GLF: Cross is coming – Finale

The end of summer was smokey. But seemingly overnight that went away and it was time for cyclocross. I raced the full season last year. It was super fun even though I took dead last every race. Being a lot lighter and in better shape in general, I was hopeful things would be a bit better this season.

The first race I rode pretty tentatively. Skinny tires and drop bars don’t instill the most confidence in me and riding in a pack is not something I’m used to. I was content to just knock the rust off near the back of the pack for a few laps before I kicked it up a notch and finished at the back of the mid-pack.

What a difference a year makes, hunh?

Next race was more of the same. I found some folks that were near my pace and started pushing myself a bit. Cross was always fun but, when you have people you are actually competing against it’s even better. While I was pushing myself, each week was also like a big group ride with people I like. That made the hard efforts a little bit easier when you’d have friends cheering you on and vice versa on the course. Plus, I had that awesome little cheerleader waiting for me at the end.

In between races I managed to continue to do some trail running and various random rides. I’d never explored Waterworks Hill but, quickly found that it makes a great place for some cross training.

Also, managed to get up Sentinel and enjoy the views.

I was not looking forward to the races at the Ranch Club, to be honest. Last year, they had some little “features” like riding skinnies over sand traps and a small drop. That on top of the energy sucking grass just made for an unusual race setting. This year, the grass was still a soul sicker but the features were a bit more in line with a traditional cross style setting. I was still satisfied to slow pedal the first few laps until another racer who I was starting to think of as my nemesis passed me up. I put the hammer down after that to make sure I finished ahead of them.

In between cross races, Dan, Chad, and I had the great idea to do a night time century ride down to Hamilton and back. The wind was pretty brutal at times but it was an awesome spin. Going to make it happen more than once next year for sure.

The occasional mountain bike ride and run with the kid were still happening. Bear spray season for the mtb rides!

One thing I haven’t really mentioned in any of these, at least from what I recall, is that I have been bike commuting throughout this entire weight loss journey. I obviously did a lot before but, I sold my truck back in February and we’ve been a one vehicle family since. Rain, wind, sun, and snow I’ve been on the bike. 5ish miles a day doesn’t sound like much but, it’s a big contributor to staying active on days when you’re otherwise feeling lazy. Plus, nice days like one pictured below more than make up for any cruddy days…

The cross season culminated with a Wednesday race at Big Sky Brewing and then Rolling Thunder. I didn’t have my best race of the season on Wednesday. I’d been a bit sick the week before and just wasn’t 100% but, the venue was awesome and it was still a fun race. I was feeling fine by Thunder though and left it all on the course in not only the CAT4 race but the Single Speed race thanks a strategic zip tie on the shifter.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present. I took a week off from riding and have been getting back into it, mostly on the fat bike.

I was surprised a few weeks bag with an invitation to pledge as a new member in the Rattlesnake 1000 group I’d mentioned awhile back. No, I wasn’t kissing ass when I wrote those thank yous. I genuinely was motivated by those folks and was super honored that they’d let me ride with them next year. I got out with one group ride with a couple of them last weekend and it was great. Minus me getting a flat that is…

We even found a runaway dog and got it returned to its owners.

I realize this turned into a bit more about biking than how I lost weight but, that’s how I lost weight! Be active, eat right. We all know how to take care of ourselves, it’s just not always easy to do the “right” thing. I switched my LoseIt! app over to “Maintain” for my calorie settings and actually lost another 4 pounds or so.

I’m pretty happy with where I’m at weight wise. I’d still like to get the body fat % down a bit by getting the muscle mass up a bit! That will require some further changes and a renewed dedication to “self care”. Being a part of the R1K will keep me motivated on the bike. But, I’ll be setting some personal goals so that when I do lapse, it’s not a setback but rather just a step along the way.

When I started writing these I really didn’t expect to get any sort of response. But, overwhelmingly people have been awesome. Both in public forums and in private messages and texts I’ve gotten. Thanks a ton to the folks who’ve said I’ve motivated or inspired them. That keeps me pushing to stay on track. And if I can help in anyway, feel free to contact me. How I can help, we’ll I guess we’d figure that out! But I know how hard making these changes can be and how helpful even some gentle encouragement can be.

To everyone that waited patiently for me to write these and the followed along, thanks! I am a vain creature and I’m sure the attention motivated me more than a little bit to keep after it.

And one last big thank you to Shannon. Love ya honey!

I’ve been asked by a couple people if I’m going to keep this blog up after finishing this series. Absolutely. I’m gonna take a little time to figure out how I want to do it. Covering this giant period of time was more than a bit challenging at times and I found it easy to procrastinate, especially towards the end here. I know I want to keep talking about biking and other stuff I’m interested in but, I also think people will mostly be interested in posts about how I’m keeping the weight off so, those will be the ones I share to the FB.

Thanks everyone. Hope you enjoyed this or found some motivation somewhere in there.

See you in the next one!

Quick Bonus Thank Yous

I went back and hacked my other story thinking I’d already thanked one last group of people but, turns out I didn’t so, sorry here is one more set of thank yous real quick.

Who could forget about The Cycling House? They put on excellent events, they lead beautiful rides, and then they post amazing photos of said rides. Often ones in places much warmer than where I am when lookin at them. Two people in particular pushed me on the bike through kind words and just being examples of genuinely nice people.

