Eating like a champion

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I took a mini-vacation last weekend to play in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. I kayaked, snorkeled, surfed, and swam. But the best part of the trip was eating at In-N-Out Burger. I even tried a few items from their (not so) secret menu.

Swimming in the ocean is pretty cool. Charmaine and Julie were in an ocean kayak paddling from La Jolla Shores to the caves around La Jolla Cove. I was swimming along behind them. The water was fairly clear. I could easily see the sand along the bottom when it was more than 15 feet deep. At one point we ran across an old anchor and some kids who said they saw a leopard shark. After further questioning, they admitted they hadn’t seen a shark since the day before. I think it would have been cool to see a shark, but I didn’t think there was much chance of it.

I did manage to step on a stingray, though. That freaked me out. I guess they are in the area this time of year. I jumped off my surfboard once and landed on something the wiggled and wiggled to get free. It turned out to be a small stingray. I was very glad not to have been hurt by it.

I’m not much of a surfer, but I really enjoy it. The waves were fairly small at Pacific Beach and at La Jolla Shores Beach, but there will still 20 to 30 surfers enjoying them. I have a hard time balancing on my board, but I think it may be because I’m renting such a big board, so it rides higher in the water. Maybe I just suck at balancing, I’m not sure. But I can pull myself onto the board and get up to speed to catch a wave as well as most of the surfers that were there when I was there. There weren’t many “good” waves, so I only ended up riding about 15 waves in 3 hours, but it was still better than working.

The snorkeling wasn’t all that impressive. I liked what I saw just outside Avalon on Catalina much better than the stuff around the kelp beds outside the La Jolla Caves.

I got to hit In-N-Out Burger twice in my 3 day trip. That was awesome. The first day I got a 3×3 Animal style with a chocolate shake. I think that’s the perfect combination, but I was willing to try for better the next time. When I ordered the 4×4 Animal style and a Flying Dutchman, the cashier confirmed that I knew what I was ordering and that I really wanted it. That was good, but I think the 3×3 was better. If a 3×3 isn’t enough food for me in the future, I’ll just get 2 of them.

In-N-Out my way

Real Competition

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I ended up getting to the gym a bit late today because of various things I got caught up in at work. When I arrived, all 3 lanes had people in them. I was amazed. Usually the gym turns into a ghost town around 1:30, but today the pool was full. I wasn’t sure where I would swim. The slow lane had a really slow old lady in it. The middle lane had a good swimmer going quite fast. The fast lane had a fairly slow swimmer. When I started getting dressed I realized that I lost yet another lock. I checked with lost and found, but they didn’t have it. I figure I left it on my locker… unlocked, so someone knows the combination. Lame. I’ve got to be more careful with those locks!

As luck would have it, by the time I was dressed and showered, the old lady had gone and the slow lane was open. I warmed up my usual 500, noticing that the swimmer in the middle lane was quite fast. I was pretty sure I could beat him, though… well, I was sure I could beat him in freestyle, but his breast stroke looked pretty fast (and let’s be honest, I suck at breast stroke). By the time I was done with my warm up, the guy in the fast lane had gone and a really fat old lady was preparing to get in the pool. I took the opportunity to switch to the fast lane and stretch out. During this time, the swimmer in the middle lane started doing a butterfly stroke-drill. He never actually did any butterfly, but it’s still pretty draining just to do the drill. He was stopping every 25 for a few seconds and then going again. I was sure my endurance was better and I was half tempted to start my workout with 5 x 100 IM instead of my usual 5 x 100 free, but I decided that would be poor form.

After my first 2 100s free @ 2:15 (coming in at 1:10), the swimmer in the middle lane was waiting to challenge me. At least that’s what it seemed like. He had either been watching me, or just happened to guess exactly when I would push off the wall for my next 100… and he decided to swim freestyle. It was pretty exciting. I wasn’t too concerned in the beginning, because I had already decided that I was faster than him, so I went out on pace. He jumped out ahead of me pretty quickly. I was surprised, so I kicked it up a notch. He continued to pull away from me as we entered our turn. I kicked it up a bit more, but knew I would be dead on the second 50 if I pushed any harder. He didn’t pull any further ahead of me, but beat me soundly to the second turn. I decided I wasn’t going to let him beat me and kicked it up again, only to find that he was done. He did a flip-turn, but came out on his back and was clearly doing a warm-down. At first he was enjoying his “victory,” but I continued on. I’m sure I wasn’t pushing as hard without the competition, but I was still going. As I came back after the 3rd turn I hoped he realized that I hadn’t been pushing as hard as I would if I knew he was only going half way… and then I contemplated going to 200 without stopping to emphasize my point, but reality kicked in and I stopped at the wall. He stopped at the other end after his 25 yard back stroke. I wondered if he would jump in and race me again, but he got out. I continued through my workout.

