Day 30 of dieting and training in the books...
The other day my daughter mentioned her partner couldn't believe I could go from doing nothing to my first week of training being 7 hours and adding more per week since then. He couldn't believe it.
After she told me that, I started thinking about how I could do it? I didn't really think about it being a big deal. I've done 12 Ironmans in the past, trained at a world-class level for an age group athlete, and qualified for Kona and the 70.3 world championships in my 40s. When I looked at the hours required to train for this Florida 70.3, which is only 6 - 9 hours a week, I thought that was nothing, as I had been used to training 15 - 20 hours weekly for over 3 years.
When she told me that I couldn't answer how I could do it at the time, I told her that the first swim I kicked off the training with was brutal, which I detailed in this blog post. The short of it was that my arms felt like lead and were sore as I swam. It was scary, something I had never experienced. Then, the next day, on my bike, I could hardly ride and held up my head due to neck pain.
Today was a different experience on my bike ride. The pain was a broken heart. My speed is so slow it's depressing. I went as hard as possible and only averaged 24 kph, which wasn't what broke my heart. What broke my heart was how hard it was for me to try and average a cadence of 85 - 90 rpm (Revolutions per minute) on the bike. When I did, I would find my legs burning, and similar to my sore neck, I never experienced this type of pain before.
As I rode, I wondered if I'd ever regain any respectable level of fitness before the race in 14 weeks. I also kept thinking of guys I used to ride and race with who didn't take 10 years off and how they are still in great shape, and I wondered if it's even possible for me to get back into that type of shape that I can be proud of.
I rarely had a training ride where I didn't average over 30 kph, and now my best at an all-out effort is 24 kph. It's so depressing. Then I try to tell myself I'm at least 40 lbs heavier than those faster on the bike days.
Talking about weight, tomorrow morning, I'll be weighing myself. I haven't weighed myself since July 21st, a month ago. Intentionally, for the first time, I've not weighted myself daily. The reason is that I didn't want to focus on my weight and just focus on my training, assuming that with diet and exercise, the weight will come down accordingly. I want to focus on fitness and not vanity.
I will say I'm a little nervous about tomorrow and finding out how much weight I've lost. I know I lost weight just from looking at myself in the mirror, and I can now sit without my ribs hurting, but I don't know if it was 5 lbs, 10 lbs, 7 lbs, or whatever. In a way, I've even been considering whether I even want to weigh myself, as if it's not what I hope, it may just depress me.
A huge positive for me would be if I was in the 220 somethings. I started at 241 lbs, and it would be great if I even got to 229 lbs. Getting to 229 lbs is so heavy and not a significant change. It's working off the 10 lbs I gained in the 90 days before starting, and a year ago, I was 208 lbs. Doing the math, from July 19th, 2023, to July 21st, 2024, I gained 33 lbs from lousy eating and nearly drinking every day with zero exercise.
It was even more depressing because a year prior, I went from 237 lbs down to 202 lbs and worked extremely hard to do that. Then, I sabotaged myself and gained back all the weight and an extra 4 lbs. I'm not sure what the future holds. I try not to think about it and just focus on getting in shape for this race.
The one thing I've been thankful for is that I feel more alive and not thinking of death. Before signing up for the race, I would think about death often because of the shape I was in. I was getting to the point where I didn't care about my health or how I looked physically.
I was at a stage where I didn't care about how I looked and knew I was on the edge and ready to go over to the point of no return. I was on my way to being that guy with the big beer belly that looked like I ate a 20 lb turkey, and Alice had even bought me a pair of shorts with a 40-inch waist. That was a wake-up call, as I'd never gone over 38 inches. I had no choice but to wear them, but it was only once as after that I signed up for the Florida 70.3 and started training and dieting.
It will be interesting to see what my scale says tomorrow.
Bike - 1:15:06 / 30.09 km / 24 kph avg pace
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