BRYAN 2.0

Today, I had two workouts on the agenda, a run and strength training. I was hopeful I'd be able to do both as my shoulder felt like it was healing relatively quickly, and I had no acute pain.  I hoped to do the run in the early morning before it got too hot, but I guess my body is trying to heal, and I slept longer than I normally do. I don't use an alarm clock, and I haven't for years. I just woke up naturally around 6 a.m.; today, it was 7:30 a.m., and the day before, it was 8:30 a.m.  Instead, I decided to do the run after work and indoors on the "Dreadmill" at LA Fitness. There was no way I could do it outside; it was too hot at 100 F, and it wouldn't really be a run; it'd be a walk, run, walk, and more walking than running to keep my heart rate down.  I haven't run on a treadmill in years, and I remember that it wasn't fun. Time goes much slower than running outdoors, and your mind doesn't drift like it does outside.  The run ended up bein...

In 41 years of cycling, I've never crashed or wiped out. That record ended today. I wanted to get out early to do my ride before it got too hot, and I had to wait until the light rain stopped before heading out the door. Only 3 - 4 minutes into my ride, I decided to take a different route to get out of our housing development, which I didn't take often but thought would be safer.  Man, was I wrong! As I was riding, I came across a four-way stop sign and was going to ride through it. At the last minute, I realized that a large black Denali was starting to drive through. Because I wasn't following the rules of the road or paying attention, it looked like I was going to hit the SUV or it was going to hit me.  I put on the brakes and turned my wheel to serve out of the way. Because the road was wet from the rain, my tire slipped, and I fell over with the left side of my head hitting the ground first. After my head landed, my shoulder and hip followed.  It happened so fast tha...

Today was the first day I did strength training. Although some exercises used dumbbells, it wasn't much weight training. There was a lot of movement, like squats, lunges, planking, and similar exercises.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I was dripping wet during it, even though I was in an air-conditioned and cool basement.  I did it during lunchtime and just did it in my work clothes for the first 10 minutes. I was sweating so bad I took off my shirt and stripped to my underwear.  By the end of the workout, I was dripping sweat, and my underwear was so wet I had to change and get a new pair.  After work, I had a swim session. It was a tough one, and the good news is I finished all the sets as prescribed and completed the full one-hour workout—almost 2 km of swimming. Considering it was my third swim, I was amazed at how much better I'd gotten. In the first swim, I could hardly do 900 meters, and I was as sore as sore could be.  My neck is st...

Today was a run. I woke up sore from yesterday and wasn't motivated, but I pushed myself out the door. It was already warm and 27 C outside at 10 am, with no clouds in the sky.  As I started running and realized the heat would kill me, I remembered Bonte Creek Park is only slightly over a kilometer from my house. There are trails throughout and full of trees; it's like living in a hobbit village, so I won't have the sun burning down on me.  I don't want to give a blow-by-blow of the run, but needless to say, there was lots of run, walk, and run. However, I did manage to do a full 10-minute run without stopping at a heart rate between 144 and 155 bpm. When I left the park, it was back to no shade, and the run home was mostly walking.  When I got home, I was dead tired. I stretched, but even after 30 minutes, maybe even an hour, in the air-conditioned house, I still couldn't stop sweating, and my neck and back were a little sore.  I did more research, and it's b...

Today was my first long bike ride and a run right after what we call a "brick run." I say long bike loosely as it was only 1 hour and 25 minutes, and the run was 20 minutes. Based on the prior sessions this week, it wouldn't feel too bad. Before I left the house on my bike, my biggest concern was whether my neck would be in extreme pain, as this would be my longest bike ride. This would also be the first time I made one of my regular past loops throughout the beautiful countryside and escarpment, one I'd typically do in an hour. It was one of my easy ride routes. I got out of the house a little later than I should have. At 8 a.m., it was too cool, at 18 C, so I stayed in bed playing on social media. Then, at 10 a.m., I headed out. It was now 20 C, but I didn't consider that there was a humidex, and it was around 27 C.  The ride started out well. A highlight was going down most hills without braking. I used to never have an issue going downhill, but now I'm a l...

I woke up this morning "tired" and not acutely sore, but sore enough to know today's scheduled rest day was just what I needed. It took me a while to push myself out of bed to shower.  In the past, I didn't have rest days, partly because I was in world-class shape for my age group and partly because I was too macho to take a rest day unless my body and mind forced me to due to overtraining.  I'm glad it was a rest day. I needed it both for physical and mental reasons. I don't want to overdo it physically or burn myself out mentally.  My first long bike ride and brick run are scheduled for tomorrow. Even though the ride is only 1 hour and 25 minutes, I'm worried about how much and to what severity my neck will hurt. I'm not worried about the legs or lungs, just my neck.  What's amazing is that my body is becoming stronger so quickly in just four days. It's incredible and very surprising. I anticipated it would take 3 - 4 weeks. Even my resting h...

