I’m not gonna mention any names, but some are satisfied with accomplishing a mere two activities a day. Well, not me. Today I started my morning on the bike training. Then for lunch I grabbed my board for a couple of quick rides at the mountain. There was a good amount of powder but the pain in my left calf that was giving me trouble in the last two runs felt very sore in my boot and made left turns pretty uncomfortable. Despite the pain and the time constraint, it’s always good fun up there. Finally tonight was my first swim class. I admit I was a bit anxious before it started but we have a great instructor and 7 of the 8 participants are training for the Deschutes Dash. This first class focused mostly on head position. Thursday we start breathing drills – something I really struggle with. But I’m much more excited about the class now than before.
I think I’m gonna sleep pretty good tonight.
Filed under: Workout Log
I guess I’m not feeling creative this week – I can’t think of anything interesting to say. Used my REI gift card my mom gave me for my birthday on a pair of tri shorts and a pair of jammers for my swim class. Ugh. I’m falling asleep while I’m writing this. Please stop reading now before your forehead slams into your keyboard.
Have you donated to the Awesome Fund yet? Yeah, I wouldn’t either after reading this horrible dribble.
Cheers.
Filed under: Workout Log
Hit the gym today at lunch to get back on the weight train. A little worried with the pain in my leg and all but figured I concentrate on upper body. But once I got there I started with legs as usual and about half way through the circuit I had most of my mobility back with only a hint of soreness. Not sure what happened. Whatever. I tracked my reps but forgot my notebook so I recorded everything in a note on my iPhone. But I haven’t looked at how I did versus last time. Overall, a good session.
Also, I finally registered for my swimming class. It starts on March 3rd – twice a week. Actually looking forward to that now. And I picked up a copy of Joel Friel’s “The Triathlete’s Training Bible” and will dive into that tonight during Must See TV.
Hope everyone is doing well. Cheers
I’m so close. Once again I made it even further than last run without having to break for a short walk. Today I ran all the way from the office, past Old Mill and over the Farewell Bend Park bridge. I took a brief break to catch my breath at the top of the stairs on the other side of the river but picked back up fairly quickly. Had to stop after another half mile to stretch out a side stitch (first one I’ve had since starting to run) but was able to start again quickly. I really think I can stay with the whole group by the end of the week. Unfortunately, I have to go out of town on a photoshoot for the next three days so I’m going to miss the group run on Wednesday as well as my weight training tomorrow. The photoshoot is at a golf resort on the Oregon coast and Nick has challenged me to take my run Wednesday on the beach which sounds lovely but running in sand is worse than snow. Nevertheless, challenge accepted. I’ll take pics when I’m there.
I let my iPhone battery go completely dead on Sunday and the jailbreak doesn’t really like it when that happens and i could not get the SIM card to work and therefore the RunKeeper app could not get a GPS signal to track the run today. Sadly, the problem fixed itself by the time we got back to the office. Next time I won’t wait until I’m already running to prep the RunKeeper app. Sorry, that was just a long way of saying no stats or map for today’s run. That makes you sad, doesn’t it.
Determined to be able to stay with Mary Yax’s running group for an entire run, sore muscles and ice on the ground could not deter me from my mission. It was a beautiful sunny and mild day and although I did have to stop and walk a few yards a couple times, I am that much closer to running the entire course. I managed to run half mile farther than Monday before walking which to me is huge. At that pace I’ll surely be able to stay with the group in a couple weeks tops. I definitely felt this run afterwards. You know you pushed yourself when it feels like your face is hanging on for dear life. Tomorrow I’ll be lucky if I can walk between this run and yesterday’s workout.
Special props to my homie for hangin’ back with me.
Run Keeper stopped exactly a half mile short again but I think I touched the screen by accident.
| Start Time | 1/28/09 12:20 pm |
| End Time | 1/28/09 1:12 pm |
| Elapsed Time | 52:11 |
| Distance | 4.54 mi |
| Avg Pace | 11:30 / mi |
| Avg Speed | 5.22 mph |
| Total Rise | 835 ft (clearly this is not accurate – gonna try and figure it out) |
Me. And you by association.
Went running with Nick and Jessica and Mary Yax’s running group. I’ve been avoiding it as to not make a fool of myself by getting left behind after a mile but I finally gave in today after thinking it was just going to be a couple people (as well as being warned it would be the last invite if I didn’t). Actually turned out to be a sizable group, but I didn’t get left behind until 1.8 miles. Hooray. Honestly that’s more than twice as far on an outside run as I’ve ever gotten without breaking to walk so I’m pretty happy about it. Plus, there’s about 3 inches of snow on the ground and currently 19° outside. Yeah, you read that right. HARDCORE.
I ran to Farewell Bend Park and back. Walked for 1 minute twice on the way there and once one the way back. 5.15 miles total. Overall, outstanding run. Especially taking into account the weather. And that I was forced to have a conversation for that first 1.8 miles. Definitely a new challenge. I must have sounded like I was having a heart attack. Anyway, I expect to be able to stay with the group in a couple of weeks.
