Amazing What A Few Inches Can Do

Greetings friends and followers of my little blog, back with an update that is about a month late.  Not a lot has happened on the scale, but a lot has happened in other areas of my weight loss journey.

Still sticking with the 5:2 Diet and working out at F3, and it continues to pay off.

On September 20, I attended ACE Southeast's SCarolina Coaster Classic, coaster event at Carowinds.

This was my first opportunity to visit Carowinds in a few months and wow did I see a big difference on the coasters.

The coaster shown is Afterburn (some may remember it as Top Gun: The Jet Coaster) and for the longest time it has been a battle for me to fit on the coaster.  But not on the 20th!

My favorite place to ride on Afterburn is in the back row, the forces are the strongest there and I really love it.  But the back row has been a struggle for a long, long time because the belts would many times be too short for me because I was so overweight.

There were times I would barely fit, with the ride attendants struggling to get the belt locked. There were times I was turned away or given the option of the big-boy-seats, which have longer seat belts but are in the middle of the train and don't offer the same G forces.

On the 20th I sat down in the seat and pulled my seat belt and locked it and low and behold it was loose!  I can't remember the last time I had an inch or two of slack on my seatbelt for any B&M inverted coaster.

As you may know my whole reason, besides my health, to lose weight began when I was denied riding El Toro in New Jersey.   Today I think I would fit!  Of course I'm not stopping, I'm going for the gold and while I'm already thinner than I've been in over a decade, I want to go about 30 or 40 more pounds down and then find a way to maintain that weight the rest of my life.

For years I've had roller coaster t-shirts hanging in my closet that no longer fit.  I obviously bought them when I was thinner, but I just held on to them hoping some day I could fit in them again.  Well they all fit now!  I'm actually wearing a Millennium Force shirt today that hasn't been loose on me since probably I bought it in 2003.

I'm running a 5k Sunday (my third since June 2013) and I'm hoping to best my last race time.  I'm also planning to do my first mud run in April!  I always seem to be scared before the next challenge, but I also know that I'll get through it.

If you're thinking about doing a mud run in the future, F3 has a new men's mud run workout!   The Brave (the name of the workout) meets at The Vine at 5:15 on Fridays.

2015 will also hold my second GORUCK Light, my first 24 Hours of Booty, and possibly a GORUCK Challenge. 

Lots of stuff to keep me excited and motivated as I continue the Year of Wes with v2.0.

El Toro I'm coming to conquer you!  Ole!

Thanks for reading along and until next time please sit on your sandals!

The View From Two Wheels

This time around I'm going to go on a bit of a journey and hopefully you'll come along for the ride.

From my perspective too many drivers simply are too distracted and too engrossed in their own world to be safe for themselves and for myself and my fellow cyclists.

If you're not familiar with the term cyclist, it doesn't refer to motorcycle riders, it refers to those riding bicycles or at least in this case that's why I'm referring to.

I started riding a bike around my neighborhood as an adult sometime in the 90's as a part of my weight loss program, then I decided to get brave and venture out on to the main roads.  The first month or so was very nerve-wracking.  This was way before texting and driving or whatever is distracting so many drivers these days but even then motorists were not sharing the road.

In those first few years of cycling, I was cursed at, had the horn blown at me more than one occasion and a car pass me so close that they nearly knocked me off the bike just from the wind displacement.

Thankfully cycling around Charlotte started to take off in the late 90's and early 00's and many drivers started to at least try acting like adults and maybe figured that we were here to stay and acting childish really wasn't going to improve the situation.

Jump forward about a decade, and after moving to my own place a bit more out in the country, I had quite a few more options for riding off the heavier traveled roads.  Most are country roads with little traffic and very few obnoxious drivers.

That being said, I do have a few gripes with drivers:

1. Don't beep the horn to let me know you are coming around me!  Honestly people, you are driving a 2- ton vehicle that makes a lot of noise. I have no problem knowing you are coming!
2. Yelling or cursing at me while you drive by is totally pointless as well as childish.  I can't understand a thing you're saying because you are driving faster than I'm pedaling and the wind displacement causes you to sound like a bunch of gibberish.  If you don't like me using my right to ride a bicycle on a public road, which is my right, check the law books then frankly that's your problem.  You probably are the driver that is usually tailgating me too when I'm driving.  I also had one group of teens slow down and yell that I was fat.  Yeah, mature.  I also had a driver pass me, passing into oncoming traffic, nearly have a head-on collision and possibly kill me, them self and the oncoming driver!
3. The clothing that you all find so strange has a major purpose, and that is comfort!  Modern cycling shorts are padded in all the right places and keep men especially much happier than if they were just wearing boxers and some cargo shorts.  You can figure that one out for yourself.  It's not that we're trying to look like weirdos, it's that we're trying to be comfortable, cut down on wind resistance and in the summer take care of wicking away some of that sweat that is pouring from our bodies. 
4. I can't ride 50 mph - The fact that many drivers come flying up behind a cyclist and then get mad because the cyclist is riding along at 15 mph - 20 mph is just silly.  We aren't superhuman and we can only go so fast on a human-powered vehicle.

I'm sure there are many other points I could add, but I just ask everyone to use some common sense when you come up on a lone cyclist or a pack of them on a group ride.  

We aren't out to intentionally slow down your rocket ship known as a mini van that you are currently hurtling through space in at above the posted speed limit.

We are simply out trying to get some exercise, enjoy a beautiful day and maybe cut down on some fossil fuels by burning calories instead of gas.

This will probably go totally ignored and that's fine, I've shared my thoughts and I hope that one day motorists and cyclists in this country will learn how to get along with each other and share the road.  We've only got one planet to enjoy, let's all learn to share.  Until next time, Please Sit On Your Sandals!