Alaskan Pack Fodder

I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of sleep this weekend.   I woke up around 9:00 AM Friday morning, got on the bike for my workout, and then took care of a few odds and ends before getting ready for work. I left early, because I needed to set the courses for the Alaska State 9 and Under Alpine Skiing Championships at Hillberg. So, I ran up and down the hill for a couple hours, then reported for a 12 hour night shift.   After work, I had just enough time to get home, eat something, and change into my ski clothes before I had to head out again to the hill to finish preparations. All day long I skied with my daughter and set courses. We finished awards late, giving me just enough time to shower and change for my next 12 hour shift. I was starting to wobble a bit.   By the time I dragged myself home on Sunday morning, I had been up for almost 48 hours. Needless to say, I decided to skip my day's workout and get the extra hour or so of sleep. Two days later, and I&#

The last couple weeks I've been feeling little aches and pains. Nothing I'm worried about, though. Maybe it's from the workouts I've been doing. Maybe it's a signal that ski racing season is nearly over and the weather is changing. Maybe it's because my body has been feeding on itself for the last couple months (strange to think of weight loss that way). Maybe I'm getting old. Then again, maybe my enormous black Lab has been sleeping on me again. Could be any of those things, or a combination of them.   The weather is changing. It's getting warmer, the skies are blue more often and the sun is out longer. I'm debating adding another fan in the garage for my bike trainer. I'm holding out hope that we've seen the last serious snow of the year (not that we've had an excessive amount) and the roads will be clear enough by the end of March. I'd like to take the cross bike out and not have to dodge excessive amounts of ice or puddles.  

Friday I got on the scale when I woke up, as I normally do. I was half-asleep, but my eyes popped open when it read 178.0 lbs. I re-zeroed the scale and tried again, and got the same reading. I went out to the local gym and tried their scale. Same reading. I re-zeroed their scale… 178.0 lbs. It seems like an odd number to get so fixated on, but it’s pretty significant to me. What that number means is that my BMI is 24.82, which is in the “normal” range. I haven’t been classified as anything but overweight or obese since around 1998. That’s about 15 years for those of you keeping score at home. 15 years of lugging around a lot of excess weight that was slowly killing me. After peaking at around 240lbs and a BMI of 33.5, I started riding a bike and dropped to 200lbs (BMI 27.9). I went from obese to overweight just by riding around. Then I started racing, and over the next few years my weight hovered around 185-190lbs, depending on the season. Still overweight, but I was feel