Jun 5

Jun 5 Graduation...Weekly Weight Update

The week started off with a bang. No, I mean literally started off with a bang. On Saturday night when Rizzo and I were on our way to our NextStop Theatre show a wire in our garage door snapped and the door came crashing down. The result was a door that wouldn't close and swung across the garage to bend the rail. The point of that was to tell you that I didn't go to work on Tuesday because the garage door guy was coming by to assess the situation and to hopefully repair the door.

The garage door guy was able to at least repair the door to the extent that it was in working order to get us through until we purchase and install a new door. That was good news and it gave me time to hit a different running route since I was off work for the day. I decided to take a ride on the W&OD Trail for a little under six miles. It felt great but it was a bit of a lapse in judgment because it was approximately 4000 degrees and 1600 percent humidity so going for a run in the middle of the day wasn't the best idea but at least I got in a good run.

Thursday was a traveling day as we were heading down to North Carolina for my brother-in-law's high school graduation. I didn't want to miss out on my Thursday workout and I knew we had a long ride ahead followed by festivities upon arrival so I made sure to get up early and get in my run/lift workout. It was nice to get it over with but it left me completely drained by the time we arrived in North Carolina. It was totally worth it to be able to spend time with the Rizzo family and congratulate Holden as he makes his way to college.

The worst thing about traveling and mini-vacations is eating like a glutton. I'm not going to lie and say I did great but I don't think I did too shabby while down in NC. I kept working out and I should probably mention that Rizzo and I started a new program where we have to run at least a mile everyday between Memorial Day and July 4th. It was a promotion that Rizzo found online but we decided to apply it to ourselves. This isn't a contest but just something we are doing so on Friday morning I got up and jogged a slow, but relaxing, mile in the North Carolina humidity.

Cece getting in some early morning swinging on Friday.

Rizzo family got Cece a Minnie Mouse "motorcycle" for her birthday. She loves it.

I also made sure to get in my long run on Saturday morning. It was steaming so I broke down during the last mile and walked a little bit but I still got in five miles. I looked like I just jumped in the ocean while fully clothed. Accordingly to my phone, which is a smart phone so it must be accurate, the heat index was 98 degrees at the end of my run. I'm convinced that I lost all the water my body contained before the run. I'm glad I did it but I felt completely drained the rest of the day.

I look way happier than I am in this picture. My shirt must weigh 87 lbs from all the sweat.

After some lunch and relaxing, Rizzo, Cece, and I had the chance to meet up with my very good friend Mark and his lovely family. We didn't have much time to hang out but I was glad that we could get together for just an hour and I know we will be able to hang out on our next trip to NC.

Saturday evening consisted of a BBQ with the family which was fun and relaxing. Nothing is quite as fun as sitting outside on a summer evening eating burgers while Cece gets to play in the kiddie pool. Although I didn't eat the best over the week, including this BBQ, we only ate out once and everything else was home cooked meals. I stayed on my workout routine and made positive choices which mean that any weight I put on this week should come off easily.

Non-Scale Victory

I knew that this week I wouldn't make the weekly weigh in since I'm visiting family for a graduation event. That didn't prevent me from finding a motivational tool to keep me going. In the summer of 2012, Rizzo and I paid a visit to our friends Brenn and Kevin in England. The four of us took a trip to Scotland to tour the countryside. I recently came across of picture of Kevin and me in front of a museum in Glasgow, Scotland. Both of us have changed a lot in the short amount of time. I've been working hard to lose weight and Kevin has been working hard to pack on the muscle for his upcoming fitness competition. Kevin was over at our house for a Memorial Day brunch (see the Make Me a Sandwich...Brunch Part I) so I thought it would be fun to recreate the picture to see the difference. It is like one of those pictures in Highlights magazine that you look through while waiting for your dentist appointment to try and find the differences.

The picture on the left is from 2012. The picture on the right is from 2016. Kevin's puffy vest makes it hard to see the difference but the guy has gone from skinny to built like brick shit-house. Just take a look at the biceps. He is cut. I, on the other hand, have gone from fat to slightly less fat (a little self-deprecation there). I'm proud of the difference a few years can make. Just look at the size of my face and chest in the 2012 picture. Holy cow was that guy big. I still feel like I have a long way to go but this comparison makes me feel good about how far I have come.

This week was a close race. A very close race for the Bring It On! challenge. Rizzo was busting her ass all week and was quickly approaching the single week record of 52 miles that she had set just last week. What I told her was that she wasn't the only one that was challenging her record. Each of us was keeping up and working hard and finding any little excuse we could to win for the week. At the end of the day I was able to pull it out with a weekly total of 50.9 miles to 47.2 miles. Good week, Rizzo, good week.

The month of May was nearly as close as the week. Going into the last three days of the month Rizzo held the lead by a single mile. It was clear that the winner this month would be just as a matter of timing. The three days left in the month at the beginning of the week included my long run and one of Rizzo's longer workouts. I was lucky and squeaked out a victory by a mere 2.2 miles with my mileage of 204.9 beating out Rizzo's 202.7 miles. We both met a new milestone of accumulating over 200 miles in a single month. The previous high for either one of us was 186.7 miles (which, of course, was #TeamClark). I'll be hitting up the Alamo Cinema and Drafthouse Tough Guy Cinema sometime this month. Of course, Rizzo is training for a 20K so now I'm going to get crushed again so I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

P.S. Just some bonus pictures that I didn't use in my brunch blog.