Fitness

Pushing Wyatt in the Dadfest 5k.

Pulling Lila in the bike trailer.

The title of my blog is "What's Ben into now?" because, as Colette will tell you, I frequently change hobbies. Some stick around (Guitar Hero), some fizzle because the equipment is expensive (astronomy), and some I just get tired of (too many to name).

My latest thing is fitness. I've had goals many times to run or lose weight. But those, like so many people's new year's resolutions, last about a week. But when a friend asked me if I wanted to do an off-road sprint triathlon in August, I was a little bit interested. Suddenly, I had a goal--not make a complete fool of myself. Well, this has been quite motivational.

Since that invitation about three weeks ago I have :

1. Acquired a bike trailer so I can pull Lila on my bike

2. Acquired a jogging stroller so I can push Lila or Wyatt while running

3. Made a couple of bike upgrades.

4. Run about 17 miles, biked about 39 miles, and ridden the stationary bike about 34 miles

5. Lost about 5 pounds

The particular triathlon I'm thinking about for August is a 400 meter swim, 12.5 mile off-road cycling, and 3.1 mile run. Colette thinks I'm insane. Three weeks ago my goals for the triathlon were to A) finish and B) not die. Now these goals might seem like a low bar, but I was pretty out of shape. After a couple weeks of running and cycling, I think I am prepared to add a third goal: C) not finish dead last.

I figured I needed a few baby steps, so I decided to run in a 5k. That event was this morning. I pushed Wyatt in the jogging stroller and finished 317 out of over 600 people with a not-so-impressive time of 33:02. I didn't really know what to expect in terms of time because I have never run that far pushing the stroller. I thought maybe I'd be a bit faster because of the extra excitement of the event, but the time wasn't really a faster pace than when I run in the mornings. The event was "Dad Fest" which is a fundraiser/awareness-raiser for prostate cancer.

Above are just a couple pictures. There was some fun stuff for Lila to do at the Dadfest event, so I'm sure Colette will post some pictures of the kiddos on her blog.