Bike rides to the Inlet. Weight workouts. Daily tasks. Body for Life. Getting projects done. The last week and a half we’ve kept chugging along steadily.
The Body for Life project is taking over our lives, in a good way. Each day starts at six a.m. or shortly thereafter. Four days a week we head out immediately for the Inlet for a twenty-three-plus mile bike ride. We take about two hours for the whole ride, including a short break at the Inlet.
Riding and the Inlet
The Inlet never fails to entertain us. Last week we saw a local fisherman catch a barracuda. As Chelsea took photos, the fisherman worked to get the hook out; he’d already promised the barracuda to three other fishermen who wanted to use it for bait. I was front and center watching the whole process, and when the fisherman got the hook out, he handed the barracuda to me, on the line, telling me to hold it.
There I was suddenly holding this writhing, twisting fish with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. I cautiously held it at arms’ length, keeping an eye on those teeth, but with no warning the fisherman pushed my hand in closer to my body – I’m guessing he thought it would make a better picture. I had to take a deep breath to settle my nerves – the two photos Chelsea got accurately showed my feelings – from “What the hell are you doing, shoving my arm in!” to my victory grin, “I’m doing it! I’m holding this twisting, writhing fish! Ha hah!”
I got a photo of Chelsea holding the fish, but her smile is totally relaxed and calm. She told me later that since I survived without losing any body parts, and since the fish was no longer writhing and twisting, she figured she was safe.
This week (so far) has been calmer. Our only excitement was seeing a parrotfish caught by a quiet guy fishing from the seawall. It’s unusual to see anyone catch anything there, much less a parrotfish, so we got a few photos of it.
Another bit of great fun was meeting Skip Reisert again on one of our rides last week. We first met Skip and Sid, two riding buddies, before we left on our trip in June of 2007. We originally met on a rest break at the Inlet, but once we’d met each other of course, we ran into each other regularly. Skip in particular was quite excited for us, and wanted to know all the details about our trip. For a variety of reasons we lost touch that first year.
Skip recognized us last Saturday on our way back from the Inlet, calling out to us as he passed. We had a wonderful chat on the side of the road, agreeing to catch up on more details soon over coffee at Old School Bakery. Skip looks awesome – since we last saw him he’s gotten a new bike that he built up with the components he wanted – it’s gorgeous – and he’s now up to 21-24 mph on average. Since we’re now on a speed improvement kick ourselves, we found Skip’s success story to be very encouraging.
Speaking of speed improvement, we’ve done pretty well ourselves the last week. Over our eight days of working to hit a daily average of thirteen mph, we met or passed our goal on four of the eight days. Averaging all eight days together, we met our goal of an average of thirteen mph. We’re very pleased because we’ve been really tired from suddenly increasing our physical output by so much, and because we had a two-week period of 15-25 mph winds, which meant strong side and headwinds for a good part of each ride.
Yesterday I managed to hit fourteen mph on our first eleven miles up to the Inlet, so now I won’t be happy until I see fourteen regularly. It’s really hard work trying to improve because we have to pay attention to every moment and every circumstance where we can improve our speed. Our workouts are infinitely harder than they’ve ever been.
And speaking of workouts – after seeing Skip and having him comment on how “sturdy” our new bikes are (he knew us when we had entry level racing bikes, weighing eighteen pounds) I finally weighed our bikes. I have gone from that lightweight eighteen-pound bike to a forty-five pound bike (counting front bag, rear bag, and contents); Chelsea’s is thirty-five pounds. I’d bet anything that my speed would increase several miles per hour just riding my old bike. I content myself with the fact that we are getting much, much stronger this way.
Body for Life
The days we’re not riding we do a full body weightlifting session that lasts just under two hours. Together we revised the daily workout sheet so we could move through the workouts faster. After each workout we revise the weights as needed and print the next workout sheet. The night before each workout we make sure the proper weights are on the weight bench and that it’s set to the right position. Our workout sheets and timers are set to go on the desk.
Each day after our rides or workouts we have our protein berry smoothie and hop into the pool for a half hour or so to cool off and work out the muscles slowly. We use our alligator kickboards for doing laps, then spend a few minutes playing ball in the pool. By that time we’re a bit chilly, so we climb into the hot tub for twenty to thirty minutes to relieve any upcoming muscle soreness.
Most days we think we can’t possibly do another thing; we’ll need to either read or watch movies for the day. We’d agreed in advance that we’d rest as much as we need to at first, till our strength gets up to speed; that’s taken a lot of pressure off us.
Ironically, we seem to get more done now in less time. We are very organized about getting chores done, and we focus more effectively on what needs to be done, figuring that we’ll “die” really early each day. Of course we feel great that we made our goals that day for the Body for Life program; then we feel great that we got our most important tasks done, too.
There have been days, I’ll admit, where we just read quietly for an hour or two, and maybe watched a movie, but not often (though nearly every day we tell ourselves that’s what we’ll do). Taking the pressure off and allowing ourselves time to build has added to our efficiency in a most unexpected way.
We have no trouble sleeping these days.
We did finally make the decision to join the Body for Life contest. This weekend we’ll weigh ourselves, take our measurements, and write up our goals. We plan on competing to win. Each morning when it’s horribly hard to wake up and do two hours of tough exercise, we tell ourselves, winners get up and go do it! We apply the same thought to everything that’s hard during the day.
We haven’t decided yet if we’ll do the family group, which limits us to a $10,000 prize, or aim for one of us getting Grand Master, which is a $25,000 prize. Winners are chosen 50% on physical transformation and 50% on inner/emotional transformation.
Food
We’re doing pretty well with the recipes and menus, but things would be easier if we had a stash of cash to go to Costco and buy the high-ticket items to have on hand, like the steak and salmon and tuna. We are making do with substitutes while keeping to the original idea, but it’s a lot more work this way figuring out what to do and then making it.
One of our ideas was a definite loser. We defrosted our frozen veggies (which we don’t really like) and put them over brown rice. Thinking to make it more fun, we added low-fat mozzarella cheese. On a whim, I sprinkled the plates with a few tablespoons of ground flaxseed. It was not a good idea.
The wetter-than-usual rice, the flaxseeds that swelled and turned mushy, the slippery vegetables, and the gooey texture of the cheese were definitely NOT an appetizing combination. I managed to get about halfway through before I put my plate aside – I was in danger of gagging with each bite. At the risk of being too descriptive, I felt like I had huge mouthfuls of phlegm that I was expected to chew and swallow.
I admitted to Chelsea the next morning in the pool what my reaction was – we’d both agreed the night before that we wouldn’t do that again. She looked at me with a straight face and said, “Next time we’ll pass on the phlegm brulee”.
Our one serious disaster aside, we’ve done okay with the food.
Adios
Time to run now – we’ve got to prepare our next meal and get ready for tomorrow. I’m also feeling a bit queasy after writing about our “phlegm brulee”, so I think I’ll go take a few deep breaths and put my head between my knees.
I’m aiming to write roughly once a week, so till next week… Adios!