Here’s a few photos of Haven and Levi

He loves his little sister.

New Year’s Eve was a mellow family evening. We had a great sunset here and then went over to my parent’s house for dinner and to spend some time with my sister and her son before they had to head home to Oregon.

I did get to ride my bike some. I was out with a couple friends and we were exploring some new rocks and looking for fun lines. We found a few good ones.

We also got a day out on the rocks. Pat was there with Chad, Laura and Morgan and Amber surprised me by joining us with Levi and Haven. Amber was cranking, just one month from having Haven via C-section. Impressive.

I’ve been continuing to workout and although my weight hasn’t changed much I am fitter and my clothes are fitting looser. In this pic you can see that I’m starting to gain some definition in my back, although there is still a bunch of flab there.

Cruxing out in the warm December Weather

These two were back on September 13, 2011

Tubby Showing his From in Sept.

These photos were taken December 27th, 2011

Can you see a difference? I can and I like it. But I’m far from content and the big goal is still 45 pounds by September 6, 2012. I’m finishing week 4 of P90X and am hoping to take any fitness I gain from it straight into P90X2. That will take me to the end of May and then I can work on whatever I want to do next to help me towards my goal.

Here’s what I looked like then:

Feeling Dead

I started doing Asylum in mid-September. I tried to be as consistent as possible. Part of my plan was to do the workouts at school after work to ensure that I got them in. I find that if I wait until I get home I have a hard time getting the workouts in. There are just too many other distractions and limited space for everyone to share at the same time. The best time is before work, but i have to get up between 5 and 5;30am in order to work out before work and that’s often too hard for me to do.

Levi helping me doing my Asylum

I did about 20 Asylum workouts over 6 weeks. I was also riding my bike 2 or 3 times a week during this period. I really enjoyed the Asylum workouts and I could feel myself getting fitter. I was faster on the bike, I could do more pull-ups and my mile times came down. All of those improvements were with almost no real training apart from doing Asylum.

Unfortunately I injured my knee a little bit doing something silly at work. I was feeling pretty springy from Asylum and started jumping around one day and tweaked my knee. After that I didn’t feel like I could do Asylum as effectively and switched to the classic Power 90 for a while. A big advnatage of Power 90 is that it’s shorter which makes it easier to do before work because I don’t need to get up quite as early. I could feel my strength continuing to grow while doing Power 90 and my clothes were starting to fit a bit looser.

Amber and I were expecting our 2nd child at the end of November and that combined with some other issues made November a month with a little less exercise. That’s alright because those things happen, but it didn’t help my fitness goals. On November 27th Haven Angelina Bartlett was born. We are very excited to have a daughter and have been enjying this next step in the adventure of life.

It took about a week before we were home and relatively back on our routine. On the 2nd of December I started a round of P90X. So far I’m on Day 9 and have done all the workouts. I’m sure I’ll miss some at some point, but I’m trying to be very committed so I can get the best results possible. In the past I’ve strruggled more with P90X than I am this time. It’s not easy, but I’m doing noticeably better than in the past. I atribute this to the 3 months of Asylum and Power 90 that I did before starting P90X.

How I look right now:

Today I did some measurements to see how things have changed in the last 3 months. I’m a little disappointed that the results aren’t more significant but I’m happy with my progress so far. I’ve lost 12 pounds, going from 235 to 223. I’ve dropped an inch from my waist and 2 inches from my hips. My thighs have lost about an inch, as has my chest. My biceps have gained a half inch on the left and an inch on the right. So nothing huge, but it’s improvement and as long as it continues I’ll be fine. I’m about a quarter of the way through the year and I’ve lost about a quarter of the weight so I’m on track. I go back to work tomorrow so hoepfully I’ll be able to continue to workout and make progress.

Haven Angelina Bartlett
1 week old.

In 45 hours I would run/jog/hike 45 kilometers(28 miles), ride my bike off 45 obstacles and climb 45 boulder problems. I knew I could do the boulder problems and the obstacles. I wasn’t sure about the run/jog/hike, especially since I wanted to do it all in one go if possible.

