Good to Great…

Since my last post, there is a lot of very good news which makes this posting very easy to write.  Each of them is something special to talk about and I would be hard pressed to say which is the best news so I will address them in chronological order.  As my previous post indicated, my bike was to be delivered on Wednesday, I was not around so the delivery failed and I had to wait another day.  Luckily I was working from home Thursday and would be able to sign for it when it arrived.  Despite a very crazy week at work, I was free when the delivery man came with the large box!  I finished up work for that day although putting in more hours that day than a typical day.  My first free moment went to unpacking the box.

After a little handy work, the final product looked like the following setup on the trainer with the Fi’zi:k

Arione seat I decided to start off with on this bike. 
Can you imagine when you were a kid, opening a present at Christmas and then being told you could not play with it until the next week when you go back to school? This is exactly the pain I felt.  With the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday I wanted to make sure I was rested and recovered and ready to race.  Outside of a few minutes just spinning to test seat height, I let it rest after installing the Garmin cadence kit.  A few more pictures that combine my photography interest with my triathlon interest! The first is not that great of a photo by any means.

 

The second on the other hand, turned out pretty well.

Third not too bad, but cut off a bit of the seat and I think there is a small hair on the bike!
Finally the last photo which made its way to the banner was just an interesting perspective on things.
As I said, there are multiple good things that have happened.  The next thing to report.  Since my heaviest stage late last winter or early spring where I weighed myself at one point at 184.5, although I would not doubt I was higher than that, this is the highest measured weight I have had since my ‘fat stage’ in college that consisted of pizza dipped in ranch, fries dipped in ranch, and lots of sugary drinks and beers.  The good news? I have been keeping track of my weight daily (or pretty close) with SportTracks.  Saturday morning, I hit the lowest weight I have been in many years, 169.5, marking a point where I have lost 15 pounds.  Although I have only been recording in SportTracks since the end of June where I was around 183, the graph below shows my progress although not the full 15 pound loss.

One side note, not directly related to the events in this post, but as we went to pick up our packets for the marathon and 10-mile, we came across this at the expo.  I had to geek it up and stop for a photo. The lady in the booth couldn’t believe that it was me and said that had never happened before.
 
As excited as I was about the bike, I cannot say this did not also give me a great thrill.  I have been being very careful about what I eat and working to watch how much junk intake I have.  I even started to feel much better about my body composition before noticing some numerical results which is almost just as good for me as a number.  If you would have asked me 9 months ago what I thought my ideal body weight was, I would have told you around 180, as I struggled to lose or gain much around that weight even with regular running and exercise.  I am looking forward to what my body has in store for this winter where the treats get more and more tempting since I figured out a few great recipes for fudge last year!

Finally, I follow up with Sunday activities, a nice 26.2 mile run through the Twin Cities (official race report to follow) I am going to save most of the details of the race for the race report that I will finish up tomorrow.  My long run for training was 16 miles, due to some knee issues. This left a lot of doubt in my mind and come to find out Heather had similar feelings about my expectations. 

My first marathon was the Twin Cities 2008, finished with a 4:48:28 chip time which averaged out to 11:03/mile.  I said any improvement will be welcome, and I really hope to not be slower than the previous year since my training had lacked.  The next tier, sub-4:30, a good improvement on last year especially considering my focus towards short distance triathlons this year and skimping on the longer runs for marathon training.  Finally was the 4:15 goal, aka the ‘I don’t know what I did to make this happen, or how I even deserve this, but I may just crap myself if I could by some miracle run this time.’  The data behind my workouts explains the name:

9/27 – 9.08 miles @ 11:07 pace (with Heather)
9/20 – 8.08 miles @ 11:07 pace (with Heather)
9/13 – 16.39 miles @ 10:03 pace (by myself)
8/28 – 14:29 miles @ 10:37 pace (by myself)

For those who are not driven by numbers, obviously the 4:48 translates to 11:03, about the same pace as the runs I did with Heather for her 10 mile training.  Take my 16 mile run for example.  That would equate to roughly 4:23, smack dab between the other two goal times I had.  Since I said I was going to save the details for the race report, I will cut to the chase.  My finishing time:

4:12:38 chip time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Exceeded my top of the line tier.  More to come in another post.  Thank you to Andy and Brandis for your encouragement and through the race! You guys helped me hang on at the end when my body was ready to shut down.