After this contest ends, life will return to normal.  A new normal, for sure, but it will still include one of my favorite seasons:  barbecue.  Barbecue is not really a "season", the time to barbecue just tends to fall in the summer when it is nice out.  I have been known to stand outside in the winter tending to the smoker for hours when a bout of cabin fever and a taste for ribs reared its ugly head.  I refuse to wait until summer when I get the urge for BBQ during other times of the year.

The problem with barbecue is that it typically begins with huge amounts of fatty meat.  Add rubs that are high in sodium and slather on sweet, sticky sauce and you have, at best, a sabotaged diet.  At worst, a heart attack waiting to happen.

No doubt, barbecue is one of my biggest passions.  I am proud to be a Kansas City Barbecue Society certified judge.  I have not only judged numerous sanctioned BBQ events, I have been fortunate enough to be a guest cook with a team that has won Grand Championships, so I have learned from the best.  Many of my Facebook friends can be seen on BBQ Pitmasters.  I am currently fabricating a custom smoker and hope to compete someday on my own.

Enough about what's down the road.

This year, barbecuing will be done with a mind chock-full of lessons learned from Lighten Up.  I need to use the knowledge from this contest applied to ridiculous parties where I smoke 100 pounds of meat.

I wrote earlier that I hope to compete one day in a sanctioned BBQ contest.  To prepare for that, I throw a few barbecues throughout the summer and "practice" on my guests.  In fact, we are throwing our first BBQ event this upcoming Fourth of July weekend for 30 or 40 of my dear girlfriend's co-workers, which has become an annual tradition.

A sanctioned KCBS BBQ competition consists of four categories: chicken, ribs, pork shoulder, and beef brisket.  I make all of these meats at my events, plus a significant amount of side dishes.  These side dishes are usually anything that can be wrapped with bacon.  And I make a mean smoked mac-n-cheese, too.

Although my guests rave about such a menu, one thing to do to make this event a little healthier is to add other food options like smoked salmon and smoked turkey.  Salads, coleslaw, and baked tortilla, whole wheat pita, or flax seed chips with healthy, fresh salsa are suitable replacements for the numerous bacon-wrapped foods.  I will also cut back on portions, go lighter on the salt and sauce, and probably not drink beer all day and night while tending to food that sometimes takes 12 to 16 hours to cook.  Drinking water is obviously a better beverage option.

I will never quit eating BBQ.  You will have to pry that rib bone out of my cold, lifeless hand first.  But I will be a little more health-conscious about it.  And besides, it's only a few times a year.

Two interesting experiences occurred this past weekend.  In one of those experiences, my improved fitness made an impossible task bearable and even "fun".  The other experience most likely made a difference in the life of a total stranger.  Heartwarming to say the least.

The first experience involved a mundane garage sale.  My dear girlfriend and I have been stockpiling gently-used keepsakes (in other words, "junk") for several years now.  We always hoped to throw a garage sale, but never got around to it.  Well, the neighborhood decided to have one, so we hitched up with theirs.  To say we have a lot of stuff to sell is the understatement of the year.

What does this have to do with fitness?  Wednesday night, after working my 8 hour day-job, I did my 7 mile run.  I should be exhausted, right?  Nope.  With my dear girlfriend squirreled away in the crawlspace of our basement handing me stuff, I made about 50 trips up and down the stairs carrying all kinds of stuff.

Remarkable.  Six months ago, carrying all the extra weight I have lost in the contest, I would have been lucky to make two trips.  And those two trips would have taken all my breath away and led to at least one beer break.

The second experience occurred as a reward for our successful garage sale, or as I call it "getting your neighbors to pay you $300 to clean out your basement".  Saturday night, after all the sale items were sold or carted off to Goodwill, my dear girlfriend and I decided to treat ourselves to a few adult beverages out on a waterfront patio.  (I know.  I wasn't supposed to be drinking, but I made a teensie-weensie exception for myself that day.)

