Preparedness meets opportunity

Now I am really starting to wonder what the heck did I get myself into?? The old saying about preparedness meeting opportunity comes to mind.  Am I really prepared enough? Will I make out OK? What the heck is going to happen? Tomorrow I will get a “taste” of things to come.

May 17th was our Relay for Life event in East Hartford. I want to thank everyone who supported us for this event. It may have been with a donation, a prayer or even just a thoughtful email wishing us luck. Believe me ALL of the support is truly awesome. We really are blessed with everyone in our life.

Many, many people take time out of their busy life to wish us well and send us hope and prayers. I hope you all know how much we appreciate our support group. I wish there was more we could do for each one of you..? Please know we keep you all in our thoughts and prayers as well.

Tammy and I met our fund raising goal ($1,000.00) for the Relay. Again, thanks to all of you! The team I am a part of (UTAS) achieved [beat] our goal as well! Overall the East Hartford Relay raised over $290,000.00 – thanks to everyone!

We had a great day with awesome people and look forward to it again next year.

Shout out – Congrats to Jessy and Tarik on completing the Tough Mudder Relay this past weekend. You guys ROCK!

Only one week away to my first triathlon. Tomorrow (June 3rd) we get to visit the course and go over the particulars for next week. I have trained quite a bit but still feel I could have done more. We will see when I get to run through the individual courses and determine my plan for the actual event.

Over the past few weeks I have accomplished quite a bit. I have started to get a good tempo with swimming. I am actually able to breathe while swimming with a lot more comfort. We will need to see if I can keep it up for the complete course.  Still have a few more muscle memory exercises to do this week. Really looking forward to this part of the challenge!

Biking is my best sport of the three. I am able to ride pretty well even on the old 10 speed clunker I will be riding. I tried to change the pedals to my “clips” that I have from my racing bike, the threads are not the right size. I will need to keep the older style pedals on for now. The hardest part of biking is the seat. For some reason, I don’t remember the seat feeling this uncomfortable? May need to stand up a lot..  🙂

Running is the area where I needed to really focus. Right now this is the weakest link and the last of the three events. Being heavy still it is a lot of pressure on my knees.  [The main reason I didn’t want to start running until I was under 200 pounds.]

Today was the first day of running (ok jogging) fully for the entire time ~35 minutes and 2 1/2 miles. This is still a bit away from jogging a 5K AFTER doing a 1/4 mile swim and an 8K bike ride through trails. )

Fitness update:

I missed my last “official” weigh in due to the holiday weekend. I made my appointment for Friday and totally spaced. I was all set to head down on Saturday, then realized on Friday night I had missed my appointment. I am still keeping track at home, so I know where I am at.

Latest is:
Weight: 195
Total Loss: 63 pounds
Total left to lose: 20 pounds

YES! down to the last 20 pounds to go. Woo Hoo! This has been quite a challenge.
I really need to focus on the “big picture” as I am hitting another plateau. The past month I have gone up and down 4 – 5 pounds consistently. I know when I slack off what happens and am able to adjust. It is just really hard to stay on such a low calorie diet while trying to exercise even more? I will need to keep focused on my training plan and my meal plan throughout.

One of the key items missing is weight lifting. Since changing my training focus on swimming, biking and jogging I have not had time to lift weights. Yes, not having time is simply a change of priority (we all have 24 hours a day) and there is just so much I can do.

Once I get the first round done with the triathlon I will adjust my training schedule and re-add the weights. I know this will make a key difference in the remainder of my weight loss.

Getting past this next goal will allow me yet another opportunity to prepare for another great opportunity!

Peace and Love,
-Dennis (Tammy too!)