting Weight: 225.4
Day 2 Weight: 224.6 (-0.8)
Total Lost: 2.6

Day 3:
Starting Weight: 224.6
Current Weight: 223.8 (-0.8)
Total Lost 3.4

17 Day Diet- Cycle 1 - Day 1 Update

2011-02-14T06:36:00.000-08:00

Day 1 is in the books and I it was a success. Being able to eat all the protein and cleansing vegetables that I want at meal times is a real benefit to the diet. For dinner we had chicken, green beans, carrots and I had a spinach and cucumber salad to go with it.

I was down 1.8 pounds after the first day. Nice to see but somewhat expected with the reduction in carbs and the 9 glasses of water (diet calls for 8, I'm an overachiever, who had to visit the restroom 3!!! times during the movie yesterday) plus I was up from the previous day by quite a bit.

Anyway, its a great start and I've done great so far today, looking forward to a spinach salad with Tuna for lunch today with a side of apple slices, and its only an hour away!

I hope tomorrow is as successful as today.

Starting weight - 227.2
Todays weight - 225.4
Total lost - 1.8

17 Day Diet - Day 1

2011-02-13T08:56:00.001-08:00

Some folks my dad works with have tried and had great success with the 17 day diet. It should really be called the 17 day cycle diet because there are 4 cycles of the diet.

Nonetheless I've started the diet today. The first cycle ramps up protein and limits carbs, but doesn't eliminate them completely. There are some fruit serving in the diet which I really like because its hard enough to cut out candy, bread, etc but its only for the 1st 17 days. I like chicken, fish, turkey, fruits and veggies, and some of the other foods enough that it should work out. And, its only 17 days right?

What makes this book/diet stand out are its claims that rapid weight loss in the beginning has more long term benefit than some current schools of thought that state if you loose it quick you'll gain it back quicker. A well established doctor has created this plan and has been featured on Dr. Phil and other shows.

As bad as I am about blogging I hope to do better during this experiment of this diet. My weight has yo-yo'd like crazy the past week or so being up and down 1-2 pounds regularly. After our Valentines dinner of home made spaghetti sauce(I cooked this for Tara using her mom's recipe our first valentines day and we have done that every year since - 4 total years now!!) and our trip to Krispy Kreme last night (only 1 doughnut each, plus I had half a cup of ice cream and threw out the other half) I was at my heavist weight of the year, which is 227.2

The book says you can expect to loose 10-12 pounds in the first seventeen days and if that is true, I will be estatic. I really just want to loose more than 7.2 pounds to meet my first goal.

My goals are like this:
#1<220
#2<215
#3<210
#4<205
#5<200
#6<195
#7<190

When I get under 190 I will re-evaluate where my weight is and what I think it should stay between. At this point I feel like I should stay between 182-188, but I might need to be in the 170's, we'll just have to wait and see. I haven't been under 190 since 1999 or 2000, so to get back to my weight in high school would be huge. I did get down to 194 a few summers ago and I know that I can get and stay there.

Another part of this plan that appeals to me is that you should exercise for at least 17 minutes a day. When I went from 253 down to 200 pounds in 07 I did it rapidly with 2-4 hours in the gym a day and it was awesome. At that point in my life I had that kind of time to really put into the gym, but now I don't.

I am in the midst of the toughest semester I have ever had in school. I have never put in so much time and energy into doing work, studying, meeting for study groups(what???, I know, never before this semester have I needed to do that). UNCG is putting myself and my friends through the wringer with Econ and Accounting in the MBA program at the same time.

So the 17 minutes of working out sounds doable, and not overly discouraging.

So there's the start of the story. Day 1 is under way and after 5 hours I'm doing great. I sure as hell hope I can stick this one out and get my weight back to a point where I'm not constantly discouraged by it.

http://www.the17daydiet.com/

Breaking a rule

2011-01-26T18:33:00.000-08:00

I used to have a rule that stated, " I don't pay for pain".
It was a great rule, but looking back I've probably broken it more than I should have.

Sometimes, paying for pain was great for me, like some of the epic rides I've done.

But now, that rule is sitting in the corner mocking me.

I took off work early today using PTO to go study. I found my way to a coffee shop and one large and one small latte later I'd made it through 3 hours of accounting in the coffee shop and 2 hours of a group study session for economics.

I'm getting ready to start another hour (i hope thats all it takes) to get completely caught up on all the homework. *I know I shouldn't have gotten behind, a work trip to New Orleans didn't help that any, and missing the first class, but I'm almost caught up* I won't get behind again, and I'm already feeling better because I understand a point that was confusing me earlier this week.

However lets count the ways I'm paying for my pain
1. Tuition
2. Books
3. Coffee (and I usually don't drink coffee)
4. PTO (shouldn't you be doing something fun whenever possible while using time off)

Are there more?

In all seriousness I'm glad that I'm doing my MBA, and I know in the grand scheme of life that the few years put in to get it isn't such a long time. But I sure hope that having this degree pays off sometime in the future.

Hell Week

2011-01-18T19:39:00.000-08:00

I had a great work trip to New Orlenas last weekend but thats a different post, maybe if my sporadic blogging keeps up at its current pace.

Anyway, this week is going to be one hell of a week to get through and I am currently writing because I don't have the motivation to do anything else.

Today started with a meeting in Winston Salem with a potential sponsor/3rd party event. Bad news is that I was forgotten about, the good news is that the guy feels like shit and will probably be even more willing to get his stores to do a killer fundraiser. This whole thing was his idea to start with anyway!

1st latte (and I don't drink much coffee), guess I'm still feeling the effects of a super busy 3.5 days in the big easy. (no I didn't get trashed on bourbon street, but i did walk miles and miles and miles)

Get back to work in the boro and almost forgot about lunch (rare feat right there), emails to follow up with, #'s updates to prepare for the board, intern projects to assign, etc

quick lunch

conference call 1-2

try to fit another 10 things in between 2-3

2nd latte (thanks to a awesome intern who was heading out to run a climb ms errand)

3-4 facilatate a regional breakout conference call. I got good feedback on facilitating the call, even though I did rely heavily on bethany to fill in some dead space. Its all good thought b/c her chapter does some great things with walk and bike recruitment.

4- 4:30, add things to tomorrow calender

rest of the day, talked to mark

5:30-7:30 Make up accounting class for a few of us who couldn't make the scheduled make up on friday due to snow last monday

I really tried to do some other work, MS stuff, homework, Hill Event Photography stuff, but I just couldn't get started on anything so I watched NCIS: LA and am about to call it a night. I'm gonna need some sleep the rest of the work week is busy with more climb and walk stuff rolling of the presses hot and heavy and my remaining week nights look something like this:

wed night: committee meeting
thursday night: class - economics
friday night: class - accounting ( to make up for monday's class being cancelled by MLK day)

Can't wait for the weekend!
Saturday I have a movie date with my beautiful wife.
Sunday will be spent trying to get ready for mondays accounting class.

Just another day in the saddle

2011-01-05T20:21:00.001-08:00

If today was a tour de france stage it'd be one of those stages where not much happens and phil and paul get to tell us about the history, buildings, wines, etc. It was a long but mostly dull day. If that doesn't entice you to read the rest I don't know what will!

I woke up and thought, oh man, what was I thinking. I was sore for the first little bit but a little stretching and a hot shower helped that out.

The scale and I had another agreeable morning, which was nice and I hope it continues.