While on the patio bar, we met a nice couple, about our ages, from Aurora.  They had taken their 30-ish year old daughter who was visiting from Milwaukee there for a night out.  Dad had recently had a heart problem and needed to lose about 10 or 12 pounds.  It turns out that the daughter is a personal trainer back home.

Do you think the daughter could get Dad to move off the couch or eat healthy?  Not a chance.  All of her health and fitness knowledge and expertise fell on deaf ears with Dad.  Here's where I come in...

The Dad and I started taking about weight loss and diet.  I mentioned Lighten Up and the success I've had so far.  Dad opened up with me.  He was fascinated about how I planned my diet around my basal metabolic rate and calculations of the cardio burns I have been able to sustain.  You could see the gears in his brain work, adapting my program into a scaled-down version he could use to lose his 10 or 12 pounds over the course of a few months.  He was happy to hear that I have not needed to starve myself, nor eat wacky weight loss products or supplements out of a box or can.

Those wonderful people left, thanking me for talking with them.  Somehow, I think I made a difference in Dad's life.

Monday's assessment at the Lake County General Health District went well.  After hovering around 24% body fat since late March, I dropped more than 2 percentage points to 21.6%.  That's a good sign since it is mid-range of what is commonly accepted as "average".

A lot of that stall can be attributed to false readings on the fat measuring device.  I had been told that failure to hydrate properly can produce inaccurate readings.  All of my life, getting into the habit of drinking water all day has been a problem.  Lately, I have made a concerted effort to hydrate better.

Now, I guess I just plug along until the end of the contest and not change a thing.  Only a few more goals remain:

1) Finish up my 1,000 miles of roadwork
2) Reach a normal BMI
3) Post a decent time in the Johnnycake Jog

The 1,000 mile roadwork goal is easiest since I only have about 125 miles to go.  That is an average of about 3 and 1/2 miles a day and I typically do double that.  I expect to reach this goal in just over two weeks, at least two weeks ahead of schedule.

A normal BMI is well within reach.  I need to lose about 8 more pounds by the end of the contest.  My doctor will be impressed, assuming she even recognizes me anymore.

Posting a decent time in the Johnnycake Jog remains to be seen since I have not entered an organized race in over 30 years.

Based on my training so far, I "expect" to break 45 minutes and "hope" to break 40 minutes, should everything go really well.  If the race went "really, really well", I would finish in the top 5 of my age group and in the top 250 overall.  Those may be lofty goals for an old, has-been runner that wasn't ever all that good, even in his prime.

Presumably, running an hour straight when I do training workouts has built up more than enough of the endurance I will need.  The big unknown here is the potential for brutally-hot race conditions.  If necessary, with only about a mile to go, making a quick stop at the Harry Buffalo for a tall, cold one should only add 5 or 10 minutes to my overall time.  Burning off those extra few hundred calories should be easy.  Finding the finish line may not be so easy.

The longer this contest progresses, the harder the weight loss.  And I don't mean simply hard.  I mean crazy difficult ridiculous nearly-impossible hard.

The best analogy that comes to mind is that it's like squeezing water out of a rock.

Most of the time, everything is being done right, and to extremes.  I adhere to a pretty strict diet, same as I have throughout this contest.  No alcohol anymore, either - at least until the contest ends.

I run an hour each day, unless my knee or ankles bother me.  In that case, I walk between 7 and 10 miles to keep my cardio burn going and my legs strong.

I should weigh 110 pounds by now, it would seem.  Instead, I go through lengthy stretches of plateaus.  This is the longest one yet.  No weight loss for a while, then somehow, something does fall off, but a lot less than I expect.  A pound, maybe two.  It certainly ain't like February anymore as far as the scale is concerned.

After as much weight as I have lost so far, I probably should not complain.  I guess it is just the frustration of working so hard and practically being able to predict the results every week.  But now, the weekly results are not so predictable, even though the work and diet remain about the same.

