It may have been gathered over the course of reading the blog that I tend to enjoy a bit of gambling. Not to the point of needing meetings or anything but $10 on this race, $5 on that one, and of course poker. A few years ago some friends and I put together a weight loss bet because things were getting out of hand. The essence of the bet is that each person attempts to lose as much weight as possible, not by pounds but by percentage of body weight. That way the loss is more proportional and a fairer standard. The spirit of the bet is to get us all eating healthier and maintaining the new weight. Most of us were successful in that last time, i went down 20 pounds and have yet to put it back on. It was the same for almost everyone else as well. Since some of us have floated back up the scale and others can drop healthily drop pounds as well we decided to give the bet another go.

There’s about 20 pounds of excess Im still carrying around. I’m judging that by what considered the middle range of the ideal medical weight for someone 32 and 6 foot 1. According to what Ive found the range for my age and height is between 155 and 189, if you merge the variations around the net. That puts me right outside of the upper level of the healthy range. I’m shooting for around 175 as where Id like to end up with the weight. It’d be unrealistic to think Id get lower and honestly I don’t want to go lower than that.

Dropping weight is an easy way to improve times and performance, as long as its done correctly. I cant count how many times Ive seen a pound equated to a full 60 second improvement in marathon times. Also for cycling you’ll always hear the “weight weenies”, as called by a bike shop pro one time, always shaving pounds here and there. If you cant afford a new bike, like me for example, less weight on the bike can offset a heavier machine.

In training news I did 1250 yards in the pool this morning and will be heading out for a four mile run in the next few minutes.

I got lucky while flipping through the channels tonight and came across Insider Training on Fit TV. The episode tonight just happened to be all about Triathlete training with Lokelani McMichael and others. If you can catch this program, I highly recommend it. I know not everyone is hip to the doing a triathlon, at least not yet, but there were tons of tips and tricks that can be incorporated into your Livestrong Challenge training. An example is the tip of taking your resting heart rate each morning. Naturally your heart rate will vary 4-5 beats each day but if you’re seeing 5-10 beats difference it means that you haven’t recovered completely from the day before or you may be on the first steps of getting sick. Another tip was in swimming to use your legs sparingly since you’ll be doing cycling and running the rest of the race. There was plenty of really valuable tips in the show and I only wish I had caught it earlier. Ill be looking for a rebroadcast myself to catch the first 20 minutes I missed.

Today was a hour on the trainer which was 16.12 miles and yesterday was a run of 3.47 miles.

It seems to be a pretty popular opinion from those I’ve talked to that its great to run after it rains because it feels so much better outside and everything is cooled off.  I’d have to break with tradition though and say that 90% of the time I really dislike running after rains.  The humidity is so much higher it makes me feel like I cant get a deep breath while Im running which makes the whole effort uncomfortable.  Such was the case yesterday when I had to put in my 45 minute run which ended up being about 5.3 miles total.  My average pace was pretty slow which I attribute to the humidity and more likely the Moe’s burrito.  Those things are like crack and I have to have at least one a week.  Maybe someday Ill get to a point where I can get a sponsorship from them and get some free ones.  How nice would that be?  Then again I’d have to win something first.

Today was supposed to be a 2.5 hour bike ride but I dont have the time to squeeze it in.  I need to catch up on some work, pick up my tux for a wedding this weekend, buy a wedding present for the same wedding, and then go out to eat with my dad whose in town.  I did knock out a quick 30 minutes on the trainer for a little over eight miles before I sat down to get some work done.  Not the same as what I was supposed to knock out but its always better to do something than nothing.

Swimming is out of the picture this week with my back issues.  I want to make sure I give it time to heal up before hitting the pool again.  I hate the fact it’s keeping me out of the pool because swimming is still a major issue to me, or at least I feel like it is.  The flip side is my back isn’t cutting into my Livestrong Challenge training, only the half-Ironman training.

I’ve been fishing around for a good workout plan to use to get ready for my half-Ironman in September as well as the Livestrong Challenge in October and marathon in November.  It hasnt been easy to find a plan that i felt would get me ready for all three and flexible enough to modify as needed.  While the Livestrong Challenge and marathon occur after the half-Ironman I have to be able to leverage the training time invested towards these efforts as well.  I’ve finally settled on this plan from trifuel.com, http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon-training/Half-Ironman-Training.php.

The reason I like this one is that it is built more around time investments than specific routines for each discipline.  This means that I can invest the time that the plan calls for but modify those sessions in whatever method I see fit for that day.  So I can use the 90 minute cycling with hills to practice technique, or the 45 minute run session as interval training, etc.  Im hoping that this will work like Im thinking.

Since its within the 20 week window Im shaving off the first week and starting this week as if it were the second.  Another modification is to switch the off day of Monday to Saturday.  This will allow all my swims to be on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays which are the only days I could use the public pool consistently in the mornings.  Also this lets Saturday, traditionally a day I always miss working out, be a day off.

So today I have to push out 90 minutes on the bike, Ill be using the trainer yet again.  Definitely worth the money so far.

So the Riverwood Triathlon in Clayton was this morning and though I was signed up and have been training up for it, I skipped.  I feel guilty about it, but the bottom line was that I wasnt ready or in any shape for it.  From Wednesday to Friday I had about 5 hours sleep.  I went to bed when the AC installers left at a little after two in the morning Wednesday night.  The next day I had to study and take a Calculus quiz for my MBA classes, in addition to working.  In the end I got to bed about one or so for Thursday.  Friday I was woken up at 7:30 by the AC guy calling to come back and fix the thermostat.

So I had already been feeling pretty iffy about my swim, I was tired all day Friday, had yet to get my equipment together or buy tri-shorts, and would have to be up about 5:30 am today to get out there.  Monday I have my first MBA exam in Statistics, followed by a Management exam on Wednesday.  Put it all together and I decided to skip the Triathlon.  I feel guilty about it but it was probably for the best as I would’ve performed extremely poorly.  The original person who was going to do it with me had already dropped out previously so I wasnt letting anyone down by skipping, other than my own competitiveness.   Ill sign up for the next one I can find which wont have all these issues bearing down on me plus Ill be better prepared.

As a penance, in a sense, I’m going to do the Race of Grace 5K in downtown Raleigh tomorrow at four.  Since its less than 5 minutes away and I can get ready, head down, race, and be back in less than an hour it will be a nice break from studying and at least Ill feel like I did something worthwhile this weekend.  I wont be able to race any next weekend because of Cinco De Mayo celebrations and the next weekend I will be at a friends bachelor party for four days.   So it will be good to at least get one more race in before my two weekend break.

As a side note, VS is broadcasting the Tour of Georgia today and tomorrow from 4-6 before the hockey broadcasts start up.