What makes it significant this year is the fact that I've maintained the loss. That was the month I went from a 3XL t-shirt to a L, and I've been there since.
Tomorrow (May 11th) marks the anniversary of my first ever big cycling event. The OSLP Pedal for People Metric Century ride. At the time, I was definitely nervous but optimistic. I'd already signed myself up for the Seattle to Portland Classic back in January so as far as I was concerned, I was too far to turn back on that one and while this wasn't 100 miles (65 and some change), I figured this would give me a good gauge on how I'd be able to handle STP. I'm doing it again this year. I'm still using my road tank of a Hybrid Cruiser.
The only real difference between this year and last was the training. I haven't been doing nearly as much riding as I'd done last year, but what I've been lacking in riding, I've definitely been making up for in P90X. Either way, I'm fairly confident that tomorrow's ride will be way less painful than last year's and I'm hoping to finish this guy a lot quicker than the first time as well. Here's a glimpse of the ride I'm doing cut down to about a 5 minute timelapse:
My list of anniversaries and memories aren't all awesome in this month. That's for sure. Then again, it really depends on your point of view. In about a week from today, I'll be on my 2 year anniversary of being "let go" from my steady job in the game industry...
For the longest time, this has been an immense sore spot for me. Of course, if you knew the story behind it, you couldn't blame me either. I've definitely bled for that company and would've died for them. Truth be told, I might have had I stayed there and taken the abuse. I certainly was all too happy to, even after all of the internal vilification of my character heard both directly and indirectly since my departure.
As I reflect on what's transpired since then, it's pretty easy to see that what I've managed to accomplish would never have been possible had I stayed there. So, this year, rather than lamenting that day I was "let go", I'm choosing to celebrate the day I was "liberated" from a job and life that was bullshit. At this point, I really owe them a debt of gratitude. Up until that point, I wasn't living.
At the end of the month, that's my big anniversary. The one where I met my partner in crime.
On to P90X...
We've gone into Phase 2 of the workout. We're technically on our second week in, but last week had way too many missed dates so I called a "do-over" on it. Zu can be pretty annoying with her bucking the workouts at times, but I'm still impressed and happy that she doesn't let it stop her completely. Some days are definitely better than others and she'll just blast through it. I do take special pleasure when I see her blast something out and surprise herself and get all stoked about it. Hell, I still do that sometimes.
I think she's definitely pulling through pretty nicely on the routines. Sometimes, I think she could probably handle more weight than she's using though.
Zu's bike progress is becoming a lot more favorable recently. I was genuinely worried before whether or not she was going to be able to make it through STP. Not because I didn't think she could've been able, but she had a pretty horrible attitude toward riding and thus, would never ride and wouldn't be prepared. Last weekend, we had a pretty cool lazy-ish Saturday. We actually rode everywhere on bikes. We made a stop at Paul's Bicycle Way of Life to get our back wheels checked up. I wanted everything to be good for this weekend's event. She got her wheel tuned up and dialed in with full tire pressure and low and behold, she was able to keep up!
Her biggest hang-up and contributor to her bad attitude toward biking was how she felt about not being able to keep up. It seemed like no matter how hard she tried, she just wasn't able to break 8 mph. Well... it just turns out she never had enough wheel pressure and her back wheel was a little crooked. Once it got all straightened out, she picked up immediately and was cruisin' 13 mph, and up to 18 mph on flat ground! She's definitely in business now. Now she just needs to get her but out there on the path and get to training!
We were planning on meeting with a local cycling group last Sunday to go on a 35 mile ride but I couldn't find them. I was pretty bummed, but I got cheered up relatively quickly when she suggested just riding around and sort of creating our own ride. I was happy to have the company finally. I took it relatively easy this time around and only hung around 12-13 mph and everybody else was keeping up so it was pretty fun. It was pretty damn hot out there and all that direct sunlight was sapping it out of everyone. I still wanted to go a bit further and round out the loop at above 20 miles so I blasted ahead and did a quick 4 miles. It took me roughly 15 minutes. By the end of the day we all pretty much crashed. I think there might have been a bit of sunstroke on all of us.
For May, I've signed on to this online challenge group which is handling a different health and nutrition related challenge each month. This month happens to involve eating at least 5 servings of fruits and/or vegetables coming from at least 3 different varieties and 2 different colors every day. My solution for this is to basically make a juice or a smoothie for breakfast. Here's one of the recipes:
Juice:
1 large beet
1 cucumber
2 granny smith apples
2 cups of greens (spring mix/ spinach)
1 knuckle of ginger
smoothie:
juice (as the base)
1 banana
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)
1 packet of Spiru-tien (chocolate)
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