I need to focus on only a few last goals and perhaps bump up the intensity of my workouts.  Maybe run faster or work in a few longer runs.  My most immediate goal is reaching a "normal" BMI of under 25.

Let's see what Cori measures up today at my assessment.

What in the world is a "running dinosaur"?  Whatever it is, over the weekend, I felt like one.

In pursuit of my return to serious running, I discovered that the sport has evolved.  The evolution has been considerable since my last race, the 1982 Revco Cleveland Marathon.  You need to be pretty old to remember Revco, the drugstore chain.  Going back to my first marathon, the Revco in 1978, it has evolved even more.

In that marathon of 1978, there were no pace markers or signs to start at.  Not knowing anything about marathon starts, I got to the race early and intuitively went to the front.  I was in the second row, right behind the world-class guys.  The world-class guys had leg muscles like guitar strings and not an ounce of body fat.

Back then, the race started at Cleveland State near East 21th Street and traveled west on Superior Avenue, then over the Detroit-Superior bridge, eventually turning around out at Columbia Road, then finishing back at Cleveland State.  Starting out so far forward forced me to run with the "big boys" for the first mile, to avoid becoming a trampled idiot.  My first mile in a 26-mile race was around 5 minutes or the pace the world-class guys do for the entire race.

Nice way to hold back.  Only 25 more miles to go Jim, you idiot.

As the race progressed, I settled into a slower pace, hit the wall at 20 miles, then died.  Literally died.  I finished in probably around 6 hours.

The race in 1982 was a little better.  I averaged about 7 minutes a mile for 20 miles, then hit the wall, crawling to the finish in something under 4 hours.  I do remember sprinting over the finish line to beat a couple of close competitors.  The cheers from the crowd were awesome.

Fast forward to the 21st century.  Nowadays, they use electronic chips and mats to record times in most races.  Starting runners are spread out and modern technology does the rest.

Other "dinosaur moments" occurred at Second Sole later on Saturday.  I wanted a second pair of shoes since my first pair hardly has a chance to air-out from the previous day's run.  After asking the associate about a second pair similar to the ones I already have, he looked at the old ones and acted like I should throw them away.  They look brand new, but since they have been used since January, they were unusable, in his opinion.  What?

Also, while at Second Sole, I noticed something they sell called "Energy Gel".  What is that?  I have only known two things to run with besides blisters and cramps - Gatorade and water.  I never did find out what energy gel is or what it does.

Finally, in my previous running lifetime, I remember there being only two races: 10K's and marathons.  Now there are all kinds of crazy events.  I saw the posters on the wall at Second Sole.  They even had a lot of events called "Fun Runs".  What are those?  My last two races almost killed me.

Yes, I am a running dinosaur.  Eventually, I will become petroleum as all dinosaurs do.

I can never say enough about the resources available to us through participation in this contest.

The encouragement, the free healthy meals from Cabanas, the health department assessments, Laura's tireless work and frequent emails reminding us of what we need to do, plus the free Y membership, are only a few.

I love the blogs.  Writing my own blog keeps me focused on my fitness goals.  Reading the blogs of others describing their triumphs is inspiring.  Reading about their trials and tribulations serves to give me an occasional kick in the pants.  The variety of problems others have that are common with my own problems helps me tweak my lifestyle to avoid falling into the typical traps.  Making better food choices while traveling is one example I learned from the blogs of others.

A blog by Ken about the sabotage to our diets caused by alcohol booted me in the pants just a few days ago.

As consistent and perhaps strict as my diet and exercise routine has been for the past 20 weeks, my only regular reward has been a daily glass or two of wine.  The problem is that some days, usually the weekends, there is too much idle time.  This is especially true when my workout is completed by 8 am and my chores are completed by noon.

What does this mean?  All day is left with plenty of energy to use on nothing but "relaxing".  Happy Hour begins at noon!  I deserve it, don't I?  I just ran seven miles this morning, so what's the problem?