I never really thought I’d run into someone as fast as I am at Gold’s Gym. I’m still not sure I did, but I think it’s at least possible. He was built much like a WWE wrestler or an NFL fullback… in other words, not all that different from me. The thrill of competition is invigorating. I think I would get a much better workout if I had some real competition more often. That was fun.

Swim:
300 Free warm-up
150 Kick warm-up
50 Free warm-up
Stretch
5 x 100 Free @ 2:15 (coming in under 1:15)
6 x 50 Kick @ 1:30 (coming in under 0:50)
200 Free warm-down
————
1200 yards

Back to Blogging

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I’m not sure why I stop blogging from time to time, but I do try to keep swimming. Today I decided to write about Triathlons. Charmaine did the Provo Triathlon this weekend. I thought it was very interesting. It definitely made me want to get in and swim. At the time I was sure I could have come in first place (at least for the swim).

Today I tried to prove my hypothesis as best I could by timing myself swimming 800 yards. I am not a distance swimmer. Doing an 800 in high school would have just about killed me. Back then, I had no concept of pacing myself; I would just swim until I was dead and then try to figure out how to get to the finish line. Today I decided to try and stick to the pace of the fastest sprint-distance swimmers. It was hard for me, but I was able to finish the 800 at that pace. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison, though. I was swimming in a pool, which gave me the opportunity to push off a wall every 25 yards. You don’t get that advantage in open-water swims. I was also able to see where I was going the whole time. I could even look up at the clock from time to time to see if I was still on pace. But it was still fun to do it, and I’ll probably do it again sometime at an even faster pace.

I’ve decided that Triathlons are skewed in favor of bikers. When I look at the results, particularly from the Olympic distance racers, it’s obvious. Most of the time is spent biking. Next is running. Swimming is short in comparison. This means that the winners are all bikers that run well and can swim. I think a better triathlon would be to give equal weight to each of the three disciplines. Obviously, I’m a bit biased being a fairly good swimmer and a poor biker and runner, but I still think it’s a good idea. Otherwise it’s really a bike race with a few non-standard things thrown in. That’s just my $0.02.

Swim:
200 Free warm-up
800 Free @ 12:00 (1:30/100 pace)
200 Free easy
8 x 50 Kick @ 1:30 (coming in under 0:55)
2 x 100 Free @ 2:30 (coming in under 1:15)
200 Free warm-down
————
2000 yards

Victory is mine!

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I’m not sure if I ever wrote about this when it happened, but one day I left my lock at the gym. I checked several times with the lost and found, but it never turned up. I’m not sure I really expected it to turn up. I left the key in the lock. I was pretty upset about it, mostly because I kept forgetting to bring another lock with me for a few days.

I always figured that the guy that swiped my lock may have a similar workout schedule to mine. Today I was proven right. When I finished working out, I headed for my locker. As luck would have it, I noticed my old lock on the big locker closest to the big locker I was using (Gold’s Gym has a horrible locker arrangement, but that’s another story). I could barely believe what I was seeing. I foresaw this day when my lock never turned up. You see, I had two keys to that lock. The lock has returned to its rightful owner. And now I know who took it. He came out to his locker while I was getting dressed after my shower.

That was a great ending to a decent day of legs. I went extra low on squats. It’s probably the first time I have ever gone as deep as I should. I’m going to try to keep going that deep in the future. I also pushed hard through my first time back on leg press. I did overheat and almost puke, so right there you know it’s a good workout.

Weight: 260.4

Squat:
225/12 (all the way down) 275/8 315/2

Leg Press:
580/20 670/12 760/6

Standing Calf Raise:
395/20 395/12 395/12

Week 2 Chest 20070507

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Here we go again now. Last week my strength was pathetic. I started off a lot better this week, but quickly ran out of steam. I really like the 20-12-8 pyramid we’re doing. I think it’s moving me in the right direction.

Travis said he had to be back by 1:30, but it turned out that he needed to be back by 1:00. Luckily we ended up getting back at 1:09.

Weight: 258.4

Flat Bench:
185/20 205/12 225/8

Incline Bench:
135/20 185/12 205/8

All the adjustable benches were in use when we finished Incline Bench; they were still in use after our Bar Dip routines, so we wound up skipping Incline Bench today.

Bar Dip:
3 (pathetic)

Treadmill:
10 minutes – 0.95 miles

Swimming on Thursday 20070503

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Travis came in and said we were swapping today’s workout with tomorrow’s lunch. It doesn’t work quite that easily for me. I like going to lunch with the group and I couldn’t swap everyone’s schedule like that. So I wound up going to the gym by myself, and that means swimming instead of back and biceps.

