Not giving up...

This morning, I tried to resist but stepped on the scale. I planned to only weigh myself once a month, and 12 days before my next office weigh-in, I jumped on the scale. I needed to see if I was still making weight loss progress. 

I'm 230.4 lbs, down 2.6 lbs in the last 19 days. It's not as much as I hoped, but it was enough to lift my spirits, knowing I'm still losing weight. It also felt good knowing that since I started July 21st, less than 2 months ago, I'm down 9.4 lbs. When I looked at my weight stats, it was the first time since April 23rd that I was 230 lbs. Then I peaked at 239.8 lbs (but the week before, the weight was 241 lbs) on July 21st, and now I'm back down to 230.4 lbs on September 19th. 

Seeing the graph going back down to a weight of 230 lbs was a pick-me-up and what I needed. It's 230 lbs and 230 lbs includes more muscle than previously. It motivated me to keep my diet on track and do my swim workout this afternoon. 

The swim was as all swims are. I dread going to the pool. When I get in the pool, the first 20 minutes are good. Then I push myself to get to 40 minutes, and after I get to 40 minutes, I tell myself there is no use in quitting now as I'm so close to completing 1 hour.

Today in the pool was the first time I felt I was progressing and getting faster, and my faster 100-yard time agreed. I don't have a stopwatch, so I don't know my best 100, but I know it was under 2 minutes. Prior, I was struggling to do 2:10 per 100 yards. 

I'm trying to figure out what to do about my bike situation. Do I overhaul my Cervelo or just move on with the Canyon? Initially, I convinced myself to fix the Cervelo, as paying $10,000 for a new bike for one race and having no long-term commitment to do half Ironmans in the future is a lot of money. 

Without going into all the details and back-and-forth in my mind, figuring out the costs to fix the Cervelo and extra parts, looking online to see what a 2009 Cervelo P2 is worth, which is essentially nothing for a bike in my condition. Alice thought I should just go with the Canyon to be safe on the road, and that made the most sense, so I scraped the idea of fixing the Cervelo and went with the Canyon. 

My Cervelo is worth $500 in my evaluation process, as someone would have to get new aero bars, fix the crank, do a complete tune-up, etc. I priced it out, and it would cost about $1200 with parts and labor, and even if I fixed it all up, I might get $1200 - $1500 for it. The frame has many scratches, paint flaking off, and rusted bolts. I'm not someone who took care of my bike. I washed it only once.

Later in the evening, I did some weight training. I haven't been doing that, and it's a must. My performance will not improve greatly or quickly if I don't commit to regular weight training and stretching. 

After I had completed the weight training, I did a decent amount of stretching. My hips are very tight, and I'm stiff overall. I need to be consistent with my weight training and stretching moving forward. I'm on week 8 of training and should have been doing it since day one. 

That said, I'm getting stronger. I can feel it. There is improvement. Not as much as I'd like to see physically, and I am losing weight, but I'm making progress and need to keep that in mind. 

My new Catlike bike helmet arrived today. It's snug, and any smaller would be too small. It took me a while to play with the strap to get it the right length, and I got it right. The big test will be during my next ride tomorrow. 

Swim - 1:06:52 / 1875 meters

Weight training - 47:40 

Stretching - 20 min