I’m scheduled to run two 5K races this weekend.  On sat it’s the Camp Ojibway 5K then sunday is a Wolf Run 5K.  Both are fundraisers for kids camp programs.

However, today I’m setting off for Texas for my uncle Tom’s funeral on Saturday.  Obviously won’t be showing up for those races.  I’ve already paid for them, so Steph is going to packet pickup to at least get my race shirts that I paid for.  

This really isn’t a conflict to me.  The decision is a no-brainer.  It’s frustrating that it’s my only race opportunities in May and they aren’t going to happen but priority wise there’s no comparison here.

Starting Weight (1/18/2012): 386 lbs

Last week (5/8/2013): 311.8 lbs

Current weight (5/15/2013): 308.8 lbs

Soo… a 3 pound loss.  I’ll take it.  Not exactly happy about what I’ve done to get there though.  Back to “starvation mode”.

However, I’m learning not to get to excited about a single loss.  There needs to be a trend.  A single week of loss is not a win when there’s a long term trend of gaining.

But I’m happy for the loss and excited for it to continue!!

How long is that ride? I am not very heat tolerant, even with heat tolerance training. I bring a big water bottle filled with ice water, more ice than water, and it’s gone by mile 5 of my 7 mile ride.

The full ride would be 19-20 miles.  Today I was only able to do 14 - took a little over 50 minutes (I forgot to stop my garmin).  The first 10 miles only took about 33 minutes though.  

I had a water bottle but that didn’t last long.  When I stopped, it was at my church and I went in and filled bottle.  Getting off the bike it was pretty obvious I wasn’t getting back on though - legs were toast.

I was really looking forward to the bike ride home today but at the same time I was dreading it.  It was 97 degrees when I set out for my ride today!

Good news is, it was one of those dry heats.  It actually felt really nice outside with only 14% humidity.  That being said, I was sweating buckets and the heat did eventually get to me.  I made it 3/4 of the way home before my calves could take no more and cramped up.  Steph was out and about at that time and wasn’t far away so I hitched a ride the last 5 miles home.  

It’s really kind of funny because I was FLYING across bloomington.  When I was riding (and with all the stoplights that didn’t feel like very often), I managed the mid-to-upper 20’s for speed.  Totally blew me away but I had a real nice tail wind.  That just made me want to push harder and harder and it was great fun when I actually got to pass cars on the road - very motivating.

However, when I got to the big climb after crossing the river I was TOAST.  Just nothing left after that so the ride south was a totally different story.  With over 400 feet of climbing I really should have conserved a bit on the first half of the ride.  Oh well, I was having fun.

Rode the bicycle into work today.

I copped out on the first half of my ride.  Got too late of a start because I was dragging really bad this morning.  Not really sure why, I slept well.  Even now after my ride, I’m just DRAINED.  Since my wife was going to her bible study this morning she just dropped me off at a park that’s right off the highway she takes - pretty convenient.  

Had a pretty good ride.  I got passed by a guy and decided I’d try to keep up.  Oh my…. That kicked my ass.  I did catch up to him twice.  While he was waiting at stop lights.  He took off from the light rested and I was just catching up - out of breath.

Time wise wasn’t too bad though.  I’m definitely frustrated with how slow I still am but there’s improvement - so it’s a good trend.

Today’s run averaged 10:13/mile!  I did 2 miles alternating between 12:00/mile and 8:30/mile on the treadmill ( it was raining outside) in 20:26. My legs are toast.

Originally was going to do an easy 3 miles because of the riding yesterday and the terrible leg cramps I had last night.  But when it got to be time to hit the gym I was running late and had a meeting coming up and had to make it a fast workout.

Glad I did!

I was so jazzed on my ride home because it seemed every time I looked at my watch when I was cruising it was clocking in between 18-22 MPH.  Of course there were uphills and downhills that were outside of that (43 MPH peak speed!! Woot!!) but I was confident I’d have a good summary when I plugged into the computer.  There’s was also a nasty headwind too, which made me even more jazzed by the speed I was seeing on the GPS that I was able to go that fast against the headwind.

BTW: the headwind sucked for more than the obvious reason.  The wind in my ears was so loud I couldn’t hear my headphone without cranking it so loud I was afraid I wouldn’t hear something I needed to hear.  Besides, I don’t like to make my ears bleed.

Anyway, plugging in I only averaged 14.4 MPH.  That’s still not a bad average but I had pumped my expectations up for more.  Stupid stoplights seemed to make a big difference.  When you are sitting at them for 2+ minutes at a time it makes a big dent!  Plus you have to get back up to speed.  On the way to work it seemed I hit every light but most of them just killed my momentum.  They changed right after I got to them.  On the way home, I didn’t hit as many but the one’s I did hit changed to red just before I got to them so I had to wait the whole time.

Still a LOT of fun and a great way to unwind after work.

Today was my first ride into work with the new bike.  Man, it was nice.  Had my wife drop me off at a park about half way as I didn’t want to try to tackle the whole 20 miles the first ride nor did I really have the time.

I averaged 15 mph even with getting stopped by almost every stinking light.  Getting used to the new pedals (Time RXS) is making my starts a bit problematic - I’m sure that’ll improve quite a bit once I get used to different pedals.  I did come unclipped several times while riding which is worrisome. Not sure if there’s an adjustment that’ll improve that or if I should look at a different pedal.

The ride where she dropped me off still has plenty of climb - over 200 feet.  It’s one very steep climb out of the river crossing for the first half of it then a continuous uphill over the next several miles.  Yet I didn’t have to shift down to spin up the steep hills like I did on the other bike.  On the steep section I was about to maintain 10-11 MPH where on my other bike I was 6-8 MPH. 

Awesome.