Today seemed to take forever at work and I think it was because I was starving all morning and should have eaten a little more at breakfast after the monster workout yesterday. And secondly because I ate lunch at my desk. I did scoot out a little early because of that so it wasn't all bad.

Played a little Bond on the Wii before heading to the Y for an extra 20 minutes of spin before the class started. Ended up with 65 minutes tonight and 27.5 miles on the spin bike. Now if I could only ride that fast consistently outdoors.

Nothing extra exciting about today. Looking forward to see if the scale and I will still be on good terms in the morning. I've lost enough weight now to feel like I have good momentum to keep it up. And lets not forget there's a whopping $10 bucks on the line!

I'm heading to New Orleans for work next thur-sat, if anyone's been what are your recommendations for MUST SEE places or things? I will obviously visit bourbon street, and I know as a group we're taking a ghost tour friday night but otherwise I'm open to suggestions.

Huff vs. Hill & What Was I Thinking

2011-01-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

Updates from 1/1-1/4

So finally after to much crappy Holiday Eating I'm below where I started on this Huff vs. Hill journey. After some poor decision, regarding eating way to much and gaining weight to where I was at my heavist since 2006(but only for a day and I'll blame the ammount of sodium in the bbq for the extreme water retention that day). Since our contest ends on the 13th I'll keep you in suspense for what I weigh until then but if things keep going as well as they have the past few days I'll be very happy.

New Years eve was nice and low key, we had Jeremy and Aliceson over for dinner and the night. Jeremy and I spent most of the night playing golden eye for Wii while Tara and Aliceson watched old home movies from their college days. We all stopped and watched the tv show/ball drop for around 20 minutes and then went back to video games / memory lane tripping, etc. I guess we are just a bunch of old married folks. Speaking of, our first Christmas and New Years being married were fantastic. I could imagine spending my life with anyone else.

I got the New Year off to a great start with my Dad and we rode 25 miles in the Cycles de Oro Polar Bear Ride. It was a great ride and I'm looking forward to a great year in the saddle.

I took sunday 1/2 off to rest and be lazy.

1/3 I did great nutritionally and had a nice spin class.

1/4 - What Was I Thinking??? At lunch today a group of us went to do some Climb MS training at the Library at UNCG. I went to do 3 sets and thats what I did, some of the folks did four or five trips up the 10.5 floors of the Library. I only did 3 because I knew I had a back to back spin class mission for tonight.

Dave's Power Cycle was up first and it lived up to its name. Hard, fast and a drenching workout. Daves is the Hard class out of the 3 spin instructors. I stayed on the bike until the next class started and Kory took us through a great workout. The first half of class was sprints, the last half was hill climbs (he puts your seat all the way down so there's no sitting for the last 20 minutes). What a workout tonight!

As for the what was I thinking? I was was thinking that it would be one hell of a spin workout doing back to back w/ no rest between and I was right. You might expect me to say I was crazy, I'm sore, or dying, etc, but I love riding and although this doesn't compare hardly at all to being outside, its cold and dark out there. I will be back for some more Tuesday Night Torture from Dave & Kory. I'm so glad I don't have class on Tuesdays for that reason, and after it gets warm my group ride is Tuesday night.

Its a good feeling when your nutrition is spot on, even if you don't get to workout, you can look forward to your meeting with the scale. Wish me luck! I've got pride and $10 bucks riding on this challenge with Huff.

Something Borrowed = Inspiration

2011-01-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

I received an email forward over the weekend that I just loved and I wanted to share. Her advice was to read this once a week and I just might try it!

Happy New Year!!

> Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer,
>Cleveland , Ohio
>
>
> "To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life
>taught me.
>
> It is the most-requested column I've ever written."
>
> My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once
>more:
>
>
> 1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
>
> 2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
>
> 3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
>
> 4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends
>and parents will. Stay in touch.
>
> 5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
>
> 6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
>
> 7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
>
> 8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
>
> 9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
>
> 10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
>
> 11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
>
> 12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
>
> 13.. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
>journey is all about.
>
> 14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
>
> 15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry;
>God never blinks.
>
> 16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
>
> 17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
>
> 18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
>
> 19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second
>one is up to you and no one else.
>
> 20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take
>no for an answer.
>
> 21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie.
>Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
>
> 22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
>
> 23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
>
> 24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
>
> 25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
>
> 26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years,
>will this matter?'
>
> 27. Always choose life.
>
> 28. Forgive everyone everything.
>
> 29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
>
> 30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
>
> 31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
>
> 32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
>
> 33. Believe in miracles.
>
> 34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything
>you did or didn't do.
>
> 35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
>
> 36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
>
> 37. Your children get only one childhood.
>
> 38.. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
>
> 39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
>
> 40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's,
>we'd grab ours back..
>
> 41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
>
> 42. The best is yet to come.
>
> 43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
>
> 44. Yield.
>
> 45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

Power Cycle & New Years Eve

2010-12-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

I went to spin last night, not paying attention that Thursday night was Daves power cycle class.
Knowing that tidbit of information wouldn't have stopped me from going, but its nice to be aware of the masacre thats heading your way. For those of you who aren't members at the Ragsdale Y and who do enjoy spin, let me know when you'd like to go experience this Nazi man's spin class.

I sweated more than I have in probably over 6 months, and it was a ridiculously hard class but in the end it was well worth it. (well it better have been, I'm getting ready to get on the scale!)

Dave also really knows his stuff about nutrition, supplements, etc and it was nice to pick his brain about all of that after class.

I have been working on my new years resolution for 4 or 5 days already and I'm pleased with my decision not to wait until Saturday, or Monday or when ever....

I went ahead and got started in the days after Christmas and have done okay with eating so far. I don't plan on doing anything crazy tonight, we just have a few friends coming over and I'll be cooking some sort of baked chicken, maybe bbq, maybe Italian, not sure, along with mac and chz, and a steam fresh veggie of some sort.

The only unhealthy thing is I will be baking cookies tonight, but plan on taking most of those to my mom's family get together tomorrow afternoon.

Starting the new year off with a nice 25 mile bike ride with dad at a local shops Polar Bear ride and with the foretasted temps in the 50s it should be a great day to ride.

Have a Happy New Year!!

Weight Loss

2010-12-16T18:59:00.000-08:00

Didn't go so good after the first day but I will be weighing in tomorrow and will provide an update.

Dang Tri Team Christmas party foiled my attempts on day 2 and i gained .8. At least I'd started with a .4 lost on day 1.

I haven't been to the gym this week, like has been busy, but that's the holidays.
The body needs rest sometimes anyway and today there was ice all over the place so there was a nice day off from work. We got a lot of cleaning done and are just about ready for the holidays.

We only have a half day at work tomorrow before a staff lunch and the rest of the day off!

Hope everyone is doing great!

Biggest Loser - Hill vs. Huff

2010-12-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

So this isn't the first challenge I've started in the past few months, (don't go back and read, you'll just get down and out for me(d90x, chest workout, etc, etc, haha)

But here is a new one anyway. One of my co workers and I are fed up with gaining weight and needed a little motivation to not get even fatter over the holidays.

We weighed in on Monday, I will not disclose his weight unless he gives me his blessing. I will refer to it as X.

I weighed in at 224.6. My heaviest weight of the year and up 20 pounds from my wedding weight. 30 pounds from my summer 09 low.