I started to get to know Shaun a bit better during the 2016 cyclocross season. I took dead last in almost every race but, whether it was while he was passing me on course or when he saw me in the shop, he had words of encouragement to keep after it.

When I was in the running club I found that fast fit people can be as demotivating as they can inspiring. It’s all in how they approach and encourage people. Shaun is one of the good ones. Just happy to see me out there giving it my best, complementing improvements be noticed, noticing improvements in the first place! And, he’s got kids and still finds time to ride. As a new parent seeing other parents still able to do the things they love was extremely important to my mental well being. Congrats on a great season, Shaun. And thanks for the words of encouragement and leading by example!

Now we get to last but certainly not least ( I’m sure I’ll realize I’ve “forgotten” someone else and have to do another one of these but I digress)

Cory is probably one of if not the nicest person in the Missoula cycling scene. I got to know Cory mostly through coming in to the shop. We tell new hires, if we aren’t making fun of you we probably don’t like you that much. Well, we constantly joked with Cory and poked fun and he took it all in stride. Out on the race course he’s just gotten faster and faster and he’s done it through tremendous effort. He’s also managed to do it while working (thanks Competitive Timing!) as the timing crew for seemingly every event in Montana. Always quick to encourage and like Shaun, he notices improvement and takes the time to compliment. During this years season when he complimented my improved times over last year, that gave a little boost to the ego that someone had looked at the data to back up that I’d been working hard. And when the nicest guy I know complimented my positive attitude on the race course one week? Well, being complimented on losing weight is one thing, having someone notice my attempts to be a nicer human being? That meant a lot, especially coming from someone as nice as this guy.

#WhoIsCoryKaufman? He’s a damn nice guy and an inspiration to a person trying to be a little more fit and a lot less cranky. Thanks Cory.

Ok, that’s it for thank yous (for now). Thanks for reading, again!

Photos belong to them, I again stole them through screen shots. Hope that’s ok!

Thank you notes and my use of the word “fat”

This is probably opening up a can of worms but, I feel I need to address, at least a little, my use of the word “fat”. I’ll do my best to keep it brief and if you dgaf about this kinda thing you can scroll down until you see pics and that’s when the thank you notes start.

I have been a large human being for most of my adult life. I was not a heavy child really. I played basketball, dabbled in football, got into paintball in middle school, basically did active things. I was just, big. High school, I played some football and paintball, then I got a drivers license. Then I got a job and decided I liked money more than sports and quit wrestling, football, etc after my sophomore year. I continued to eat, however, as though I was still playing those sports. Consequently, I became “fat” for the first time in my life as a junior. It turns out, if you go out to eat every single day for lunch, and eat at China Buffet and various other restaurants on the weekends you can really pack on some pounds.

My senior year in high school, I lost all the weight over the course of about 4 months. It was insanely unhealthy. A friend that was a grade ahead of me graduated and joined the military so my lunch buddy was gone. My solution was to just not eat lunch. The aforementioned job was working at a Subway. That diet that the fat pedophile Jared was on? Yeah, I did that shit several years before him. I went from about 260 to 180 simply skipping lunch and eating 6″ subway sandwiches.

The climb back towards the mid 200’s was slow and steady. As my 20’s progressed I discovered alcohol. My metabolism slowed, my caloric intake increased, I got heavy again. This began a long period of fluctuation.

That brings us up to now. I’ve called this blog series “Getting less fat”. People are sensitive about that term. Fat shaming is a thing. Positive body image is a thing. Unrealistic expectations, especially for women, are a thing. If I’ve offended anyone in anyway by calling myself fat, I’m sorry. That’s never been my intention.

Everyone deals with life in their own way. I’ve always been a pretty self deprecating person. It’s an easy way to make a joke and it steals the thunder from anyone else who’d like to poke fun at your short comings by doing it first. I could probably write an entire series of blogs about my own body image/self esteem/etc issues and what me making fun or bullying myself means. But the bottom line is this, I was fat. I didn’t carry extra weight because of bad genes or slow metabolism or any of those reasons. I ate far more than any normal person should. And I ate garbage. And I didn’t exercise enough. And my use of the term fat is talking about me and me alone. Someone else my size, build, whatever may be perfectly healthy at any of the weights I’ve been in the past 9 months. I was not. I. Was. Fat.

That said, I know that some folks can have a hard time dealing with their own shit when other people out there do so in a negative manner. So while many folks have told me this blog is inspiring, I want to tell anyone out there who it has NOT been inspiring to, I’m sorry. This blog ultimately has been an outlet for me to deal with my problems. I’ve touched on the fact that weight is only one of the visible ones but, know that I struggle with the expectations, both self imposed and what the outside world thinks I should look like. It doesn’t make it ok but, hopefully you can realize that this is just my way of dealing and I mean no harm with my word choice.

Alright, let’s move on to some quick thank yous…

This is Dan. He’s been coming into the shop for a few years now. I rode with him a few times on Monday Rides. This year, we started riding together a bit outside that setting. Aside from being a super smart scientist dude, Dan is an animal on the bike. He went through a weight loss transformation of his own over the past few years and that was certainly an inspiration on my journey. On the bike, he always seems to have a smile on his face, he’s down to try all different forms of riding, and when you ride with people that are just plain stronger than you it pushes you to ride harder. He’s currently crushing miles on Zwift but, I’m hopefully he’ll come out and bury me a time or two on the fatbike this winter. Thanks for being awesome, Dan. Can’t wait to log miles with you next year and watch you crush the Men’s B cross field from the back of the pack!