Bob decided to join me and let me know that he was going to try to get here Friday September 9th with enough time and light to get a mountain bike ride in. We  got our stuff ready, had an oat soda or two and headed to the trail head. Immediately I got a quick huck off the slab in.

Obstacle #1

We quickly headed out for the ride. It was a pretty good mix of riding and hitting stunts. We got some good trail riding in and I got to ride some fun stuff.

George's Drop

This is one I helped build and it’s pretty spicy.

Homeless Drop

This roller is so good you can do it from both directions. The picture’s a bit blurry, but I kind of like that about it.

Steep gumdrop foller

We finished up and headed home. I think we had almost 20 obstacles ridden, so it was a good start to the challenge. We rode into a nice sunset on our way to the car. 

Sunset at Sycamore Rocks

 When we got home Amber had made us some delicious stir fry and then we sat on the patio and watched the lightning and hydrated with a few more oat sodas.

Lightning

Saturday morning we had a little bit of a leisurely start, probably hitting the road for the first run around 9am. I have a loop I do from my house that is either 3 or 4 miles depending on how I do it. We did the 4 mile variation and I took it easy and walked up any uphills, knowing that my legs were going to get hammered and I’d need all the help I could get by the end of the day. The run went well. We grabbed some supplies for the day and went out to the next leg. This was a long 12 mile run in the desert. Pat joined us for this and we got busy. It actually has a fair amount of climbing at the start, so I walked a lot of that and then tried to job as much as possible.

The weather was pretty amazing. The were some clouds in the sky and it was pretty cool. I think it was the best weather I’ve ever had for a birthday challenge. You could see a potential for rain but it seemed like we might not get any where we were. So I called myself lucky and kept going.

At somewhere around mile 10 total I told Bob that we had done 10 miles and he was guessing that we had already done 16. I think he just normally goes by time and since his pace is faster than mine he assumed we had ran farther than we did. Oh well, I figure the gps doesn’t lie too much.

Pat and I running towards Bell Mountain.

Bob and I cruising on a nice downhill section.

Somewhere around the 11 or 12 mile mark my legs started to worry me. I was getting these little shocks in my thigh muscles that are usually a pre-curser to cramping. Sure enough, not too long later I started to get little cramps. Most of them were on my abductor muscles on the thigh and they weren’t too bad but it kept me from running too much. I would run a little bit, walk a little bit, run a little bit, etc… The last 4 miles were pretty grueling and by the time I got back to the car I was feeling pretty hammered. Another 12 miles didn’t seem so feasible right then.

Feeling Dead

 We headed home to resupply, grab some bouldering gear and rehudrate. I have had some good luck with pickle juice helping me on bad cramping days, so when we got home I ate the rest of the pickles in the house and drank all the juice. I also had some sports drinks, water and a beer. I had planned on doing all the running in one go, but Bob and I decided that it might be better to go do some bouldering and then do some more running after that.

We headed to an area called Airport Rocks and started playing around. It’s always fun taking someone new to an area. Bob was exploring and looking at things that we hadn’t paid much attention to. Unfortunately it seemed like someone had recently had a big paintball battle there. I couldn’t believe how many paintballs were littered on the ground and the stuff on the rocks was still wet and slimy. We had to skip a few problems and I definitely slipped on a few problems due to wet fingertips or shoes.

Paintball splattered boulders aren't perfect for climbing.

We also admired the graffiti. There was a whole lot of it promoting 4:20 and smoking weed, as well as the gratuitous sexual references. We liked this one a lot.

We weren’t sure whether she was supposed to be a ‘Tard or a Turd but we liked the amibiguity of it.

We managed to get 35 Boulder problems in and decided to get some more trail running in. Just as we were getting in the car there was a very loud clap of thunder. We figured we were safer in the car, so we hopped in and took off.