The last weigh-in did not produce particularly bad results.  Although I may deserve a reward, why do I really need to feel obliged to take it?  What sense does it make to work so hard, then give a lot of that hard work back gradually at 150 empty calories a glass for every adult beverage I gulp down?

I would rather have any extra 150 calories of salmon or beef.

After the contest is over, during "maintenance mode" may be a different story, but not right now.  We are heading into the homestretch and the finish line is within sight.  There is not enough room or time to build a bar between where I am right now and that finish line.  Unless it is a salad bar.  Did I say hold the cheese and croutons and bring the dressing on the side?

Thanks, Ken, for the latest kick in the pants.  I needed one to keep on track with my goals.  There are only a few goals left.

Since I have been doing some running lately, it is now time for some fun and some new T-shirts.  Time to start entering some road races.  The Johnnycake Jog on July 21st will likely be my first.  After researching past race results, I have set some lofty goals for that race already:

First, I "think" I can finish in the top 250.  That would take a time of just under 40 minutes or about an 8-minute mile pace.

Second, if I can reach that goal and improve upon it a bit, another goal would also be within reach.  That would be to break into the top 10 finishers of my age group.  (That age group would be "55-59 years old", not "Deceased")

Third, and strictly for bragging rights, I would like to finish the race as the fastest "Lighten Up Contestant".  (That is not an official category)

I'm not sure about the men, but I know at least a few of the girls will be in the race, so I thought about setting up a friendly bet.  I pondered over the stakes and a fair handicap before posing the challenge.

Then, I heard fifes and drums playing "Yankee Doodle".  I realized we are in America, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.  Where deer and antelope play.  With that thought, the principle of "Equality" came to mind, the cornerstone of what this Great Nation was founded upon.

Consequently, any bets with the girls (or guys, should any of them enter) will be based on straight-up time.  One against the other.  No spot.  No handicap.

All this has nothing to do with gender, either.  I realized that I should get a handicap from the girls.  I am old enough to be their father.  And I have the aching muscles and creaky knees to prove that.

Now with the way karma works, watch me break one (or both) of my legs before the race.

Eight weeks of the contest is left and it won't be over soon enough.  It is getting to be a lot of hard work.  Considering what it took earlier on to make progress, maybe it's just MORE work.

Thanks to breaking through a plateau, I actually lost about 5 pounds this past month.  At the end of the day, I realized it was due to nothing but two things:  hard work and MORE hard work.

Diet has become a moot point because I don't really crave anything unhealthy.  If I do happen to partake in something less than "really" healthy, my hard workouts more than justify and burn off the trivial reward.

My dear girlfriend and I have gotten our health radar aimed at better food choices.  We have the luxury (or advantage) of not being sucked into the vortex of appeasing chicken wing craving spouses who are not in the contest or Happy Meal craving children or grandchildren.  No reason in the world to go to Mickey D's, KFC, or Pizza Hut.  We do pass those places on the way to the Y and don't miss them a bit.

I do crave a lot more food than what I consumed early in the contest.  Now, I lovingly call it "fuel" for my workouts.

At times, I am exhausted, but it has been worth it.  I can run an hour straight without being particularly out of breath, just weary.  Now, not so surprisingly, I do realize that I do not still have the body of a twenty-five year old.  For a fifty-five year old though, this old body is close enough.  My knees creak a little, and my back aches on occasion, but I plug along.  I am still healthy and strong enough to run through some pain and a few cramps.

My clothes either fit loose or ridiculously loose.  For the two suits I bought last summer to fit any more, I pray for a miracle from the tailors at Men's Wearhouse.

How did I get to this point?  Did I mention hard work?  And two other things, hard work and hard work.  No smoke, no mirrors, no energy drinks, no weight loss supplements, no protein shakes, and no liposuction.  Just hard work.

Did I mention hard work?