First of February

My need to go into the gym remains unsated, though I went to bed late I still got up at about 6:30am and headed in. I'm old. I'm starting to wonder IF I can sleep till seven.

Marathon Man arrives about the same time and for some bizarre reason I head out to the bike with no heart monitor on and a towel. A towel? Well not JUST a towel (thank God!) I mean one in my hand. After giving some thought to hiding it behind the bike like I meant to bring it in, I groan inwardly and head back to the lockers to correct these gaffes.

The Garmin has become something of a trap, well not a trap, but I feel like it's proof that I did something, mostly to myself. Plus the charts are just plain nifty!

As I walk past Marathon Man, already on the treadmill, he tells me it would be fine with him if I put on the classical radio station. I shudder, it's far too soon to be reliving that experience. I'm envious of how he can be at a pretty serious run AND watch TV at the same time without suddenly veering off and flipping over a side rail.

I hop onto a recombinant and select my old pal 'fat burner' - I'm still dissatisfied with my weight even though I know intellectually I have done well; there's this lingering angsty feeling of discontent. It'll pass. I set it for level seven, thirty five minutes and go!

I want to be in bike riding shape by April so I'm working on my bike legs during the 'me' time of the weekends. I'm going to start doing additional work on the core here soon. I'll tell you a few of my upcoming bike goals, things I must accomplish before the end of summer. The first is getting the stupid water bottle out of the stoopid cage without stopping the bike or having a wreck. I managed it once at the end of last summer and was so proud of myself! I was crawling and grunting so attractively trying to reach down for it... hmmmm better put a little more effort into those stretches. The second is to ride with my hands off the handlebars of course. I use to be able to do that back when I was ten but have lost the ability. The third you already know - do like a twenty mile ride in comfort not being followed by some vulture EMT which is just embarrassing.

I work up a nice sweat and head to the showers. A bit later Marathon Man comes in, he's telling me that he's gained weight between yesterday and today. I ask if that's a good thing or not, the training for marathons a mystery to yours truly. He says it just happens, he told me that he gained something like two pounds during the marathon - I figure it was just his cells clinging to yummy oxygen, unwilling to let it go.

I mention that I'm thinking of weighing once a month and he tells me he use to do it once a week.

"Did it help?"

"Yeah, every Monday so I wouldn't over eat during the weekend."

I might try that. I intuitively feel a month is too long in the dark. As I'm heading out to the car it hits me what Marathon Man was trying to tell me. Effectively it boils down to this, keep on it and don't give up and handle inevitable setbacks.

Recumbinant bike - fat burner - level 7 - 35mins

Just got back from seeing OSU wrestle Minnesota with my son. Cool beans, now looking like one of those dudes, there's a goal :-)