Challenge Issued

In the past 2 days I've had a few challenges issued to me, not sure whether I'll be able to accept them or not.



The people who have issued the challenge haven't worded it as a challenge, but believe me, if I choose to accept this challenge, that's EXACTLY what it's going to be.

Challenge # 1: Don't keep track of my mileage when riding my bike or running this next year.

I have kept track of how many miles I've ran this year & how many miles I've biked this year. I have it on an Excel spreadsheet and everything. I even have weather I ran on a treadmill or if I biked outside or on a spinning bike, etc.

If you haven't guessed it yet, I have OCD! Now, I don't have OCD where you have to flip a light switch 7 times before leaving a room, but I do catch myself washing my hands alot, etc. But, we could go off on that on another post. Lol.

One of my friends on Twitter who has done many Ironman's says that you should really ride or run for your heart rate and intensity and not necessarily mileage. I mean, go ahead & keep track of your mileage for that particular ride or run, but don't add up your mileage. In the long run (no pun intended), do those miles really matter?

It honestly gives me a little bit of anxiety thinking about not keeping track of my mileage. I look at how many miles & calories I've burned this year and to me it's an achievement, you know?

I did ride my bike on the bike trainer last night for 1 hour without knowiing mileage. I didn't know the mileage because my bike computer wasn't working & I don't have a heart rate monitor right now. Yes, it does kind of bug me that I don't know how many miles I went or how many calories I burned.

Challenge # 2: Throw out my bathroom scale.

This week has been a VERY rough week. I started out the week being sick. I felt like I had a cold, so I took a couple of days off from working out & started with the cold meds. When I don't workout I seem to lose all sense of self control. Then take in to consideration, I've been having major anxiety with my job lately. When I have major anxiety, the one thing I want to do is eat. All I've done all week is eat, eat, eat!!! I've eaten everything in site!!! It hasn't been good.

I can tell I've gained weight. I usually step on the scale every Saturday morning after my workout & morning shower & weigh myself. I've been doing this for 3 years. After I weigh in, I put that number on an Excel spreadsheet & calculate how much weight I've lost to date, etc.

I posted on Twitter today something to the effect that I'd gained ALOT of weight this week from eating crap because of anxiety and other factors and I'm gonna have to work hard next week and jump back on the band wagon and get this weight off. BananaBuzzbomb replied saying "Don't let that crap get to you. You're better than that!" Then she told me to throw out my scale. I need to stop looking at myself as a number.

Now, here's the difficult part. When I first started my weight loss and triathlon journey, I set a goal weight of 150 lbs. As I continue to workout, I've learned that is not a realistic goal. Why? Because I'm gaining muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. So, size wise, I could be the same size as someone else who weighs 150 lbs, but I don't think I'll EVER see that # on the scale. I'm ok with that. What I'm not ok with, is seeing the # in the 170's. To me, that is just not good enough.

I'm scared to death of being 280 lbs again. It scares the bejesus out of me. Even when I gain 2 or 3 lbs, I feel like I'm 280 lbs again. Another friend on Twitter joined the conversation and when I told them that I'm scared of being overweight again, they told me "You will never be that size again. Ever. Weight will fluctuate at time. Focus on training, performance, not a number." THAT is my goal.

Honestly though, it scares the shit outta me to throw out my scale. I honestly don't know if I can do it. I haven't decided if I will weigh myself tomorrow or not to see how much weight I've gained this week. If I do decide to weigh myself, I need to promise myself not to get upset about it. I know that on Monday I will jump back on the band wagon and I will be working out twice a day.

Do you wanna try & join me in these challenges?

Crazy miles!

This last Saturday we had a family reunion out in Taylorsville, UT. I hadn't had my workout yet for the day, so I thought I'd ride my bike out to the family reunion and back. I had figured earlier in the week that it was only 20 miles out and 20 miles back. It ended up being 22 miles out, and 22 miles back, but an extra 2 miles each way, no biggie.

But, it ended up being a very difficult ride out there. I was VERY tempted at times to just call it quits and turn back around and go home. I had a head-wind the whole way out there! It was crazy!!! My maximum speed going out to the family reunion was 12 mph. I just had to keep telling myself that it was good strength training.

I got out to the family reunion and my cousin couldn't believe that I rode my bike all the way out there. It was SO fun. The family reunion ended up being moved from the park to someone's house that was further away, so I just decided to head back home.

Luckily, on my way home, the wind was on my side. My speed on the way home was about 20 mph. Where it took me 2 hours to get out to the family reunion, it only took me 1 hour to get home.

The closer I got to home, the more I wanted to push myself and try and ride a total of 50 miles. The picture above is how many miles I ended up riding. If I were to have rode 50 miles, I would've hit a head-wind again, and the wind seemed to be getting stronger and stronger.

Now that I know I can ride this many miles, I think this calls for me to sign up for a couple of century rides. I won't do 100 miles quite yet, but in a century you can ride 65 (or it might be 68) miles. There's a century in August up in Logan, UT and there's one down in St. George, UT that I think I might sign up for!

Awesome Ride

Today me and my friend Gina went for a 31 mile bike ride. We went from the East side of the Salt Lake City Airport all the way out to the marina at the Great Salt Lake, out by Saltair. Out and back it was 31.4 miles.

It was awesome and I enjoyed every minute of it. The only down part was, and this might sound kind of weird...it wasn't challenging enough. It was a flat ride all the way out, and on the way back, there was a super slight incline, you most likely wouldn't even feel it.

We had a little bit of a head wind on our way out, but on the way back, the only wind we had was the wind we were creating ourselves.

Next time I do this particular ride, I'm going to be adventurous and instead of driving out to where the trail starts, I'm just going to ride my bike there, which will add an additional 12 miles (approximately) each way.

This is the farthest I have ever rode before. It's after rides like this where you have a feeling of accomplishment and it's like you have this feeling of "I can accomplish anything"! I love it!