A breif weight overview - i started really packing on the pounds toward the end of college and when i began working for ruby tuesday. At my heaviest I was probably close to 260, but the heaviest offical recorded weight I have was at the start of another weight loss challenge with a few friends in 2007. It was 253.

I lost weight in 07 to right down around 198 by working out 2-4 hours a day at the gym, weights, baseketball, hours on the elliptical and stationary bike. Weight was up and down for most of 08 and at the end I started gaining and was just over 226 in January 2009. I worked hard, ate well and got down to 195 that summer. It went back up to 215 by March of 2010 and I dropped 10 before the wedding and honeymoon. So since June I've manged to be such a gluton that I've gained 20 pounds and am ANGRY with myself.

Now I don't have the time to work out that much so I'm going to have to make good decisions eating and trying to workout (great time to start over the christmas holiday huh?)

I am glad we are doing this challenge. I have no desire to go back over 225. I know I can't just loose it all at once so I really hope to lose 6-10 pounds between December 13 and January 13 and then keep loosing .5-1 pound per week after that until I reach a goal weight that I can maintain.

No crazy fad diets, no 6 hour gym sessions, I want to make good decisions and feel proud about how I'm losing weight and the fitness that I'm regaining again.

I have some great goals fitness, personal and professional that I'm shooting for in 2011 and I'll start sharing those soon.

But today, after 1 day of the challenge I was down .4. (i know i shouldn't weigh every day but I have to be accountable somehow)

Here's to Day 2 of the HvsH Biggest Loser

Knock...Knock

2010-12-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

Is anyone there?
Its been forever since I've posted on this blog.

Hope everyones doing great.

Quick Update:
Things are going great for Tara & I.
I've been getting back into spinning and it makes me want to ride my bike so bad. So much so that I've pretty much decided that I had a lot more fun when I was ridding and running occasionally, so I'm probably not going to do any tri's that are not sprints or super sprints. I just don't enjoy swimming and would much rather be on my bike.

The Photography business has exploded over the past few months and its great!

I love the holidays and they're right around the corner.

Thats about all I've got right now. Like I said I hope everyones doing great!

Through the Lens

2010-10-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Its a busy weekend for me this weekend and a lot of it has to do with my passion.
www.HillEventPhotos.com is my website for my photography business and this weekend I have my partner doing photos for a 10K in Rural Hall, and I am doing family photos this morning and tomorrow afternoon. I will be editing and uploading photos this weekend from a few shoots in the past few weekends. It is really exciting how much my business has grown in just a year and at some point it would be amazing if it went from a passionate hobby into a full fledged venture.

Also have my Class Reunion tonight so that should be fun.

Have a great weekend!

Ouch Again

2010-10-22T05:06:00.001-07:00

I didn't really feel to sore from Wednesday nights workout until I hit the gym last night. and then as I was walking up the stair towards the track, I realized that my legs were indeed sore.
This morning I'm once again sore as hell, in that good way. I've put in a killer week in the gym and am certainly feeling it this morning.

I had a networking event to attend at school for a class that I'm in so I have now attended all three events that are required and I did actually enjoy 2 of them. I can go ahead and write that short paper this weekend and am very much on the way to being done with all the assignments for class! HOORRAAYY!

Due to the networking event I was late getting to the gym so the plan was to just run a mile and do W1D2 of the new chest workout. The mile run went well. Its the first full mile I've run w/o incoorporating walk breaks since I started running again and it went pretty well. It was a god warmup. Chest workout was as follows:
Box Pushups (start with one hand on the box/step, do a pushup, switch hands) 3 sets - 16 reps
Bench Press 2 sets - 15 reps at 75#
Incline Dumbbell Press - 2 sets, 1 @ 20 reps, 1 @ 15 reps. Done with 25# weights
Pushups - as many sets as needed to get to 50 pushups.

So, ouch again! But week 1 of the chest workout is done, I plan on doing a new workout routine every 6-8 weeks so this six weeks has gotten off to a great start. Tonight will be just cardio for around an hour and then one of the two days this weekend will be an off day.

My weight loss has went well every day this week until today where I gained some. I think its from the sodium from eating lunch at a Mexican restaurant yesterday. I showed amazing restraint and only had 15 chips with salsa(and thats my favorite part) and then had a chicken salad, but I believe the sodium content was pretty high. Guess I'll know more after tomorrow.

My 10 year class reunion is Saturday so it should be interesting to see everyone again.
If you've been to one or multiple class reunions, how did it go?

Until next ride...

I found my mojo!

2010-10-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, this has been an amazing year. The best of my life, no doubt about it.
However I've been in a little slump since returning from our honeymoon. (I know I've promised some of you a wedding recap post, and I'm getting there, it was just so great that I feel like I would write a novel with every detail, so its coming, sometime before Christmas!)

We stayed very busy with going back to work, moving, my longest work weekend of the year, Tara going back to school(teaching), going to Virginia beach for a half marathon, a vacation weekend in Asheville, and much more. So although July, August, & September were filled with fun things I just haven't been into working out like I'm used too.

When I did get into the gym I just wasn't super motivated to workout hard, and that was pretty unusual. Since 07 I've really enjoyed working out, or biking or running, etc. Sometimes there was an event that I was working towards or just to enjoy the time in the gym. I felt like Austin Powers in The Spy who Shagged Me, I'd lost my mojo.

I'm happy to report that "I'm back baby" (read in Austin Powers Voice). Unfortunately it took some post wedding weight gain to really force my hand, I dug in my heels and started working out regularly and hard a week and a half ago.

I haven't felt this good about working out in a while, I'm just spending a lot of time in the weight room and doing calorie burning cardio. Lots of time on the elliptical machine and I will start mixing in some running again this week, and lots of time with the weights.

I have started a killer chest workout and that's 2 days a week. I plan on doing lower body 2 days a week and mixing in arms with some of the other stuff. I haven't quite figured out where to add in core workouts but I believe they will be on the chest days in between the chest workout. Speaking of that mens fitness killer workout I'm still sore from Day 1 Week 1, and I've got D2W1 coming up tomorrow. I hope I'm able to move when I wake up on Friday.

On another note I've changed my blog title, hopefully for good and I'll explain why I like it so much in another post.

Until next ride...

Ouch

2010-10-19T07:24:00.001-07:00

Today I woke up sore as hell. But its that good kind of sore, the kind you know you got from working your ass off in the gym last night.

I did 33 minutes on the elliptical and started a new chest workout from mens fitness, followed up by a mile of walking with Tara.

In all honesty, the chest workout didn't look that tough, but it sure turned out to be. I laughed at myself before I even got through the first exercise of the 3 in the Day 1 workout. This workout is two days per week, for 6 weeks.

#1 - Pylo Pushups (the one where you go down slow and explode up and clap)- 6 sets w/ 6-8 reps. I did 6 sets of 6 reps, and apparently I don't land softly on my hands because I started bleeding from my right thumbnail after 2 sets, but it wasn't too bad so I finished it.

#2 - Dumbbell Bench Press - 5 sets w/ 10-12 reps. Using 40# dumbbells I did the 5 sets with 10 reps. The first set was really tough because my chest was tight, thankfully it loosened up a bit.

I decided to throw in dumbbell curls between the press, so I did 4 sets of 6-8 reps of curls.

#3 - Elevated Feet Push ups - 4 sets w/ 10 reps. I did 4 sets w/ 8 reps and by the 8th rep on each set I was struggling mightily. I'm actually pretty shocked I didn't fall on my face on the very last rep.

I also decided to add some triceps work between those push ups so I did triceps pull downs on a cable machine.

I was in the gym for about an hour and a half and although tired when I left, I felt good.

Tonight I have a networking event and then class afterwork so there won't be any workout, but tomorrow night I am doing cardio and legwork.

Great Workout Tonight

2010-10-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

Today started off tough but thankfully got better, due in part to a great workout tonight.
I didn't sleep well last night, that led to being tired all day today but I still had a plan to work out before the triad tri team board meeting.

It turned out to be a really great workout.
30 minutes on the elliptical
Upper body weight workout
2 mile run

I've had 2 really good workouts this week, both Monday and today were similar except Monday I just ran 1 mile. Yesterday Tara and I walked Trixie for 1.2 miles and then I put in 10 minutes on the apartment gyms elliptical machine(which sounds like it is going to fall apart)

I had a nice lowfat bowl of soup at Panera during our TTT board meeting, the feista chicken or whatever its called was pretty tasty.

I haven't decided about tomorrows workout yet but hopefully I'll feel as good after that as I do tonight.

Hopefully I'll see some improvement on the scale tomorrow, its been slow going so far, I still hope to loose some weight before the new year.

Until Next Ride....

Blah

2010-09-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

I am really not good at this dieting thing right now.
I know that I shouldn't eat certain things, but am not making the decisions not to eat them.
I need to do some soul searching and really get serious about losing weight. I know its tougher this week because of how tired I am from the crazy work weekend, but I need to get back on track anyway. Tara and I are both off to a poor start to our weight loss competition. She's trying to lose 10 pounds and I want to lose 20. I'll post an update on how thats going next week, probably bad, since we'll be out of town to see the Braves play this weekend. If any of you have the motivation ferry locked up please send her my way.

On a different note, the Braves have won three in a row and if we can win a few against the Phils this weekend we should get into the playoffs!

|>|>|>|>|>|>|> (Tomahawk Chop!)

Survived

2010-09-28T05:08:00.001-07:00

It has now come and gone. The busiest weekend for the development staff at the MS Society.
We work almost around the clock and with the help of over 1600 amazing cyclist and over 500 total volunteers we had an awesome Bike MS: Tour to Tanglewood again this year.

And to top it all off the weather was almost perfect the entire weekend. Just a few people got rained on Sunday, but compared to the 70% chance of heavy rain forecasted the entire day it was an awesome weekend.

I'm starting to feel like a person again, the weekend just drains me like nothing else.
It starts on Thursday, with a full day of pick ups and truck loading. Friday we got to Tanglewood around 9 am and worked non stop with the volunteers etc until 5pm when early check in started, then we worked with that until 9. Saturday we report at 4 am and we left the park a little after 8pm, and Sunday is the short day with only working 5am-2pm. If my maths right thats a 37 hours in 3 days, whew!

On Sunday I had a 3 hour nap, then dinner, then an hour nap, then went to bed. Last night after another full day of unloading and returning things I went to bed at 10, and now am starting to feel a bit recovered. Its a good thing b/c I'm working today then will be in class for 3 hours tonight. Tomorrow night is a Triad Tri Team board meeting and Thursday night, is clear for being lazy!

Taking Friday off to chill and get some R&R during the day and leaving for Atlanta when Tara gets off. My parents got us braves tickets for Saturday for her birthday and the game got moved up from 7pm to 4pm so we're just going down Friday night. We've still got our fingers crossed that they can hang on and squeak into the playoffs but its not going to be easy.

Hope everyone else had a great weekend and the weather where you are is as beautiful as what I'm looking at out the window right now. Make it a great week.

Until next ride...

Busy

2010-09-22T13:48:00.001-07:00

I know I haven't posted anything in forever and believe me its not because there isn't anything going on! Its the other, there is a ton going on and if I wasn't done with my checklist for today at work I wouldn't be writing this.

Life is crazy busy but good.

Married life is great.
Photography business is growing!
School is good!

I am not one to wish life away but I am looking forward to Sunday afternoon at 5pm. My works biggest event is this weekend so I'll be working regular hours tomorrow and then 9am-9pm Friday, 4am-9pm Saturday, and 5am-5pm Sunday.

It looks like great weather and all 1600 cyclist should have a great time.

Speaking of time...that's about all of it I've got right now. Hope everyone has a great rest of the week and weekend.

Until next ride...

D90X - Slow Going

2010-08-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

Time for an update on D90X. I don't really need the X on there since I'm not doing anything extreme at the moment but I'll leave it nonetheless.

Day 10 - x-2.4 (no change from day 9)
Day 11 - x-2.6

I'm hanging out with the guys tonight and we're going to bonefish (one of our buddies works at outback so we get a 25% discount at Outback, Bonefish, or Carrabas) then we're going to see the Expendables. Although I'll try to eat a reasonable dinner, but it can be hard not to have something tasty at dinner or popcorn at the movie. We'll see what happens. I hope to get in a bike ride or two this weekend. I miss my roubaix time.

I can't wait to see the movie. I'm a huge Stallone fan, always have been.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who thinks so but the movie title is pretty clever.
From Frist Blood Part II:
Co Bao: Why did they pick you? Because you like to fight?
Rambo: I'm expendable.
Co Bao: What mean expendable?
Rambo: It's like someone invites you to a party and you don't show up. It doesn't really matter.

That reminds me that we should all enjoy life to the fullest. I have been in a job that consumed all of time before and thankfully I'm not now. Even if I was still in that job, days off would be real days off. To live life, spend time with those you care about and love, and really be in the moment.

Looking forward to "date night" tomorrow with my new bride. She starts back to school for "real" (with students) next Wednesday and I know she'll be working hard. School teachers don't get nearly the pay or respect they deserve so those of us that know and love them should offer encouragement and a helping hand when ever we can.

Until next ride...

Still Here: Week in review

2010-08-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

So I've been absent for the past week for good reason.
A quick run down would look something like this:

Tuesday night - got the keys, cleaned the new apartment, vacuum, etc
Wed - starting moving 7:30-11 in the boiling heat, errands, wed night my parents came and helped with moving stuff and getting new apartment started setting up
Thur- move all day, paid alex and a friend to move the big stuff but I definitely made the most trips with all kinds of stuff. Thursday night Tara's parents came down to help us set up and bring all of the gifts from our wedding and wedding showers
Friday - morning clean old apartment, Mt. Airy that night to get ready for yard sale sat
Saturday - yard sale at Tara's parents - we made over $400 so it was worth it. Sat night, put more stuff away and chill
Sunday - picture hanging and finally everything was pretty much in place, Sunday night the annual VGP fantasy draft
Monday - back to work, nap, grocery shopping

That brings us to today. I somehow managed to still loose some weight over all that but I probably shouldn't have. I guess I sweated enough and got enough workouts with the hundreds of trips up and down the stairs at 2 apartments to keep the awful food from a huge weight gain.
I can't really remember but I know I was down 2ish pounds, put back on a pound and yesterday would have been day 8. I seriously would have liked to just start over with yesterday as day 1, but that'd be cheating and you live with the decisions you make, right?

As a reminder X = my starting weight.

Day 8: x-2.2
Day 9: x-2.4 - I really hope that after a decent workout of walking 2 miles and some quick upper body weights that I keep the losing trend going into tomorrow.

