in the beginning...

oh my... where to start...
i guess the first thing i need to do is say that i've read other people's blogs, and, for the most part i'm doing it for the same reasons they are. motivation. this text is here for me more than anything else. if anyone else wants to read it, then do so at your own risk. i will document as much as i can about what i am doing workout-wise, nutrition wise, and, well, anything else i feel like writing about-wise. hey, it's my blog. if you want anything else, get your own. or ask -- i might agree. then again, maybe not. i tend to let my emotions get the best of me, so don't be shocked if there are some colorful descriptions, or moodiness. some days, i may go on forever about nothing, others i might not log at all. it just depends on how i feel. oh, and in case you haven't noticed, i rarely capitalize. not sure why. don't really care...
ok, now i suppose a little about me. i am 36 years old and am married to a wife who doesn't have any idea what it is like to do any serious endurance events. this is not to say she is unsupportive. she just absolutely cannot figure out why someone would want to do a marathon or triathlon. she has also never crossed a finish line of a race with people cheering for you. i have four VERY active children and am a systems administrator with a major oil refinery in the midwest. needless to say, i have precious little time to train. most of my running takes place late at night when everyone is asleep, or early in the morning on weekends before the kids' activities start. biking takes place almost exclusively on the weekends. swimming takes place... well, rarely. i have a friend, darrin, who is training for a half marathon and wants to do some triathlons with me. we run alot together. well, when we run, we do it together. alot. you get the idea...
ok. a little of my athletic background.. i was always into sports as a kid. i excelled at soccer, and played competitively a long long time ago. well, after i got married and had kids, i also got lazy. i gained alot of weight, topping out at a whopping 220lbs on my towering 5'8" frame. as my children got older and began their own sports endeavors, i realized how out of shape i was. in april, 2002, something snapped, and i became motivated to lose weight. a friend of mine, who had absolutely no athletic background, had recently completed an ironman triathlon, and that seemed really cool. so, i set the same goal for myself. a few months later, in the summer of 2002, i got my weight down to about 170 and completed several short triathlons. in 2003, i completed a half-ironman, then in november, 2003, i accomplished my goal. i successfully completed ironman florida. not with a great time, mind you, but i finished it. it was one of the proudest moments of my life.
then a weird thing happened. i realized that i had no goals after the ironman. there was nothing to train for. in january, 2004, i was downsized from my job and the rest of 2004 was spent depressed and looking for a job. i gained back virtually all of the weight and did no training at all. i got my current job in september, 2004, and started to get motivated to lose this flab. that brings me to now. i would say that my reborn attitude toward fitness has really come back in the last month or so. i can't believe i put all this weight back on. at least i know it is possible to lose it all, as i have done it before. my new goals are to complete a long distance run or triathlon in 2005, and an ironman, possibly lake placid, in 2006. the ironman folks have this saying that i kinda like:
swim: 2.4 miles, bike: 112 miles, run: 26.2 miles, brag: the rest of your life. that really is true, but when i am asked about it, i feel almost hypocritical when i'm discussing completing what is one of the most difficult endurance events in the world, and i am so out of shape. while i don't think i was ever in unbelievably fantastic, 4% body fat, lance - you've got nuthin' on me shape, i wasn't in my present pass-the-donut shape either... oh well, i digress....
my beginning weight for this project was 209.5, on january 4. i will weigh myself every friday. on the 14th, i weighed 206. i lost 3.5lbs, mainly due to the fact that i ate drastically less.
that brings me to today...
the weather has been wacky so far this year here in central indiana. it stared out rainy, but warm, and the past few days its been freezing cold. wind chill to -10. brrr. that's a little bit too cold for me. the weather forecast says it's supposed to "warm up" to the 20s in a day or two. running will commence then. speaking of that, i guess i should mention that darrin and i have been running sporadically for the past few weeks. in between dodging typhoon-like downpours, and now arctic cold, we have been out running a few times. usually 4-5 miles at a 9-10 min/mile pace. nothing special, but it's a start. when my weight starts dropping and i can get a little more consistent running, i'll feel better.