Tuesday I started out and ended the day skating.  I was returning from a gig and stopped to do an extra 14 (very slow) miles, again on Katy Trail.  I’d have gone further but I was really tired and the skates were chewing up my left ankle.  I’m going to have to wait a few days to let my feet heal up.  I’ll try to do 35 or 42 on the Katy at sunrise on Saturday.  (42 would put me at 906 for the year.  That sounds soooo good!)

864 miles / 1390 km YTD
166.0 lbs  / 75.4 kg

updated:

The weather’s been beautiful since last week!  It was a little windy when I skated Saturday, but this morning was perfect.  I did “my usual” – four laps on the Katy Trail.  I skated by myself the first three, but caught a guy on a mountain bike miles 21.5 to 24.5 (he was heavily checking out female runners and seemed a bit annoyed I was following him – though he said it was ok), and another (much more gracious) mountain biker for the last 3.5 miles.

It’s hard to believe it’s November.  Gotta skate while the skatin’s good!  One hundred fifty miles to go (to make 1000 for the year).

I’m about to go over to Friends of the Katy Trail and politely kvetch about the newly-installed pavers at Snyder Union.  They are square pave-stones, almost parallel to the trail with a strong radius on the edges.  The net effect is to force your skate into the groove – a real bear if other people are on the trail.  This kind of thing isn’t unusual on streets designed for cars, but I think its inexcusable on a supposedly-skate-friendly exercise trail. If you’re a Dallas-area skater that uses Katy Trail I encourage you to leave “KT” a note too.  Click the link above, then click “Ask KT”.

850 miles / 1368 km YTD
166.2 lbs  / 75.4 kg

Finally, it stopped raining.

35 miles at Katy Trail.  The weather man tells me I should get to skate at least once more this week.  I’ll do 35 or 42 again if I can afford the time.  My body likes it (and needs it!).  It’s the beginning of November and I have 200 miles to go for the year.  Will I make it?

This time of year has too many opportunities to eat wrong.  If you eat like a pig, you’ll look like a pig.  Seems simple enough.

794 miles / 1278 km YTD
165.4 lbs  / 75 kg

Missed a chance to skate (outdoors) Tuesday.  Now after two days of rain I’m kicking myself!

28 miles on Katy Trail.  It was about 75 f (24 C) and sunny so I skated shirtless.  Every time I get to do that this late I think, “probably the last time for the year”.  It had the side benefit of forcing me to look at the fat on my sides in the shadow for half of each lap.  I don’t know how much weight I actually want to lose (I’d like to put on a few pounds in my upper body so it may balance out), but I’d really like to get rid of the little “love handles”.

My goal for the year, btw, was to lose 20 lbs – from 185 where I’d spent all of my adult life down to 165 where I was at age 17.  I plan to continue to post my weight here just to keep myself honest.  My weight loss plan in a nutshell is: eat less, eat well, skate more!

I really really really would like to get to 1000 miles before the end of the year and I have no idea if the weather will allow it.  I have ten weeks left so I only need to average one 28 mile skate a week.  But I’ll need to do two or more on some weeks to allow for rain and cold (marty = cold-weather-wimp).

I’m just thinking about this, not committing to it, but wouldn’t it be great to skate 1000 miles a year each year for the rest of my life?  Maybe I should set my goal for 1500 miles in 2010?

Skating:

759 miles / 1221 km YTD
162.6 lbs / 73.75 kg

I hadn’t skated my regular 28 miles for three weeks because of a combination of foot/skate problems and a week of rain.  And somewhere in the process I lost one of my EzeeFit booties.  So here is what my foot looks like after 28 miles without the EzeeFits.  You can’t see it here, but there’s a big blister on the left side of my ankle too.  I’m ordering a new pair of EzeeFits as soon as I finish this post.

What I really need is a new pair of boots (Hello Bont!  Are you listening?)

Skating:

731 miles / 1176 km YTD

I hate to whine but my skates are killing my ankles.  I only skated 7 miles this Tuesday and 14 miles last week.  In fact last week after skating I took off my skates and walked about 3/4 mile back to the trucklet.  I’m going to make another attempt at heat molding to get some relief.

I did cycle 41 miles Saturday at the Cottonpatch Challenge in Greenville, Texas.  It was fun.  I rode in the “trail ride”, but I wish I’d signed up for the race.  It would have been 56 miles, which I easily could have done, and I’d have received an official time.  As it was I did 41 miles in about 2 hours 10.

The good side of all this, I’ve more than achieved the 165 lb. weight goal I had for the summer!

Skating:

703 miles / 1131 km YTD

Cycling:

97 miles / 156 km YTD
162.4 lbs / 73.6 kg

I rode 33 miles with Rockwall Cycling, then on to Katy Trail and skated 28 miles.  This morning I’m the lowest weight I’ve been since maybe my junior year of high school.  Borrowed Mark Elam’s mountain bike with road tires for the ride, which wore me out.  The gearing isn’t stiff enough for the flats and downhills, his frame was a couple inches small for me, and the straight bars didn’t give me room to stretch out.  But it shifts nice!

Skating:

682 miles / 198 km YTD

Cycling:

56 miles / 90 km YTD
164.2 lbs / 74.5 kg

Only 21 miles yesterday because my ankle bones are rubbing a lot  – like a lot – and I was afraid I’d mess up my feet.  I’m going to hold off on skating again until at least the weekend, and try heat-molding a better ankle pocket.

I moved the frame on my right skate in 3 or 4 mm and my left one 1 or 2.  This is “all the way in” on both of them.  I think it’s working better, but need to fix the ankle pocket and give my feet a break so I can tell for sure.

654 miles / 1054 km YTD
168.4 lbs / 76.38 kg

Only 1/4 of the year left and I still have quite a few miles to get to 1000.  I need to get busy!  I did cross 1000 km today.  That should count for something.

My skate last night was cut short by a Dallas policeman driving down Katy Trail with his lights off.  He told me the park (Katy Trail is officially a Dallas park) was closed and that lots of bad things happened out there at night.  I was wondering if he had to back up the rest of the trail or what, since he was approaching the “Snyder Plaza” construction and there aren’t many spots he could turn around.

I’m skating Katy tomorrow about 8:30 with my daughter Autumn.  We haven’t skated together in quite a while, so I’m really looking forward to it!

633 miles / 1019 km YTD
168.4 lbs / 76.38 kg