Our workouts for tomorrow include 30 minutes on the elliptical and 8-12 strength training exercises. I'll work on that plan tomorrow.

Coming up:
My personal development online photography class starts tomorrow, my MBA class starts next tuesday(on my favorite TV night!!!, right now its white collar then covert affairs, but NCIS will be back soon)
Thursday night is Guys night. We've got dinner and the Expendables on top. CAN'T WAIT!!! STALLONE ROCKS!!

Hope to have dad and my triathlon bike sold tomorrow. I've talked to a guy about it, so maybe that will work out and we can upgrade some of our photography equipment.

Lastly, if you know anyone in NC that needs a wedding photographer, I'm doing a few more weddings for free if they fit into my schedule. I want to build my portfolio so its free, no strings attached.

Until next ride...

Cake and Keys

2010-08-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I baked a cake for our apartment complex staff. They have been great for the past 2 years and really worked with us to help get into a 2 bedroom in the same complex. When I dropped it off I asked if I could get the keys to our new appartment this afternoon if it was ready so we could start moving earlier than 9 am tomorrow. To my surprise they went ahead and gave me the keys today. That works out great, we can go over tonight and see if anything needs to be cleaned up, and go ahead and put the shelf lining, etc in.

Our new place just got new carpet yesterday and it was painted last week so it should be just like new. I'm excited to be moving into our 2 bedroom but hate moving so I'll be glad when we get it all done. The good news is that Tara and I are moving all the small stuff we can tomorrow and then we're paying Alex and one of his friends to do the heavy lifting. I'm not at all interested in straining my back this time around. That'd put a real kink into d90x.

Speaking of d90x
Day 1 = X
Day 2 = X-1.4

I figured that I'd be down pretty good with getting a lot of the water weight out due to the sodium intake on Sunday. Yesterday I did great with eating and exercise. One day down, 89 days and 18.6 pounds to go.

Until next ride...

Shut Up & Sweat - d90x, step up 3, the losers and more

2010-08-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

I know...I know. I am supposed to still be catching up with the wedding, honeymoon, etc and I promise to do that. But those will be longer posts and I haven't had, okay, made the time to do that. I've got to get the wedding pictures up on Picasa, and write about how wonderful the day was(because it was so perfect it'll take time to walk down that memory lane)

So for now, you get a post about getting back into the groove. I went to my first group exercise class since the honeymoon last Thursday and was sore as hell on Friday. Today I started what we can jokingly call d90x, thats right, Derek's 90 day exercise plan. I did the athletic conditioning class at the Y and then walked 1.6 miles with Tara. Those classes are killer, I can't wait to be going full out like so many of the others in there. There was one other guy in the class tonight but he quit about 30 minutes into the 45 minute class. Its no joke, Takeela works the hell out of you.

We can call todays starting weight X, and I will report what x-pounds we are at until I feel like less of a fatty and want to talk about what I actually weigh. Which should be in 12 pounds. I will say that x-20 the goal for the d90x is about .2 pounds a day.

So D1=X

I feel confident that I will be at a lower weight tomorrow because I ate way to much on Sunday (and friday) like the buttery, salty popcorn at the movies, etc. Couple that with the fact that I had around 1700 calories today and I better see some negative movement in the morning or my scale might get the office space treatment.
I knew I needed to do great with nutrition today because since we're moving wed/thur and everything's packed up it was going to be a Chick fil a night. Tuesday will probably be subway, and not sure about Wednesday yet. Looking forward to cooking again.

Other:
A few movie reviews:

Step Up 3 is awesome(saw it in 2d, not 3d). If you like dancing, and I'm really starting to this was great. More of the America's next best dance troupe, than dancing with the stars or the first step up movie(which I've seen about 50 times thanks to my beautiful wife), but still this movie is very entertaining. The romance lines are pretty predictable, but the dancing is amazing.
The Losers: maybe this would have been better had the A team not come out this year too, but it wasn't. Lets just say that if A team was a 10, then the losers would be hard pressed to get higher than a 6. Entertaining enough, lots of killing, but I didn't love it. Bored with nothing else to watch, it beats the tar out of a preseason NFL game but I was hoping for more.

Until next ride...

Racing & Events

2010-07-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

I am an admitted "event" enthusiast. I love doing the running, cycling, tri events. There is a great sense of accomplishment involved with training for, and finishing an event. You give it your all, or all you have that day, try to have a great time, and cross the finish line with your head held high.

However, early this summer, I had an epiphany (thanks to T-Pain, and a great album, I didn't have to use spell check to get that right!) I did WAY to much this spring. I mean I really over did it, and that taught me some valuable lessons.

If you look back to my 2010 Event Calender(on the right side of the page) you can see how busy I was, but just to reiterate starting in mid march it was something like:
Work an Event (my job is a Event Fund-raising Planner for the MS Society (in a nut shell))
1/2 Marathon (travel to Atlanta)
Easter
Work Event
1/2 Marathon (travel to OBX)
Work Event
1st Triathlon (travel to White Lake)

Wow! Stop the presses, really, did I do that. Have something to do every weekend. Well yes sir I did. And to top it off my wife didn't get to travel with my parents and I to any of the events. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I had a really good time with my parents, and my dad did the 2 1/2 marathons with me. It was good, but it was also too much. It was also my first semester in an MBA program(part time), and I implemented two other new events for the MS Society in early Feb. and early March.

By the time that tri was over I didn't want to do anything but rest. I was burnt out, and just wanted to hang out. The middle part of my calender for the year had the 3 mountain madness cycling ride (of which we chose to do the short distance) and the biggest event all year for me, our wedding. But after that, I had a metric century (62 mile ride) scheduled for the weekend I got back from our honeymoon. That was the first event to go. Other events at that point were: 1st weekend in Sept - 1/2 Marathon in VA Beach, 2nd weekend in Sept - Tri in DC, 4th weekend in Sept work all weekend at our Bike MS event, October 1/2 Marathon, November 1/2 Ironman at Beach to Battleship.

The first thing to go was the bike ride, and then I really started doing some soul searching. What are my reasons behind the events, do I need to do all of these. Do I want to be traveling so much and just being busy, and being back in school for semester two of the MBA. I thought long and hard about the training that would have to be done, every sat and Sunday morning would practically have to be spent doing a longer run or ride to get ready for the two tri's.

In June I really enjoyed just exercising and spending time at the gym. Group exercise classes were a great way to burn calories and improve body tone, but I had to make some decision.

After soul searching, weighing the pros and cons, and discussing things with my support crew(wife, mom, dad and friends) I decided that most of those things were going to have to go. I was able to transfer the tri in DC to someone else. I asked for my 50% refund for the half ironman, and that made me feel so at peace.

We will still go to VA Beach and do the 1/2 Marathon, but due to some injuries for my dad, we may jsut be walking it. Thats fine with me, I don't like to train to run long distances in the Summer anyway. I kind of take a summer running hibernation. I stop my outdoor running (and most all running for that part) sometime in May and pick back up in October or November. Easier to run in the winter than bike.

