late September already?

Time is flying by. May and September tend to be overwhelming in our house with the end and beginning of the school year, plus sports are going crazy too. I think we have a few more weeks of crazy, then a few weeks off, then the holidays are here. It's easy to groan about how busy one can be, but that is what life should be like in some regards. The busy stuff is life. It's the choices we make, and we can either embrace and enjoy or not. It's easier to embrace and enjoy though when you have a free day every now and then.

AB had a hard soccer practice yesterday afternoon, then an hour off, then a baseball game. He played hard at the game, but you could tell he was dragging a bit. I had to wake him up today, which never happens. We didn't get home last night until 10:30 because he had to eat a 2nd dinner.

Workouts have been going pretty well. We fried my hamstrings on Saturday, and while they are a lot better today, they still are a bit sore. I'm going out for a lunch ride to get some miles in before I go camping/riding next weekend at Berryman. I'm pretty excited for that, even though it will probably destroy me since I haven't ridden on a trail all year. I'll love it though, that place always brings back the memories.

I'm down to 18.7% body fat, so I've lost about 6.5% so far. I'd like to get down to 10%, and maybe do some more races next year. We'll see. Racing isn't very conducive to our nearly over-committed household, but I'd love to do some MTB racing and maybe go back to the Tour of Lawrence again. That was a fun crit and a great environment for the spectators. I'm not looking forward to renewing my USAC license though since I'm not a big believer in that organization, but that's a different story for another time.

That's it for now.

Politics, barely better than brussel sprouts.

With the debate occurring recently, I thought I'd take my voting quiz again. Here's how it turned out:

And I thought I was more Republican than Democrat. It's all those environmental issues that skew me towards the Dems, I tell ya! It sure isn't a minimum wage of $15 an hour.

Ok, enough of that political crap. The country isn't going to get better with any of those yahoos in the oval office. I think the best days of this country are behind us, honestly. It'll be a long, slow fade before anyone says the US is completely defunct, but it sure seems like we're heading that way quicker than we are heading towards a renaissance. I guess it's natural to have a gov't to have a limited lifecycle, but it's tough to swallow when we have it beaten in our young heads that this is the greatest country in the world. History is written by the victors, I suppose.

All we can do is try to help each other out and remember that we are ALL on this rock floating through space. We have more commonalities than differences. We all want to be happy. Even Republicans.

Soccer, more training and a birthday too!

AB had a soccer tournament this weekend up in Des Moines, so the family enjoyed Iowa for a few days. By enjoyed, I mean breathed air. Not much enjoyment up there. The tourney went good, his team squashed the first 3 teams they played, but then luck would have it, they had to play AB's old team and lost a tough match. AB still had a lot of fun, and so it's a win.

Kieran turned 7 on Saturday, and being the trooper he is, still managed to have a blast even enduring multiple soccer games. His "big" present tonight is his own hamster, so we'll have to head up to the hamster farm and pick out a good one. He got a really cool shirt too, I'll have to get the pics from Penny and post them up.

Training and eating are going well, despite having to eat out all weekend. I lost another 0.9% body fat with no lean mass reduction, which is awesome. Just gotta keep on keeping on. And eating protein.

That's it for now. Enjoy the weather!

Training update

I just entered week 4 for my training. High protein, low carbs are the name of the game for now. I'm enjoying learning a lot about how my body does (not) process carbs, and how we are going to re-train it to be more efficient.

I started at 23.7% body fat, and am currently down to 20%. By my math, I've lost 10.5 pounds of body fat, which is almost one and a quarter gallon milk jugs full of adipose tissue. Gross. Penny wasn't pleased at that analogy either, but it's certainly encouraging!

I can see a lot of muscle developing on my upper body, but there is a long way to go. I'd like to get close to 10% body fat and see how things are going then. I should weigh around 177 pounds at that point, plus whatever additional muscle I put on.

I'm excited, and I have to remind myself this is a marathon, not a sprint, and to not get upset if the progress slows down too much. It still is fun, and I can't wait to see the scales hit 1xx before too long, hopefully next week!

That's it for now, life is busy and the sports are going full swing now!