We were back at the Slab for some trail running and it seemed like we were going to be alright with the weather. But as we started to jog up the trail it started to rain slightly and we could see lightning in the distance. As we continued to run it seemed like the storm and lightning was coming towards us and the rain was getting harder. Bob said that it was my challenge, so he’d let me decide what to do. We kept going but then it just seemed like a bad idea to keep going so we turned around. Fortunately it’s mostly downhill to the car so we made good time. Unfortunately it was really starting to rain so we got soaked.  Still we did get another 3 miles or so in, which got me to 19 total.

We quickly left the storm behind, since everything was pretty localized. But when we got back home it was just starting to sprinkle there. Drats. We still had a little light left, so we decided to do another short run and figured that we could handle getting wet if that’s what happened. The rain stopped almost as soon as we started, so we didn’t have to worry about that. We got four miles in and finished as it was getting dark. 23 miles down, 5 more to go. Time to clean up and get some dinner.

We went to Viva Maria’s a favorite Mexican Restaurant of ours and had some margaritas and way too much food. By the end of dinner both Bob and I felt like crap. I think we had done too much exercise to digest our food properly and we felt like we had huge food bombs in our guts. Bob and talked about putting some beers in his backpack and going for a walk to get another couple miles in. So we did. The moon was almost full so everything was pretty well lit. We were also hoping that walking would make our stomachs feel better, but it never happened. In the end, we just kept walking and I finished the last five miles I had. 45K of running/jogging/walking down. Time to sit on the patio, watch some more lightning and relax before heading to bed.

We were pretty leisurely again on Sunday morning. I had 10 more boulder problems and 25 more obstacles on the bike and we figured we could get it done without having to stress too much. We headed to Horseman’s Center and the Napkin for the bouldering and Pat met us there.

Tubby ticking #39

Pat was bouldering well, even doing some of the circus routes. This one is called “Belva Rocks” and you can only touch the rock with your feet, knees, and/or head.

I couldn’t do it that day, but this picture is a very good reminder of why I want to lose 45 pounds over the course of the next year. But Pat floated it.

The most notorious problem on the boulder is “The Sound of Gummy Tapping.” It’s not that hard, but I broke my ankle falling off it a few years ago and our friend Josh broke his wrist falling off of it many years prior. Neither of us had a good spotter. Now we refuse to do it without making sure we are spotted well.

I finished the bouldering in good style with an ascent of a fun endurance problem that is still waiting for a name from Pat. Only a bunch of bike stunts to go. I switched over to my biking gear and started playing around on the rocks at Horseman’s Center. It was fun cruising around and looking for things to try. It went pretty quick and soon I was almost done.

In the video on this one you can see my front wheel wash out, but I was able to save it. Definitely scary. Bob thought I was done here, but I was pretty sure I had one more.

That was the last one, but I did one more for good measure. Challenge completed. I was tired but satisfied and feeling good. We headed home and a few hours later some friends joined us for a BBQ at our house where Amber and I made pizza on the BBQ. We hadn’t tried it before but it turned out pretty good.

Here’s the video of most of the 45 stunts on the bike. Like usual they always look easier on video than when you are staring them in the face. Why is that?

Now all I have to do is lose 45 pounds quickly. I’ve started working on it, but there’s a long ways to go.

The plan was for her to do some running early in the morning on Saturday the 25th of June. Then her and Andy would hop in the truck and meet me and some other riders at the Gray’s Peak trailhead at 9:30am where we would do the Hanna Flats trail with the optional loop up to Gray’s Peak. That should give Candace about 15 miles of trail riding. Then she was going to switch back into running mode and run part of the way around Big Bear Lake. We would then head to Running Springs and ride to the top of Keller Peak and take the Exploration Trail back to the car. Then Candace and Andy would go home and she would run a bit more that night and then finish up in the morning.

While I was getting ready Saturday morning I got a text from Candace. She had just ran 10.25 miles and they were heading up the mountain. We all met at the Fire Station after we figured out that we were meeting there instead of the trailhead and got ready to go. The group was Andy and Candace, Jeff and Katie, Mike and Courtney, Wendy and myself. The first part of the ride is paved and then fire road to get out to the Hanna Flat Campground. There is about 400 feet of elevation gain here, but it feels like more. Somehow two of the girls took a wrong turn and went missing. Their husbands went back to find them. Eventually Jeff rode back to where we were waiting and said that the girls would be back soon. Suddenly we see Mike riding past the campground. We all yelled for him, but he was pretty far away and had his headphones on. Jeff took off after him to chase him down. But it’s pretty fast downhill there so it was about 2 miles before he caught up to him. While we were waiting for Jeff and Mike to return the ladies got back and Candace, Wendy and I started riding again and figured the others would catch up to us later.