I could write countless posts about folks like Dan and the people I talked about in my other blog. But I’ll wrap it up with a bike club that motivated me to get out and get after it on more than one occasion this year.

If you’ve seen some crazy Oakley’s or dudes lifting weights in Zubaz or some butt cheeks hanging out at Overlook this year, you know the Rattlesnake 1000 crew. It’s a group of folks who just like to get out and get after it on the bike and know that cycling shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Three members of the group in particular motivated me on a regular basis.

Mike, like Dan, has been coming to the shop for years now.

He’s one of those dudes that just gets ‘it’ about bikes. Always cheerful, even when he had broken parts needing to be fixed. Always appreciative of our efforts. And always too generous with beer tips! As a rider, he was out crushing miles on his fatbike on sloppy, cold, gross days where I didn’t even want to commute, let alone go ride. And when time was apparently short for him, he still got out and used what time he had to the fullest. Dude was an inspiration to just get after it all year long.

Willy apparently rediscovered his love of biking this year and just flat got after it.

While his love of music is pretty awesome in its own way, his crushing of miles this year was what inspired me to throw a leg over the bike. I remember seeing a ride he did down Lookout Pass thinking, “my god he’s a crazy person, that’s awesome!” Any time I saw him on the bike, be it at the Hell Ride or post RATPOD he always had a kind word to say. And like with Mike, seeing him use small windows of opportunity to their fullest was motivation to do the same.

And last, but never least, Jason.

Following him on Strava was probably one of the best things I did for my motivation. If the sun rose, Jason seemed to be riding. Big rides too! To PBurg via Hamilton, to Hamilton and back crazy early in the morning, when it was blazing hot out, Hell Ride, the Roubaix, RATPOD, the Trail series, it seemed like there was not an organized ride happening that he wasn’t part of and if an organized ride wasn’t happening he was out getting it solo. And let me be clear, he’s not one of these waifish little cyclist stereotypes. He could crush miles then crush his enemies and see them driven before him. As a large fella, seeing other large dudes live a healthy active lifestyle was huge.

I could go on and on about the various people that motivated and inspired me over this journey. Hopefully, I’ll be better about letting people know going forward instead of having to write these blog posts and hoping they’ll see it. I’ve got one left in the “Getting less fat” series. It’ll bring us up to present day and then, hopefully I’ll keep writing about how I’m staying fit and what that takes.

To all the folks I’ve mentioned in these posts, thank you. Sincerely. While I did get where I am through my own efforts, your encouragement and inspiration made it a hell of a lot easier.

Thanks for reading everyone. See you in the last chapter sometime in the next few days!

*First photo is mine, others were stolen via very low tech means(screen shot) from the folks I mentioned. Hope they don’t mind.

GLF Part 5: RATPOD and the short summer

When I started at the shop I was into mountain bikes and fatbikes. Road bikes were the realm of skinny, fast people and I knew nothing about them. Fast forward a few years and I decided I wanted a nice road bike and the way to justify building one was to sign up for RATPOD.

RATPOD is a 130ish mile road ride outside of Dillon that’s put on every year to raise money for Camp Mak-a-dream. I’d dabbled in road riding with a single speed and some cross bikes but for RATPOD I knew I’d need gears and something comfortable. Enter the Pacer.

After spending the winter of 2015/16 building the bike, I “trained” all Spring and raised a bit over $500 for the event. I was somewhere on the 220-230lb range when I took off for what would be my first century ride. It was hard. A lot harder than I expected. I survived mostly thanks to my good buddy Andrew being an excellent riding partner for the day. Total ride time was 11:01 with 9:13 of that actually moving on the bike. It burned me out a bit on road riding for the remainder of 2016 but I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I’d try a long distance event like it.

When I toed the start line right at 200lbs this year I was pretty excited. I felt far more prepared for the event and was ready to push myself a bit and see how much things had improved.

This year, the route was back to the normal clockwise direction, meaning most of the climbing would happen in the first half of the day. I rode out of Dillon solo, expecting to run into folks I knew along the way. I hopped in with a group or two here and there and for about twenty minutes was even in a pretty speedy little pace line. Nice way to get the blood flowing and let my legs know they’d be putting in work for the day.

Not long after starting I ran into my friend Greg and some other folks I knew. One had been having some mechanical issues so Greg decided to drop back and wait for him while I headed on. The first aide station was at the top of a climb on Badger Pass. Last year, climbing to it at the end of the day felt like what I imagine it’s like to walk to your mailbox in the summer when you live in Phoenix. This year, it got my heart rate up but I passed probably as many people as passed me. Hydrate, small snack, adjust layers, and off I went. Last year on the steep descents I got into the 40+mph range a time or two. This year I came up a little short. Maybe losing weight hurt me there? 😉

Hopping in and out of pace lines I made great time to the breakfast stop. Being able to not just grab the occasional wheel but take my pull on the front was vastly different than last year. And when the pace either picked up or slowed down from where I wanted to be I was able to just keep spinning on my own. Last year was a fun event because it felt like such a big personal achievement. This year it was shaping up to be a fun event because I was able to chat and meet awesome folks while riding instead of just trying to survive!