The pool was empty when I arrived at 12:30. But almost as soon as I started swimming (before I finished my first 50) a fairly large woman got into the slow lane to swim. Next a very skinny woman got in the fast lane and complained about how warm the water was. Actually, now that I’m writing this down I wonder if she was complaining about it, or happy about it. Either way, she mentioned that the water was warmer than usual. I hate it when the water is warm, so I automatically took it as if she was complaining. A minute later a guy about my age got into the slow lane with the larger woman and started swimming. Then about 2 laps later an older couple came out and started getting into the slow lane. At this point the larger woman got out. That’s pretty crazy. None of them ever tried to share my lane, which is a good thing, because I was in a fairly angry/aggressive mood… and that made for a pretty good workout.

Swim:
300 Free warm-up
100 Kick
8 x 200 Free: 2x (2:00, 2:15, 2:30, 2:45) coming in at 1:15
6 x 50 Kick @ 1:30 (coming in at 0:50)
200 Free warm-down
————
1700 yards

Shoulders and Swimming 20070502

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As I sat here eating my Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger (970 calories) from Carl’s Jr and sucking down my Hand Scooped Chocolate Malt (780 calories) I realized that I hadn’t written up today’s workout.

Swimming is very shoulder-intensive, at least the way I swim. So on days when we do shoulders, I like to just swim. I didn’t feel right about leaving Travis to do shoulders on his own, so we came up with a compromise. I did military press with him before jumping in the pool. It seemed to work out pretty well.

Weight: 258.8 (again)

Military Press:
135/16 155/12

Swim:
300 Free warm-up
200 Kick
8 x 100 Free 2x (2:00, 2:15, 2:30, 2:45)
200 Free warm-down
————
1500 yards

Some legs, some swimming 20070501

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Well, I talked Travis out of finishing our leg workout. We were competing for resources with several other groups of people, and we didn’t have much time. I had to get back to work for my 1-1 with Martin, so we couldn’t just sit around and wait for the others to finish their sets. We got in some good stretching while waiting for the squat rack to open up, then we did standing calf raises while waiting for the leg press to open up. But we were not the only ones waiting for the leg press, and the other group started before we were done with our standing calf raises. This gave me the perfect chance to talk Travis out of more leg workouts. I don’t think I’ll be so lucky next week.

I still wanted to get some cardio in before we left, and there was no way I could run with my jello legs, so I hit the pool. There were 2 other people in the pool already. They must have been training for something, because they had a bunch of equipment and were pushing themselves pretty hard. I was faster, of course, but I could only swim for about 20 minutes before it was time to go.

Weight: 258.8

Squat:
225/12 275/10 275/4

Standing Calf Raise:
395/12 395/12 395/12

Swim:
400 Free warm-up
5 x 100 Free descending (3:00, 2:45, 2:30, 2:15, 2:00)
100 Free warm-down
————
1000 yards

Starting up (yet again)

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We are very busy at work. We have been operating in stealth-mode for the past 18 months, but we finally debuted at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco 2 weeks ago. Ever since that time, we’ve been getting a lot of positive press and attention, which has kept things busy. I’ve managed to keep my hours under 100 per week, but it has been pretty crazy. I did manage to swim every now and then, but it wasn’t very often. And I never blogged it.

Summer has come to Utah and that means a lot of things for me. I finally broke down and turned on my air conditioner this morning before I left for work. I need to hire someone to install sprinklers and grass at my new house. It’s time to get serious about working out again. Travis and I hit the gym today for the first time in a long time. It was pretty pathetic, but at least we’re getting back to it. Some of the guys at work are very into biking, specifically mountain biking, so I’ve thought about getting my bike out and trying to hang with them from time to time. I’m not as confident about that one, but I’ll try it at least once. And it won’t be very long until the outdoor pools are open and I can start swimming outside. There’s really nothing as fun as swimming in a well-maintained outdoor pool.

I lost about 25 pounds while working out over the last 18 months, which seemed like a very healthy rate to lose weight (and gain muscle). But today I hopped on the scale to see that I’ve gained 20 pounds back in about 2 months. That doesn’t seem nearly as healthy. I’ve also lost a lot of my strength and tone (as you’ll notice in today’s numbers). I think it’s probably good that I gained so much weight, because I don’t think it would motivate me to action the way this has. I’m back.

Weight: 258.0

Flat Bench:
135/20 (very easy) 185/16 205/10

Incline Bench:
135/16 155/14 185/12

Incline Dumbbell Fly:
60/16 70/12 80/4

Treadmill:
.91 miles in 10 minutes

Shoulders 20070308

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Joey did Back and Biceps with his wife yesterday while I swam, so he wanted to do shoulders today. We didn’t do a lot of sets, but we pushed ourselves pretty well. Then we ran a mile. I think we’re going to try to run at least a mile after we lift each day. We’ll see how that goes.

Weight:
249.6

Military Press:
135/12 155/10 155/8

Dumbbell Press:
50/12 60/10 70/8

Run:
1.0 mile in 9:40