...and found

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting for my weigh in results, like a suspense filled "Biggest Loser" reveal...

2 pounds.  May not sound like a lot, but I'm pretty damn psyched that I lost 2 pounds considering the dinner at Mistral (a weak, quick, rough estimate puts me over 2000 calories in that meal alone).  (and, of course, the beer or Jameson here or there when I had "extra" calories)...

So the plan is good.  With the riding and gym time, weight should continue to come off.  I'll be a tiny little racer before you know it!!  That's a lie.  But I'll be a smaller Eastwood racer for this season.  That's a truth.  Hopefully smaller, and stronger.  A dangerous combo.

High 40s today, and rain holding off until the evening.  Riding!!  I need it.  We have a break next week, which is sweet, but it's already been a long week.  And last week was horribly long and tiresome... So a ride after work today will be much appreciated.

Now the only decision is do I go back to Noanet/Hale to explore a bit more, and possibly start putting together a nice loop, or go back to Upton to explore some more???  decisions decisions.  I may be leaning towards Noanet/Hale for the moment as I think I'd be able to get more miles out of it... lately my rides have been exploratory and/or cut short with fading light... so I feel like I need to start getting some longer rides in.  Maybe this weekend I'll get back to Wompy and get a 20+ ride in.

wait

I was checking out Singletracks yesterday (one of my daily check ins on the site) and the blog post of the day was perfectly timed for me.  The post was about shedding pounds before the race season starts... which is something I need to do!  It didn't dive into any dieting secrets, or really any advice as to how to shed those pounds... what it did give you was a tool to do so.  A web based (with of course an app!) tool to track your goal and progress by counting calories.  Another tool to play with and track my progress, yippee!!  Check out the blog here.   The super sweet aspect of this site is that it has many foods already programmed in, so you don't have to go searching every product for their caloric info.

I jumped right on over to LoseIt.com and set myself up with a profile and as of yesterday I started on the caloric intake the site suggested for my goal.  Right now my goal is to lose 17 pounds.  According to their plan, I should reach my goal by April 7th... which sounds downright sweet to me!  My goal is somewhat arbitrary.  I want to be lighter than I was last season, (and since last season I've put on a few too many pounds) but I'm not aiming at anything drastically low.  My goal weight would put me at my weight at the end of college... I figure I was lean and fit then, so that's a great start.  I'll keep you updated up to the start of the season how the weight loss goes.

Speaking of tools to track data... yesterday as I was getting to the trail after work I realized I left the garmins at home.... SUPER BUMMED!!!  Little things like that can really throw me off.  Here I am, going to explore the trails I had dipped into last week and I wouldn't have any data, no GPS tracking to show where I've been!  But then I remembered a little app - EveryTrail.  I downloaded it in the parking lot as I was getting ready and crossed my fingers.  It actually turned out great!!  I wasn't sure what kind of data I was going to get from it, but ended up with mileage, average speed, a gps track, and elevation gained and lost.  I was super psyched to get elevation because while I was out there I felt like I was constantly climbing and I really wanted to know if I was actually climbing a bunch or I was just a wuss complaining about nothing.

EveryTrai is a great FREE tool to track data.  Is it going to replace the garmins??  Hells no.  But I'll keep it on my phone in case I forget the garmins again.  One aspect I missed about the garmins was having actually moving speed, instead of just a time/distance calculation for average speed... but ah well, it was free and it was data.  Ah technology... and to think, I was mentally prepared to do my best to track on a physical map my guestimated mileage when I got home!