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kfast was another brief stop. I was doing pretty good eating and hydrating on the bike. I remembered not feeling great last year after trying to eat a breakfast burrito so I opted for half a bagel and some cream cheese. After eating what I could and refilling the bottles I got into the hard climbs. Through the next few huge climbs and big descent I rode mostly solo. I’d also find out later that my friend had a terrible allergic reaction and had to pull out of the ride in favor of a hospital visit! Thankfully he came out ok, look forward to riding with you next year buddy!

Just before lunch I started to fade a bit. The wind in the canyons was proving a challenge riding alone and I’d probably waited too long between snacks. At some point I realized I needed to eat, so I grabbed a few granola bars and drank a bunch of water while I slowed the pace for a bit. Experience on the bike certainly helped recognize the problem but, having the fitness level I did compared to last year probably kept me from fully bonking. If nothing else the slightly more svelte frame let me slip through the wind a little better, or so I tell myself! Shortly after snacking, a huge group came raging up along side. The lead rider said “Grab on” as he went past and I wasn’t going to miss the chance.

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p riding most of the remaining route with 5 of the guys I met in that paceline. 20+mph into some headwinds, strong and long pulls from everyone in the group, it was probably the moment I fully became a road cyclist. We overtook rider after rider, singles, doubles, small groups. Some jumped in with us, others didn’t have the legs to grab on. It was an amazing spin in to the lunch stop.

I kept things pretty light at lunch as well. A cookie and some ruffles were about the best tasting things anyone could’ve given me! But I did manage to make a little sandwich and eat some other odds and ends not just cookies and chips. I also decided to take advantage of the drop bags and ditch some layers. And as at every other stop. Hydrate hydrate hydrate.

The section leaving Wise is one of the most beautiful on the ride but, also probably the most heavily trafficked. I was looking forward to and dreading it all at the same time. I also knew if I lingered at lunch, some folks would probably start catching me and while it’s not a race, I used the idea of staying ahead of them (unlike last year) as motivation to press on.

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,the most part from lunch to pie, I found my second wind. A minor mechanical issue on one of the hills was pretty unfortunate but I was able to get it fixed quickly and roll into the pie stop well ahead of “schedule”. Shannon had planned to come down to Dillon the day of the ride and Glen is about the first place there is any solid cell reception. She was amazed to hear that I was already at the pie stop!

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king my sweet time eating pie and having some coke and ice cream(last year these were the only things that kept me alive to the finish) I mounted up for the final push into Dillon. I happened to be leaving about the same time as the crew I’d rolled into the lunch stop with and we all hooked up to try and make the long, straight, windy finish more bearable.

It would have been a rough solo finish but, with these guys we put the hammer down a few times and made such good time Shannon said she almost missed being at the finish because it went so much faster than anticipated.

So that was RATPOD 2017. It turns out if you weigh 30lbs less than the previous attempt, it’s much more fun and a lot quicker. Different routes mean it’s not a perfect comparison but this year the ride total was 9:36 with 8:38 of that on the bike and moving. That’s 45 minutes faster than last year! And, I didn’t feel the need to immediately go back to the hotel room and sleep for 14 hours this year.

I’m undecided if I’ll do RATPOD again. 3 straight years of fundraising gets tiring, even for a worthy cause. But, I’m excited by the idea of starting my training at my current weight and seeing how much more time I could shave off…

After I finished my first marathon a few years ago, I had shannon drive me directly to Hoagieville. I ordered a super chick, a giant hoagie, a large cheese fry, a large cherry coke, and a large strawberry shake. I remember that order specifically because the carhop gave me the most disgusted look, rightfully so even if I had just slogged through a 5+ hour marathon. I shudder to think how many calories I crammed into my face that meal. After RATPOD, I just didn’t have that craving. The change in eating habits was starting to just become the norm instead of something I had to work for and think about. A beer to celebrate at the finish line, a small meal of bbq and then a couple beers at the brewery with friends was plenty. While the physical changes are great, the mental changes may be better. I had a great time and didn’t wake up the next day mental beating myself up for the poor decisions I made to celebrate a good one.

I only took a few days off the bike, opting to run on Monday and Tuesday following RATPOD to keep the muscles loose. But Thursday, Alex decided to take Andy and I to Silver Mountain. As I’m a bit of a chickenshit, real downhill mountain biking always makes me nervous. You may remember from my Thank Yous post, however, that Andy thinks everyone can ride DH and is pretty good at making you believe it too.

We got into the rowdy stuff right away and I managed to work my way up to a drop Andy described as “nipple high” the biggest I’d hit to date. Turns out, losing a massive amount of weight isn’t just good for road biking and climbing on the mountain bike. The full run down the mountain was brutal, and if I’d been in the same shape as years passed I’m sure it would’ve resulted in several crashes due to fatigue, instead of just the one from pushing my limits too far 😉

I closed out June with 272 miles worth of activities on Strava. Only 20 shy of my April but RATPOD was a big one. July was when I really found a consistency with getting out.

A couple Saturdays on the road bike heading south. A Sunday on the mtb and one running with the baby jogger. But the every Monday and Wednesday I got out. Pushed hard most days without taking the fun out of it. Set a lot of PRs. Noticed myself having fewer beers on the rides, one instead of three and replacing the two with la Croix. I also noticed that I was really enjoying that one beer even more than before now that I wasn’t so dead tired from the climbs.

