The road back to a lower BMI always includes peaks and valleys...

This is week two of being on the road to being healthier-- Good news and not-so-good news-- Good: The weighing/BMI scale is awesome, and I was able to squeeze in two 1-hr sessions last week for cycling on the trainer. Not-so-good: There's enough Holiday leftovers to feed the People's Republic of China :-/ We may need to rethink the food stockpile strategy for being World-War III ready.

Hello BMI Peak. Let's start the descent to a lower value, any time now ;)

Late-night weekday banter....

Good evening folks,

Looks like I'm still waiting for the remaining laundry so I can finish packing for tomorrow morning's trip, and a good time to update the blog.

Health and Exercise Updates:
Since spring is here and summer is fast approaching, charity and weekend exercise events are here! Since the last post of the tour de cure, I was able to complete the I Care Classic 65-mi ride through the hills of Morgan hill, the Bay-to-Breakers in San Francisco, and of course the walk down the street to the local safeway to get groceries. On the positive side, I'm now able to last up to ~ 13 miles jogging at a mild pace, cycling up to 80 miles, which are both personal bests. When the mindset back in 2007 was to quit smoking and get into shape, I didn't think I could achieve this. Wow. It's a great feeling and quite inspiring :)

As far as my health, I've been doing quite well. I eat breakfast on a daily weekday basis, that includes fresh fruit, cottage cheese, oatmeal, and an occasional hard boiled egg-- Lunch has also been kept to a mostly veggie-type of meal, with the occasional burger and outing here and there :)


Technical mumbo-jumbo:
I hate Acer with a passion. I picked up an Acer Aspire NAS awhile back, and didn't find out until after purchase that it did not support true raid-5-- it has a WHS version of "load balancing" which includes a proprietary method of balancing data distribution on the drives in a method called "folder duplication". Ummm yeah sure, that sounds reassuring. Just one question-- How in the heck would I be able to find files if one of the drives blew? Can we say, needle in a haystack? Anyway, so I was migrating data off the NAS when WHS decided to reboot because of an important windows update that needed to restart the system. I mean cmon.... right when I'm performing file copies?? two thumbs down for Windows Home Server (WHS). This sucker is going on craigslist as soon as I'm done.


Work / LIfe:
Vacations rock. Plain and simple. In the time I was working at my company almost 3 years ago, I have not taken vacation longer than 2-3 days. I also realized that I was throwing away days each year after not using them as we max out at a certain limit-- This year, for my health, sanity, and recreation, I have actually scheduled and taken vacation. I always told myself that one day I would love to travel, and this year I'm doing so -- North Carolina, Philippines, Switzerland, and hopefully Australia / New Zealand. Pictures speak a thousand words, and that is what I look to do when on vacation-- Enjoy the sights and sounds of foreign places and capture them in a photo :)

Also, when was the last time you were able to wake up early, watch the sunrise while jogging on a white-sand beach? :)

Tomorrow I'm off to vegas-- Talk to you later!

Tour de Cure 80-mile ride tomorrow! Woo hoo :)

Here we go! The ride for 80-miles tomorrow in beautiful Napa Valley!

Worldly Wanda Tour de Fremont, 60+ mile ride completed! Details here!

For my second year in support of a good cause, I signed up for the Worldly Wanda Tour de Fremont. Both supporting a non-profit group based locally in Fremont that helps promote gender equality, and allowing to ride a challenging path, Saturday was quite an event :) Sometimes it can be tough for some folks to be able to wake up early on a Saturday morning, cycle to Lake Elizabeth and being a beautiful journey Touring the Tri-City area and San Jose, however this brave soul did ;)

I met a lot of friendly folks along this journey, each one of us sharing a common goal-- To finish in one piece. All shapes, sizes and genders were participating in this event, and they even had events for the less crazy-- i.e. 4 mile, 10, 20, and 40 for those who are building up their endurance. One thing to note was their path this year was modified from last, which included less populated roads = good thing (last year I felt myself competing with the 4-wheeled, all-metal bumper cars)

All in all, it was a great tour, a wonderful test of my endurance, and a breathtaking view of the Bay Area during springtime-- What more can one ask for? It was an opportunity for one to find peace within themself, with the surroundings near them, and with the energy all around us-- It felt mutually satiating :)

After all that hard work and climbing up hills (which is another topic I would like to write about sometime in the future), the treat of fresh made, piping hot chili with cheese and onions was awaiting at the finish line, back at the start line.

This is something so wonderful to be a part of, physically rewarding, and beneficial for the local charity-- a win-win situation. Count me in for next year's 60-mile and beyond!!

PS: Here's the link for all the Garmin details (including my health stats and GPS map of the trail) located here:

Garmin Connect -Activity Details for Untitled

Post-Kirkwood thoughts

Good morning folks,

Just thought I'd share my experience from skiboarding yesterday at Kirkwood. If you're like me, skiing, snowboarding, skiboarding all take a toll on the legs. Most of the backside runs yesterday tied out my calves, hamstrings, and quads to the point past LT (lactate threshold) and basically had jelly legs.

In preparation of the remaining part of this season and into next year, I'm looking forward to build more leg endurance. Came across this site and thought I'd share:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/legpower.htm

It doesn't look easy; Then again nothing that is good for us ever is ;-)

For now, cardio, cycling, lunges, squats, and now one-legged pistols are chalked on the list of exercises to do.

We'll see how things progress...

Random thoughts....

It has been awhile since I posted anything significant on my blog-- Well go figure; I'm probably not the most exciting person to read about . Well I'm just an average joe who what some would call a 'late bloomer'. Yeah it took me forever and a day to figure things out, however, I know which direction I'm heading now, and its definitely no longer on the path of self-destruction. For those who may have known me for some time, I have battled some issues that I have finally ironed out and come to peace with :) For those who don't know me so well, I 'm on my path to keeping a basic lifestyle of health and happiness, and that first comes from within :)

f you ever come across me, just say hello, and we can start from there ;)

Exercise Day 2: Not too bad

(My last goal to aim for from Exercise Day 1 was:)
- 25:00 Running consistent @ 6mph (without cramping)
- 40:00 Total (with 10-min warm up and 5 min cool down)
- 500 kcals
- 3.0 Miles

What I actually did:

- Woke up early on a *Monday* to make it to work early enough to run (wooo hooo!!!)
- 20:00 Running consistent @ 6mph (without cramping, Yess!!!!)
- 40:00 Total (including 10-min warm up and 10 min cool down)
- 467 kcals
- 2.9 Miles total

How I feel: Great!!

Exercise Day 1: Beginner's "almost" 5k

Good morning folks,

I was able to get up early this morning to exercise before work. Usually I post this on facebook, however due to the amount of teasing and probably posting spam, I have decided to post all my exercise stuff on here. Usually I try to collect as much information as I can, as the geek that I am likes to make working out "fun"-- i.e. collecting stats and making graphs and visually seeing my progress from barcharts and what not-- (It's a lot more exciting than looking in the mirror and weighing scale :P)

Here's today's stats:

- N0-HR monitor (HR chest-strap needs a new CR2032 battery, hello $20 markup from Radio Shack)
- 36:10 (including 10-min warmup and 5 min cool down, with another 10 min-post stretch)
- 16:10 Running consistent @ 6mph (without cramping! Yaaaay!)
- 443 kcals burned (calculated at 223lbs exercise weight)
- 2.76 Miles covered.

Goal for tomorrow:

- 40:00 (including 10-min warmup and 5 min cooldown)
- 25:00 Running consistent @ 6mph (without cramping)
- 500 kcals
- 3.0 Miles