Today, on the schedule, there were two training sessions: swimming and biking.  I'm not going to say it was easy, but I pushed myself out the door this morning to get to LA Fitness for my pool session. This would be my second. My first was on Monday, and it hurt; my arms and shoulders were burning afterward, and I was curious if I would experience the same today, only three days later.  The good news is it was night and day from Monday's session. In only three days, I recovered and felt much stronger. I also didn't think I'd be able to follow the swim intervals as I didn't think I'd be in good enough shape to even try, yet once I got going, I felt so good, and I followed the training plan.  Although I didn't finish it completely, I cut it short. It should have been 55 minutes, but I stopped at 40 minutes, partly to pace myself as I got started and partly because I started later than I should have and had to get to work. After dinner, I had my second session ...

It's day three of my journey to race, er, finish the Florida 70.3 Ironman, and today's session was my first run.  I did a couple of runs in the prior weeks and ran on Monday last week. My calf tightened during that run last week, and I wasn't sure if I could run today. I've had this issue in the past, and I wouldn't be able to run it for four to six weeks.  That said, I decided to go for the run and see what happened. The good news was that I could run, albeit very slowly, trying not to put too much pressure on my left calf. It was more of a straight-leg run, and as I was running, I thought that people without a lower leg could run, so if I kept my leg straight and shuffled, it may hold up, which it did. It was a mental game I played with myself.  I also self-talked to my brain and said that it needs to fix this and send the required signals down to the calf, as our lives and Mr. Brain's life depend on helping to fix it. If we can't lose weight and get in sh...

I must confess that this is my second bike ride of the year. On Sunday, I did 13 km, averaging 22 km per hour. This was before I signed up for the Florida Half Ironman.  My back wheel came off when I braked on that first ride before this one. It wasn't fastened correctly.  Before this ride, I had to prepare my bike. I changed my wheel sets to training wheels and ensured all wheels were tightened.  I then had to find all my old gear to put on the bike in case I had a flat: my rear gear bag, tool set, extra tubes, compressed air to inflate my tires if I get a flat, my rear flashing light for safety, and a bag on my crossbar to put nutrition, batteries in my cateye to keep track of speed and cadence. The funny thing is that the bag for the crossbar still had gels in it, with an expiration date of 2013, that I had to throw away.  It was a hot day, and the humidity was over 33 degrees Celsius. It's not necessarily the best temperature for my first official training ride, ...

Today was my first swim in a long time. My last swim was on October 7, 2020. Before that, I spent a lot of time finding all my old swim gear - swimsuit, goggles, swim cap, hand paddles, buoys, locker room lock, underwater music player, and swim bag.  The swim itself was brutal, way beyond what I expected. In fact, after the swim, I was so exhausted and didn't have my glasses that I walked into the women's changing room. Doh.  In the first 150 yards, I felt good. Then, wham, my muscles started to get pumped and sore. After 400 yards, my arms felt like I was lifting heavy weights. They were sore while I was doing the swim, and they didn't even wait to get sore until after the swim. It's a feeling I've NEVER experienced before.  I kept going, and after 34 minutes, I had to stop. I couldn't complete the full workout. I was sore, and my stroke was so bad I was laboring and even taking in water at times. It felt like I was flailing.  Afterward, I was beaten, and it sh...

Last year, I got down to 202 lbs; this past year, I gained nearly 40 lbs. A week ago, I stepped on the scale at 241 lbs.  I had to do something. I've had no motivation to lose weight. In fact, I've been ready to just keep eating, drinking, gaining weight, and accepting my fatness.  For the past year, I've been spending $2500 monthly in restaurants and bars and drinking nearly daily. No beer—I quit that—but Gin and Tonics, Vodka Selters, and lots of late-night eating afterward.  To force my motivation, I signed up for the half Ironman in Flordia on December 15th in Haines City. I figured I needed a goal, and if I didn't do something soon, I would be going off the edge and not see myself living much longer due to my destructive behaviors. I've gone to bed many times, not sure if I'd wake up due to my debautury.  I decided to sign up last night, Saturday, after having several drinks. I had the epiphany that if I didn't do something, I was going to die. It also ...