The best ride of July was without a doubt my road ride with Shannon. She’d been expressing some interest in giving road riding a try for awhile. We finally made it happen in early July, taking a nice easy spin down to Lolo and back. She of course did great. Seemed like she had fun and I was super stoked to get out on the road with her. Hopefully, there will be much more of that next year. While I was dumb enough to push riding well into fire season, Shannon wisely didn’t think it would be much fun.

Towards the end of July I sold my full suspension bike. Being without an MTB didn’t sound fun so I quickly finished gathering parts and put together a bike I’d been hoarding parts for since last Winter. Enduro bikes are fun and I will have one again, but losing weight and getting faster made me want another hardtail. Enter the Krampus.

Most of my mountain biking had been down at Blue Mountain since it’s a bit more big-bike friendly but, now that I had a rigid bike again I was spending a lot more time in the Snake. Climbs, descents, I was PRing everything for a few weeks on the new whip. Sadly, we all know what happened next. Fire season grabbed hold of Missoula and seemed like it would never let go.

August and September feel like lost months. Hugely disappointing during a year where I felt I was making such big health strides. I was down to 190 lbs, still losing weight but like making healthy choices, it was no longer what I was thinking about. It just was. This was about the time people started asking what I’d done, how I lost the weight, etc etc. Looking at pics, summer time is when the next layer of fat in my face seemed to let go and I actually looked “thin” compared to before. Damn you fire season, for taking my glory months away!

I did manage to get out here and there. Activities were definitely hampered by the smoke though. I didn’t run or ride as hard or far as I maybe could’ve with better air quality. I also picked up another new bike in that window, the Rove ST would be my steed for the coming cross season. A few gravel rides on that thing is about all I haven’t covered for the summer so, that’s where we’ll shut this one down.

Long one! Thanks for toughing it out until the end. Up next, I’m going to do my last Thank You Notes, I’ll have it posted by Sunday. Then, we’ll wrap this up and get to the present.

See ya in the next one.

GLF Part 4: bikes bikes and more bikes

Finishing Hell Ride and not feeling like death was a pretty big accomplishment. I wanted to have that same feeling come RATPOD time so, I continued to “train” on the road bike.

I hit one or two of the MBW Monday’s, the one post-Hell Ride was especially good to spin out the muscles.

Post-Hell Ride Monday Crew debating the clouds coming our way

I managed some gravel time with Chad on the Deer Creek Sneak and a decent sized road ride that happened by chance when I ran into my friend Greg.

Wednesday’s became my mountain bike day. Beer and Snickers in the woods with your friends tends to be a good motivator to continue getting out and after it on the bike.

Beer & snickers on rides, just less beer…

Plenty of beautiful sunset pics in the cloud storage

My longest ride of the month was an out and back to Florence on a very hot day!

New bridge over Reserve is a game changer

Sounds all peaches and cream, right? Turns out, May was the first month my weight loss plateaued. Around the 210 mark I just kinda started fluctuating without making any real progress. I had a few days where I just didn’t feel like throwing a leg over the big so I went for a run instead. And the random Tuesday at the end of the month off that I took with the intention of a big ride in the Snake turned into a short ride and then a trip to Taco Del Sol.

I wouldn’t say I’d lost motivation, it was just hard to push through. I was more than happy with the 30 pounds I’d lost. I felt great, times on the bike continued to get faster, running was fun again. But, I decided I should set a goal to try and get past the hump in the road. 200 lbs by RATPOD seemed reasonable, and on my ride with Greg he said that was his guess of where I’d get so I could just blame him if I missed it! 😉

June riding kicked off with some more roadie miles in the Snake. Refocused on enjoying the time on the bike and not thinking of it as “training” really helped. Food wise, not much changed. Just kept doing my best to make good decisions.

Common sight on solo rides in the Snake this year

Oddly enough, leading up to RATPOD I actually got more and more into running. Looking back on it I think it let me stay mentally excited for the big day on the bike without burning out on riding all together. At this point my base fitness for cycling was pretty well set, I’m not sure more riding would’ve improved my RATPOD experience any.

RATPOD was on Saturday June 24th. I put in a half day at work, tuned up my Pacer, hopped in the car and headed for Dillon on Friday afternoon. That morning I weighed 200.4 pounds. The 100’s were in sight for the first time in many years.

Next time, we’ll cover RATPOD and what it’s like to ride it at 200 lbs vs 235, how the summer turned out and then I wanna do one more “Thank You Notes” post and Part 6 will wrap things up by talking about how I wore a skin suit during this years cyclocross season and more. To create some deadlines for myself, Part 5 will be up sometime between this Thursday and Sunday.

Stay warm everyone!

PS – I totally forgot until getting pics for this post that I tried a 30 day burpee challenge in May! It was absolutely awful. Shannon had done a plank challenge (woo Go Shannon!) the month before and I thought I should try something as well. If you’re trying to get fit, my advice would not be to pick an exercise that you hate with a fiery passion. I did not complete the challenge. No big deal. Failing at that did not mean I failed at getting more fit that month. Just meant one of the ways I tried didn’t work!

Getting less fat Part 3.5 – Thank You Notes

Evie got sick. That’s the short answer for the delay between posts. When Evie gets sick, so do I. Cross racing on Wednesday was super tiring, I stayed home with Evie Thursday, came down with a fever of my own Thursday night and missed half a day of work on Friday.

But Saturday was Rolling Thunder. After a fun season of cross, no way was I going to back out of the two races I signed up for, and thankfully I was feeling well enough that I managed to survive.

