Hey, 2016, it's been REAL!

Strange that another trip around the sun, same route, can be so different!  I mean, yeah, a lot happens every year, but ... not like this past year, for me anyway.  I horribly failed in my responses to some, but learned from those mistakes and am happier now from it.  I also saw some huge victories, a rite of passage and a funeral.

A lot of what I have to share in 2016 has to do with health. But, I'll keep that short.  

It was time to dust off the old bike.  On January 1st I decided to get on my bike for the first time since my surgery.  I knew I wasn't ready to ride yet, but wanted to make a statement to myself.  If possible, I would ride again.  (It's my passion.)    

The ride was not a lot of fun.  (10 miles in 48 minutes, perfectly flat.) I did not finish feeling encouraged, but I wasn't disappointed either.  I was still having trouble with efficient bipedal locomotion, my brain having to learn to use the open neuropathways that had been blocked for at least two years.  Now the vast majority were open and I had use of muscles and chains of muscles for the first time in a while.  Not only were they atrophied and weak, but the nerve signals confused my brain causing me to stumble around like a drunken old man, seriously. So I knew I'd have to get the basics down, like getting in and out of a car with ease, getting dressed without having to use my pant legs to lift my feet high enough to get socks on, and so, before riding could happen.

See, the year started off with me finishing the first phase of my year-long recovery from spinal fusion surgery.  The fusions were set, 90% probability was the made up number, and now was time for the difficult part.  I need to heal all of the soft tissue, build strength, mobility, flexibility and agility.  Also, the L4-L3 joint was now the lowest pivot point in my spine.  That joint is smaller and inherently weaker than the joints that were now fused below it.  One of the few guarantees the surgeon offered was that if I had an area of concern, if I needed future surgery with the recent one being successful, this is where the trouble would start. 

Starting in January the surgeon and physical therapist sent me to the gym with homework to do.  Pool work, elliptical, walking, and a few weight training exercises.  

I left brittle, like stained glass packed in a box of rocks.  I did the weight exercises with no weight at all, just the machine guiding my range of motion.  And even then, it hurt, and not in a good way that leaves you feeling sore but accomplished.  This was just embarrassment and pain.  But I stuck with it and after a month I started feeling a little more confident in my body's ability to do things.  Of course, that's when bad things happen.  I tore an intercostal muscle and dislocated a rib.  

I am not at all proud of how I responded to this small setback.  I started taking opioids again (it was quite painful), eating way too much, drinking way too much and decided to do so for the next two months (how long the rib would take to heal).  I did not even try walking for exercise, or any other form of exercise over this time period.  

About the time I should've returned to the gym my grandfather died.  I am geographically estranged from that side of my family, they live in Minnesota.  So I cannot say that I was very close to my grandpa, but I loved him and he meant a lot to me.  The week before he died I talked to him on the phone and the 94 year old tricked me.  He told me he was going to get my grandmother on the phone and then spoke in a falsetto voice, making me think it was her and she had a bad cold. 

The old saying that funerals bring families together has strong roots.  I connected with a lot of relatives that I'd never known as an adult.  A few hours before my return flight I went with a group of my cousins to a local brewery.  We had a grand time getting to know each other.  Many of them were endurance athletes and I loved hearing about their past experiences and future dreams of racing.  It motivated me.

I was also touched by an act of kindness by one of my cousins, Roger.  There were more grandsons than could be pallbearers.  I had agreed, in private, to just be allowed to be over-looked here.  Besides, the other cousins were all very close to my grandfather.  I was happy to just attend the funeral.  Shortly before the pallbearers were to do their job Roger approached me and offered me his spot.  I declined, but was touched.  

When I returned home I decided I needed to do a better job with the things I can control. Time to stop feeling bad for myself.

I decided to drive a support vehicle for my cycling team (Aggress) for the Nogales Bicycle Classic.  Until then I had avoided all things racing related because they just made me sad.  Instead of being happy for others, I was just sad for myself.  That selfishness needed to end. 

The Nogales Classic was one of my first races, back in 2012. It was the first year of the race.  In 2013 I didn't race as I had an injured thigh.  But in 2014, winning it was my #1 goal.  I did a solo break away with about 50 miles remaining and won by almost 15 minutes.  Helping my teammates was as close that level of excitement as I could get.  Being around the race and cyclists motivated me to try and get back on the bike.  I did my second ride and it wasn't a whole lot better than the first.  But, it was time to get a little more consistent.

 On March 31st I stopped taking medication.  No opioids, tylenol, heart burn medication ... none of it.  I started drinking a gallon of water a day.  I stepped on the scale and it said ... 272 pounds!  I started using MyFitnessPal to monitor caloric intake.  I've maintained all of these things religiously since.  Well, there have been two days where I did not drink a full gallon of water, but pretty close.

