9 Months to Tri

Its Monday, day 57. Its my first day back into the office after a 9 day vacation, and my first day into the gym after a 4 day vacation. Feels very weird, and I wish I was back at home.

Actually, I started the day off with a visit to my doctor. Before I get into the problem, though, I’d like to share that my blood pressure over the last 2 months does not appear to have dropped any. A blood test would reveal my actual blood make-up, but I’ll be doing that next year, so for now I’m just looking at my blood pressure as an indicator of progress, and I’m not seeing much. Its down maybe 1 or 2 points on the low number.

As for the reason for the doctor visit, I’ve apparently developed a bit of a jock-related problem. Funny. Never been a jock before, really. Anyway, all the working out and sweating has caused a bit of fungus growth between my toes (athlete’s foot) and groin (jock itch?). Not a real problem, though. The doc gave me some cream to take care of it, and a tip, so here it is:

TIP:

Make sure the areas that are going to be covered (i.e., arm pits, crotch, toes) are completely dry before getting dressed. If you have to zap them with a hair dryer before dressing, so be it. Without the moisture, organisms have a hard time growing there.

So, then, now that that is out of the way, here are the numbers.

STATS:

I weighed in at 272 lbs, down a 1/2 lb from last week (maintained, just like I’d hoped) and down 21 lbs since day 1.

I covered 1.21 miles on the treadmill, my best distance ever, so I’m up .34 miles from my initial run of .87 miles.

I completed 34 push ups, up 15 better from my original 19.

My body fat (this is my favorite stat this month) is 24.5%. That’s down 13.5% from my initial weigh in of 38%. When you realize that I’ve only lost about 8% of my body mass in dropped weight, then you begin to see that the other 5.5% is made up in a radical shift from fat to muscle. It would take someone else to work out the actual numbers, but its pretty cool, overall.

Summary:

After 4 days off, today’s workout killed me. The addition of the push-ups at the beginning of the workout really did me in as well. I reached muscle failure on every arm-based exercise today, and had to actually come down on weight just to finish the sets. My legs ached the rest of the day, and I popped a couple of Advil when I got home tonight. I honestly don’t remember the last time I was this tired.

But I feel good about where I am over where I was 2 months ago. My body is in better shape, and my knowledge about what I’m doing to my body is also in a much better place. 7 months to go.

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