That’s for a much later blog post though. For now, I thought I’d interject a super short post where I just thank some folks for being motivating/inspiring/helpful along the way.
Shannon is the obvious first person to thank. When I started making changes, she just jumped on board without hesitation. Eating right and exercising is much easier when your significant other is trying to do the same. Not only did she make changes to her own diet because family meals were easier if we both at similar things, she gave me tons of time to get out on the bike and “train” for my coming events. On top of helping me, she’s done a kick ass job of taking care of her own fitness this year. Running, hiking, the gym, she’s been going at it every bit as hard as me, she’s just not an attention whore like I am! Having tried it myself I’m still not sure how she motivates to hike while carrying Evie in that backpack!

Next up would have to be my biking compadres. Reed, Ryan and Andrew in particular. I probably spend more time on a bike with these three dudes than anyone else I know. No matter how slow I was on climbs or how long they had to wait at the bottom for me on descents, I have always been able to count on having a good time with these guys. Friends that push you to be better at something by not pushing you at all are pretty cool and through being patient and prioritizing having a fun time, these guys have been a huge part of me getting a bit more fit this year. Thanks for riding with my slow ass all these years fellas!

Of course, the people I work with deserve a heaping pile of thanks as well. Chad is always down for ill advised adventures like trying to ride Holloman Saddle on a cold, rainy “Spring” day or doing a vampire century to Hamilton and back in October.

No one pushes me out of my comfort zone the way Andy does at a bike park, but he has a way in being confident in your abilities that lets you grow as a rider each time you’re out with him, even if it just means going from an 8″ drop to one that’s ‘nipple high’. Maybe someday I’ll believe that a road-gap is just like riding off a really big curb…

Jesse and Midge make drop bar bikes fun. Monday night cruises with Jesse on the no drop shop ride got more and more fun as the numbers on the scale got smaller. And if you’re around Midge come fall and you’re not pumped on cyclocross then the sport just clearly isn’t for you.

Candy break on an early morning ride to Florence

Turns out Tyler is a ton of fun to ride with too and being buried on climbs by a 20 year old on an enduro bike is a good motivator.

While she may have given me the hardest time of anyone at the start of my “diet” as she called it, Audra frequently had excellent words of encouragement and insight on making healthy changes. It doesn’t hurt that she’s one of those people that seems to have more than 24 hours in their day with all the things she packs in, from huge rides, to epic trips, to being one of the loudest, most encouraging people cheering for her friends at races.

And of course, Alex. The guy just lives for bikes, and racing in particular. His love for all things Cycling is infectious and if you express an interest in getting fit and racing around him, be warned, you’ll get more fit and be racing! Not only that, but he’s dealt with becoming the second fattest person in the shop so good naturedly…

China Buffet the first day I weighed less than AG

Thanks to each and every one of you folks mentioned here. Seriously. I couldn’t have made such big changes without you.

There are obviously more people to thank but, I’ll get to them in the some other “half” post. Next time, we’re back to the story itself rather than the people who made it possible.

Getting less fat part 3 : Lets ride bikes

Spring of 2016 I found myself a Doctor and committed to doing annual exams. When I first met with him, I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 230 lbs. I fully expected him to tell me to lose some weight but, to my surprise he didn’t. Turns out, he felt that I was active enough with all my running/riding that the weight wasn’t that big of a deal. At the time, I was eating pretty ok and not drinking a ton either. He was not, however, pleased with the fact that I got somewhere between 3 and 6 hours of sleep a night. He gave me a small dose prescription of a sleeping aide, I bought a Fitbit to track my sleep and that was that. My sleep got better, for awhile, and I continued to ride a bunch, but as mentioned in past posts my eating and drinking habits got worse as the year wore on.

Fast forward to the end of part two. Logging my food I quickly learned that I was taking in a ton of empty calories. Turns out, beer is not exactly good for you in large quantities. Who knew?! 52oz sodas from the gas station also turned out to be an extremely poor decision so, I started trying to find drinks with little to no calories. Enter my addiction to coffee in its various forms and La Croix.

According to the LoseIt! app, a cup of black coffee has about 5 calories. Between BCRC and Hunter Bay we’ve got some great local roasters. And working down the street from Clyde, LPO, and Bernice’s there was no shortage of places to get said coffee brewed up for me. I began pounding coffee as though it was the miracle cure to trimming the fat I’d been looking for my whole adult life. Coffee with breakfast. Take a thermos with me to work. Walk down to get a cup with Andy at work. Then drink the thermos. Then another trip in the afternoon. I was putting down 50+ ounces a day. For someone who has long struggled with poor sleep, this was not good.

Trying to find replacements for poor decisions I was making, in my eyes at least, was a great step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the replacements carried their own negative side effects. My sleep got worse, and worse, and my NEED for coffee grew. The story would be much more interesting if I had some “A-ha!” moment solving the coffee problem. As I remember it, I just got so tired I started crashing earlier and having a harder time getting up in the mornings. One day, I grabbed some black tea at the gas station in the afternoon instead of coffee. No calories and less caffeine. I managed to switch the addiction from coffee to black tea for awhile and got the coffee monkey off my back.

Small victories have been the real name of the game since I started this new life style. I mentioned before that I didn’t worry about being perfect, I’ve just tried to be better than the day before and it’s worked pretty well. I was starting to see results on the scale and being a data guy, I wanted to find ways to measure how getting healthy was changing my life. So I started to sign up for some bike rides.