I think that part of my love (somewhat of an event obsession for a while) for events was I was also trying to prove something. Prove it to myself, and others around me. Trying to prove I could, trying to prove I was strong enough, good enough? I'm not quite sure what I was trying to prove, or if I even really was but I think that might have been part of it. I'm in a great place in my life, where I know I don't have to prove anything. I just need to keep being me and living life and enjoying every step of the way. Some of the decisions to lighten the load and dump events were: I want to play softball with my friends, I want to be able to golf on a Sunday morning, I want to sleep in with my wife, I want to enjoy lazy days by the pool, I want to grow my photography business, I want to be able to not do anything for a whole weekend and not feel tied to a training plan. Ride if I want. Watch riding on tv if I'd rather.

I thought Beach to Battleship was a big goal of mine, but it turns out that just finishing the tri was what I really wanted to know I could do and I did that at white lake in May. Beach to Battleship has a cool name and good appeal, but I don't have the desire at this point to go out and exercise 3 sports for 6-8 hours. Thats a long time in the "saddle" and right now, and possibly never, its just not something I want to do. I wish all my friends who are going to have great success and a tailwind the whole way!

I'll be focusing on having fun, exercising with Tara, my MBA classes, and continuing to get my photography business off the ground.

There's the story why I dropped the subtitle for now. One might come back in the future, but I'm not heading 2 Beach 2 Battleship, and I couldn't be happier!

For everyone out there striving to get to that next finish line, just make sure you are enjoying every step of the way there or you're not living it up to the fullest, and as long as you make it to the start line, you can hold your head high and know that you've put in time, effort, blood, sweat and maybe even tears to get there. Go out and have the best race you can!

Until Next Ride....

You look like an idiot - a skinny jean fashion rant

2010-07-26T20:30:00.000-07:00

I know I said my next post would be wedding related, but I had to throw in something instead.

I stumbled across this really funny site a while back called You Park Like an Asshole.

I should probably title this post, "you look like an asshole" or an idiot, or whatever. Because I think I'll either be updating this post or just posting short little rants about people that look like idiots.

Today's culprits. The skinny jean. On a GUY. Ladies I'm perfectly fine with your jean of choice for your UGG wearing or when ever else. But on a guy.

Really?

When did a guy put those things on and think, man thats a good style. My legs are smaller than normal, and I can look freakishly small, like I might need something to eat.

Not only are the idea of the "skinny" jeans stupid, but to wear them while skateboarding. How exactly are you going to do an olie, a melon, hell, even push off and get some speed going(note to reader: I have no experience on a skateboard that doesn't involve sitting down when I was 6 but I really like Tony Hawk).

Speaking of Tony Hawk, I'm pretty sure him and his "boys" aren't out shredding in skinny jeans so you probably shouldn't be either. If I were a skateboarder I'd be even madder b/c you'd be making me look stupid too. So if you are a skateboarder and you see someone in skinny jeans, you could punch them right off the board, but you should probably first tell them how stupid the look so they know why you're about to beat their ass.

3 Mountain Madness - Last Bike Ride for a while

2010-07-24T05:16:00.000-07:00

The 3 Mountain Madness is one of my favorite rides because it takes place in my hometown of Pilot Mountain. More specifically it starts in Pilot Mountain. This was the 4th year I've ridden the ride.

There are 3 main route options, 41, 75, & 95 miles. The great thing about the longer distances is that you don't have to ride the 3 mountains if you don't want, since they are just up and back.

I usually ride this one with my dad and last year we rode the 75 mile route and did the first 2 mountains, skipping the 3rd and hardest of the 3.

This year we opted for the shorter 41 mile route. We did this for a variety of reasons. Neither of us had ridden as much this year, dad due to an injury, and myself due to more time training in swimming and running for the triathlon in May.

The 41 mile ride was just enough for us, it was another hot ride, but it always is, when you ride in the first weekend of June and you're doing a ton of hills you aren't going fast so the heat can really beat down on you.

41 Mile Route

The Leg Crushing 75 Mile Route

We enjoyed the ride this year and will be back next year for one of the routes.

This was also my last ride on the bike for over a month and a half. I have never been one who worried about crashing while biking because I'm very cautious. However with the wedding and a 10 day trip to Hawaii coming at the end of June I didn't want to take any unnecessary chances of getting hurt before the wedding. I spent the rest of June doing some really fun group exercise classes at the Y and with that and cardio/weightlifting I was able to drop another 6 pounds before the wedding.

Next blog I'll talk about my decissions about my racing schedule for the rest of the year, then after that the wedding. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Until next ride...

I'm Baaaccckkkk

2010-07-20T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well hello there. Its been over 2 months since my last post and I will promise upfront not to catch up with one 20 page blog post.

Lets see, whats happened in the last 2 months:
Rode the short route at 3 Mountain Madness - had a great ride but that was the last time I've been on my bike(until tomorrow)

I started working out in the gym only during june because I had this event coming up and for the first time in my life I was worried about being on the bike.

The event of the year was my wedding on June 26th

We were in Hawaii for 10 days after that.

Last week was my first week back to work(after 23 days off!)

So I guess you could say I've stayed busy, but had a damn good time doing it.

My next few posts are going to go a little further into detail about my decisions regarding triathlons and events.

I'll run down the Wedding and how much fun that was.

Try to cram 10 days of fun about Hawaii in a posts.

Then maybe if I don't fall off the blogging wagon again, I'll be caught up to current events.

Until next ride,

Saturdays Ride

2010-05-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

While my ride Saturday was nothing like what my friend Ben aka Becoming Timberman went through in his epic triathlon, it was still a tough ride.

I rode with TOSR(the other Saturday ride) and after I decided that I was going to do a longer ride Saturday i was actually hoping that they would do the Caraway Mountain Ride. I haven't done to much hill work this year and thought it would be a good idea to get some in. I really thought I'd be fine for that ride.

I guess my first mistake was wanting to go ride a 50 mile ride with a mountain in it. My second mistake may have been getting out of bed Saturday. Where did all that wind come from? Its never a promising sign when the five day forecast says WINDY on it, but that didn't stop me from getting up and getting excited to go out for a ride.

I led us out of the church parking lot and then pulled into my place in the pack. That would be the last time I pulled the whole day! Honestly I knew from about mile 5 that I wasn't going to be one of the stronger riders on the day. To start with my legs were a little sore from the new weight lifting routine, I rode the soreness out but I just never felt strong the entire day. I managed to ride mid pack right until we hit the 1.4 mile climb at Caraway. Its not terrible steep it just goes up for a nice long way. I rode up the climb in next to last position and caught another rider right at the summit. Thankfully there was a store stop at the bottom of the mountain.

After fueling up with an oatmeal cream pie and a Gatorade we were off again. I think the next five "rolling" miles were worse than the mountain and actually rode at the back or off the back of the group for a while. We stopped to regroup at some stop signs and at some point after mile 35 I was back about mid pack. One of our riders got a bee in his Jersey and he stopped to get it out so I stopped and helped him ride back to the back 1/2 of the split group(not like I was superman but helping out never hurts, its good to build the good bike karma up).

The group is a B group and our average is usually around 17 for the rides, but with the brutal wind(gusts of 25-30mph) and the hills we ended with a 15.8 average. I really thought that was pretty damn good for the conditions and the way I felt. And the way I felt when I finished that ride is the way I felt for the rest of the day, and most of Sunday too. I can't really remember another ride taking the toll on me the way that one did. I usually take a nap Saturday afternoon after riding and I didn't get that in so that might have something to do with it but last year I rode 3 mountain madness, hurt pain and agony and a century ride and didn't feel that beat down. I thought I did pretty good with eating/drinking so maybe it was just the combination of everything catching up to me and a hard ride that really took its tool. My next scheduled ride is Friday this week and I'm going to get in about 20-25 solo miles. Its going to be a busy weekend, but not with training.

