About Me

The last post was about the blog, this one will be about me. If this shocks you, then you haven't read many blogs. I'm not feeling too "writerish" today but can do the cheater's version: LISTS!

• Male
• Caucasian(euro-mutt)
• Hair: short and brown, though it's been long and brown at times
• Eyes: brown
• Age: 40, 41 in less than a month
• Height: 6' tall
• Weight: 200lbs give or take a few
• Marital status: Married w/ fetus (not "to fetus" which would be wrong. And gross.)
• Other characteristics: Bunk knees, sore back, asthma, allergies

Personal Likes:

• Silly movies, documentaries, films with subtitles, ambiguous endings, the oeuvres of Whit Stillman and Jean-Pierre Jeunet
• Pop, jazz, rock, country, bluegrass - basically any music that is good. You can keep your bad music, I want none of it!
• Books - pretty much anything but I do have a regrettable fondness for zombie fiction and the works of Robert Heinlein
• An assortment of television shows and other sundry entertainments
• Red wine and most food other than lima beans and liver
• The sound of a high cylinder count engine headed for the red line and/or a twin cylinder motorcycle burbling happily 

Personal Dislikes:

• People who don't signal lane changes
• People who drive slower than, but tantalizingly close to, the speed limit on roads without passing zones
• People who text and drive, text and walk, or text and converse
• Strawberry ice cream
• Pale lager beers (most mass market,American and Norwegian beers qualify as "blech!" (or "aesj" in Norsk))
• Clothes hangers. Why? Dunno.

Sporting history

• Youth... not much organized, but this was during the era when schools still had both gym and recess so I did kid stuff.
• Age 10ish: Soccer. I got pneumonia during this season which may have been the cause of my later asthma.
• Elementary school: Tae Kwon Do (Jhoon Rhee, "Nobody boddas me!")
• Junior and Senior High: some cycling but mostly just doing "stuff"
• 1989-1992: USC Road Bicycling club/team. I was never in podium contention but did occasionally get used for strategic moves like chasing "primes" ("pr-EEEM-z") which are mid-race points bonuses, and great ways to get riders to blow out early!
• Mid-1990s: Introduced to rock climbing and mountain biking by (girl) friends in LA
• 2000 Crashed my MTB (and took a look at my kneecap) in the South Platte region of Colorado
• Assorted riding and climbing and hiking and skiing and stuff until...
• 2010 Warrior Dash, Tough Mudder
• 2011 Rebel Race, Tough Mudder, and Tough Mudder
• 2012 I have registered for the GOALS ARA Savage adventure race

OK, now you, dear reader, and Google, and, by extension, the world know more than enough about me. I shall sign off and prepare for a planned early AM run tomorrow.

Firsties!

First post!

Well, the content summary does a pretty good job of summarizing the intent of this blog. It's essentially a craven cry for attention in an uncaring world. That said, I hope that I have a few interesting things to say about how a former "middle of the pack" collegiate bicycle racer who became a strongly moderate rock climber and mountain biker, and is now, while facing his 40s, a job, and imminent fatherhood, trying to get involved in Adventure Racing (run, MTB, paddle, etc.) and might have some insights either for others in my position, or perhaps for my kid to discover using FutureGoogle(tm) when he's old enough to care.

Before I go too far on this blog I should say one thing: Body Mass Index (BMI) is terrible for assessing individual body composition. It's a research tool for assessing large populations, such as "high BMI individuals are at greater risk for developing type-2 diabetes". It's not very good at assessing whether YOU (or I) are specifically at higher risk for type-2 diabetes. The problem is that your weight is a combination of many elements: body fat, lean tissue, hydration, the squishy bits, the boney bits, and whatever you recently ate. Change any of these thing and your BMI will change. For example, somebody unlucky enough to be born with thicker bones will always have a higher BMI than somebody of similar height and body fat percentage.

Insurance companies, gyms, and generic fitness types love BMI because it's easy to calculate and makes it easy to scare otherwise healthy (if not fit) folks about how they are over weight or obese.

For the record my current BMI is 27.5, which is officially "overweight".

Body fat percentage is a much better metric, and according to my Tanita scale I am at 9-11% body fat (depending on level of hydration), which, according to most charts I can find on Google, is well within the "Athletic" end of the spectrum for a 40 year-old man.

So: an overweight athlete.  Hence the blog's title.

OK, I'm off of my soap box now.

Anyway, I'm training for a 6 hour adventure race in late April, probably a couple of local shorter events over the summer (the fetus becomes an infant some time in July), and another longer race or two in the fall. If one of those races happens to be a Tough Mudder: you've been warned.