It seems I’m always starting over, and this week is no different. My goal for this week is to “run” 15 miles over 5 or 6 days. My secondary goal is to do 500 push-ups over the same time period. Technically, I’m on track after today. I ran for about 5 minutes, then walked the rest of the way to my 3 miles. I crossed the virtual finish line at 36 minutes, which makes for an average speed of 5.0 miles per hour. That’s far from good, but at least I did a full 3 miles. I think it may be tough to do 3 miles every single day. The push-ups, on the other hand, are going to be a piece of cake. I probably should have set a higher goal there. I planned on doing sets of 40, 30, 20, and 10, but it was easy enough to just do 40, 30, 30, and be done. Maybe I’ll bump it up next week, depending on how things go.
Starting Over
February 6th, 2012Eight Minute Mile
September 13th, 2011I don’t run very often, but I’m trying to run more. No, I’m not trying to run more, but I am trying to run faster. It all started when I decided to get back to dropping a few pounds. One of the keys for me has always been walking and/or jogging.
They say the ideal way to burn fat is to keep your heart rate around 65% of max for 20+ minutes every day. If you go much higher than that, you won’t burn as much fat, but it’s still good for you.
I found that walking about 4.0 mph on a treadmill keeps my heart rate close to that magic 65% number. I also found that it takes at least 10 minutes of walking at that speed before my heart rate climbs to that magical number, so I decided to run fast for a mile to crank my heart rate up, then walk at 4.0 mph for 20 minutes or so.
I can’t just jog that first mile, I have to push myself. That’s just how I work. So that first mile has been getting a little faster each time I run it. I think if you look back through my runkeeper logs, I’ve been pretty close to a 9 minute mile in the real world (a world where I don’t get to slow to 4.0 mph after one mile). Knowing that, I figured I could push myself fairly easily to hit a single 9 minute mile.
I set the treadmill for 8.5 mph and started running. I kept that pace for 4 full minutes, which put me well past the half way point of that first mile. I dropped it down to 6.0 mph for one minute, then cranked it back up a little bit for another few minutes.
I crossed the 1.0 mile mark right around 7:50.
I guess I overshot my goal a little. Now I wonder if I should keep pushing faster on that first mile, or if I should try to extend the running to a second mile. Maybe a little of both. We’ll have to see.
More short course
September 12th, 2011I still haven’t managed to get myself to swim practice on a long course day. In fact, I haven’t managed to get myself to practice more than once a week. Today was only my third time back at practice. It was a fairly small group today. I had my own lane and somehow I wound up getting a shorter interval time than everyone else. It was pretty brutal, but I think I’m not actually fast, but the fast people just were not there today. I’ll keep pushing.
Our coach was down in San Diego last Friday for a conference and expo. She brought back a bunch of different pieces of equipment for us to try out. I got to use these new hand paddles from Speedo that I really liked. They are smaller than my current paddles by quite a bit, so they’re easier to maneuver, but they have a curved lip on the front and inside edge, making them really grab the water. They felt small when they needed to be small, but powerful when they needed to be powerful. Like I said, I really liked them. I don’t see them listed on speedo.com just yet, but I’m guessing I’ll buy some when they start selling them.
As usual, I don’t think I’m remembering everything, but here’s what I think we did:
400 Free warm-up
8 x 50 kick-pull (25 kick, 25 pull) on 0:10 rest
8 X 50 fly kick on our backs (25 hands down, 25 streamline) on 0:50 (with fins)
4 x 50 10-10-10 kicking (both hands out, left out, both out, right out) with hand paddles
12 x 75 swim-drill-swim on 1:05
500 Pull warm-down
—–
2800 yards
Back for more
September 7th, 2011Monday was a holiday, so there was no swim practice. Yesterday they swam long course, and I wasn’t really ready for that kind of pain. Today I made it back to morning practice. I’m sort of sad that I waited till summer was over to start swimming again. I really enjoy swimming as the sun comes up, but that won’t happen again until next year. We’re already too far into fall… and they’ll be putting the bubble over the pool soon. Oh well, at least I’m swimming again.
100 free warm-up
2 x (
8 x 25 kicking on 0:40
20 x 25 drill with fins on 0:30 (5 x fly, 5 x back, 5 x breast, 5 x free)
4 x 100 free on 1:30 (no fins)
)
400 pull easy warm-down
-----
2700 yards
Up In The Night
September 2nd, 2011A strange confluence of events over the past week or two led me to the pool in the middle of the night. It all started when I swam a few yards at Gold’s Gym. Then my old Masters Swim Team coach sent an email saying he was back from living in Texas and wanted to have a reunion with some of the old swimmers. We had everyone that could make it over for a pot-luck dinner… and by the end of the night I had committed to swimming “at least once” in the morning. That morning was this morning. And this morning I realized that “morning” has a completely different definition than I thought it did.
We got up around 5:10. Practice started at 5:30. Somehow getting up at 5:10 was not early enough to get us in the water on time. I don’t think we were very late, but we were at least a little late. It was still pitch black outside when we got in the pool.