I am a high school math teacher.  I teach a two year curriculum designed and tested by Cambridge University.  The theory is that if students can pass the end of course examination they are at that point ready for college level courses.  They take the test for the first time at the end of their sophomore year.  As you might expect, the passing rate is very low.  Most sophomore high school students are not ready for college.  In Arizona, around 10% of students pass.  

The tests are taken on paper, no multiple choice and then mailed back to Cambridge University for grading.  In the spring of 2016 every single one of my students passed the examination, first try!  In fact, six of the top ten scores in the nation were my students! For at least a week I was so overcome with joy that I was spontaneously start celebrating.  What a huge victory and I am so proud to have been part of it!

The thing is, they didn't pass because of my fantastic math teaching.  The role I played was psychological.  I translated the lessons I'd been learning through my struggles with health and inability to respond appropriately into advice suited to them.  Things like:

• Your best changes.  If you guard yourself against failure, your best effort will decrease.  However, if you try your best, regardless of the outcome, your best will be better next time.
• The worse regrets are where you wanted to do something but were afraid to commit.  
• You cannot control the outcome, only your effort.  If you do it right, the best you can, the reward isn't in the outcome but the experience.
• Own your failure and your contributions to it.  If you place blame you cannot improve.

In May my youngest daughter graduated from High School.  We, my wife and I, are very proud of her work ethic and determination.  She had never received less than an A in a class. She got a full academic scholarship to NAU and wants to become a physical therapist working with disabled soldiers.  

As happy as that makes us, it also left us with an "empty nest."  The transition has been wonderful in many ways, but also difficult in others.  The quietness of the house is sometimes heavy.  It's a bigger change in life than I ever anticipated.

One of the best things to come of the empty-nest transition is that my wife and I have become closer than ever.  We've always been close, but now we do so much more together, and I really enjoy it.  I've always like hiking and exploring outdoors and now we are starting to do some of that together.  She's going to be doing the Baatan March in spring 2017, so part of her training is going on hikes and I get to tag along!

Around the time of my daughter's graduation I did my first group ride on the bike.  I worked as hard as I possibly could just to stay in the group.  Here's the Strava file.  The next few weeks I did the same, sit in and hold on for dear life.

After some time I started taking my turns up front and doing some work.  But progress seemed slow.  In June I participated in my first race.  I'd lost a lot of weight, about 40 pounds, since March, but was in no way ready to really race.  But, this was a downhill time trial from Sonoita to Patagonia.  And there was a carrot...average 30 mph, get a cool t-shirt.  Here's a video of the race:

I participated in a few more time trials, the state championship road race and the state championship "hill climb" up Mt. Graham.  I have never been less significant in the outcome of races than with these, but I didn't do them because I was going to be good at them, I did them because I could.

I thought a lot about how I responded to injuring my rib and was disappointed.  No more of that.  I'd be genuinely more interested in the results of other racers, teammates or not, and helpful with whatever I can offer to all.

In August I discovered a few things that really helped me progress further.  I started using TrainerRoad for structured training and I started a weight-lifting program called StrongLifts 5x5.

My first FTP test (the amount of power that you can maintain on a bike for an hour) was 245 watts!  (That's not a good number for me.) This was done in August, after some massive improvements.  So I can only imagine what it had been before.  My latest FTP test was 356 watts, and I'm thinking I'll have another big jump when I test again in a week.

This past month I decided to try some criterium racing, to see where I fit in and to learn some.  Next year I want to race a lot and there are a lot of opportunities to do crit racing.  In the first race I found myself in a two man break away with half a lap to go.  I got cute and crashed myself into the curb.  Two weeks later, I found myself in the same exact situation having dropped the field and had one guy with me.  This time I didn't get cute and came in second.  

In 2017 I am planning on racing The Tour of the Gila.  This is a climber's race and I'm no climber.  So, it's a terrifying prospect.  Aside from the climbing, the level of competition is far superior to anything I've ever seen.  The courses themselves are far more difficult than anything I've raced.  Combined, yeah, this is exciting for me.  I want to challenge myself and see what I can do.  Just like with the races where I sucked in 2016, I was racing and doing my best.  Good things come out of that.  The results, placings and what-not, don't really matter.  I've always known that was true, but never knew it with the depth I have now.

In 2017 I want to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves, do a better job managing the things I can control, and be a more considerate, giving person.  But, not during races...during races I want to crush everybody!  :)

I am excited to see what 2017 brings!  

Friends and Introductions

I enjoy my friends, love spending time with them.  I also enjoy meeting new people, especially in a natural way in which our relationship can unfold fluidly.

But, I don't like being introduced to new people.  It's awkward, with the little details of those first verbal exchanges that may or may not be important to remember ... like their name, marital status, stuff like that.  And then, with introductions, all parties are forced, too soon, to decide if this new relationship is worth pursuit.

