Jiggy-Z

Another sick thought:

Just binged the whole show over the MLK weekend. I even took a look at the reddit forum. I was a huge fan of Lost back in the day and thus far am impressed by the originality and characters.

Not only all of of that , but Texas, in general, was floundering from the early 80's economic collapse in real estate, oil, banking, and tech. The whole state was sagging with empty buildings, abandoned properties, and just a whole lot of nothing going on economics wise. Much like the Longhorns, at the time, the Cowboys were living off of past glories. I actually credit both Jimmy and Jerry for putting together those championship teams. Dallas was able to get a shit load of players through Walker trade and draft deals. They also took advantage of the lack of salary cap. Jimmy was not some kind of football genius as evidenced by his Miami tenure and we already know about Jerry's shortcomings. In addition, J & J just got real lucky on some things too. Drafting Steve Walsh #1 in the supplemental draft was a huge mistake but accidentally worked out for them when they no longer had the #1 pick and had to take E. Smith #13 or something. Drafting Russell Maryland #1 was not the best thing either. But Jimmy sure did get a lot out of his players, many of which were drafted or otherwise acquired under Landry.

Do you have any idea the overhead required to cut the ribbons on shopping malls?

Tackle the person with the football and the alternative lifestyle

I don't think so on the Pegasus. This was back in 1999, so the memory is a little fuzzy, but I stayed away from the Pegasus line even though I was a Nike guy. I always hated the colors (too much white) and the shoe just looked slow and like "dad" shoes. I always picked out shoes that looked fast but also looked like they were sturdy too. I preferred dark colors with a splash of some kind of day glow color. I also never went for the expensive higher end shoes-upper middle was my max as far as price went. Even though at my peak I only ran about 30 miles a week, I went through shoes really quickly since so much of my work was on the track or hills, plus I was pretty large, at least compared to the guys I was training with who were all about 150 while I was between 165-170. What I would give to weigh that again.

One week on the Jiggy-Z super salad, OMAD, walking, no alcohol diet and I have ....gained .6 lbs. Birthday weekend did me in. How many calories can there be in a 22oz rib eye?

For inspirational purposes only. I loved those shoes though.

City of Bee Cave. Watch your ass heading down that hill on 71 toward Barton Creek going into Bee Cave. And fuck the city of Bee Cave in general.

I went back and pulled this up, just in case the Surl forgot our hero's vitals. The good news is that to be at pretty much optimal training weight you only need to drop about 10lbs. If you take this halfway seriously, I think you can break the 1:00 mark.

All kidding aside, I'm going to go ahead and say spikes are completely unnecessary for this race. I will say though that Air Max's are not the best option either, at least as you approach more 400 specific training. In time the Air Max's will begin to wear out, and at that time should be replaced with something between a minimalist running shoe and a full cushy heel shoe. Pretty middle of the road type of shoe that is light...and for you, you should race in the shoe that you trained in just for familiarity. Case in point: Above I mentioned that I had a timed 400 at :58 seconds in my early 30's at the beginning of my mile training. I did another timed 400 about 1 week before the race and did it in :49 seconds while wearing just a pair of Nike Air Bowerman(inexpensive middle of the road shoe) series training shoes(and some shorts), that I ended up purchasing one day because I somehow forgot my other running shoes. I trained in the 200 as well with rep times of 23-24 seconds and can honestly say I have never worn spikes in my life. Also never even came close to getting injured.

I used to work at that Louie's on the Lake. The mid 80's crash did them in. Louie was building condos and some kind of destination venue next to the old restaurant as well as investing in a place on Grand Cayman when the music stopped. I mostly worked the buffet line on and off from 1983 to 1985. Good money back then at $6.00/hr. Me and my fellow buffet boys ate good back then. We stole shrimp, prime rib, lobster tails, snow crab, you name it. We took a lot it home, but sometimes we would arrange for after work parties up in Westlake hills. There were a lot of mansions under construction that had been abandoned and we just made ourselves at home. We would build bonfires and someone would bring the beer and the chicks and we would have a feast up there. My brother and I always worked the Sunday brunch. We would go to mass at 7am at St Austin's downtown and then head to work. Once there we proceeded to forget everything we heard at church. We would spike our orange juice with Champaign and let the good times roll. Lot of Frat formals were there too. There was so much ass that walked into that place, it was unreal. I even worked a couple of runway fashion shows. I was just a lowly buffet kid in high school, but every now and then I would venture over to the bar area after work was over and see the management and waitstaff pounding cocktails and doing blow. So many stories. We had these two cooks and one was Lebanese and the other was from someplace that hated the Lebanese people. I walked back into the kitchen to get some more food for the line and found those two wrestling on the floor going at each other with meat cleavers. My employment ended there when they bounced my payroll check.

