The Christmas treats have now waged a full on war. Sure enough, our kitchen table here at work has acquired a steady supply of sugars, bleached flour, chocolates, and some fats.  Hell, I even brought up some of the awesome banana nut bread I made over the weekend for my sponsors (it, however, is not part of the evil axis, but is an allie. You see, it uses whole wheat flour, apple sauce instead of butter, and brown rice syrup instead of sugar, plus it’s got bananas and pecans). Temptation and hunger finally got the best of me yesterday and I indulged in a few pieces of mint white chocalate, and converted a 5 sided star cookie into an asymmetric 3 sided one, and perhaps I snagged a little reeses butter cup, but that was it. I escaped with only minor damage. It was clear that I had to lose this one battle to win the war, and win the war I shall.

Another battlefront is occurring at home in my workout room. I continue to commit to the P90X workout system. Just as the soreness had started to subside from the chest/back and ab ripper workout last Thursday, we hit some of the same muscles again with the legs and back workout + ab ripper last night. Tony Horton really loves his guns and hence a crap load of pull ups. While I am seeing progress with pull ups, it will be quite some time before I work up to the level that he is at. Legs, that is a different story. Tony doesn’t quite have chicken legs, but he doesn’t have caveman legs either.  I could far outpace and outweight him on just about every leg workout in the set. However, I was not there to compete with anyone other than myself, so I tried to focus more on form and quality rather than excessive weight and repetitions. At the end of the set is the 18 minute or so ab ripper X.  This one is totally humbling for me. I don’t know if it’s because I just finished one workout and the peeps in the video are doing their only workout for the day, or I’m just a total wuss with these movements, but it seemed as if my second go round of ab ripper x kick my tail more than the first! That’s alright, another battle lost so that I might win the war.

Both these wars are leading up to the next big race weekend, the Texas State Cyclocross Championship Jan 3-4, 2009. There is potential to win 4 state titles, but really a decent chance at only 2. Saturday is age-based, meaning I’ll go up against folks in a 19-29 age group, maybe 25-29 if enough people show up. Either way, the fastest people in the state are already in this age group. Sunday starts with the newly added singlespeed category, followed by the 3/4 race and then the open race. I stand a very good chance in the SS division, and a good chance for the 3/4 title, not so much in the open race. Good luck in your personal wars and keep fighting the good fight.

Greg