I am a DUAL WORLD RECORD HOLDER!!!

Oh What a Night!!!!!

Mid December back in 2012

What a very special time for me

As I remember what a night……..

You know the rest of the words I am aware relates to a totally different context but last night was a special night for me and a few others.  Last night I found myself IN Fed Square in a sea of green tops and black lycra bike shorts.  We were all there trying to achieve something special and make history.  I was fortunate enough to take part in Futuride last night which saw a large group of cycling enthusiasts of all levels sitting on stationery bikes attached to generators pedalling to generate electricity.

A 'peloton' of 120 specially-prepared bikes, all fitted with generators, were positioned at Federation Square in the shape of branches of a giant Christmas tree (when viewed from above). Riders' pedal power illuminated individual Christmas trees that, in turn, formed the outline of the giant tree. At night, this was a spectacular sight (see picture below taken from a helicopter) and this alternative energy demonstration helped to illustrate the contribution we can all make to a sustainable future. Riders had to generate 80 watts of electricity to power their Christmas tree, several LEDs and a halogen light. The average Tour de France® rider can generate 350 watts for up to 60 minutes in a long hill climb. In a shorter sprint they might generate more power for a short time - about 450 watts. As we all found out, the more devices they need to power from their bicycle, the harder pedalling becomes.  For one minute we each had to pedal on the highest setting, which increased the resistance level of the generator, to power all three lights.  Thankfully it was only for one minute as it certainly showed us that our levels of fitness were probably not where we thought they would be.  It was also amazing to watch Cadel Evans during this minute on the stage as his legs were going crazy, which proves to me that he was taking this very serious and had worked up a good sweat as well.


Aerial View of the lights and cyclists.



After our 15 minute stint had finished we hopped off the bikes and made way for the next wave, of which there were 4, and stayed around to see if we were successful in breaking the world records of which there were 2 we were trying to break.  These records were:

• Most electrical energy generated by pedalling on bicycles in one hour (previous record 786)
•        Most lights lit by pedal power (previous record 10,000)

At the end of the hour, Fed square was lit up beautifully in the dark with all the Christmas trees and LED lights surrounding the bikes.  The gentleman from Guinness Book fo World Records came on stage to announce whether or not we were successful.  He informed us that we had successfully set 2 new benchmarks for these records, but then told us how much we had beaten them by.  Our quantity of watts for the hour was over 4400 and the number of lights we lit was 35,000 in total so as you can see we not only broke the records we smashed them.

Myself and team Captain Bec before the start

Picture of me on the big screen

The entire Fighting Back Team working through the mad minute

Whilst this is not something that I had to train for or was overly strenuous ( I would have struggled pre 12WBT) it is still a sense of achievement and the feeling of being part of something which filled me with pride.  It also nice to receive a medal afterwards stating that we were part of breaking the 2 records and my oldest son has taken my medal to school to show off to his friends and of course tell them his dad is a dual world record holder…….

My Medal to prove it.

To add to the good week, I had a 600gram loss this morning, which was probably not deserved.  I had a very indifferent week with my training and diet was not 100% especially with a few sneaky beers and wine over the weekend.  I will take the loss though as it might be karma because I think there were some weeks last round where I did work hard and never saw the result.  It is still a step forward and means I have lost 6kgs this round and 36.7kgs since I started.  Now to finish the fitness test and do my measurements, which I am really looking forward to.

WOW, What a Week!!

I realised this morning that I hadn't done my usual after weigh in blog post, so thought I had better do it today.  It has been a crazy week at work which has seen me distracted from being able to put together a blog and this time of year is also chaos at home with my daughter's ballet rehearsals pre concert.  Add to that my wife has been unwell with her Ross River Fever and it has been interesting to say the least.

