I've had quite a few questions about my qualifications for the "over 200 pound" class in the Bop to the Top. Well, I'm here to tell you that I am, in fact, over 200 pounds. Barely, but I'm there. The morning of the race I weighted 202. After the race 200.5. So there.
I'd like to weight less than 200 pounds. I've been working my butt off at the gym. Unfortunately, I also eat like a horse, so it doesn't seem to help much. I'm in better shape, but I haven't really lost any weight. I'm hoping that when biking season starts back up I'll drop a few pounds.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Indy's Fastest Fat Man
I forgot to mention that I competed in a pretty interesting event a couple weekends ago. There's 38 floor skyscraper downtown called the First America Building. Every February, there is a race to the top as a charity for Riley Children's Hospital (where Jen works). This year a friend from work convinced me to do it.
The race is run in a staggered fashion, with a person leaving the bottom every 30 seconds. You give them an estimated time when you sign up and the fastest people go first. That's supposed to eliminate any passing in the stairwell. I signed up for 6:30, so I started at number 147. My friend also put in 6:30 and he started at number 151.
Anyway, it was a very, very difficult event. It wasn't really like anything I've ever done before. My legs got tired, obviously, but I felt like my real limitation was just the lack of oxygen in the stairwell. I couldn't get my breath. To top it off, the air was really dry and cold. That resulted in some pretty severe throat irritation. I was spitting up some blood the rest of the day.
Anyway, by the time I got to the top I was exhausted. Unfortunately, the race ended in a small room. There were a lot of people packed in there, so once again there wasn't much oxygen. I couldn't get my breath back and I couldn't get my heart rate down. Nothing worrying or anything, it was just exhausting. Eventually an EMT asked me if I wanted to take a few puffs off their oxygen tank. That really helped.
On the elevator ride down my friend and I were trying to figure out who had the best time (I was also attempting not to puke in an elevator full of people). Judging by my condition, my friend was pretty sure he had one. We had a $10 bet going, so he was pretty happy.
I finally recovered once we got down to the bottom. We waited around for a while to see the inevitable results. What were they? Well, he ran a 6:30 just like he predicted. Me? I ran a 5:30, far better than I was hoping. I was so surprised that I didn't believe him at first. But sure enough, the results were in. That explained why I was so tired.
I ended up 50th overall out of 1300 people. To top it off, I placed first in the "over 200 pound" category. That's right, I'm the fastest fat man in Indianapolis. Oh yeah!
The race is run in a staggered fashion, with a person leaving the bottom every 30 seconds. You give them an estimated time when you sign up and the fastest people go first. That's supposed to eliminate any passing in the stairwell. I signed up for 6:30, so I started at number 147. My friend also put in 6:30 and he started at number 151.
Anyway, it was a very, very difficult event. It wasn't really like anything I've ever done before. My legs got tired, obviously, but I felt like my real limitation was just the lack of oxygen in the stairwell. I couldn't get my breath. To top it off, the air was really dry and cold. That resulted in some pretty severe throat irritation. I was spitting up some blood the rest of the day.
Anyway, by the time I got to the top I was exhausted. Unfortunately, the race ended in a small room. There were a lot of people packed in there, so once again there wasn't much oxygen. I couldn't get my breath back and I couldn't get my heart rate down. Nothing worrying or anything, it was just exhausting. Eventually an EMT asked me if I wanted to take a few puffs off their oxygen tank. That really helped.
On the elevator ride down my friend and I were trying to figure out who had the best time (I was also attempting not to puke in an elevator full of people). Judging by my condition, my friend was pretty sure he had one. We had a $10 bet going, so he was pretty happy.
I finally recovered once we got down to the bottom. We waited around for a while to see the inevitable results. What were they? Well, he ran a 6:30 just like he predicted. Me? I ran a 5:30, far better than I was hoping. I was so surprised that I didn't believe him at first. But sure enough, the results were in. That explained why I was so tired.
I ended up 50th overall out of 1300 people. To top it off, I placed first in the "over 200 pound" category. That's right, I'm the fastest fat man in Indianapolis. Oh yeah!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Snowed In
Jen and I are loving the weather right now. We've both got to take work off yesterday and today because of all the snow we got.
We got about a foot of snow over the last two days. And since Indiana isn't used to that much snow, they pretty much haven't cleared anything off. It's pretty much impossible to drive anywhere. So that means no work for us!
It's like we're back in grade school and we get a snow day! Now we've got to get some sleds and find a big, big hil....
We got about a foot of snow over the last two days. And since Indiana isn't used to that much snow, they pretty much haven't cleared anything off. It's pretty much impossible to drive anywhere. So that means no work for us!
It's like we're back in grade school and we get a snow day! Now we've got to get some sleds and find a big, big hil....
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