Beer Drinker Appreciation Society (BDAS)--OPEN

NAME:   Doug

STORY:   46 years old, 6'4", 257 pounds.  Did my first triathlon in 2009 and did done several sprints and olympics between 2010-2013 and one HIM in 2013.  No races in 2014 and one, Escape from Alcatraz, in 2015.  No races since.  As my girls have gotten older, my free time has decreased dramatically with their swim, volleyball, soccer, etc.

FAMILY STATUS: Married for 20 years with two lovely daughters (14 & 12).

CURRENT TRAINING:  I walked 3.24 miles yesterday with the wife, youngest daughter and the dog.  Otherwise, I haven't done anything consistently since the summer and no real SBR training since February.

2016 TOTALS:

Swim:  74h 16m 54s - 223,450 yds

Bike:  31h 33m 20s - 412.56 mi

Run:  39h 20m 37s - 195.08 mi

PLAN FOR 2017: Get my training back on a regular schedule.  I'll probably do the Winter Cycling Plan, get back to running 4 days per week, and get back to swimming 10k a week.  I think I will plan for another HIM in the fall to keep me motivated.  With our family schedule, I'll have to return to early workouts for running and cycling on the trainer.  Unfortunately, waking up at 4:00 and drinking beer the night before doesn't work for me.  I'll be using beer as a reward and probably try limiting consumption to 1-2 days.

BEER/WINE/BOOZE PREFERENCE: Prefer stouts and porters, but enjoy almost everything except sour beers.  Zins and Sav. Blancs.  Knob Creek Bourbon.

WEIGHT LOSS:  Been up and down for the last several years.  I've won 4-5 weight loss challenges in the past 5 years - often losing 40 pounds or more in 3 months.  Unfortunately, I'm more efficient gaining than losing.  This year, I plan to do what I've done to lose the weight, but not have a end date.  I'd really like to get down to and try competing around 200.  In the past, I've stopped drinking altogether during weight loss challenges.  This year, I'm going to limit to a couple days per week. 

ALREADY HAVE MY BDAS CYCLING SHIRT - Now I just need to put it on and get going.  Looking forward to a good year.

Main goal for 2017 is to get down to 200 pounds by my birthday, 6/15, and maintain throughout the remainder of the year. 

My goal for January is to complete 25 SBR workouts with 3 of each per week.  I also need to drop 12 pounds in this first month, so no alcohol. 

#1 workout is in the books.  3.1 miles; ran first two miles walked the last.  

#2 today with 3000y swim workout.  Now I'm home eating leftover black-eyed peas and cabbage - if it's lucky, I need it.

Hi, everyone.  Welccome back to old friends and hello you all that will be joining.

I'm Mike.   I'm almost 48 (!!!) living with my wife and 14 YO daugher just outside of Baltimore, MD.  I ran cross country (with limited success) and track (with slightly more success) in high school and continued intramural sports throughout college.

My "athletic" career consisted of me playing every imaginable sport through my 20s - soccer, volleyball, basketball, softball, flag football...you name it.  I played a fair amount of beach doubles volleyball "back in the day" LOL and managed to get to be good enough to get crushed at the local pro level on the Jersey shore back in the early 90s.  I trained quite a bit to stay in shape for those sports, but most of it was more on the explosion and speed side vs. endurance, though I did plenty of running and cycling to keep the weight down.

Now that grandpa-used-to-be wasn't around any more, by 2006 I had ballooned to 227 pounds and decided that the old methods weren't going to work anymore, so silly me I signed up for a half marathon.  I got hooked.  Four half marathons later, I decided to follow my wife's lead and sign up for a triathlon.  After getting through the AOS (adult-onset-swimmer) struggles I managed to get through a long sprint (though my wife was wondering if she needed to swim out and get me on the swim leg...).  My bike split was really good for a hybrid bike and I managed a 5K PR run split.  Now I was REALLY hooked.

I went all in in 2011 - signed up for four races throughout the summer and went into June in the best shape of my adult life (down to 195).  Then my knee hurt.  And didn't get better.  Long story short, had knee surgery August of 2011 to repair a miniscus tear - only there wasn't one.  So, sorta recovered from knee surgery but by now both knees would bother me.  I then hurt my back (L4/L5 spondylolisthesis) in Dec 2011 and I was a mess.  Spine surgeon said I'd never run again and that I should have fusion surgery.  I wanted to try something less aggressive first.

Spent most of 2012 experimenting with treatments for both my back and knees.  Finally got back to rudimentary training by the fall and started a couch to 5K run program in addition to swimming and biking (mostly on the trainer).  After about 6-9 months of that my back was about 90% and my knees were managed with foam rolling.

2013 and 2014 were AWESOME - raced 4 triathlons and set running PRs and did another half marathon

Fast forward to now - I've had several pretty bad flare-ups and am in the middle of one now.  Looking to finally get that fusion done later this month.  Doc thinks I'll be relatively symptom free once I recover from the surgery, and that I'll be back swimming and cycling in a month and running again by the summer.  I'm about to do the "fight with the insurance company" thing (which is really funny, since I work for them LOL).

Anyway, enough about me other than that I think this is a great mentor group.  We don't really have one "mentor" - we all share the responsibility based on our expertise and experience.  We all have different levels of talent and goals, and I think everyone does a good job of keeping triathlon in perspective.  I think you'll find us as one of the more active groups, too, which is nice.

I've participated in like nine different mentor groups over the years - this one rocks!

Happy 2017 and good luck this year - really looking forward to seeing your successes and I will be racing vicariously through you (at least for the short-term).

Sounds like my last two weeks. 

That is an awesome year.

My totals:

I'm actually looking forward to it...how crazy is that!  I've been "whistling through the graveyard" for almost five years on this.  It's time.

Bummer on being sick.  I know a ton of people around here and at work who are also not doing so well.  Half of my wife's office called out this morning.

So it's not just not being used to winter!