That is not bad at all, given no prior training, and the fact that you have 8 months to do this. The track can be kind of intimidating because there are strict times, you can see the finish line that never seems to get there as fast as you want, wind is always a factor, the curves zap your momentum etc. Once you get your couple of months in with jogging with your dog, spend some time on the track. This familiarity will pay big dividends, even if you are just jogging. Don't be afraid of this distance. When I was training for the mile back in my early 30's, I was deathly afraid of the track. I started running 8 sets of 1:15 quarters with a quarter of walking in between and was absolutely gassed doing that only once a week. After about a month, I was still gassed but I noticed, I was no longer running those 400s at 1:15 but at 1:07-1:10. Then about at that same time, my Tuesday running group decided to to do timed 400's kind of like a race, and I ran my 400 at :58 and it didn't even feel like I was breathing hard. From that point on, I no longer feared the track, but looked forward to track work outs, because I saw the positives in it: Which are: 1. You can run at close to your maximum without having to worry about saving it for later. 2. You can take as much rest as you need before the next go. 3. You will actually get faster during the workout. 4. You can scale up or down to the 800 or 200 very easily. 4 It is a quick run and you can adjust for any tactical failures in subsequent reps. 5. You actually get better at that distance very quickly. Training for the 400 should be really fun. In fact, I wish more people would make resolutions to run faster and better rather than, say, train for the 10K or marathon.

Cat in suit reading newspaper: "I should join a gang."

Yeah, I was really bad about stretching afterward. It always took me a really long time to warm up, too. This quest of yours reminds me of a Youtube video I saw where this guy in his 20's wanted to train and run a 5:00 minute mile with something like 6-8 weeks of training. He started off at with a mile time of 7:48, and of course I knew how this video was going to end right then and there. He ended up at at about 6:40 after his training. For reference, I did something similar at age 32. I was running everyday and did a timed mile 5:48. Probably not my best, but pretty close. So i decided to train for the mile and as luck would have it, the Congress Avenue Mile was 3 months away. I ran 6 days a week and 3 of those work outs were on the track and brutal. I broke 5min about 10 days before the race, but I started a full two minutes faster than this guy and trained twice as long. i guess we tend to overestimate our abilities and underestimate the difficulties of our chosen quest.

55th for me is on Friday. There is hope for those of you in your mid 40's. I was in the best shape of my life in my mid 40's. I had been in excellent shape back in my 20's and 30's, but never paid any attention to the effect of diet. I got it all dialed in at around age 45 and never felt better or performed better. Kept that going for at least 5 or 6 years.

