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!

Look at this guy!

Tooth #1 is audios! Thanks to Mrs. Clark down the street (our resident Kindergarten teacher/tooth yanker), Kieran has now lost his first tooth. Pretty cool!

Hope you weren't holding your breath

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. There's been a lot going on, and I hate to put it all down at once. Plus the lasagna is in the oven warming up, and it'll be burnt to a crisp by then.

So we went to North Carolina with my in-law's and my MIL's extended family. That was a lot of fun, but we didn't see any sharks though. That would have been pretty exciting. I bet there was one within 100' of me though. I could write a whole blog about that trip, but we gotta keep moving here, plus I don't remember all the details. Neuroplasticity is down these days.

I started working out (again) but this time I double whammied it by laying off alcohol and sweets. Since July 13th when we got back, I've lost 7.8 pounds. That puts me at 206.8 today. Not bad! Another 3 or 4 weeks and I hopefully will be under two bills. I've been running and riding mostly, not tons, but enough to keep my legs guessing. I rode really hard last night at the Spin Pizza ride, and did way better than I did last time out. I still wasn't quite in the lead group, but I don't think I'm far off. Hitting the lights certainly exacerbates the fact you're 10 seconds behind. I'm still way slower than I used to be, but it's getting better. I'll probably be in shape for cross season, but I don't have much interest in doing that. Maybe I should though.

Back when I was racing, I moved up to a Cat 3 racer, which is usually where most people fall. Most people should only be a cat 4 for a maximum of 10 races, and I did that and was doing ok. So if I went back now, I'd have to race as a 3. You can't go back to beginner level even if you put on 30 pounds and haven't hopped a barrier in half a decade. So even if I get back into race shape physically, my mind isn't quite there. Plus I don't think my old team wants me wearing 4 year old kits. ;-)

I began the process of using a physical trainer. I say that because we haven't really started, but I probably will in the next couple of weeks. He's good with nutrition and hormones as well, and I like that multi-faceted approach. Based upon my fat distribution, he said I am most likely carb intolerant, which means carbs go straight to fat. That wasn't entirely surprising, but it was entirely depressing. I gotta dodge bread bread from here on out, which really puts a damper on my sandwich consumption.

I got my blood work done as well, and it looks nearly perfect, which is good. He said my vitamin D is low, and my monocytes are elevated which could be due to what I'm eating. We haven't had a lot of discussion time, but I think that the more I know about how my body processes what I intake, the better off I'll be. When I raced, I really didn't change my diet. If I start eating healthy and am in good riding shape, I wonder...

The boys are going back to school in like a week. I'll be glad to get them out of the house when I'm working, but it is fun to be able to start a wrestling match after a rough conference call. Boys will be boys. K has grown his hair out, and it looks terrific. Much better than when I used to shave it. AB is even trying to style his hair now. So much for saving $$ by shaving their heads, but I'd rather them look good and be happy (not that they were miserable).

AB has also been playing Destiny on the xbox like crazy. It's led to some heated exchanges between him and the parents when it came time to unplug. I guess he's just like me, which I apologize for that! Destiny has been making me stay up late as well. If AB would let me play during the day, then I wouldn't need to stay up so late. Mmmhmm.

I got an iPhone, and I mostly like it. The actual phone part is terrible compared to an Android, but most of the other experience is pretty good. I'm not sure if I'll get another iPhone though when it comes to it. I do like the fingerprint scanner on the phone. That's pretty sweet.

That's it for now. I'm starving, and I gotta check the lasagna.

Glenda Taylor

I'm going to try and remember the post I came up with 8 miles ago on my ride.

On June 7th, Glenda Taylor, an art professor from Washburn was killed while preparing for the KS State Championship Time Trial.  I never met her, but I bet our paths crossed at some point during my racing days.  I'd like to think I smiled at her if our eyes met, everything I've read about her tells me that she had a good aura.  She was selfless, often taking younger female racers under her wing. Lots of the people I'm friends with from my racing days were shell shocked to hear of her passing.

Far too often I come across a news story about a racer getting hit and killed. Steve Tilford (who has an excellent blog), has hypothesized that there are just more people these days.  More cyclists and more drivers.  Cyclists sometimes ride like jerks, and sometimes drivers drive like jerks too. I hope I haven't been a jerk with either activity, but it happens.

Actually now I remember an incident a long time ago when I was leaving UMKC, and the weather was snowy.  I think I was trying to pull out onto Rockhill in my car when a commuter was coming down the hill on the sidewalk.  I had inadvertently pulled out in his way so I could see the traffic, but obviously caused a bit of panic for him.  He flipped me off and went on his way. I wasn't totally in the wrong, but the thought running through my head was that "hey, I'm one of you". I wasn't some asshole driver, but I guess that time I was.

I was totally paying attention in that moment, but still about took this poor dude out. I could have hurt him bad, but I'm not sure if I could have done anything better.  On the other hand, Glenda was killed by someone who may have been distracted. He was charged with 2nd degree murder, among other things. Some of my cycling friends feel a bit vindicated with the severity of that charge. Often cyclists are killed and the driver gets a plead down to a misdemeanor or involuntary manslaughter. I can appreciate the fact that some feel vindicated. On the other hand, it's not easy for the driver either. Maybe he was checking his texts, or messing with the stereo, or spacing out. But now he is going to jail, maybe for a long time. Think of the ripple effect of his poor choice of not being focused whilst driving.  5 seconds of distraction.

Cars are getting away from the driving experience and being more about being entertained. Taking the driver out of the equation. I think that is a terrible mistake, but probably necessary to get us to the point where people no longer drive cars. Until cars can drive themselves, and safely, this kind of thing is going to continue to happen. Especially with Facebook, Twitter, etc and the connectedness of things. Social media is going to be the death of humanity. Connecting through a computer is disconnecting us spiritually. And I don't mean God type spirituality, I'm talking about the bonds of humanity.

The bonds of humanity are what will keep us on this rock. Selflessness, which is the highest form of existence, doesn't come from us burying our noses in our phones and iPads. I see drivers driving around on 70 degree days with their windows up and a/c presumably on. We cushion ourselves from living.  We let other people climb mountains on "reality" TV while we sit on the couch and numb our minds and souls.  I think I've said it before, but no one is going to give a crap at the end of your days if you watched 50,000 hours of TV. People that will be missed are those who seek out life, who reach out to people and touch their souls. The more we separate ourselves from living this life, the more we subscribe to the "me vs. them".  There isn't a "them".  It's an "us".

We all are on this rock together. We all want to be happy, to live our lives with some control over the outcome. What is better, an individual looking out for themselves or that same individual living for everyone else and everyone else living for each other?

Regardless of your spiritual belief, most major religions recognize that Jesus was a human in perfect form. He embodied selflessness, and tried to teach others that the path to salvation is by forgetting yourself. Whether you are a Christian or Jew or Muslim or an Atheist, I think if we tried to live a little more selflessly, the world would seem a little more livable.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I had a lot on my mind.  Now get off your device and do something.