{"id":237,"date":"2009-11-30T12:48:04","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T17:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/?p=237"},"modified":"2009-12-11T11:23:58","modified_gmt":"2009-12-11T16:23:58","slug":"the-first-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gregghgordon.com\/?p=237","title":{"rendered":"The First Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I swam this morning for the first time since August.\u00a0 After injuring my knee, I wound up doing nothing in terms of triathlon\/endurance training and instead focused wholly on eating, drinking, and being merry.\u00a0 With the knee feeling so much better – in my estimate, it’s 60% of normal – and with so many other reasons to get back onto the horse, it felt good to start a new training program.<\/p>\n

I find a direct correlation between my weight and my race performance; the lighter I am, the faster my results… generally.\u00a0 At my best, I’ve been as low as 167 lbs.\u00a0 When I got hurt, I was around 174 lbs.\u00a0 As of last night, I was 190 lbs. and it was all due to diet.\u00a0 I’ve been eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and with no guilt whatsoever.\u00a0 That’s all changed now.\u00a0 Gone are the McDonald’s meals, no more potato chips or Doritos, sayonara to soda, cookies, candy, etc.\u00a0 I’m back to a normal and regular diet now.\u00a0 That means yogurt and granola in the morning, fruit as a snack, small and sensible meals for lunch and dinner, and a lot of water consumption.\u00a0 My goal is to get to 175 lbs. by December 30th.\u00a0 That means 30 days to lose 15 lbs.\u00a0 It’s a tall order for sure, but I am focused and motivated.<\/p>\n

What I find ironic is that when I’m leaner, I feel better, have more confidence, and potentially race faster, but from a few people so far, I’ve been told that I don’t look as good (it’s all relative).\u00a0 With my current chunkitude, I’ve gotten quite a few compliments from folks saying that I look healthy and good.\u00a0 I don’t get this, and it rings of the comments my dad gets from my mom.\u00a0 He thinks he looks great in his leanness, but Mom says he looks like an Auschwitz survivor.\u00a0 Nice.\u00a0 Poor guy; I totally support him in this sense, but I can understand if Mom wants a thicker partner.\u00a0 The night of Ironman Brazil, my then-girlfriend Deborah told me that I looked gaunt, that my cheeks looked somewhat inverted, and that I was pale.\u00a0 Granted, I had just burned 13,000 calories and spent 14+ hours racing, but I kinda liked being that lean.\u00a0 I made sure to change that body type very quickly thanks to the gorging that followed both in Florianopolis and Rio!<\/p>\n

In any event, it was fun to eat with reckless abandon these past weeks, and I will defend the decision to not do anything about plumping up.\u00a0 It wasn’t my goal to get fat per se, and by all means, the mirror depicts a startling image of a body that is drastically different from that in August, but I find that challenges motivate me to work hard and re-focus on the right things.\u00a0 I like the successes that follow hard work and only wish that I was similarly motivated in lots of other areas.\u00a0 For now, the physical ones are good.<\/p>\n

This evening, I will get on the bike and ride on the trainer in my living room.\u00a0 I can’t wait.\u00a0 It might be a short session like my swim was mostly because the knee still offers restrictions in flexibility, but the fact that I’ll be sweating and working hard is what excites me.\u00a0 I won’t start running until next week and will take it slow as well, but with big plans in 2010 in terms of my race schedules, I want to get a head start.\u00a0 Below is a tentative schedule of races on my calendar including both the ones where I’ve successfully entered and those I hope to enter.\u00a0 I’ll add more posts in the next week to describe the progress and the strategy around the creation of the schedule below.\u00a0 It’s ambitious indeed, but totally within my realm of possibilities.\u00a0 The first race of significance to me is a half-marathon in eight weeks.\u00a0 I’m not predicting a P.R., but don’t count me out just yet!<\/p>\n