The Pay Off :-)

From August 26th 2010 until now. This is the progress I've made. In number form :-) First set of numbers is From August 2010. Second set is from Feb. 18th 2011

This past August, while out in B.C. to sign up for Ironman Canada. I stopped in at the 'Competitive Edge' tent in Ironman Village. They were offering free tests on body metrics. i.e. Body fat %, Muscle Mass, Metabolic Age ect, ect. I knew the test would come out and say I was pretty much Superman (not), but I thought I would get tested anyway :-) Step 1: Strip down.

Results were as follows in August:
1. Weight: 153.4 lbs
2. % Body Fat: 16.2%  - This put me in the middle of the healthy range
3. % total body water: 59.6% - For a racer, you should be above 60% to 65%
4. Muscle Mass: 122.1 lbs - Lean body mass (How much of my body is muscle)
5. Physique Rating: 5 - This number assesses the users physique according to the ratio of body fat and muscle in the body. A 5 rates made me an Average Muscle & Average body fat.
6. BMR: 1705 cal - Number of calories I'd need at rest for a day to live. BMR= Base Metabolic Rate.
7. Metabolic Age: 22 - Age level of my body according to my BMR
8. Bone Mass: 6.4 lbs - Physical weight of my bones in my body. I was a bit low in the cat. :-(
9. Visceral Fat Rating: 4 - Indicates level of fat surrounding my vital organs in my stomach area. A 4 rating is very good. Healthy is rated as anywhere from 1 to 12. But 12 needs work.

So needless to say, I left feeling a little bit, average. Here I am signing up for Ironman and what I'm working with is average? Not a chance. Time to get the cracking on the training.

 Fast forward to the now. Since then, I signed up and started my training plan. And for those of you who know me, you know I have been taking this very serious. So here is the pay of of my training. This past Friday, I went and got an updated test. Here were my numbers :-)

Results are as follows:
1. Weight: 148.4 lbs - Down 5lbs :-) That's always a good thing :-)
2. % Body Fat: 7.9%  - Down 8.3%. This now puts me in the 'Underfat' range. But don't worry, it's OK.
3. % total body water: 64.2% - For a racer, you should be above 60% to 65%
4. Muscle Mass: 129.8 lbs - Up 7.7 lbs Lean body mass (muscle) This is awesome :-)
5. Physique Rating: 8 - An 8 rates made me as a 'Thin and Muscular Athlete :-)
6. BMR: 1810 cal - Number of calories I'd need at rest for a day.
7. Metabolic Age: 12 - Down 10 years on my metabolic age. Awesome sauce :-)
8. Bone Mass: 7 lbs - Up .6 lbs. This just puts me into the Average bone mass range. :-)
9. Visceral Fat Rating: 1 - Down 3 points. 1 is as low as the scale goes. So I am pretty sure 1 stands for awesome and super healthy :-) :-) :-)

My conclusion: Training for an Ironman is the best workout and diet plan there is :-) It's nice to see all my hard work is paying off. Can't wait to see my numbers just before Ironman this August.

Jesse James Brown

Discover yourself

  I get asked the question a lot "What do I think about when your training for hours on end?" So I just wanted to write down a thought I had recently well doing a bit of said training for Ironman :-) As some of you know, the training for an Ironman is hard, long and wearing to say the least. You spend hours upon hours alone. Swimming, cycling, and running. Repeat... Sometimes you get lucky and you have a small group to train with. But even amongst others, you find yourself isolated and trapped within your own thoughts. And it's these thoughts that can either drive you to success, or ultimately cause you to stop and give up...

So here was my thought. I was out running is this great cold weather when this crept in...
 I started thinking about an article I had recently read where Lance Armstrong said that, “Endurance Athletes are running away from something inside of themselves, and that is one of the reasons why they do what they do”.

 So I began to think, "What am I running away from?" I thought back into my past and several things jumped out at me. But none of these things seemed like anything I had not already dealt with. So as I continued my run, I could not seem to find that something I was 'running away from.' The more and more I thought about it, the further and further from finding that something I seemed to end up...

 So my thought process changed a bit. Maybe it's not that I’m running away from something, but rather running towards a burning desire to discover something about myself that I never knew or dreamed imaginable... And when I thought about that for awhile; that statement was a better fit for 'Why I do, what I do.' :-)

 So I look forward to this process. The endless hours of training. The good days. The bad days. And even more important, the hard days. Because I know with each stroke I take, every kilometre I bike, and every new trail I run down. I am that much closer to discovering that something that drives me everyday.

Jesse James Brown

Please take a few moments and watch this video. After this, you have no more excuses. Never say "I can't."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLdi0hMkinM&feature=related