Background
I’ve been trying to get in shape for a while now. I wanted to get down to 190 lb., feel better and be more active. So I changed my diet, started exercising, and got back on my bicycle, but nothing made much of a dent in my 220-lb. physique. At least I was feeling better.
I don’t remember when I got the idea to try
Team in Training. It was probably less than two weeks ago. But I knew they provided a goal, motivation and the training I’d need. Thankfully, I haven’t been personally touched by leukemia or lymphomas, but the fact that I’d be raising money for a worthy charity was a plus! And everyone I knew who did this program said it was a great experience. Oh yeah, because I knew a lot of people who did this, that meant I’ve already donated a bunch of money to this organization!
So, I checked out the website and it made a lot of sense. And as luck would have it, the next informational meeting was happening in a few days, so I signed up for that.
10/20/10
Fast-forward to last night. I showed up at the meeting a little early (a total rarity for me). The general portion of the meeting was pretty much a summary of the website, then we broke up into groups according to which event we were training for. I chose the Solvang Century because I already like bicycling and if I was going to be suffering for a long time, I figured I might as well be doing something fun—and running just isn’t fun to me. There was only one other person in my group and she had just done a “metric century” (a 66-mile ride). So, I had my work cut out for me.
Off we went to a smaller room to get more detailed info. We met our cycling coach, a mentor and someone else who was in the program. We discussed our current fitness levels, what we hoped to get out of the program and other things. It seemed like both of us were prepared to sign up that day and pay our $100 registration fees, so a lot of time was just spent chatting, then filling out forms.
When I got home, I posted the news on Facebook and got a lot of instant support from my friends. I think this is going to work out fine and I’m going to have a lot of fun and meet some cool people along the way. As our coach said after a stint volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, just walking into something like this filters out jerks. “Jerks don’t build houses for the poor,” he said. He said the same holds true for Team in Training. So, hopefully, I’ll make some new friends, too.
Because they know I’m going to have to buy lots of gear to ride all winter (and a new road bike), they have a deal with
Sports Basement where all participants get a discount. That’ll come in handy.
10/21/10
Today, after work, I looked at the training schedule. I’ll be committing to about three training events a week, so I don’t know how much I’ll be using the gym during training. Maybe when it’s raining out or something. But my goal is to make the weekend rides and at least half of the indoor training rides (I’m guessing they’re spin classes or something like that). I entered it into iCal, so I’ll have alerts and a constant reminder of what’s ahead on my iPhone and computers: No excuses!
After entering all the dates, I decided to create this blog to track my progress. I’m sure there are many like it on the Web, but maybe someone will see this and decide, “if he can do it, I can too.”
