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5 days until I get to swim for almost a mile, ride my bike for about 25 miles and run 6 miles, all after one another!!

I’m really excited about all this. For the last week I’ve been waking up from my sleep with thoughts related to the event on Sunday: Do I have everything on my checklist? Am I going to be in shape enough to not bonk half-way through? Am I going to make it to the venue on time? Thankfully, I’m feeling pretty well prepared, so I can answer: Yes, I have everything; no, I’m not going to bonk in the middle of it; and maybe, but who cares if an old lady passes me.

I’m sure I could have trained harder and longer, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done, so I’m not regretting anything. The hardest part of all the training has been the time juggling, because time I spent sweating was time I spent away from Kelly.
Regardless, she’s been super supportive and encouraging, and I couldn’t have gotten to where I am if it wasn’t for her.

She’s so awesome that she’ll be traveling all the way to Silicon Valley with me (a total of about 8 hours traveling, round-trip) just to see me get in a wetsuit, disappear for about 45 minutes, get on my bike, disappear for an hour or more, come back to leave the bike and disappear for another hour, while I run. Triathlons are not a very good spectator sport (unless it’s on TV!), so I’ll be owing Kelly a big one for being there for me.
But in truth, I’m very excited that she’ll be there, even if I’ll only see her for a few minutes while the race is actually on. I’m sure that seeing her as I go through my transitions will give me a much needed morale boost, and knowing that she’s waiting for me at the finish line will make me want to finish faster!

I really had no idea where this blog post was going to go, but I wanted to mention how excited I am about what’s in store for me this coming Sunday, and to also give a shout-out to my BB for being so wonderful.

Wish me luck! I’ll post results and stories after Sunday.

Welp, it’s finally over. This whole fitness challenge thing has come to an end, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job for myself.

The official results from the final DEXA scan:

You can see the results of both scans, the one in March and the one in May. (if you’re wondering about the Android/Gynoid ratio like I once was, read here: http://www.answers.com/topic/gynoid-fat-distribution). I lost 7.9 pounds and my body fat level went down to 14.8%. That’s well past my goal of reaching 18%, and evidently reason enough for me to win the challenge at work! I’m now $250 richer, and I have my membership to 24-hour fitness paid for a full year.

Training for my first Olympic-length triathlon has definitely helped in getting fitter. I’ve swam twice a week for the last 3 months, and it’s my biggest indicator of how much more fit I am. When I started, I would get winded after swimming 4 laps; this week I was able to swim 50 laps non-stop on Tuesday, and two sets of two sets of 30 laps on Thursday!
On top of that, I’ve been running a bit, and riding my bike another bit.

However, I think the biggest impact was that of my diet. I’ve always been a believer that it’s not about what you eat, but about how you burn it… but this time around I tried it the other way around, and while I certainly exercised a lot, I’ve been a nutrition nazi, and watched what I ate meticulously. Kelly even endearingly called me “anorexic” a few times as I passed up things that I’ve always loved: potatoes, pizza, donuts, ice-cream. I basically stuck to a diet low in carbohydrates, and it seemed to help shed the fat while giving plenty of nutrition for lean mass development.

Blah, blah, blah, I could write about stuff you can read about anywhere if you were so inclined, so I won’t. However, since one of my motivation was from looking at before/after pictures from real people that committed to fitness, here’s my little evidence:

Before and after

If you remember, I did a Sprint Triathlon last year, and I loved it. Since I won’t be able to make it to this year’s edition of the Pyramid Lake triathlon (I’ll be honeymooning in Australia and Fiji), I’ve decided to instead take part of another tri… and because I think being exhausted is fun, I’m doing a longer distance one, an Olympic distance one!

The event of choice is the Silicon Valley International Triathlon, which will be just south of San Jose in Californi on June 13th (just a month and a half from now!). Kelly and I will make a weekend-trip out of the thing, but Sunday morning I’ll be sweating amongst hundreds of other people.

The event consists of:

• 1500 meter swim. This is almost a mile!
• 24.9 miles (40 Kilometers) on the bike.
• 6.2 miles running – a full 10k.

Now, I’ve got a goal time to finish in. Considering that I finished the sprint Tri of last year in 1 hour and 41 minutes and all of the following things…

• The Olympic/International distance is double the distance of a Sprint.
• I have a better bike!
• I weigh at least 15lbs less than last year.
• I’ve been swimming at least once a week, and will continue to do so to be ready for this race.
• I’ll have a wetsuit, either borrowed or rented, but some buoyancy help for sure!
• The race is at sea level, which should give me a small oxygen advantage.
• The longer distance means that I’ll be going slower, so as to not burn out.
• I haven’t been running as much as last year.

My realistic goal time is then exactly the double of the sprint: 3 hours and 20 minutes. But I’ll be pushing myself to finish in under 3 hours. I think it’s doable, and I’m going to be training hard to try to make it happen.

If anything, all the training I’m doing will help me accomplish my goals of being in shape and looking good for the summer!