Game on?

I gained two kilos* within a week after Lotoja. I raced all of cyclocross season overweight and then promptly gained another couple kilos after cross season ended. I am, at the moment, comfortably plump**.

*Yes, I’m still committed to using the metric system on this blog. I don’t use it all the time in everyday life, because that would be annoying and in some cases, impossible. For instance, I can’t go to the grocery store and insist that they repackage my gallon of milk into metric containers or ask the gas station to re-price my fuel on a per liter basis.

I do, however, think that making a hard and fast nationwide conversion to the metric system would be a great use of stimulus dollars. Anyone who works as an engineer, mechanic, scientist, or in the medical field is already accustomed to using metric. It would take us a year to make the switch, and by the end everyone who wasn’t using it already would be used to it. Then all we’d need to do is start dipping our French fries in gravy, and the Canadians would have nothing left to laugh at us about. Well, except for our screwed up healthcare system. But that’s another tangential rant for another post.

**But not so plump as to adversely affect my Wii fit age. My three year old’s Wii fit age is 28, and everyone I know who has tested has a Wii fit age greater than their actual age. So last night when I did the assessment, I was pleasantly surprised to have a Wii fit age of 34. Wii fit age is based mostly on a balance test. I guess skiing and riding bikes are good for your balance. Who knew?

Rachel and one of her friends decided that they were going to kick off the new year with a fitness challenge (novel idea, I know). In a misguided show of solidarity, I agreed to participate. The list of rules is quite lengthy, but part of the point is austerity, including additional penalties if you fail to live up to the rules.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the bottom line is that we had cake at work yesterday to celebrate a high-volume day, and I ate the fruit off of mine and threw the rest away. For dinner last night, we had an assortment of vegetables, most of them raw. Halfway through dinner, I was ready to swear off bike racing and dieting forever. Except that there wasn’t anything in the fridge that wasn’t part of the program, so it wouldn’t have done any good.

The only upside is that one of the rules is a minimum of seven hours of sleep each night. So last night I went to bed at 9:30 to ensure I got the minimum before getting up at 4:30 to ski with Jon. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before, and I don’t think I’ve ever had such an easy time getting out of bed to ski before work.

Unfortunately, the good feeling was short lived. I never really got into a rhythm hiking, and within an hour, I was running on fumes. When we got to the top of Argenta after just under two hours of hiking, I was cooked. And today, skiing down wasn’t a breeze, as the wind, sun, and other skiers had conspired to make for a somewhat challenging descent. By the time we exited, I was glad to be done. I don’t think most diets are designed with highly active, reasonably competitive, endurance athletes in mind.

The views at the top were nice, though.

On Saturday, we brought in the new year right, with good skiing and good scenery in Days Fork.

What’s the saying? My life is better than your vacation? With as many times as the Powderbirds dropped people on top of the slope we had already skied, I’d say that’s the case for at least a few people.