I just got back from one of those checkups that you pray for…

Heart rate was a little elevated from running around a bit this morning at 59 but the blood pressure was perfect (112/66).  My overall cholesterol was just a touch elevated (193) but the LDL was high and the HDL was low and my triglycerides were perfect, so go figure.  From there, the “inflammation” measurement (I can’t remember what the technical term is) was awesome at 0.8 and my liver enzymes were slammin’.

So 2014, barring any unforeseen problems, will be another year without medications.  Zip, zero, nada and that’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it.  Unfortunately, while my wife will be happy with this news, I packed on a pound or twelve over the last month.  Oops.  This is a contentious item between my wife and I.  I like 160 (while she prefers 170 and I’m currently at 171) because, pulling 160 pounds up a hill is preferable to 170 so I’ve got a little work to do.  Maybe I’ll split the difference and call it 165, who knows – my ideal weight is between 170 and 175 so I won’t put too much thought into this.

The main point is that between sobriety, running and cycling, I’m fit as a fiddle and healthy as an ox…

As far as fitness goes, my running mileage is way down but I’m going to pass over 5,600 miles today – something like 250 miles better than last year, and my goal for the year was less than last year’s.  Also, I had no time/speed improvement goals (I thought I was going just about as fast as I could at the level I was willing to train at) but I ended up making huge gains in both.  I knocked something like 30 minutes off of my best 100 mile time from last year and my average at the Tuesday night club ride jumped a full mile per hour (from 20.5 to 21.6) and in the process burned through about 80 pounds worth of calories – in one year.  In short, to sum everything up, this year was wildly successful.

Finally, to wrap this up, while there were daily trials and tribulations to deal with, 2013 was a fantastic year all the way around – very well-balanced.  I would say the biggest success had almost nothing to do with fitness.  This year was the best my wife and I have had together since the honeymoon ended.  Looking forward the goal will obviously be much more of the same.

UPDATE:  Imagine my horror when I hit publish and saw that I hit a 4 instead of a 3 in the title…  It would be rather difficult to review 2014 before it happened.  A thousand apologies, I know I messed up the space-time continuum by changing the title.