This week saw me hit a few milestones which have had me beaming.  I managed a new personal best on a run on Tuesday night, which saw me managed a 3km run in under 18 minutes.  Some would say not overly quick, but mentally for me to be able to average under 6 mins for a kilometre is huge.  Wednesday saw me weigh in and lose 1.3kgs which I was happy about just by itself but it meant I had crossed two milestones off my list.  I had lost more than 35 kilos (actually 36.1 kgs now) and I was under 110kgs when I was standing on the scales.  This is huge for me as I have not been that weight in the last 20 years.  To say I was doing cartwheels on the inside at 6:30 Wednesday morning is an understatement and I will admit to a private fist pump in the bathroom.  It was a silent one as i didn't want to wake anyone but I was cheering on the inside very loudly.

So after a great result, I had 2 very average days after that.  Decided that I would have a couple of wines on Wednesday night, for no other reason than I could.  Still need to bury that demon as it is my achilles heel and seems to be downfall still when it comes to this program.  I am aware of it and own my actions but i am still trying to confront the fact that when i do it, I know I will not feel flash in the morning or like training. it also interrupts my sleep which is not conducive to good workouts and feeling strong the next day to take on work.

Putting that aside, it is still nice to sit down with my wife and have a wine and watch some tv, which doesn't happen a lot due to our schedules, but if only I could stop at one glass.  It was also nice to not have a glass last night, even though I felt like one after a hectic week.  I was up at 6:30 this morning for a 3km run with a friend and then in my garage after that for a workout of circuit training and then boxing and core.  This was a killer this morning because it was already in the low to mid 20's temperature when we went for a run, but the calories gone and the effort put in were a great reward.  Sadly Julie was not up to completing the training session due to the lethargy she is feeling from this virus, but she got up and tried and that is a credit to her as she is really missing the workouts and exercise and this is wonderful to see and I am very proud of the efforts she is putting in.  She will get to where she wants, it will just take a bit longer and she is so much more focused than when she was doing other weight loss programs.  She is a trojan.

Another thing that happened with my wife this week which blew me away was a decision she has made and put it out into the public domain, which means no backing out now, is to shave her head completely bald if she can raise $10K for Peter Mac Cancer Hospital.  Now many people know we did the ride this year and managed to raise $11K between us, which we are very proud of, but for her to volunteer to do this is a very brave thing and something that initially shocked me when i saw she had posted it on Facebook announcing it to the world prior to telling me.  I had asked her if she would do it a day or so before and she told me steadfastly no chance.  Julie is not a vain person, but like all women she loves her hair to look nice and to not have any is quite a daunting prospect.  I will say it makes me very proud to see her putting herself out there and just proves how much of a giving and selfless person she is.  Willing to do that to yourself is not as much as someone losing their hair because they have cancer, but still having the courage to do it is something most woman would never consider, which was highlighted to me when I mentioned it at work and all of the ladies said no chance they would do it.

Just a reminder why we raise $$ for Peter Mac

So overall, a very good week for milestones and achievements.  I just need to continue the good work and hopefully smash out a good fitness test this week. I am hoping to get under 5 minutes for my time trial, the last time I ran 5:01 so only need to improve by 2 seconds.  I think I can do this, but I guess we will see.

Dream, Believe & Then ACHIEVE!!!

A few posts back I posted a clip from Youtube about a guy named Ben that I said had inspired me because he started off in a similar position to me and wanted to be able to change my life in a physical sense much like he had.  As everyone is aware, You tube is full of clips like this, but today I was trolling through the 12WBT forums and found a post put up by a mum of 7 who is doing the program (if that isn’t inspiring enough) where she wanted to show how one lady had transformed her life and she found it inspiring.

Now I personally take a lot to be inspired by people that are only doing what I perceive to be the same as me, so don’t often watch these clips or get caught up in the stories, but what made this one great for me was that it was a fellow 12WBTer whom had achieved something a little different to me.  Not only had they made the decision to change their life as we had, they chose to take up a sport that is outside the mainstream and not only learn it, but train under adversity and excel in the chosen sport.  This to me just proves that if any of us really do want to make a change in our life and achieve something that we never thought possible prior to starting this we only need to do one thing.  Yep, one thing.  I know you don’t believe me, but it is as simple as that.  If we all make the conscious decision to COMMIT ourselves to this change 100%, no going back, it can only lead to success.  Sure there will be off days, there will be slow weeks, but the fact that we have committed ourselves to making the change necessary to achieve whatever goal we have set for ourselves, whether it be weight loss, running a marathon, riding 200km, or even just to be able to do a fun run with our kids or friends, we will achieve it.  It won’t happen overnight and for some it will take a lot longer than others. So what, you are following your own time frame and not that set out by anyone else. You will get there because you will not give up and you have committed yourself to reaching your goals.

