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.

• 
  

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...