It has begun

Today marks day one of the winter/spring weight loss challenge. So far it is Brian and I dueling to the death(of fat). The winner will get (insert winnable item here) and bragging rights. Things are off to a good start for me. I rode the trainer in the basement last night and will be going running after work tonight. I already eat a fairly healthy breakfast and lunch, so I'm focusing on eating better at night. I'm even going to try to get to bed earlier, which will help with the late night snacking. Overall I think I have a winning plan in place, now I just have to keep to it. With the support of my wife and the battle with Brian I think I can do it.

I will be weighing in from here on out on Wednesdays. But since I kicked things off today I weighed in a day early. My current weight: 231.5 My goal weight: 210 That's about a 10% drop or 21.5 lbs. Although I won't stop there, should it prove easy. The first week is usually where you see the biggest drop, and I hope to have a couple of pounds gone by next Wednesdays.

It's now Brian's turn to post his weight and goals for the world to see.

The Gauntlet has been thrown down

Now that the holiday season, also known as the weight gaining season, is over it's time to begin a slim down. I'm no good at trying to eat healthy and lose weight alone. So I threw the gauntlet down to Brian to lose weight with me or against me. He promptly accepted my challenge saying " I accept your challenge! My abs will make you rue the day you decide to issue said contest of wills!" And so it's on. We will be posting our weights weekly and letting everyone know how our plans are shaping up. I've chosen Wednesday to be my weigh in day, so look for my starting weight and exercise plan on Wednesday.

PS. If anyone else would like to join the weight loss group, let me or Brian know. We'll figure out a way to get everyones names or blogs together.

PPS. I just realized we don't have a prize for the winner or a goal one must attain to win. Brian we'll have to come up with something.

The temperature is what?

The weather outlook for us this month has not been good. We've had a long stretch of subzero temps, plenty of snow and just generally crappy weather. So last night when I checked the weather and saw that today's high was 42, I got excited. I packed up my riding gear and bike and brought everything to work today. I decided I would take a late lunch and head out after my 1:00-2:00pm meeting. It would put me close to the warmest part of the day. Things worked out. I jumped on my bike shortly after 2:00 and it was beautiful. I think the temp gauge said 45. I only had an hour, but it felt great. The sun was warm, it sort of reminded me of those first rides after spring arrives when you're just happy to be out.

I tried out a new piece of equipment on my ride today. I've never ridden with a fender before, but I will be using one very much in the future. There was a lot of water and slush out on the roads today and I was able to stay almost completely dry. I might even get one for the front tire.

I hope you are able to enjoy the warm weather today too!

Has it really been this long?

Wow, so I haven't blogged in how many months. Sheesh. Is this blog dead? No actually it's not. So lets have a post.

It's been a long time since Chequamegon. I'm pretty happy with my results. Even with a month off of training(thanks flood), I managed to best my previous time. Not sure of the future of this race, but if I do go this year, I will be doing the 40.

I participated in a new event this year. It's called the Dirty Duathlon. It was an offroad run/bike/run event held in November. I finished 25th out of 27 male participants. I'd usually say that was a pretty bad showing, but there were 17 DNF's. It was a very tough course, which knocked a lot of people out. I feel pretty good just finishing, which I did in 2 hours and 38 minutes. This was without a doubt the toughest race I did this year.

I had a good Christmas and New Years. Spent a lot of time with the family and had a lot of fun. Hopefully everyone had a good holiday season.

New bike alert: For you bike nerds out there I was lucky enough to pick up a cyclocross bike. It's a BikesDirect.com Windsor Cyclo. Lots of bells and whistles and it rides nice too! Look for me at a cyclocross race this fall. Here's a picture and a link: