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216.8! That’s what it said on the scale this morning. A gain of .8

Not bad considering how bad I thought it was going to be.

I’m sure the big run I made yesterday helped.

I am in training  for my first 10K and yesterday I completed my first 5 mile run. I made it in 46 minutes on the treadmill. It was also my first speed work workout. I burned nearly 900 calories during the run and probably sweated out 4 gallons of water.

This Sunday is supposed to be my first 6-mile run. Even two months ago 6-miles would have seemed impossible to me…now it just seems scary, but doable. It’s not going to be fast, but I plan on finishing.

Wish me luck.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
08/14 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

…and a new Personal Record!

I beat my previous 5K best by 32 seconds. My official time was 26:23, but by my watch it was 26:20!

And that new PR was set on the worlds hilliest 5K course* the day after I was attacked by a goat!

That’s right attacked by a goat.

We took the girls to the Zoo on Saturday and I got caught in the middle of a goat feeding frenzy inside the petting Zoo.

While I was holding my daughter Ellie, a giant goat jumped up onto my chest to get at the food I was holding. The goat knocked me backwards into a little kid (real kid, not goat kid) which caused me to trip and go down hard against the fence.

Thank goodness Ellie was OK.

I got some pretty good cuts on my knee, elbow and hand…and ended up with one black-n-blue and very sore big toe. All of which makes my new personal 5K record even more impressive…at least in my mind.

All-in-all a pretty eventful weekend!

Tony
08/11 216 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8 lbs. to go

*Technically, I am sure this course was not the hilliest 5K course in the world…although it was extremely hilly…By far the hilliest 5K I have ever run.

The hilliest race course in the world may be the The Volcano Challenge in New Zealand in which racers are required to run up to the top of 5 of Auckland’s Volcanoes.

Andrew over at Andrew Is Getting Fit did the race this weekend and I am seriously jealous…not so much of the running up hills but of the breathtaking views he had along the way. Check out his race report.

216! That’s what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 1.4 pounds!

It feels like I am finally getting back on track.
The other big news this week is 10K training. I officially started my 10k training on Tues. and I am realizing this is going to be a great challenge. I think the 10K itself will come a lot easier than I thought. Don’t get me wrong a lot easier than I thought is still a lot of hard work… but it is not impossible work, which is what my initial impression was.

There are parts of the training though that look like they are going to be killers. Some of the speed work has me a little nervous and the long runs actually stretch out to 9-miles towards the end of the training! That is a lot farther than I ever expected to run in my life.

You can see the whole training schedule here.

I had a great training day yesterday. I ran 4 miles in 37 minutes! As part of that run I ran 3.16 miles in 27:15. A pace right around 8:30/Mile. That is the fastest I have done a 5K in a long time.

Which hopefully bodes well for my 5K race on Sunday. My best official time in a race so far is 26:55. I am secretly hoping to beat that time this weekend. I haven’t been training for speed or distance these last few months so beating my time is a long shot, but yesterdays run gives me hope.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Tony
08/7 216 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8 lbs. to go

After my first race two weeks ago, Rick encouraged me to clog up the server with my long winded race recap and some photos of the race. So here you go Rick, this post’s for you!

This Sunday I completed my second Triathlon and I am proud to report it was another huge success.

This course was a much tougher course than my first Tri. It was a little longer and a lot of the bike and half the run were up hill, so while my time is 11 minutes slower than my first race, it is 5 minutes faster than what I thought I would be able to do. I am really proud and a little amazed at how well I did this weekend.

Here are the results:

Total Time: 1:15:39

Overall Place 173/ 386
Gender Place 103 / 177
Division Place 16 / 26
Swim time 12:19
Swim pace 2:06/100 Yards
Swim place 111
Bike time 34:54
Bike mph 17.7
Bike place 180
Run time 23:19
Run pace 9:20
Run place 244

Since the courses are so different, the easiest way to compare this race to my first race is based on ranking and pace data.

My swim pace was only 6 seconds slower. Not bad considering I only swam once since my last race and I started right at the front of the pack. I spent most of the race getting swam over or swimming over other people. It was a whole different experience than the first race.

My bike pace was way slower, but I knew that would be the case with all the hills. Amazingly I kept up a 19MPH Average for the first 6.5 miles. Then I hit the really big hills.

Here is the real shocker, despite using up so much energy busting hills on my bike and having to run half the course uphill, I managed to shave 16 seconds a mile off of my run pace! Woo-Hoo! That may be the biggest accomplishment of all from this race.

I am also really happy to see that I finished in about the same place in my age group and in the overall male rankings for both races, which says to me I wasn’t the only one slowed down by those hills.

And here are the pictures.

Just finishing the swim.

The start of the bike. Time lapse style.
I am so glad I drove the course the night before so I knew what I was in for. It would have been a rude shock to get out there with all those hills and not be mentally prepared for it.





Nearing the bike finish. This picture makes me look a lot more relaxed than I was. My legs were burning!!!

Starting the Run…Time Lapse Style.
Laura told me after the race that the look on my face at this point made it look like I was hurting…and I was. It could also be a little fear looking at the hill I had to climb. It was 1/2 mile of straight gradual incline and you could see it the whole way.







Sprinting for the finish line.
After the turn at the top of the hill, I managed to settle into a great pace. Going down hill helped I am sure. I felt really good coming into the chute. I was hurting but not nearly as much as I had been in my first race. As always my loving family was there to give me the encourgment I needed to kick in the extra speed right at the end.





Hanging out with my number one motivation!
After both races all three of my girls have rushed to congratulate me. That part of the race is even better than crossing the finish line. It will live as one of my most cherished memories.

There is a pretty good chance this was my last Triathlon for the season, and I am surprised at how sad that makes me. But I have lots more 5K and 10K races before the snow starts falling and I plan to do plenty more Tri’s in the coming years.

Tony
08/4 217.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9.4 lbs. to go

217.4! That is what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 1.4 pounds.

A perfect loss for a pre-race week. I’ll need plenty of energy on Sunday so I would not have wanted to starve myself for a huge loss this week. I guess that goes for any week really.

I am doing my second Triathlon this Sunday, and I am pretty nervous. I don’t feel as ready as I did the week before my first race. I’m afraid that the fire to do great isn’t burning as strong since I’ve done it once. I think some of that is a fear that I won’t be able to do as well no matter how hard I try. I have to get in the right frame of mind!

I am sure the race day atmosphere will help amp me up!

Have a great weekend everybody! Wish me luck!
Tony
08/1 217.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
9.4 lbs. to go

218.8. That’s what it said on the scale this morning. A gain of 2.4 pounds.

Instead of wallowing in self pity. I got up and road my bike to work, despite wet, dirty roads and a threat of torrential downpour.

I got drenched, I got muddy, I got lost and I was late for work and yet it was the best decision I could have made.

It is amazing to me how fast I can start to feel like I am out of shape.

Last week I achieved my greatest physical triumph ever, yesterday I felt like a 300 pound couch potato. I know it’s mostly mental. Which means I need to do some serious mental and physical training in the next 5 days since I have singed up for another sprint triathlon a week from this coming Sunday.

Have a great weekend everybody.

Tony
07/24 218.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
10.8 lbs. to go

What an awesome experience!

There is no other way to describe the weekend. It was absolutely awesome. Everything I wanted and hoped it would be.

First the big news. I finished! But we all knew I was going to do that. I did way better than finish, I blew all of my expectations out of the water.

Here are the results:

Total Time: 1:04:30

Overall Place    148 / 388
Gender Place    99 / 180
Division Place    21 / 33
Swim time    8:39
Swim pace    1:58/100 Yards
Swim place    67
Bike time    27:11
Bike mph    19.9
Bike place    137
Run time    23:58
Run pace    9:36
Run place    226

I don’t want to bog down Fatbloggers servers with tons of video and photos, so if you are intrested in more details about my first ever triathlon check in over at Guess How Much I Weigh later today or tomorrow. I’ll get up the full race report as soon as I can.
Tony

216.4!!! That’s what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 1.8 pounds.

I have to say it was really nice two see a good size loss on the scale this morning after two weeks of gains.

As some of you know I have been training pretty hard for a triathlon, which is finally happening this week.

Thanks to all of you who have continued to encourage me with your supportive posts both here and over at Guess How Much I Weigh.

While I have been concentrating so hard on my workouts, I have let my weight loss efforts slip a little.

You’d think working out so hard would naturally result in lossing weight. What working out really does is make me hungry, which leads to not alwasy the best food choice. I worked really hard to combat that hunger with healthier options this week. And it looks like it payed off.

So my big race is just two days away. By this time on Sunday, I will officially be a triathlete…baring any major disasters.

I am feeling very confident about the race. I was pretty nervous going into this week, but I have had some great workouts and now I am very confident that I will be able to finish the race in my goal time of 1 hour and 20 minutes.

I am still nervous, but I am confidently nervous.

Expect a full race report first thing Monday morning.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Tony
07/18 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 lbs. to go

Sorry I have missed a couple of weigh-ins. I have been swamped at work. I’ve also been doing a lot of yo-yoing in the weight department. I keep losing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over again.

Obviously that is not what I am celerbating.

This weekend I made a running milestone that I have been working towards for a few weeks…and then I made another running milestone today…and this is one that I have been working at since March.

Milestone Number 1:

In training for my Triathlon (which is only 3 weeks away), I have started doing “Bricks”. Bricks are two workouts done back-to-back, in my case biking 9 miles then running 2.5. Only problem is I haven’t been able to make it past 2 miles on the run…until this weekend. On Sunday I went out for a workout with some friends and manged to do a 15 mile bike ride followed by a 2.7 mile run.

Milestone Number 2:

Today I managed my first 4 mile run. Usually I die right about 3.5 miles and have to walk for a few minutes before I can start running again. Today I finally broke through that plateau and managed to run 4.07 miles in 37:30.

While my weight loss may have slowed to a trickle, I am finding some seriously renewed energy in my workouts and that has me really excited, becasue in the long run all these goals are working toward the same thing, a healthy me.

Tony
06/30 216.8 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.8 lbs. to go

216.4! That is what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 3.6 pounds!

I’d say that is a good way to end a great year

A quick recap of my awesome year.

I started this journey on June 10th 2007. On that day I weighed 280. 1 year later I have lost 63.6 pounds.

My heaviest weight ever was 288. From that I have lost 71.6 pounds.

I am only 3.6 pounds above my lowest weight of 213.

In the past year I have started running.
For the first time in my life I can run more than three miles.
I completed a 5k race in under 27 minutes.
I swam a mile.
I have taken up biking.
I have started strength training.
I have developed muscles.
The clothes in my closet have shrunk from XXL to L.
I can waterski again.
My back no longer hurts.
I have stopped snoring.
I have stopped wheezing when I walk up stairs.

And…I have made some amazing friends.

I am really proud of the things I have been able to accomplish this year. I owe a lot of my success to the friends I have have made here. Thank you guys so much for all the advice and encouragement and support.

I have struggled a little bit in the past few months. The closer I get to my final goal, the harder it gets to keep putting up losses, but my journey is far from over. I still have a lot of goals I want to accomplish before I rest.
The triathlon is coming up.
I am still trying to get to 208.
I want to take my running to the next level.
I want to work on toning my body.

For fans of the white t-shirt, click on the pic to see every white T weigh-in photo from this year, all in one image.

1 year down, 70 more to go!

Tony
06/12: 216.4 lbs
NEW GOAL: 208
8.4 lbs. to go