I have attached this clip for you all to watch and I hope you are as inspired by what you see this member of our family has achieved.  She can do things in this clip that I would only love to be able to complete, but who knows, I might just add some of those to my goals.

I have my goals set out, which I listed in one of my previous posts, but I am also putting it out there that I have to lose another 15 kilos this round so I am at a weight to take on Lean & Strong next round as I promised a friend I would.

Have a nice day and good luck all for your weigh in tomorrow, let’s hope the fatblasting gods are good to you.

Week 2 Ramblings and Wins.......

Well I don’t have anything specific to blurt out to the world, but I have a few little things that have taken place this week to make it at least interesting.  I suppose this post will be a compilation of short ramblings.

Weigh in saw me lose 1.2kgs this week, which is a good number and something I was happy with. It gives me a total of 4.1 for the 9 days and has me on the way to where I want to be.  I was disappointed for a split second as I wanted to have an extra 200 grams so that I had officially lost 35 kilos and also be in the 110 kilo bracket.  As Julie said to me, don’t worry it will be one extra week.  She is 100% correct, it will happen this week and if it is a little later than I had hoped so what.  To be brutally honest, if I had worked harder last round I would be well and truly under that anyway by now.

Julie was sick this week, which meant I had a couple of days at home (trying to work from home) and running around with school and kinder drop offs.  After some visits to the doctors and some tests it seems she has Ross River Fever.  This seriously dented her ability to train and also mine for a couple of days.  Not complaining as I plan to make up for the missed calorie burns and will be working my backside off to still get the scales to show a decent number.  I know it is not all about the scales but I would love to see the 110 or less come up this Wednesday.

Had a huge moment this morning when I actually wore a pair of shorts that I had bought in 2010 with the plan of losing weight and wearing them that summer.  This did not happen obviously. When I bought them I could only get a size 38 and when I started this program I was in size 46 jeans.   Today I put them on and they felt good enough for me to wear them out.  I couldn’t help myself and had to post it in the 12WBT forums to blow my own trumpet.  What a great feeling.  I have finally proven to myself that if you want something bad enough you can get there.  These shorts were part of my inspiration board in my first round, now I have done it.

Another good moment this week was doing something different for training.  With Julie being sick on Wednesday I could not do what I wanted to do for normal training, but I took my oldest out for a hit of tennis. Now neither of us are any good, I wouldn’t even say we were at the level of being ordinary but we ran around for 45 minutes and I managed to burn 350 calories in the heat and had a great time whilst I was at it.  I plan on doing this with him a bit more in the future and maybe we will mix it up and try some other things as well.

This week found me looking at some old pictures and quotes that I have accumulated over the last 26 weeks which I have used in my blog and on previous inspiration boards whilst preparing this weeks weekly surprise.  It is amazing to look back at things and see what you have used as inspiration, how far you have come and what you may have achieved in such a short period of time.  

This rounds inspiration board has a mix of things from those which I have achieved and still inspire me, to things I want to in the future and things I will do in the future.  One of the best and most impressive achievements is climbing to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with my wife during finale weekend.  After her car accident 7 years ago, we never thought this would be possible due to the strain on her ankle.  Well we have now done it and I was so proud of her for doing it also. 

If you want to have a look at my inspiration board, feel free on the below link.

http://pinterest.com/leitchy11/what-inspires-a-shrinking-man/

I am so much looking forward to the scales this week.  I am sure they will not throw up a huge number as the training and diet have not been as good as they could be, but I will be working my rear end off the next few days to try and drop what I need to make my milestone.