As we got to the start of the trail we saw this on the side of the trail.

Neil was up at Snow Summit doing a demo but had ridding the trail first and had left some little surprises for Candace. Very Cool.

The trail is awesome and we made decent time with a few regroups. At one regroup I decided that I could make a log ride. I piled up some limbs that had fallend off another tree for a ramp and gave it a go. The first one I didnt’ commit and didn’t make it on the log. The second time I got up on the log, but was a little off balance. I endo’d off the log, trying to jump over the bike at the same time. I got a few scratches from the thorny bush I ended up in and hit my shin on some part of the bike. I also impaled my arm with a thorn and haven’t been able to get it out yet.

Then Katie and Courtney showed up and Courtney had some new scratches to show off. The trail was loose and sandy in places and she had slid out in one of the sandy spots.

We continued on to the turn off for Gray’s Peak. Here we found another one of Neil’s surprises.

Katie and Courtney headed back to the car instead of doing the climb. I started up with Candace and Wendy and quickly got dropped. Then I was passed by Jeff and Mike. Andy rode with me for a bit, but I was too slow and he quickly got bored and left me behind too. I struggled on the climb but eventually joined them at the top. Everyone was sitting on a rock outcrop enjoying the beers that Jeff had carried with him.

Soon we headed down. I think it was 4 miles to the trailhead from here and it was awesome riding. There was enough rocks to make it interesting without making it too hard. At the bottom we found that Mike had broken the carbon frame that Jeff was borrowing from a mutual friend. Mike already had a reputation for breaking stuff and this will add to it. Some more trail pictures.

We rested at the trailhead and enjoyed some cupcakes and beer while Candace got ready to run.

Candace started running and we all headed for burgers. Hey, it’s not our Birthday Challenge.

I think it was about 5 miles to the Burger Depot and we were just finishing when they arrived. We headed over to Running Springs to climb up Keller Peak.

This climb was about 6 miles long and climbed almost 2000 feet. I was having a bad day and was dropped about a mile in when it got steeper. As I got near the top I could see the tower on top and was checking out the sun in the pines.

I was almost to the summit when they started heading down. I was taking too long and they were getting tired of waiting. Can’t say I blame them. We regrouped at the start of the Exploration Trail.From he

From here it was lots of fun killer singletrack with some techy sections thrown in for good measure. Early on I was trying to follow Jeff too closely and ended up off the trail and in a bush. The bush saved me from a long slide, so “Thank you, Mr. Bush.”

After that it was lots of fun trail.

Near the bottom Andy stopped and picked up some stuff that had fallen out of Wendy’s seat bag and told me to go catch them. I raced ahead and when I caught them they were stopped. Candace was lying in a heap in the trail and it looked bad.

Candace said that she kept her eyes open the whole time. She endo’d over a rock and then handplanted off another to keep from augering into it. She landed on her camelback on a smooth section of trail. She was fine apart from a lot of dirt and some minor scratches. Very lucky.

Shortly we were in the parking lot celebrating some great riding. Candace’s hair was looking fantastic so Andy documented it for her.

I ended up with close to 4000 feet of climbing, with all of it above 6000 feet. I was wasted, but Candace had to go home and do some more running.

I got a text the next morning that she had finished and she was pretty excited. She completed her last run at 7:45 with 15 minutes to spare.

Then I got a text shortly after that: “2.7 beers before 27 hours was up…no longer sober haha” What a great way to finish a Birthday Challenge. Great Job Candace. I think next year you’ll have to make it harder.

8 bike rides, totaling 63 miles on the bike.

2 3-mile runs.

4 days of Power 90 Strength.