Saturday I'm golfing with my 2 best friends in the morning and making sure I get the nap this time before my bachelor party Saturday night.

Sunday my tri team is having an open water swim clinic, pic nic and 5K. I will be eating and taking photos for everyone else. I don't know how I'd feel about trying to swim or run on Sunday after a late night Saturday.

Until Next Ride...

The Mirror

2010-05-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

I am in what I like to call the wedding training phase of my year right now. My wedding is only 45 days away and I'm getting very excited. I'm so lucky to be marrying the most wonderful girl in the world. I can't imagine anyone more loving and caring than Tara. I'm also lucky that her family is amazing too. I've heard horrer stories about the "in-laws", but I love my future in laws. Bring on the wedding (and not to mention 10 days in Hawaii!!)

I would like to drop a bit of weight before the wedding just for peace of mind, but honestly its not a necessity. Although I haven't lost much weight in 2010 I believe that my body has changed for the better. My stomach has is my main problem area and although I don't have firm measurements to back up my thoughts and peoples comments, it seems that my stomach has gotten smaller this year.

I know that I've put in a lot of time working out and I can positively say that I am in the best athletic shape of my life. Its nice to hear my fiancee, my parents and others say that I look like I've lost weight because I have but I've also gained some muscle this year. I saw a quote recently on a friends facebook page and it really resonated with me.

"Define yourself by what you see in the mirror not what you see out your window."

It was kind of funny timing because a few days before I was looking in the mirror and thought to myself, that while I still have work to do, I am actually happy with my body right now.

Happiness shouldn't be measured in perfection, it should be measured on accomplishments and when accomplishments are met new goals can be set. So while I'm far from making it to the cover of Men's Health I am happy with where I'm at and that makes it easier to set new goals and have renewed intensity to working out. I know that with the training I'm doing for cycling, swimming, and running, along with the weight training that I'm on the right track with my workouts. I just need to ensure that my diet stays good 7 days a week not four or five.

I am proud of the fact that I lost nearly over 50 pounds in 2007 and that I've kept all but about 5 pounds of that off. I was really unhappy at over 250 pounds and managing a restaurant and I worked hard to change careers and then my body. I've had that kind of success along with all the athletic achievements so I know its possible to stay dedicated and meet my future goals.

My next post will detail my ride from this past weekend where me and the roubaix rambled at the back of the pack for much of the day. Some days you've got it some days you don't I guess.

Until next ride....dream big & work hard!

How to increase your group ride average in 10 miles or less

2010-05-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

If you're like me you have a group or maybe a few groups that you enjoy riding with. I ride with a B group here and we usually average ~17. The group rides on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with super original names.

Tuesday is(was) -The Tuesday Night Grandover Ride(we now start at a park thanks to the resort not wanting cyclist liability in their parking lot)

Thursday - Roaming Ride

Saturday - That Other Saturday Ride (since the Saturday Ride was already taken upon its inception)

These rides have the same core group of people that ride them and we pick up and loose people depending on whats going on. Some move to faster rides, some of us have other training going on at times.

I haven't ridden with any of the groups in about 3 weeks due to work and triathlon training. The tri training really paid off because I turned in a solid performance at the White Lake sprint (see previous blog post) but I was ready to get back in the saddle for a group ride last night.

The group split a few times into 2 groups with 5 or 6 guys putting the hammer down and the rest of us cruising along at around a 16-17 average, but we'd regroup every 3 or 4 miles at a stop sign/light/etc and then take off again. At about mile 20 of the ride there was a bolt of lighting that was closer than you want and the thunder started rumbling. Ian put together a great route for us yesterday so the way back in was gently rolling, no hard climbs and when the lightning started crashing it was like everyone had a fresh set of legs.

Personally I'd struggled a little bit n the first 2/3 of the ride, not a lot of time in the saddle plus a killer weight routine that I overdid on Wednesday left we a little sore and sluggish. By the time it started storming thankfully I was loosened up and went from the back of the group to near the front and helped set the pace the rest of the way in. We must've average 19-20 for the last 10 miles with everyone really putting the hammer down and a nice paceline going back into town. I had a 17.5 aveage when we finished, which was up almost a mph faster than what I had at mile 20.

So there's the secret, all you have to do is add flashes of lightening plus loud thunder to really escalate the group ride pace.

We dogged the storm and all made it back safe and dry. Needless to say I skipped the 10 minute run that I was scheduled for after the bike because after being out so close to a storm I didn't want to play roulette with Mother Nature.

I hope everyone has some nice plans for the weekend. I'll be riding with That other Saturday ride Saturday and maybe sneaking in a run early on mothers day before heading home to celebrate the day with my mom.

Until next ride...

1st Triathlon Race Report

2010-05-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well I made it. I am officially a TRIATHLETE!
It really feels great to achieve a 3 year goal.

Disclaimer (added after the following was written) Prepare for a Super Long Race Report. I could have broken it into 3 or more pieces but the writing just wouldn't stop, so, here it is!

Saturday -
Drove down to Clinton, where we(mom, dad & I) were staying and just hung out for a few hours. Watched the Braves win which was great since they'd lost 9 of 10 going into the Houston series.

Left a little after 6 to drive the 25 miles down to White Lake for the packet pickup and pre race meeting. The pre race meeting was not mandatory but I was glad that I attended just to hear some of the items they reviewed. It had a calming effect. I picked up my t-shirt bought a few that were on sale, got my numbers, bright green swim cap and then we headed back to Clinton to eat dinner. Ruby Tuesdays, Chicken Parmesan and a salad bar. Back to the room, get all the numbers on where they should be and pump up the tires for Sunday. I never know how I'm going to sleep before an event, sometimes great, sometimes a little tossing and turning but I always manage to sleep enough to be ready.

Sunday -
5:15 and the alarm sounds. I don't know why I wanted it set quite so early, we didn't have to be on the road until 6:15-6:30 but I did. The snooze feature got used a few times and then it was up and attem! Mom wanted to know when I became such a morning person and thats really a great question, but it just sort of happened in the past year or so. I was joking around about recording the tour de France where you can hear the spectators ringing their cow bells and shouting "allez, allez, allez, allez...." for a new alarm sound so I was quite relaxed for the early morning.

We had an uneventful drive down to White Lake and went ahead and paid $10 to park .1 mile form the site, instead of parking 1 mile away for free. Mom and Dad both have some (different) foot problems right now so a long hike wouldn't be ideal.

We got right into the Transition area where I went about setting everything up. I'd reviewed my transitions in my head about 15 times the day before and even set it up in the room Saturday to make sure everything was in a place that made sense to me.

Next was chip pickup and body marking. Those are some mighty big sharpies they use on you for body marking. After having 663 put on my arms and legs with a big "N" on my calf(for novice) it couldn't have been later than 7:30. Mom and Dad staked out a bench near the water and I went to the porta pottie line a few times, back by transition to make sure everything was still in order and then finally just sat down with them and waited.

The bouy's looked an awful long way away, and after the first wave went off at 8 am they seemed even further. Although the first guy out of the water was out in 10:30, I swear it felt like an hour. I started to get more nervous about the swim. I wasn't nervous about the in water start or my goggles coming off, or getting kicked, it was just the distance and doing something that I've never done before. My Heart Rate went up 25 bpm in the 10 minutes after the race start. I went ahead and finshed putting my wetsuit on around 8:20 and got in the water with about 20 minutes until my start time.