I swam in the same lane as my old coach, Dave. As our warm-up was ending, we were joined by Keena, a local triathlon coach. Having not been in the water for a real workout in several years, I was a little uncomfortable. Somehow Dave and Keena managed to drang and push me through the main set. There’s a lot of pressure to perform when you have a coach 10 seconds ahead of you and another coach 10 seconds behind you. Somehow I stayed alive.
The first hints that it may not be night after all came as we were warming down. The horizon was just starting to turn from black to purple. We finished up, dried off, and drove all the way home before the sun ever came up. That’s just not right. And somehow I’ve gotten myself on the hook to be back at practice on Tuesday, when we’ll be doing LCM (Long Course Meters), which is much harder than the SCY (Short Course Yards) we did today.
I didn’t take any notes, but here’s at least most of what we did today:
6 x 200 pull
12 x hammer-down
6 x 50 russian free
6 x 50 drill your-choice
12 x 25 kick @ 0:40
500 pull
I need to get a kick board. I wasn’t happy using my pull buoy as a kick board.
200 Club
August 24th, 2011I finally rejoined the ranks of the 200 club… those who can bench press more than 200 pounds. I first joined the club when I was in high school, so it’s been more than a little pathetic being out of the club these past few years. Now to get back in the 250 club.
Flat Bench:
135 x 12
155 x 10
185 x 8
225 x 2
Skull Crushers:
45 x 12, 12
45 x 10, 10
45 x 8, 8
Incline Dumbbell Fly:
35 x 12
40 x 10
40 x 8
Bar Dips:
5 (+1)
4 (+2)
1
Treadmill:
8:55 to first mile
Lost my first water bottle
August 17th, 2011I have started riding my bike to work once a week. It’s only 10 miles and it’s mostly down hill, so it’s not a tough ride at all. The ride home is considerably tougher, since it’s mostly up hill and it’s much much warmer. It was about 65 degrees when I headed to work this morning, but it will be close to 90 when I head home.
I don’t need a water bottle on my way to work. I always need one on my ride home. Today I won’t have one. I was flying down Canyon Road through Pleasant Grove this morning when I hit a really rough patch of road. It’s not uncommon to hit really rough roads in Pleasant Grove. They seem to go out of their way to make their roads rough. Unfortunately for me, I hit this rough patch as the road went around a corner near 2600 North. The combination of my speed through the corner and the extraordinarily rough road nearly bounced me off my bike.
Just as I was congratulating myself for staying on, I heard my water bottle bounce across the road and into the weeds. I thought briefly about circling back to get it, but decided against it, because I was already a little late for work. Now I’ll have to figure out how to get some liquid on my bike for the ride home. My current thought is to pack my water bottle holders with cans of Mountain Dew. That sounds like a decent plan.
Done for the year
August 15th, 2011All the big events I was signed up for are now done for the year. We rode our bikes from Seattle to Portland, did the Spudman triathlon, and rode our bikes around Utah Lake in the ULCER. This week we got to watch a couple stages of the Tour of Utah, which was really cool. But now the big events are done and I have to stop using my “I don’t want to underfuel for the next big event” excuse. It’s time to reinstate the restricted calorie diet. That’s going to be tricky now that we have a Blendtec. It’s so easy to whip up a big smoothie in the morning, but those smoothies have hundreds of calories. I guess I just need to put in more vegetables and less fruits. We’ll see.
Chest 20110720
July 20th, 2011It’s getting serious again. I haven’t been great at going to the gym every day, in fact, I’ve been pretty terrible. But I’m starting to believe that my strength can come back. I have somehow managed to be there for chest day most weeks. Today I was finally able to push a little harder. It felt really good.
Flat Bench:
12 x 135
10 x 185
4 x 205 (+1 with help)
Incline Bench:
12 x 135
8 x 155
4 x 165 (+1 with help)
Skull Crushers:
8 x 65
5 x 65 (couldn’t hold form on #5)
8 x 45
Incline Dumbbell Press:
12 x 35
10 x 45
5 x 55 (+1 with help)
Bar Dips:
8 x -100 (machine provided 100 pounds of lift)
8 x -100 (machine provided 100 pounds of lift)
Needless to say, my arms feel like Jello. Tomorrow will be an interesting day.
Chest 20110713
July 13th, 2011Yesterday we pushed the sled across the parking lot. There wasn’t a lot to say about it, so I didn’t blog it.
Today we were inside. I have a long way to go to get back into shape, but I feel like I may be starting to make some progress. We’re guessing my one-rep max on flat bench is about 225. We based the rest of my weights off that max. We had to cut out a little early today, because someone scheduled a meeting for 1:00.
Flat Bench:
12 x 135 (60% of max)
5 x 170 (75% of max)
5 x 190 (85% of max)
Incline Bench:
12 x 135
5 x 155
5 x 175
Skull Crushers:
6 x 65
6 x 75
6 x 75
Bar Dips:
0 (+6)
1 (+5)
1 (+5)
Upright Fly:
8 x 90
8 x 100
8 x 110