2 days of Power 90 Cardio.

1 day of Yoga.

1 5K Snowshoe.

4 days of bouldering.

1 Family Walk.

5 rest days, including one day where Amber was sick and I watched Levi and helped out at home.

My weight has pretty much stayed the same. It seems like I have been hovering at 231-232 for a while. I’m hoping to get below 230 soon, but it hasn’t happened yet. I am adding some muscle I’m sure, so that’s part of the equation.

We spent the last weekend in San Diego so instead of doing any real exercise I walked around Sea World for a few days and explored San Diego some. It was a nice relaxing family weekend and we were pretty happy with how well Levi slept in the hotel.

Levi and Daddy checking out the fishes.

Levi loves to run around and sometimes I let him take off so he can have some fun and burn off some energy.

Amber didn’t want to chase him, so she tried out his new leash. I was prepared to hate it, but he seemed not to mind and he loves dogs (it’s disguises as Pluto) and it did keep him from running away. So I guess it’s alright.

March is going pretty good so far. I have ran twice and took about 5 minutes off my 3-mile time. Which isn’t too impressive, because I’m still running damn slow. But I’ve gone from 12 minute miles to 10:20 min/miles, so that’s good. My hamstring hurts today, so I’m going to have to watch that, since running seems to aggravate it.

~R

I have continued to exercise and am definitely feeling more fit. This past weekend Amber, Levi and I joined two other couples in Big Bear for a Snowshoe Run. But since there hasn’t been new snow in over a month, snowshoes were optional. We’d already rented ours, so we figured we might as well use them. Levi joined me in the Child Carrier and had a great time. It was 38 degrees when we left Apple Valley but as we pulled into Big Bear at 7,000 feet it was almost 50 degrees. Crazy. But at least we wouldn’t be cold. We all walked the course very leisurely with the exception of Candace who decided to run it at the last moment. She won the 5K by a large margin and got a nice pair of Atlas snow shoes as a prize. Way to go Candace.

Chad, Laura, Andy, Candace, Levi and Me.

Exercise update:

In January I got at least 30 minutes of exercise on 29 days and took 2 days off. I ran 3 times for a total of 7 miles. I rode my bike 7 times and got 78 miles in. I also went bouldering a few times, did some Power 90 and Hip Hop Abs a hike or two and many family walks around the neighborhood. My weight is about the same, but I might have lost 2-3 pounds. But I definitely feel stronger so I think I probably lost a little fat and put on a little muscle.

So far for February I have exercised 9 out of 10 days. I am going to try to get more running in, but it’s probably what I’m the least motivated to do, so it might be hard. Time will tell. I’m also going to think more about my diet and see if I can drop a few more pounds.

~R

Tuesday was the local time trial. I had given blood that morning and my legs felt dead. I cut the course a few times, but had a good time and got my heart rate way up.

Chuggin along during the TT

I also got out in the Jeep for a fun day on the rocks. I’m still amazed by what these vehicles can do.

On 3 wheels as I get set up for the Notch

Levi continues to grow and is more active and more talkative every day. It’s awesome.

My parents get to spend a fair amount of time with Levi and he loves it.

~R

I managed to exercise every day of the year so far, which is my basic goal and as stated before I don’t really care what the exercise is. The day playing in the snow with Levi and friends was a pretty good example, as were the two days where the only exercise I got was a simple walk around the neighborhood with Amber and Levi.

I also got my first run of the year in. I don’t really run, so the fun part of this will be that I should be able to see a fair amount of improvement. Yesterday I mapped out a 3 mile route. It’s got a little bit of elevation change in it, but certainly not enough to say that it has any climbing. It’s on the local trails, which should keep it interesting. I did the 3 miles in 36:10, so I’m obviously not fast. I jogged the first mile and then took some short walk breaks between runs after that. It felt good and my legs definitely felt tired last night. Cool.

I also got a little (very little) campusing in this week, a couple of bike rides, a couple of walks and 4 times with some Power 90.

My weight is about the same, but it was 233 this morning, so hopefully a good week will help bring that down some more.

~R