Last year, I rode RATPOD for the first time. For those who don’t know, it’s a 130ish mike bike ride around the Pioneer Mountains outside Dillon MT that raises funds for Camp Mak-a-dream. Shannon and I had a fun time there with Evie last year so I figured, why not sign up again! It would be a good goal and a way to see how losing some weight improved my bike riding. I’m not big on “training” but I knew I should do a bit more riding to prepare for RATPOD this year than I did last year. The Cycling House puts on the MT Hell Ride every year and I thought the shorter option for would be a good motivator to train for the bigger event in June. So, out came the credit card and I signed up for that as well.

Winter had finally started to ease its grip a bit and after just a few weeks, the scale started to show some change. After a week, I’d lost about 5 lbs. another week, another 5 lbs. and before I knew it…

This was about the time that it felt like the changes I was making actually mattered. People began to comment that I looked good, lost some weight, etc. I had passed the minor weight fluctuation stage and was actually in the weight loss phase. I looked less, puffy, and started to just feel better in general.

Bad weather persisted and kept me off the bike but, towards the end of the month it started to warm up and the roads cleared off. The last week of March, I got out for the seasons for MTB ride as well as a couple road rides.

I managed my 3rd fastest time climbing MoZ on this ride(not bad considering it was the first ride of the season!) and a couple descent PRs. Things got even better when I got on the road bike. 6 PRs(I upload my GPS logs to Strava and it keeps track of segment personal records, great way to measure progress on the bike) in two rides. To say I was excited by this early season success would be an understatement. I’ve never been the fastest on the bike, up or downhill, but the idea that I could maybe keep up with my friends after losing some lbs was a good motivator to keep after it.

With the Hell Ride coming up at the end of April I got into a good rhythm. Road rides every Sunday and mountain bikes with friends on Wednesday’s let me rack up almost 300 miles for the month. Almost double my total from 2016. It was a memorable month of riding. I spent a lot of time heading south on the Bitterroot Trail, especially after the bridge over Reserve opened!

I rode a bunch with friends, both on mountain and road bikes…

And I rode by myself…

With less than a week to go before the Hell Ride I got on the scale and was greeted with a number in the teens.

I was pretty pleased, as you may be able to gather from the exclamation points I drew on there for the Instagram Story photo. 23ish lbs in a month felt like a big accomplishment. If I’d kept eating the way I was and taking care of myself but the weight loss stopped, I think at that point I’d have been perfectly happy. This was about what I weighed when I did my first marathon and while I knew I had plenty of room for improvement, it felt like I was healthy again. I was enjoying riding with my friends more than ever. I was able to keep up with Evie, sort of, and I just plain felt better on a daily basis. It’s hard to explain the difference it makes in your daily life to go from low energy, general unhappiness, aches, pains, etc to where I’d gotten in a month.

Not long after that weigh in, I toed the start line at the Hell Ride and put in my best effort, riding pretty much the entire time with my friend Audra. She rode strong and I feel like we pushed each other well to the half way point. Not long after, another friend, Ely, caught up and we powered on to the finish. I just couldn’t hang with the lead pack on the climbs through Nine Mile so Ely and a couple others pulled away. I kept Audra and the trailing pack in sight, finally catching back up and riding in with her and a couple others. While I got clipped at the end narrowly being edged off the podium, I felt damn good about my first ever road race. And I had yet another fun time riding bikes with people I dig!

Now it feels like this is rolling a bit. The next big ride was RATPOD, which wouldn’t be until the end of June. Plenty went on between the end of April and then so I’ll get Part 4 started and posted ASAP.

Saturday, we were lucky enough to attend the wedding of two of our good friends. We couldn’t be happier for them and wish them both the best in their new adventure. I’m especially thankful that Reed liked riding with me even when I was slow and unhealthy and kept getting out with me. I ride with him more than anyone and it’s always a good time. This year especially, my Wednesday rides with him and Ryan on the mountain bikes kept me motivated and put a smile on my face. Cheers, Sonsalla’s! Here’s to many years of happiness for you.

And more than a couple folks had kind words to share about this series of posts and my healthier look at the wedding. To each and every one of you, thanks. It really means a lot to hear that you’re proud of me, enjoy my writing, feel inspired, or any extremely thoughtful variation you folks shared with me!

See you all soon in the next one!

Making changes : Getting less fat part 2

When I started writing out the last blog post, I didn’t really have any expectations for it. I just fired it out, threw it up on the blog and hit Share to my Facebook. When I got up the next morning and my notifications were popping off I was pretty blown away. People had been asking how I lost all the weight for a few months so, I guess I shouldn’t have been completely shocked but, you folks were so nice to take a look and then all the positive comments really made me stop and think. I’m glad some folks said it was inspiring and really that’s the one thing that means the most out of all the kind words. I had some people along the way that have inspired me and I maybe didn’t let them know that they were doing so, hopefully I’ll remedy that in these coming posts. So a big, huge, massive thanks to everyone who read the first post and to all the people who left “likes” and comments. It meant a lot. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with part two.

242.6 lbs. February 26th 2017. A few days earlier I’d binged on bad food and too many drinks. A horrible hangover and those numbers on the scale just flipped a switch. I knew I needed to get things under control for my own sake, as well as my friends and family and especially, Evie. She deserved better than I’d given all winter and it was time to make some changes.

The first thing I did was download an app called LoseIt! I created an account, then I went about my day logging my food.

