88 Days Until Hood. 700 Calorie EFX, 293 Lbs

Slept 8 hours. Down 7 total lbs from my peak. Feels good to be working out again.

89 Days to go. 700 Calorie EFX / Walk

Ate very well, got some good sleep.

This conversion almost killed me...T-minus 90 Days.

As I have done so often in the past, I let work get in the way of my health / goals. My company has been working on a conversion project (migrating 2 systems to 1) and we have been working some mighty long hours. We are going live on March 10th, but my programs are almost finished as we were supposed to go live today. In the meantime, I get an email from Summit that says he has booked the flight to Oregon for our Climb on the evening of May 19th. Thats 90 days from now, I need to get my ass in gear. I have been working out a few times a week but nothing like I need to be doing to loose weight and get in shape for climbing a mountain. So, I start over again today. Off to the gym in an hour for the 1st of 90 days in a row of intense training to get ready for this. The plan is to workout 2-3 hours a day, mostly cardio and lots of hills. Daylight savings time comes up early this year (March 11th) so after that date I have no excuse not to hike after work as well. 50 hikes up Marquam Hill after work should tune me up nicely for this climb. After Hood I would also like to Climb Adams, South Sister, Middle Sister and Rainer this summer.

DOMS, Fruit, Work

Well, I have a case of delayed on-set muscle soreness (DOMS) This is the soreness in your legs on the second day after a hard workout due to excess lactic acid build-up, which in my case is a stong indication that my body cannot process that level of work yet. DOMS is no big deal. You waddle around a bit but for me its an indication that my hike was a good one. In fact as I progress through the training season I push myself to new heights and say to myself, last time this hike caused DOMS, this time it did not....next week I will push up 300-500 more feet. Eventually I can hike up 6000 Feet in one session without any soreness and pain.

Bought a bunch of Fruit to nibble on at work instead of going out to eat every day. Safeway.com makes it real easy to pick out a basket of item and then they ship it to you weekly if you like. I have Grapes, Apples, Pears, Mangos and Nectarines.

Work got in the way of my workout yesterday as I worked until about 7:30, went out to dinner and then worked again until 2 am. Also means I did not get enough sleep but I hope to catch up on that this evening. Back to the gym tommorrow morning!

Training Hike #1...No Hangover, No Picture, Great Hike

I decided to train closer to home this year as that will encourage me to go hiking more often. When day light savings comes in March there will even be enough sunlight to hike after work instead of the boring treadmill at the gym. Fortunately for us Portland residents there are miles and miles of trails within the city limits. Today I hiked up the Marquam hill. The trail takes you from 300 ft above sea level to 1125 ft in just 1.7 miles. This trail is almost completely up but there are a few breaks to get your heart rate down so the total elevation gain for the day was 860 feet. I came up with a lofty goal while I was hiking to climb the equivalent of Mt Everest (29,035) over the next 20 weeks. My Average HR was 157 for this hike and I got up and down in 1 hour and 23 minutes. Man I am out of shape but the journey to health and the Summits of Mt Hood, Middle & South Sister, Adams and Rainer begins today. Weight 287.5 with 89.5 lbs of fat. When I was a wrestler in college was weighed between 225 and 230, so my goal this year is to loose 60 lbs of fat and get back in shape! On the summit today I noticed that my digital camera was dead.....too many holiday pictures and not enough charging. I will be charged up and ready to go next week, and so will my camera.