Miki y Ja: The Birthday Present

This blog has managed to accomplish what was hitherto thought impossible. Nytro has been rendered speechless. My professionally trained uber-smack-talking spherical chicken rant has been online for a week, and still the promised rejoinder is not.

She's got nuthin. (Actually, I've been waiting in the fetal position for a week for Nytro's other size 14 shoe to drop, and am somewhat thankful that she and Iron Benny have been so busy.)

But, I digress.

If I could take a photograph of my self-image leaving the gym this morning, it would have looked exactly like the Ironman superhero pictured here. All that is missing is a leeeeeetle tiny picture of a certain Athena warrior, far in the background, having been buffeted by the mighty Greyhound's slipstrem.

I came out of the locker room after my testing session with Miki, and he hands me some papers.

**Begin understated slavic accent here**

"So, . . . . today . . . . I haf your birthday present. **grin pause** Verrrrry goot jop."

The papers compared my test results from the beginning of August with my test results from today, only hours away from my 40th birthday. Sorry Nytro. I am cituis, altius and fortius than I was before.

Weight Before: 146.4 lbs. Weight After: 144.2 lbs. (Two pounds lighter)

Waist Before: 33.5" Waist After: 32" (1.5 inches off the waist)

Hips Before: 37 " Hips After: 35" (2 inches off the hips)

Bicep Flex Before: 11.5" After: 11.75" (.25 inches more in the bicep)

Calf Before: 14" After: 14.5" (.5 inches more in the calf)

Shoulders Before: 41.5" After42.5" (1 inch more in the shoulders)

Body Fat Percentage Before: 9.6% After: 9.09% (Even lower body fat percentage)

Bike V02 Before: 46.5 (97th percentile) After: 53.6 (99th percentile)

Max Pushups Before: 50 (93rd percentile) After: 65 (99th percentile)

Max Leg Press Before: 260 lbs (178% of body weight/ 60th Percentile) After: 320 lbs. (222% of body weight/ 99th Percentile) 60 MORE POUNDAROOS!

Max Bench Press Before: 145 lbs (100% of body weight/60th Percentile) After: 160 (111% of body weight/91st Percentile) 15 MORE POUNDAROOS!

And the changes in appearance. You won't believe it. Click here to see, but be forewarned, it involves full, frontal, male nudity.

Seriously, Miki and my gym/triathlon friends have given me a HUGE birthday present. At the age of 40, this is the first time in my life that my physical tests are scoring anywhere near the same percentiles that I could always manage on an academic test. That makes me a better person----BUT NOT for the reasons you might think. (More on this to come later. Don't jump to conclusions and leave bitter comments.)

But back to reality. All these scores in the 99th percentile of my age group probably only place me in the bottom third of iron distance triathletes.

AND I'm being chased by an angry Athena with a knife. *yelp*