Bad Start to the Week

The weekend went well. We went to the City on Saturday, and walked quite a bit. Then, on Sunday, I took in a 4 mile run (9.5 pace) followed by an upper body workout.

Yesterday, though, was not so good. Following a long day (labor issues in the morning, unexpected politics in the afternoon, Board meeting in the evening), I settled in for a beer.

Which led to another beer. And then a 3rd. Oh, why not, sure I'll have a 4th beer.

Then I got home, and finished off the Butter Pecan ice cream that I found in the freezer.

Uggh!

YMCA

Pete:

I am so happy to see that at least you're getting out there. And that you're posting on the blog (you're right, UM has some very serious issues. Curse you, Bill Martin!).

I just started getting in to a routine this week, after finally getting my fat @$$ to the "Y". Did I tell you before that I can see the "Y" from my office? No? Well, I can.

How am I doing? Well, I hopped on my bike Sunday afternoon, and took in a 12 mile bike (10 miles, circuitously, to the Y, then 2 miles home). It was a slow ride (17-18 mph kind of ride).

I stopped off at Y for an upper body work out. It certainly isn't LTF. So, it took me a while to find my way around. But at least I started again.

And, more importantly, I returned. I took in a 50 minute run on the treadmill yesterday, followed by some resistance training. Even changing out shoes, my ankle was giving me some fits. I don't know if I can blame it all on the ankle. Maybe the extra 15 pounds could be to blame?

Well, I'm going to take off after my 2 pm meeting today, and get my butt back in to the gym. Wish me luck!

UGH!!!

I cannot believe how crummy UM is. There's absolutely no hope in sight. Not a bright spot to be spotted. Nothing. Two games left just means two more humiliating losses. How does Purdue's new coach beat OSU and UM IN HIS FIRST YEAR! And we can't hold on to a two touchdown lead at home?! Everyone says "you have to give Rodriguez time. You've got to be patient." I could be patient if I saw progress. This is just last year with a two more wins against really lousy teams. The defense is atrocious and the team melts down at the first sign of adversity. Signs of a poorly coached team. And oh yeah, here's another record set by Rich Rod: Purdue's first win at Michigan stadium in (are you ready for it?) FORTY THREE YEARS!!!!! Add the NCAA investigations and it's taken this guy just two years to completely disrupt a program that had run smoothly for 40 years.

Oh. And I ran 8 miles today.

Sneaking Out and Sneaking In

My plan was to get up early and go to LTF and either run or get on the elliptical. But, couldn't get to sleep until after 11. And then woke up around 2 and couldn't get back to sleep. So needless to say when the alarm went off at 4:30, I wasn't i the mood. So I reset the alarm and went back to sleep.

Now I'm faced with a dilemma. It's already been 3 days since I last did anything. I can't let it become 4. I worked until about 8:30 last night watching focus groups. And need to watch them again tonight starting at 4 and going until about 10. So I figured, I'll sneak out of work for a little while and sneak in a workout.

So, at 2:30, I snuck out and went to LTF. Got on the treadmill a little wary about my hip. Got going and felt pretty good. After about 20 minutes, felt a little twinge so got off the treadmill and headed over to the elliptical. Did another 20 minutes over there and called it quits.

A nice easy workout. Good to get back on track.

2 good days + 3 lost days = not too bad I guess

So, Saturday and Sunday were good days. But since then? Well, a little different story.

Saturday I ran 8 miles sloooowly. But it felt good to be out there and overall it went pretty well. On these long runs I'm really conscious of keeping my heart rate low. Especially at this time of year.

Sunday I had a 7 mile run that included some tempo work. 2 miles easy then 10 minutes at tempo pace (about 9:15) 5 minutes easy, 10 minutes at tempo pace, 2 miles easy. This run went really well. I felt good and really enjoyed it. I finished the run in a really good mood. This was the first time I felt like I was starting to get back some of my lost fitness.

And then Monday came.

The problem with Monday started Sunday night. First, I had to go into work around 8:00 to look at some work that was being presented in Houston the next day. So, I wasn't able to relax and get to bed quite as early as I would have liked. Second, while I've been running since August and my hip has been feeling fine, I noticed a minor twinge Sunday night that wasn't there earlier in the day. So, I'm now very paranoid about injuries. I figure there's absolutely NO reason to push myself at this time of year and risk an injury. Plus, I need to leave the house at 7am Monday morning, and I've just finished a pretty good week of running. So I opt to take Monday off. I figure if I feel well, I'll pick up again Tuesday.

Yeah...about that. Did I mention I was taking a flight home that would land at 11PM Monday night? So I ended up getting home at 11:45. No chance I'm getting up early to run on that amount of sleep. Plus, still feeling a little twinge. So Tuesday's a no-go.

Now about today. Last night I thought, "I'll go to Lifetime and spend 45 minutes on the elliptical. That'll be like running but without the impact." Pretty good idea actually. But I was still exhausted from my travels Monday and just didn't have the energy to get up and go this morning. So that fell through.