I met a few guys while waiting for the race to start and I wish I could remember their names, I hope their races went great. One guy it was also his first, the other it was his second.

SWIM
Once the race started it was time to go. Pretty much all the thoughts about starting slow, when to sight, etc left my mind. I think I did okay with the start, I just started. I made it to the first bouy and was relieved, the next one was the turn. After the first bouy I alternated from being on my back (and doing a back/breast stroke) to flipping over and swimming freestyle. I think I started smiling(briefly) once I made it to the half way mark. The next bouy after that was the 2nd and final turn and from there it was just back to the pier and out of the water. I kept alternating from swimming freestyle and swimming on my back, because I was just laboring on the freestyle. The best part is that I knew I was going to make it. I've known all along that if I could get out of the water, baring any major problems that I could finish the race. I got happier as I got closer to the pier and once I got out of the water I was pretty ecstatic. My HR was 164 as I climbed out of the water and started jogging down the pier. As you can see I looked pretty tired just coming out of the water but really started to feel better on the bike. I took my time(aka had a long transition) in TI it was almost 5 minutes but I wanted to calm down and really be prepared for the rest of the race.

BIKE
As soon as I got started on the bike I was feeling good. My dad and I share a tri bike(that we've only ever used for time trials at Lowes Motor Speedway before now) and thanks to that I've got a really sweet ride for the bike portion. Its a custom Guru that he's put great wheels on. I love cycling so being on a 2 loop, flat, 7 mile bike course was perfect for me. I didn't go all out and redline on the bike because I knew I was going to have to run still but I rode very well on the bike course, finishing 6th out of 26 in the Novice division. I was so happy to be biking it was like having a tail wind the whole time! (note there wasn't a tail wind the whole time but the wind wasn't bad either)

Run
Really, I'm only a 5K from being a triathlete? Thats what went through my mind in T2. I saw my parents as I was heading out for the run(its awesome to have your own photographer out there, thanks dad!) It had been humid from the time we got up at 5:15 but the weather gods were with me for most of the day with overcast skys. The sun came out during the run and it really heated things up. I rememberd the race info saying the first aid station for the run was at the 1/2 mile point and I thought I got there a little fast. After that aid station I swear I didn't think I was ever going to see the 1 mile marker. It is the longest mile I've ever run, I wasn't in any pain I just wanted to see the marker. Turns out the aid station was at 1/4 mile not 1/2 so there was further to go to the maker. The run went pretty well, it was slower than my normal 5K time but I still felt that 32 minutes wasn't bad considering this was the first time that I've done one of these.

FINISH!!!!

I am really overjoyed at finishing this race.

I have an amazing support crew that I want to thank. Mom & Dad for always believing in me. Tara, my beautiful fiancee who couldn't be there due to one of our wedding showers, but she's always stood by me as well. When we first started dating I was taken aback at how supportive she was for the things I wanted to do, weather it was my major at school, or running a marathon, just like my parents she's always believed that I could be successful. The rest of my family are amazing as is my "new" family that I'll officially be a part of on June 26th. My coach, Suzanne Duncan has been a tremendous help this year. She's prepared me for this triathlon and we've got some more work to do to get ready for the Nations Tri (Olympic distance) and then the big one, Beach 2 Battleship Half Ironman, but I know that if I listen she'll have me ready for those as well.

Setup Events also did a great job with executing the race. They were organized and professional as always, doing a Set Up event is truly a pleasure. Thanks to all the volunteers who were at the race and anyone else who had a part in making it happen.

I didn't stick around the finish area to long because I was really hoping to make it back to Greensboro and then to Mt. Airy to surprise Tara at our wedding shower. I'd told her that I wouldn't be there but if it was possibly to make it I was going to.
Traffic wasn't bad and we made pretty good time, ~3 hours back to Greensboro. I took a super fast shower, put on nice clothes and hoped in the car for another hour of driving. I made it to the shower with about 40 minutes left of the time and Tara was happily surprised to see that i made it. Her mom did a great job of organizing a great wedding shower and we are so blessed that we have so many people who wish us well. We received an astounding number of gifts that will make married life get off to a great start.

Sunday May 2nd was just a great day. Thanks for reading.

Times:
Swim - 23:42
T1 - 4:29
Bike - 44:47
T2 - 1:48
Run - 32:27
Total - 1:47:11!

Until Next Ride....

T Minus 1 Day!

2010-04-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

Its just around the corner. We are at T minus (what does the T stand for) 1 day before the White Lake Sprint Triathlon.

As mentioned numerous times, this will be my first open water swim triathlon and I've been training for it all year. I'm getting really excited. Heck, I am really excited. I've had nervous energy all day. I'm so eager to get started and can't wait to haul myself up the ladder onto the pier at the end of the swim. I know without a doubt that if I can get out of the water that I'll be able to finish. And with all of the swimming I've done since January I am pretty confidant (with the help of my trusty Xterra Vortex 3 wetsuit) that I will be just fine in the water.

Although I ate to much today I will behave tomorrow and get fueled up with proper nutrition for Sundays race. We had our spring intern going away celebration this afternoon and there were some delicious appetizers involved in that.

Tomorrow my parents are meeting me here at 12:30 and we'll hit the road. I am glad that we don't have to leave too early because I don't have everything packed yet. I have had a busy week with school, it was the last week of my classes for my first semester in the Masters program. Although my class was online I did an 11 page paper this week and just finished the final exam a few hours ago. What a way to celebrate the start of summer break, with a Tri! We are staying at a Hotel that's about a 1/2 an hour outside of White Lake. We'll get checked in and lounge around for a bit. I will go ahead and do a practice layout of all my gear for the transition area and then think myself through the 2 transitions.

Packet pick up doesn't start until 6 pm and lasts until 8pm due to the Half Ironman distance race that is Saturday. I want to get there around 6:30, have some time to check everything out and attend the pre race meeting at 7:30.

Once thats all taken care of and I feel comfortable with the site we'll be eating dinner, then back to the hotel to finish inspecting anything that didn't get looked at before.

Sunday: Early alarm 5-5:15. Everyone will have to be up and ready to roll by 6. Arrive 6:30. Check in, get timing chip, body marking, etc. Rack the bike, lay out transition stuff and get in the line for the potties for the 2nd or 3rd time!

I'll get some help with the wetsuit around 7:15-7:30 and do a little swim warm up before waiting for the start. The first wave starts at 8, wave 2 goes off at 8:02 and then at 8:06 I will be in wave 3. Wave 4 doesn't start for 5 more minutes so I think I'll have about 8-9 minutes before there are people trying to swim on top of me. Maybe they will go around b/c I don't really want to get kicked in the face or pushed down in the water but cest la vie. I've had practice with bumping, banging, etc at our Triad Tri Teams open water swim clinic.

One of the blogs I follow Fat Cyclist is doing his first Triathlon and its IronMan St. George this weekend. Good Luck Fatty!

I have 2 goals for this triathlon. #1 and most important to Finish & have fun. #2 is to have fun and race hard. This finish line is 3 years in the making and I can't wait to see it.

.5 Mile Swim
14 mile bike
3.1 mile run
= Triathlete!

Until next ride...