At The Finish Line

So here we are - March 24, 2007: "D-Day"! It's been 5 months in the making and now it's time to see who did the best job of sticking to the plan. To give you a refresher, here's where I started out:

• Body Weight: 175 lbs
• Squat: 205 lbs x 10 reps
• Flat Dumbbell Bench Press: 70 lbs x 6 reps
• Chin-Ups: Body Weight (BW) x 13 reps
• Mile Time: 6 min

And the goals:

• Body Weight: 165 lbs
• Squat: First Tier (205 lbs x 12 reps) ; Second Tier (225 x 10 reps)
• Flat Dumbbell Press: First Tier (75 lbs x 5 reps) ; Second Tier (80 lbs x 5 reps)
• Chin-Ups: First Tier (BW + 25 lbs x 8 reps); Second Tier (BW + 25 lbs x 12 reps)
• Mile Time: Second Tier (5:30 min)

Last - but not least - my final results:

• Body Weight: 164.8 lbs
• Squats: 245 lbs x 10 reps - A personal best
• Flat Dumbbell Press: 75 lbs x 5 reps; 80 lbs x 2 reps - A personal best
• Chin-Ups: BW + 25 lbs x 11 reps (and oh so close to 12!) - A personal best
• Mile Time: 5:30 min (The most excruciating 5 and a half minutes in recent memory - the only reason I didn't quit that day was because I had people watching me and my pride wouldn't let me give up in front of them!)

As you can imagine, I was quite pleased with the my performance, but I had to wait until the end of the day to find out how I matched up against my fellow competitors - we had to wait for OJ to report his results from Vancouver. I'm pleased to say that everyone involved had some success during this contest, but that I was able to come out the victor this time around!

At times it felt like these 5 months would never end - especially the past couple of weeks - but now that it's all over, I must say I've really enjoyed the whole process (except for maybe the last 3 weeks where I cut out booze and sweets!). This is easily the strongest I've ever been, as evidenced by the 3 personal bests I achieved during testing. I have been leaner on a couple of occasions, but I weighed almost 10 pounds less, and was told by one of my clients that I was "too slight of a man" (not exactly great for the ego!). And even though I had once ran a 5:20 mile about 8 years ago, I weighed less and wasn't nearly as strong, so I'd have to say this is the best overall fitness level I've attained in my life. In fact, while we were doing the final testing, I told my friends I didn't really care whether I won or not and that I was just happy to have made all the gains that I had...although winning certainly felt great too!

Now that this contest is over, I'm not really sure what I'll be working towards next. However, at times during the contest, I felt like my life was dominated by diet and exercise and that I needed to add some different pursuits to give myself some variety. So far I've been thinking about taking Spanish classes again, learning to cook, and reading (but not textbooks!) - I'll keep you updated on how that goes in future posts. Until then, here are some pics to let you see how I finished off...and to show that I still haven't learned how to smile for pictures!

Peace and love, ladies and gents.