So how do I introduce myself to you in this blog post without rifling information at you, like I'm a 43 year old married father of two that teachers math?  That's not who I am, anyway.  What we do, how we respond to our challenges and how we treat others is who we are, right?

The goal of this blog is to tell an on-going story about battles with obesity, over-eating, compulsive behavior and all of the good stuff that comes out of it.  Seriously, the upside of being fat.

I'd like to share some of what I've learned about fighting obesity (and the situations that cause it), and how vigilance is a foundation.  I'd like to share specifics about diet and fitness.  But I also would like to share how fighting obesity lead me to discover a new passion, lifestyle and circle of friends. I'd like to share my stories about racing bicycles this coming year!

Stories are all about setting.  If Bill Gates finds $20 in an old coat pocket, he's likely to smile.  But there's no consequence or significance.  A poor college kid finds $20 in an old coat pocket, especially towards the end of the semester...well, that's a different story, right?

So, please allow me to establish some background.  I'll try to avoid flowering the events with the emotional baggage they brought.

It really started on the 10th of April, 1998, around 4 PM.  It was Good Friday.  My wife was pregnant with our daughter, my mother and grandmother were over at our house visiting.  I returned from work and went to sit on the floor to talk with my mother.  Suddenly, without warning, three discs in my lower back ruptured.  A couple of weeks before this I had some back pain, and a few days before that I felt a little sore doing some yard work.  But aside from that, no warning at all.

In early July (1998), I had a full discectomy of the L5-L4 disc and some clean up of the S1-L5 and L4-L3. Before the surgery the doctor told me to expect at least some partial paralysis in my right leg.  After the surgery he said the only explanation for full functionality was my age.

This whole thing scared me.  I was betrayed by my body. I do not understand what happened to this day, which meant I couldn't prevent it from happening again.  So I tried to protect myself by doing as little as possible that was risky.  Watching football was low risk.  That meant also drinking beer and eating without limits.  Baseball goes great with beer, too.  What about watching basketball?

I ballooned to over 300 pounds during the following twelve years.  But I was still in pain, almost daily.  I was unhappy with how I looked.  I didn't like how I felt.  I took NSAIDs all the time and those eventually sent me to the ER with stomach issues.

I learned, though it took me over a decade, that I was going to be in pain whether I did what I wanted to do or not.  I couldn't hide from it.  I decided to change.  My first commitment was that every day I worked I'd do some form of exercise.  I began on the first day of school in 2010.  By the end of that school year I'd lost about 100 pounds!

I stayed around 200 to 220 pounds for the next few years.  In 2014 I discovered that I had some potential in bike racing.  Two hundred pounds was gigantic for a cyclist, but it turns out I have good aerobic capacity and muscular endurance.

Time trials were my specialty.  I was just learning them and I was doing well.  Not only was I posting the fastest times in my category, usually by several minutes, I was always among the top times of the day among all competitors and categories.

Then, in May of 2014, while riding up a hill with some friends, I felt a twinge in my left calf.  All of my previous nerve issues were on the right side, so I didn't think much of it.  But it developed to the point where I couldn't use my left leg correctly at all.  I started getting slower in the time trials and eventually lost to competition that I had always beaten by minutes.  That convinced me to go to the doctor in July of 2014.

I competed in the State Championship Individual Time Trial in September of 2014. I believed it to be my last race, ever.  I hadn't ridden the bike at all for three weeks leading up to the race and I wanted to go out a winner.  I came in third, but due to technicalities, I was awarded the state championship for Category 5 cyclists.  That left a bad taste in my mouth, though I've not mentioned it much.  I had done my best for what I brought to the race that day, but it was a far cry from where I was just a few months before.

I spent the next year attending physical therapy and hoping time would fix me up.  In November of 2014 I had to step away from the bike entirely.

A year went by, my condition continued to remain.  An MRI showed a page and a half of "severe" conditions, many of them structural between the S1 and L3.  In October of 2015 I had a TLIF (fusion) from the S1 to L5 and L5 to L4.  The prognosis was that I should return to a normal life, but one that involved competitive cycling would remain to be seen.  If I was lucky, yes.

During this time period, from Fall of 2014 through Spring of 2016, I suffered through depression.  I turned to food and drink to avoid my sadness.  I gained weight.  On March 31st, 2016, I stepped on the scale.  It read 272 pounds.

Between March and December I lost 70 pounds, regained a lot of form on the bike.  Much of the lost neuromuscular efficiency and control returned and continues to improve still.  I WILL be racing in 2017 and those experiences, how I prepare and continue to learn about nutrition and such, is what I want to share.

I share this with you not for kudos and certainly not for sympathy.  I am creating this blog because I hope you will find useful information, perhaps entertainment and maybe even motivating stories here.

If you've read this far, I thank you.  I hope you'll follow my blog.

Until next time...