You look like you are in a similar situation, and no need to make this take all spring. See below: I went back to the Transformation Thread and dug up the "crash diet" portion of an old post of mine, for those interested. It works. Follow up to below: After that post I was on it for another two weeks, but eventually stalled out a 183lbs, which is around 15% BF for me. The steps: Complete cessation of alcohol. I put a pencil to my alcohol consumption as I recollected it and in the previous weeks averaged an alcohol equivalent of 31 Bud Lights per week. I know this Surly and that is no big deal, but calorically it amounts to about 1lb/week. Plus this is not forever. Walk 1 hr/day on average: Pretty easy to do since I have no other means of exercise. Based on my weight and pace, I figured I can get about 1LB/week out of this. I am also doing some light band rehab work on my wrists, elbows and shoulders, but nothing calorically significant. Walking is a very powerful fat loss tool. Several years ago I was down to about 179LBS while doing all kinds of body weight exercises and sprinting along with a very moderate paleo type of diet when my weight loss really stalled out until I added about 3 walks a week. There is just something about the pace that lends itself to steady fat loss. One Meal Per Day: This is where it might get difficult for some of you. This is not an eating window. I literally have one meal per day (during the week) and I eat mine at 3PM. From prep to finishing the dishes it is about 1 hr. In normal times I don't eat breakfast or lunch but eat from 6-9PM excluding weekends. The Meal is a salad: 1/2 LB of Spring mix, 2 can of sardines, 2 hard boiled eggs, generous portions of bell peppers, carrots, mushrooms, onions and broccoli. Topped with a homemade vinaigrette, shredded Parmesan cheese, and Parmesan Crisps. I have a hard time finishing it and I have no hunger for the rest of the evening unless someone brings in some fast food or something. The caloric intake would not be sufficient if I were climbing or otherwise working out, but I find it works while I am hobbled. I have weighed myself before and after this meal and the weight is ~3lbs of food +/-. I did a calorie count on it at one time but I don't have it anymore, but I think it was slightly less less than 2000 cals. I may rework it and edit this post if there is interest. The results: Very slow start for the first 3-4 days in terms of weight loss. Some of that may be in the weighing times and whether I have evacuated my bowels of the 3lb meal, but after that once you get in a rhythm the result are consistent. I vary from this approach on the weekends a bit and whatever happens over the weekend tends to even out by Monday afternoon. After 3 weeks I am at 185-186 lbs for an astonishing .8/lbs lost per day. Caveat, historically, my weight loss tends to stall as I get closer to 180lbs. But also consider, I have no weight work or HIT training in this regimen so I still have that in my bag of tricks once I get healthier. Consider too to that I am also preconditioned to smaller eating windows so the effect would in theory be greater for someone not accustomed to restricted eating windows. Also, I began this program not significantly over weight. For another Surly of similar build and love of all things alcohol, but say another 20lbs heavier to start, I would expect being able to run this program for longer with similar daily results. There are also other hidden calorie restrictions that I do not have available such as soft drinks or sweets which I don't usually have in my diet, so I don't benefit from cutting them out. On muscle loss: I have no idea or not whether this is occurring or not, but it is not a concern at this time since I really have no other choice. I will say that this injury situation has led me to research and rethink my movement patterns for all forms of exercise. I imagine I am going to be out of rock climbing for another 3-4 months and in that time I will continue to try and lose weight to where I am down to under 170lb. At that weight, I will have the benefit of over 30LBS less of body weight to deal with on the wall which is kind of like a hidden strength gain. Additionally with improvement in technique and emphasis on mobility and correct muscle activation and joint strengthening, any loss of muscle will be more than offset. I just thought I would share the weight loss portion especially since it is working so well and dispel the notion that you need to hit the gym all the time and wear yourself out to get good and fast results which are not the result of an unsustainable crash diet or questionable eating habits.

We have a body transformation thread as well. Lots of good stuff over there. Last year was brutal. Went from 184 in April to 202 in December. Ouch. Hey, we all know what to do, as there are many diets that work along with exercise that is not too tough but fun and effective. The problem is always staying with it, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose, because that just takes more time. A few general tips that I have found work really well, especially when starting. Crash diet: Nothing wrong with this. Great psychological boost and usually works great with moderate exercise. Just don't do it for more than a month before transitioning into something more long term, and don't expect the same results going forward. Stuff that usually goes under this topic are things like (one meal a day, no alcohol, working out every single day etc.). It is ok to be enthusiastic right off the bat, so use this to your advantage, while it lasts. The other stuff besides diet and exercise: Stress and sleep anyone. Sometimes small and easily habit forming adjustments can pay big rewards in the form of weight loss. Exercise: For weight loss, less is more. When just starting out (New Years), just walk or do something relaxing that you like. Nobody needs the hassle of a new gym membership or the pressure of using a new piece of exercise equipment. The last thing you need is to get injured right away. In time you can go back to harder workouts you like and diversify the types of stress you put on your body. Write it down: Keep track of your weight every day as well as a few other select pieces of info. No need to get too detailed. Things like "No alcohol today" or "1 hr walk". When I have faltered over the weekend and see the lbs come back on Monday, I am often astounded how quickly they come off giving me confidence that all is not lost. Have a big picture goal: Sure you want to lose weight, but what are you going to do with your new found body? Losing weight does not need to be an all consuming drudgery. Save that for the last few lbs when getting down to your college weight or seeking some new personal best time or lift or athletic skill. Think of weight loss as the rediscovery of good habits, gift of health, and the transition to a better life. Good luck fellow fatasses. I just want you to know, we're all counting on you.

RIP Dan, always loved your work.

Is that what John Denver meant when he said "I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky"?

45 minutes here.

I got the char logs at Ace. It shows a picture of a kamodo cooker on the front, so I assume they are high enough quality to pass for the type of premium charcoal required in BGE types. I have not used my bag yet. Any results out there?

Beirut.

Sean Connery: I'll take "enter child the-rapey" for $200, Alex, and your mother's a whore, Trebek.