Many thanks to Mary (and Nick) for inviting me.
Run Keeper worked well:
| Start Time | 1/26/09 12:16 pm |
| End Time | 1/26/09 1:20 pm |
| Elapsed Time | 1:02:11 |
| Distance | 5.15 mi |
| Avg Pace | 12:05 / mi |
| Avg Speed | 4.97 mph |
And by that I mean this ride was dark and cold and gloomy. But still fun. Just an ugly day. And all I had were my dark lenses for my Smith glasses which only made it worse. AND I wore my glasses instead of contacts today so I was partially blind and that made seeing pot holes and gravel near impossible. But again it was a good ride and actually alleviated some of my soreness. So I have that. Once again I did the loop around downtown but the distance was a little shorter this time because 1) I tried a different street to start on and 2) RunTracker lost the gps signal a half a mile from the office. Oh well. Roads are still pretty bad. The city said they were getting the sweeper trucks out but no evidence of it on Washington or Reed Market.
Hope you guys are having great day. Looks like Nick’s blog got picked up by some app that tracks WP blog activity and got a pretty good spike in views and that may be spilling over to the rest of us. Perhaps, there’s someone else out there that saw us and has a little awesome in them waiting to get out? : )
Cheers.
| Start Time | 1/22/09 12:42 pm |
| End Time | |
| Elapsed Time | 26:06 |
| Distance | 6.53 mi |
| Avg Pace | 4:00 / mi |
| Avg Speed | 15.00 mph |
| Total Rise | 589 ft |
Wednesday = Running. Ugh. I mean yippee! It was chilly today – no sun – and I did not bring cold with gear so it was off to Home Depot. To get a new lock. And THEN it was off to Juniper for some treadmillapalooza. Actually, it was a great run. Felt good for 2 miles (no walking) and then the farter showed up. No one on either side of and then I was flanked. Not sure who it was but it didn’t matter. Someone had the foot-long meatlovers po-boy for lunch. The fumes were quite toxic and my clear head when to hell and I had to walk for a minute and then pick it back up. But my concentration would never be the same, nor would the air. Thanks to the Foo Fighters for getting me through that last half mile, though. The good news is I have earned the right to sit on my ass and watch the season 5 premiere of Lost tonight. 30 minutes, 3 miles. Cheers.
Filed under: Workout Log
Man, Juniper is crowded on Mondays at lunch. Don’t you people have other things to do – like feel depressed?
I think I’ve decided to run on monday, wednesdays and fridays so I went to go run on the treadmill today (too cold out) but they were all full. I knew it was going to be packed when most of the lockers in the locker room actually had locks on them. And there was no safe place to look without confronting a bare ass. Or worse.
Anyway, so with the inability to run, I decided to hit the weights. I’ve been kinda holding off on weights worried it might make too sore to run but certainly strength training needs to be on the agenda. Starting with legs then chest and finally arms and shoulders, as I was taught to do a long time ago. I documented weight amounts and reps for everything I did. Never done that before so it will be neat to see how I progress. After about an hour of machines and free weights a treadmill finally opened up and I did a solid 15 minutes. And by solid I mean struggled with the little I had left in my now wobbling legs.
Needing to get back to the office, I wobbled back to the locker room only to find the key to my lock was no longer in my pocket. A search of the entire gym turned up nothing so I had to have them cut the lock. Strangely, that was a simple thing to accomplish and I could have cut any lock I chose – they asked for no proof of identity or knowledge of what was in the locker. Whatever. My things were still in the locker which I was concerned about after not being able to find the key.
I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow. But tomorrow is bike so shouldn’t be a problem.
I love cycling as much as I hate running. It felt great to get on the road again. Runtracker worked great. I compared it to my bike computer and they were almost identical on distance and average speed. I rode from the office down Greenwood, up washington to Reed Market and around the Old Mill to Bond. It’s another beautiful day but felt a little chillier on the bike than while running. Thanks to my beautiful wife, I stayed warm with my new cold weather gear I got for Christmas. The bike lanes where pretty much covered in gravel, particularly on Washington and Reed Market, so be careful out there Jessica. Drivers for the most part were very accommodating but it still broke my focus quite a bit during the ride. Overall a great workout.
| Start Time | 1/15/09 1:00 pm |
| End Time | 1/15/09 1:34 pm |
| Elapsed Time | 34:06 |
| Distance | 8.30 mi |
| Avg Pace | 4:06 / mi |
| Avg Speed | 14.61 mph |
| Total Rise | 573 ft |
Oh and according to Wii Fit this morning I’ve lost another 3 lbs. Just 4 lbs away from my new goal weight/BMI.
One more thing. The donations are steadily rolling in so don’t be left out. Click the Paypal link to the left and give what you can. Awesome comes at a price, people – $200 for a wet suit??!! I got kids to feed.
Cheers.
