omg i'm not dead!

So yeah, poor blogging. Haven't been biking, so , eh.

What's new.

6 weeks to the wedding. invitations should have gone out. if you'd like to come and i didn't have your address or i didn't invite you send all complaints to my fiancee-- she's the reason you didn't get invited.

seriously tho, if you want to come (Friday, April 3 in SF) drop a note we can make something happen. Unless you don't like booze and cake.

Did a little run->swim brick today. Wow that was much harder on me than I'd have thought. The pool felt great after getting all sweaty.

Other than that, not much going on. The nice days lately make me want to get the bike out. Then we have a quick freeze and i retreat inside. Oh well, soon right?

Cars make people fat

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/12/surprise-people.html

Interesting statistics -- the more you drive (and correspondingly less you walk/bike) the higher the rate of obesity.

banana diet

I thought this was interesting

Banana Diet

Of special note

At meals, eat only until satisfied but not full (The Japanese expression is "Hara hachibu ni isha irazu" - "A stomach eight-tenths full needs no doctor."

Interesting concept. HuHot buffet for lunch anyone? I want to get stuffed!

spinning

I absolutely, positively, do not understand why the instructor in my spinning class insists we keep our RPMs in the 60-65 range.  How is it a spinning class if you plod around?

I usually ignore her and just spin at 90-100.  

Plus, every time she's like "here comes a hill" and expects us to stand.  pshaw, spin up the hill baby, spin spin spin.

In other news, spinning and circuit class (with some swimming when I'm able) and a focus on eating right lost me 7 pounds in October.  Not quite as much as I'd like, but totally do-able.  I'd like to think that all the weights in circuit may have put a little muscle on too.

Other than that, the bike is upstairs for the winter.  Here's hoping for a short winter and an early spring (not like 2008).

Changing Focus: Part 2

So, in a month and a half of ignoring the scale and just trying to do the right thing we found

I gained a couple pounds.

that sucks. So, we're trying something new. I signed up for an online food diary(myfooddiary.com) that tracks everything you eat, records calories, and you can "earn" more calories to eat by exercising (put in the type of exercise you do and length and it calculates how many calories you burn). It's the accountability that my simple online spreadsheet has, along with a ton of nifty number crunching features (including body size/changes, exercise graphs- how many days you exercised in the past week/month), a chart for weight, pounds to go, etc).

I'm totally digging it and I hope it keeps me on track for the winter. I definitely need to drop some weight (duh) and, after talking with my trainer at the gym, nothing else will improve my performance better in the pool/on the bike/on the trail than losing weight.

I think one of the problems I've had is a focus on being a better cyclist/swimmer, which unfortunately leads to eating a lot of food (carbs and otherwise). Fancy biking and swimming workouts make me faster/stronger, but haven't had much, if any, affect on weight.

So the current plan is to track everything I eat (so far so good), eat less calories than I burn, and exercise 5 or more times per week. Exercise is going to primarily be weight training, with jogging/biking on occasion.

Back

So I'm back.  

San Francisco and the bay area has 8 million people on bikes, most helmeted.  There were people all over riding, tons of bike lanes, bikes for rent (by the Golden Gate Bridge) and tons of runners.  On Wednesday night we went down to pier 39 (and Ghiradelli square) and saw at least 4 different groups of runners.  I never see groups of runners out here... maybe 1 or 2, but you don't see a pack of people running together somewhere.

The conference and meet & greets were great.  Being cramped in a plane was not.

Next week Biking Brady is hosting another Bunyan to Bob's ride-- fall colors.  Anyone want to go with me?  We should carpool and stuff.

Read more here

Travel

I'm off to glorious San Francisco for the rest of the week. No rides til saturday - I'm bringing swim and run clothes and hope to see something cool. If my hotel is close to the golden gate bridge I will have to run across it.

This past weekend was the margarita ride in vermillion and the sanford breast cancer ride in SF. Kari and I went to verm and had a blast- it was raining so we took the 30 mile route as Kari had never ridden in wet conditions before. We were teamed up with fellow sioux falls folks (Jody, mayor, Barbara, John-surf shop) and had a nice pace, good conversation ride. When we got back we had time to kill so we rode over to Bunyan's for a root beer/beer bomber. When we got back we had our margarita and tacos then rolled back to SF.

In SF we stopped by Spoke to chat and hear about the SF ride. Apparently it was crazy w crashes, broke bikes and hospital visits. We met recent ironman Jon G who was shopping for a new tri bike. Then it was home for naps and bike cleaning.

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