184 – finally!

No, I didn’t get my weight down to 184 (thankfully I’m not even close to that).

And It doesn’t have to do with watts, ftp,lt,abc, 123, whatever those letters and numbers are, (although I’d love to be able to hold 184 watts for a half im!).

It’s pretty close to my max hr – although I haven’t seen that number on my hr monitor in decades, but that's not it either.

It’s my latest cholesterol number. For years, I’ve hovered in the 220 range, and I try to eat healthy, and cut way back on ice cream and other fatty treats. But it never varied much. I just had another check, and it was 184! I don’t know what has changed, in the last year I did switch from 2%milk to 1%milk, and I drink quite a bit of milk. My good cholesterol is good, my bad cholesterol is bad – isn’t everyone’s, I mean, how can bad cholesterol be good ;-)

So, all is good on the health front. I just realized that since I started training with Jen in November (after getting over some crazy entrapped nerve in my leg), I have had no injuries! (knocking on wood right now). I really think it has everything to do with the perfect balance she aims for in every week of workouts. Thanks Jen! And my latest push to improve my nutrition is going well. I’m on week 3, and have not fallen off the wagon. I’m weighing in only once every other week, so we’ll see if I knock off another pound or 2 at the next weigh-in.

I’m at the end of a 3week block of training, feeling a little tired, but not bad. Tired of cleaning bikes after riding in the rain though! Last night it downpoured in the middle of hill repeats on the bike. Gotta love the sting of rain drops (pellets) pelting you as you scream down a hill. And the day before my entire run was in heavy rain, enough to make my shorts so heavy they kept falling down! And guess what? it’s raining now, and rain is in the forecast for the next bazillion days. Ahhhhhhh, I love spring. At least its not cold anymore.

Lately I’ve been thinking I want to try ironman again. I’ve been thinking this for years now, and always back out. I only want to do it when I’m ready to be very positive about the training, and ready to train to set myself up for the best race possible. I probably need someone to talk me out of it. I really don’t mind the hours on the bike. I love riding my bikes more than I like to swim and run. It would mean less time on my mountain bike though, which I absolutely love to ride, and would miss. And it means long runs, and I seem to start to struggle past 2 hours on training runs (I think that is my brain struggling more than my body). And longer swims (ick, more freestyle). But other than that, maybe I’m ready!

So, ironman is at least a year off, if I decide to do one, since you have to sign up so far in advance (I hate that). So for now, I have my first xterra race in May - MidWest Cup race in Michigan –quailifer for Maui World Champs – I bet it will be cold and wet – we are talking Michigan in May after all! And I’ve been on my mountain bike all of two times this spring! Woohoo. But its ok, I will get a few more rides, and the course is not technical, and my fitness will be good, and I will be ready! Then Kansas 70.3 in June! I am ready to race again.

Happy rainy Thursday. I’m sure someone out there is seeing sunshine now!