So, the last three days have been a little disappointing. But I'm not gonna stress about it. Trying to keep the big picture in mind and just not let it become four days. So, I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Blogging Is Hard

Man, this blogging thing requires commitment. I mean geez, I gotta commit at least 10 minutes a day to this. I don't know if I'm up for it!

Anyway, enough complaining. I'm starting to get back into a groove. I downloaded a 10K training plan to get ready for the Turkey Trot, so that's been keeping me pretty busy. My only excuse now is laziness. But that's a pretty big inertia to overcome sometimes.

Since last time, I ran 4 miles Thursday, 7 Saturday, 4.5 Monday, Speed Intervals totaling about 5 or so Tuesday and 4.5 today. Tomorrow the plan calls for 8! Yikes. That will be the longest I've run since May 9. And it will be slooooooowwww. But, it feels good to be back into some sort of schedule again.

Now if I can just lay off the Halloween candy....

Holy Cow

Wow, Pete! What a great idea.

And a crappy idea at the same time. Because now I have to get off my butt!

My workout schedule has been a mixed bag of of good intentions. I'd like to blame the new job, school travel for the kids, and Haley's Comet. But really, all I got is myself to blame.

So, then, what have I done? Well, errr, ummm, *ahem*, I ran in a 5K on the 17th. My time was respectable, but my legs were a little sore afterward. I then ran a few 3 mile runs the week after.

I was in NYC for a wedding this past weekend. And this week has been jam-packed with preparing layoff notices. Tomorrow, there will be quite a few unhappy people around here.

So, maybe after this week I can put my efforts in to it.

If there's any consolation, I have a membership to the YMCA that is three doors down from my office...

Where am I?

I'm lost. I don't know what I've covered and what I haven't. I'm not keeping very good track of my training, so it's hard to know where I am exactly. Hang on a moment...what's this over here...umm... Ah! Got it!

Monday - ran 4 miles easy
Tuesday - Speedwork Pyramid - Fun! W/U then 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 3/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 1/4 mile at 8:40 pace with 10:00 paced recoveries in between.

Wednesday - REST - aahhhhhh....

Tomorrow???? 4 Miles with Strides at the end.

Turkey Day is just 5 Weeks Away!

Speedy Saturday and Slow Sunday

Speedy Saturday - Thought I'd go to spin class at LTF. Turned out Speedplay was the scheduled session for the day. Lot's of high cadence work at high HR. Rather taxing stuff. But I held in there as best I could. Afterward did some upper body strength. Trying to do strength training twice a week right now in an effort to get back in shape. It's amazing how much strenght and conditioning I lost by being so sedintary this summer.

Which gets me to Sunday. Plan was to run 6 miles slow. Mission accomplished. And it was hard. Way harder than it should have been. Averaged about 10:30 per mile. A bit discouraging, but I try not to dwell on it. Problem was, when I got home, I felt like absolute crap. Took a shower and had horrible chills and just felt crummy. I was getting sick. Spent the rest of the day on and off the couch and still felt crummy through Monday. Started to get back to normal yesterday.

How come everyone else makes it look so easy? Ah well...

Fast Friday

I barely ran at all this summer and as a result have lost a lot of speed. So I downloaded a training program from RunnersWorld.com which has me doing some speed work. Today was my first such speed session. As part of an overall 5 mile run, I was to include 3 1/2 mile runs in 4:06, separated by 1/4 mile recovery jog. I did it on a treadmill just to be safe.

It was brutal. All I had to do was run for 4 minutes and 6 freaking seconds. That's it. How hard can that be right? But it was. I was really huffing and puffing my way through each 1/2 mile. But I got it done.

That's it for today.

Yesterday and Today

So I need to do yesterday and today because today I did, well, nothing. But yesterday - well, that's an entirely different story altogether. Because I did something.

Strength Training - oh yes, trying to get my 42 year old, skinny-weak ass (with an ever-expanding beer gut) in some sort of physical strength. This, like nearly all of my training, is an on-again, off-again, off-again, off-again, on-again, off-again type of affair. So yesterday, I turned it back into the on position. Here's what I did:

• 3x20x80lb squats on machine, not free weights
• 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 assisted pull-ups. They have this special pull-up machine at LTF for weak weenies like me. You stand on an elevated bar which supports some of your weight while you do the pull-ups
• 3x12x80lb leg press - OK, I overdid it a little on the squats so I wasn't feeling too strong on the leg press
• 3x10x35lb wood chop on some kind of extension machine
  
• 3x15x60lb seated row
• 3x15x40 hamstring curl

So, not the manliest of weight training. But something.

Today I'm gonna take off. I figure if I can get 5 days in this week (T/W/F/S/S) that will be an accomplishment after the complete and utter laziness I've put on display over the last month or so.

Until next time.

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Intro

OK. So here's a way to keep things interesting (at least for the two of us - I'm not sure anyone else will find this interesting). An ongoing blog about who's doing what in training. As if we need another form of digital communication. But I figured what the heck, we'll give it a try. If it becomes a drag, then we let it fade into the cyber-ether.

Anyway, the basic idea is to get online and post what you've done and we can compare notes.

I'll go first...