Cycling, Fitness and Other Things
One Year!
One Year!
It has been over one year, that I have been getting fit and in the process losing some weight! I started when I returned from a business trip in first of April and weighted in at 230lbs! I said that was enough. I was starting to feel old and and very blah. It seem that my health was declining fast for someone who was at the time 47 years old.
About this time, my employer added a new benefit. It was Healthwaves. At site 4 where I work, it is staffed by Tracy who had justed started working here and was finishing her Master’s at CSUN in kinesiology. I met her in the cafe as she was passing out flyer’s. Her flyer mentioned Healthwaves services and offered personal coaching. I took her up on the coaching. We met each week to discuss fitness, food, exercise, stress. Personally, we found out we knew a lot of the same folks. In fact her Aunt Jill, was our Home school leaders.
About this time Teri and I had dinner with the Danny and Nicole Rossmango and we chatted about life and our friend Romina Avery, who was recovering for the second bout of breast cancer. After the first bout with cancer, she had mentioned to Danny that she wanted to climb Mt Whitney. That sounded good, I wanted to do that, so I started to plan. Danny works for the FAA and there was a group going in June. Hum… That was too early. I needed more time to get fit, I allowed myself to be unfit and overweight.
I started to “train”, by hiking. I started with a simple four mile hikes in the local mountains, and spent about every other weekend hiking the San Gabriel mountains. I hiked from South Fork Camp (SFC) to the Devil’s Chair, from SFC to Vincent’s Gap up Baden-Powell. Did Mt Baldy a few times, and set the hike date for Mt. Whitney to be September 20th. I set three major training hikes to match Whitney on three fronts, distance, elevation gain, and alitude. I walked from South Fork Camp to Baden-Powell over the ridge down to Islap Saddle and back to the car. That was 24 miles, (that covered the distance part). I climbed White Mountain Peak, an easy 14,000 foot peak, (that was to see how I handled the elevation). I climbed Mt Baldy from the Upland side to do the elevation gain of 6,000 feet.
I was fit with my training and we set off to hike Mt. Whitney. Danny, Romina, Josh and Rebecca and myself. It was very cold but we made it. It took us sixteen hours to hike the 22 miles. The temperture was in the teens at the top and it was very windy.
I continued to look for fitness things to do. I read a book on weight lifting (I hurt my right elbow, so I have been unable to lift). It mentioned twisting as one of the basic functions. I had no twisting. I then took up Softball. I have since played in the fall, winter and the spring leagues. While I play catcher, remember I am a middle-aged man, we let the young guys do all the running. I can hit the ball and get on base often, mostly because I have the strength to hit over the infield, but not enough strength to hit to the outfield.
I got back into am cycling. About six or seven years ago, I took up mountain biking. This time I added back in the mountain biking, but wanted to do more on the road. I can and do ride to work, when it is not too cold or too warm. I did two metric (62 miles) rides, this year. I have a goal to do 100 miler soon.
I wanted to learn to run. So, after climbing Whitney, I need a new goal. My friend Clay, mentioned that I should run the LA Marathon! (Actually, to run some part of it and walk the remaining). I committed to run around 1/5 to 1/4 of the course. I set up a running schedule. Teri my wife joined me and I started to run at first 1/4 of mile and added more and more length. I ran in Jingle-Bell Jog 5K (finishing in 29:08). One day, I ran some speed work (I call it speed), and I did something to my hip. That ended running for now three months. (I think it was a stress fracture). Because it hurt to stand on one leg, but did not hurt so much to walk. So, I started walking. I was walking with Tracy and we talked about the amount of walking we were doing and what was required to walk across America or at least virtually. We set goals and mine is to walk from Santa Monica Pier to Jacksonville Florida in this year. As of this post I am about to leave New Mexico.
What has been the results of my fitness. The most obvious is the weight loss. The first 3/4 of the year, I went from 230 lbs to 188 lbs. I have not lost any weight since then. It is frustrating to do a lot of activities and not continue to loss weight, but with better self-control, I want to lose the last 15 pounds. I am learning a lot. With encouragement, from Teri and Tracy (she is gifted in that area) and some better self control, I expect to continue losing more weight in the second year.
Some of the results are: My cholesterol is really good. My HDL’s for example are in the high 70′s (+40 is good). My heart rate is good. I had a goal to have under 120/80 and a pulse of under 50. All three measurments were met. My stress is better managed (while I like stress).
Where am I going in year two. I still have 2008 resolutions to finish. Join me on this adventure to finish fit.
This is a very nice post…it shows so much in one snapshot without rehashing things too much. Great balance of info, stories, gains, struggles, successes, and the road ahead. You have so much to be proud of! You have made great gains in the year of 2007 and into 08. It has been a pleasure working with you through all of the good, the bad, and the challenges [no ugos here]. Now is the time to rededicate yourself to another great year. I know you can acheive anything you put your mind to. You have an amazing track record of keeping activity levels up and the more you run the better your cardio will improve. One last thought from the science nerd in me — more weight lifting in your future….that is my suggestion and encouragement. Yes, we both have to eat better, but for you I think increasing the muscle/strength training will be of great benefit so keep working at that. As a male, you can have significant gains muscularly, and as we know muscle is the ‘metabolically expensive tissue’, so horrah burning more calories. I hope to be of encouragement and accountability to you in this next year of fat loss and muscle gain…let’s tackle this with renewed vigor!!! YOU ROCK!! YOU INSPIRE!! YOU WILL SUCCEED!!