I think most of us making unhealthy choices know what the good ones actually are, we’re just bad at making them. I’ve read health blogs, magazines, etc for years. I’ve had short stints of going to the gym a ton or eating healthy for a bit or quitting drinking. But inevitably, I didn’t see results at all or fast enough. Or I tried to change too much too fast. I figured the food log would give me a clear picture of how bad my eating habits had gotten. My plan was to just start paying more attention to what I ate, then make small changes rather than trying to be perfect from the get go.

Eating breakfast with Evie. Almost without fail, I’ve had 2 strips of bacon, two scrambled eggs, a cup of soy milk, and a piece of toast since starting this whole thing. It helps me feel full until lunch, and it tastes good.

Along with the food log I downloaded an app called HabitBull. My being unhealthy was about more than just eating and I wanted to make a few other changes as well. I started off simple and set two daily reminders. Brush my teeth right after dinner and read a chapter of a book. The first one, aside from being an obviously good hygiene practice, would tell my brain I was done eating for the day, or so I recalled reading somewhere. As a self-professed night owl, I knew constant snacking late at night was a problem and this one small thing would hopefully curb that. And on a small tangent, while proof reading this I noticed that I still call what I was doing “snacking”. I would, on an all too regular basis, eat 5-10 Nature Valley Granola Bars well after midnight out of pure boredom. That’s 750-1500 calories of “snacking”! Anyway…

Reading a chapter every night may seem unrelated but, reading meant I would turn the TV/iPad/phone off. My likelihood of getting to bed at a reasonable hour increased, and that meant even less opportunity to “snack”. My doctor had also expressed a concern about my lack of sleep at my annual exam the year before and I hadn’t really done much to fix it. Sleep would get worse before it got better but, we’ll get to that later.

As I sit here typing and editing this I realize it’s getting pretty wordy. I know I said before that I’d post a part two on Thursday but, I think I’ll end this one here with a pic from March 2nd.

When I’d tell people my weight back in these days I’d get some variation on, “No way! You don’t look that big.” Maybe I didn’t when I looked this way on a daily basis but, looking back, it wasn’t pretty.

Huge thanks again for checking this out and even more so for the kind words and encouragement. The thought that this is an inspiration to anyway in even a small way is flattering and I hope it really does help. Putting this all into words and out into the world is also helping rejuvenate me on the journey so, thanks for that as well.

In the next one, I’ll talk about how and why I got addicted to coffee for a few weeks, signing up for the MT Hell Ride, and how I started “training” to ride a lot of miles on the bike. Thanks for reading!

2017: The Year I got less fat

Last time I wrote a blog post here, if I recall correctly, I talked about wanting to talk about things like losing weight. That was over a month ago and I’ve posted a whole lot of nothing since. As I sit here and watch a Casey Neistat video, I feel like I should be inspired and just write SOMETHING so let’s start this series. I’m not sure how many parts it will be to get to Present but, this one starts in the early months of 2017, say January/February. Here goes…

That picture was taken on January 24th. Pretty sure I was dropping Evie off for day care. I weighed 238.2 pounds according to my Apple Health Kit app. Last winter was a shitshow to put things gently. Evie suffered from frequent ear infections. Consequently, Shannon and I suffered from frequently catching whatever sickness she had come down with from her class mates and her weakened immune system. Basically, from November to the end of February, some combination of the three of us were sick every day. Somehow, I still managed to get Evie to daycare via bike three days a week. Then, something really random happened…

To combat her constant ear infections, we scheduled a surgery for Evie to have tubes put in. The day they were to be put in, at the surgery center that morning to be specific, I stated to not feel well. Her surgery went great and I continued to feel worse and worse. A doctors visit or two later and I was diagnosed with adult chicken pox.

That picture was taken just two days after the first one in this post . To say it was an unpleasant experience would be an understatement but, the silver lining was that this was the beginning of the end of being super unhealthy and overweight.

Over the course of the next month, I would recover from the chicken pox, fight off yet another cold/flu/whatever, and balloon up to 242.6 lbs. Realistcally, my highest weight may have been even higher as I wasn’t weighing myself every day but, I was managing to buy 52oz sodas from the gas station, drink beers at the end of every work day, and choke down absurd amounts of junk food every night. The day I got on the scale and it read 242.6 I decided it was time for a change.

I’ll pick up where this one leaves off next Thursday. Hopefully, I’ll write up a draft, edit it a bit, and choose some decent photos in that time. You know, make that post a little more coherent and worth reading than this one? And we’ll continue on the journey from fat and sickly to less fat and “healthy”, where I’m at today.

See ya next week.

How many blogs does one person need?

It feels like I’ve written this post before… I’ve tried so many platforms I can’t even remember all the ones that I’ve used that don’t exist! Let alone ones that do and I’ve just stopped using…

So, why start yet another blog? Why not? I haven’t fished much this year, meaning Simple Angler has been almost completely inactive. I have been riding a lot though, I’ve lost a bunch of weight, and I’m figuring this whole “being a parent” thing out. In other words, I have stuff I want to write about, take pictures of, and in general talk about but, a fishing blog just doesn’t make sense for it.

Meaning, it’s time for a new blog. Simple Angler won’t be changing, hopefully it’ll get some more use in the near future. This is just a catch-all umbrella site to let me scratch the itch to spew thoughts into the world.

Thanks for checking it out. Hope to see ya back soon!