Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope yours was safe and enjoyable. Melissa and I typically stay in on New Year's Eve and plan our goals for the new year. While most people celebrate on New Year's Eve, I hold off on the celebration until New Year's Day. My celebration this year went something like this:

I woke up at 7Am and made myself a fruit-protein smoothie. I have a new smoothie recipe that uses a protein powder that is plant-based rather than using whey protein (usually derived from sickly cows). It is yummy and super nutritious as well as being Vegan which is something I am striving for. I also include Udo's Oil which is packed with Omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acids.

After my shake, I loaded up my gear and headed for the park to meet friends for a New Year's Day mountain bike ride. We got started at Poor Farm Park about 8:30 AM. There was really no one else there. Typically we like to ride down at the river but the trails down there were trashed because of all the snow. Poor Farm was wet but not too bad.

We had a great ride. We were out there for about an hour and 30 minutes with a total actual ride time of 1 hour and 11 minutes. We had a few breaks in the woods including a scary moment when Mario crashed. I just happened to look back up this steep snowy hill that I had just descended when I saw Mario flying over his handle bars and letting out a pretty good yell. My other friend Jeff said, "do you think he is alright?" Just then Mario let out another yell. He had already been on the ground for a few seconds when he yelled again which was not a good sign. Turns out he was bruised up a little bit but mostly he had gotten the wind knocked out of him. He recovered well and we all rode for another 20 minutes or so. He may have a broken pinky but has to fly out of town on business Monday so I doubt he will get it checked out.

After our ride, I went home and made some fresh juices with Melissa (more on that later). Then while Melissa ran her 4-mile run, I took my brand new road bike out for its maiden voyage. I rode for about 45 minutes around the neighborhood doing intervals. I rode fast until I found Melissa running and then slowed down and gave her some water. Then I took off fast again. Interval training gets the best results.

After my road bike ride, Melissa and I hit the store to do some quick shopping. Then we came home and did our P90X, 90-minute Yoga routine. We were both tired but we had to bring it. And bring it we did! It is hard to believe that we are now done with P90X. I don't think I have ever followed such a regimented workout schedule for so long and I am happy to say that we made it through with no injuries and pretty good results. We have one more day of stretching tomorrow and then we take all our post P90X measurements. I will of course report on those results here.

That about wraps up my summary of our New Year's celebration. Now onto goals, plans, and goings-on for 2011. Our first order of business is to go on a 15-day reboot diet. I have written about this in previous blog postings. Tomorrow we start. We will eat pretty much all veggies for 5 days along with fresh juices. Then after the first 5 days, we will only drink fresh juices for 5 days followed by another 5-day round of all veggies and juices.

This diet is not a diet in the traditional sense. We are not trying to lose weight. Rather we are rebooting our system by cutting out all sweeteners, added salts, and processed foods. The intent of the diet is to reset our palate so that we desire good foods over bad foods. I describe good foods as lots of fruits and vegetables and no processed foods. I have already cut all junk food from my diet. Now we will step it up a bit.

In order to do the reboot, we had to get a juicer. We got a nice Omega VRT330 Dual-Stage Vertical Single-Auger Low-Speed Juicer. Low speed juicers ensure that the juices do not get heated up during the juicing process thus diminishing the quality of the juice. The juicer is really cool. After we got it, I immediately went out to Whole Foods and filled an entire cart full of fresh organic fruits and vegetables. We are ready!

I plan to blog about the whole experience so tune in frequently for short updates about the reboot diet.

And now onto fitness goals. I have tentatively mapped out my 2011 race schedule. It is ambitious but as followers of my blog, you know that I like to bring it! Here is the schedule so far as I see it. Important to note that some of the races are tune-up races with the main goal to get used to racing.

• April 2-Monument Avenue 10K -Melissa and I are signed up as are Melissa's brother and his son.
• April 10 - Chasing Chics Sprint Triathlon-First road triathlon ever for me-got a new bike just for the occasion.
• April 16- Fredericksburg Offroad Duathlon #1-Hope to beat my time last year
• May 22 - Ground Force IT Sprint Triathlon-Another road tri.
• June 12 - Xterra East Coast Championship-Off Road Olympic Distance Triathlon
• September 4- Shenandoah Mountain 100-Redemption!

As you can see, this is pretty ambitious. However, with the proper training and nutrition, I think this is very doable. I will of course be blogging about it.

Again, Happy New Year and stay tuned for frequent updates about the diet and training.