Marathon Training - Week 8 - Pre-13.1 Miler

Marathon Training - Week 8 - Pre-13.1 Miler

The rumors of my demise have been marginally exaggerated. It's been a bumpy ride over the last few weeks but I think I'm on the upward angle again.

My last post had me coming off a great 9 mile weekend run and getting ready for a 10 miler that weekend. I didn't get a very good run that weekend because I had to take my dog into the vet because we thought he'd sprained his knee. Well that 'sprain' turned out to be a venomous bite of some sort and over the course of a very long next week of very expensive and gut wrenching nights and days of intensive care we ended up having to put him down. That experience is one of the worst I've had to go through, and being the decision maker that had to choose to end the life of one of my best friends is something that I'm still struggling with coming to terms with. But as a result of all that I didn't get any runs in for a week after my failed 10 mile run and then coming back from that week I didn't do very well during the next week's run. So I went from a great 9 mile run to a failed 10 mile run, a week off, a poor week of training, and then attempted to do 12 miles last weekend.

12 miles. That alone seemed like a huge milestone and it would have been my first 'double digit' run if I had finished it. But it wasn't to be. I got started and got 5 miles into my run without alot of issues. At the 5 mile mark I walked for a few minutes will I took my 'gu' and rehydrated. But for whatever reason, I never could get restarted. I'm not sure if it was mental, or physical, or what but I never got restarted and ended up walking the 5 miles BACK to my house. Not the effort I wanted to put forward.

BUT THERE IS HOPE!

So far, this week has been a great running week. I got a good run in Tuesday and finished a 6 mile run on Wednesday which I hadn't been able to do for a few weeks. Yesterday's run was good as well and I'm optimistic about my chances to finish my 13 mile planned run tomorrow. I think part of my issues are running my 'long' runs by myself so I looked up a local running group that is training for a marathon around the same time mine is and I'm going to meet up with them this weekend and see how that run goes. I'm hoping that running with other people might be what it takes to keep me going or restart me going during my run. I'm really hoping that I'm able to finish 13 miles or what is essentially a half marathon.

This is a big mental milestone. If I can get 13 miles under my belt I think that's going to give me the motivation and prove to me that I'm able to do this. If I'm not able to do this weekend or at the very least get close I'm going to start to feel that I'm falling behind. If the most I've ever been able to complete is 9 miles with about 10 weeks left I'm going to start to be concerned with my ability to finish the full marathon.

We'll see how tomorrow's run goes. It'll be interesting if nothing else.

Marathon Training Week 5 - Mid-Week Recap

Marathon Training Week 5 - Mid-Week Recap

I continue to struggle to find the time to do the things I want to do but I have kept up my running. This week I haven't hit all my distances 100% but have felt pretty good running.

Tuesday's run was suppossed to be 3 miles but only ended up being 2. I believe I ran too close to eating dinner because I never really felt right running and I kept getting side stitches no matter how I adjusted by breathing or pace. At 2 miles I felt like my shorts might be chafing and I had had a side stitch for over .5 mile without being able to get rid of it so I just called it a run. I was a bit bummed, but I believe even with the issues I was having I could have finished the run if it was a race.

Yesterday was the midweek run of 5 miles this week. I went out to a new park that has an 8k 'trail' run and actually had a great run. I met a friend out there who isn't as far along as I am with running but he was able to keep up with my pace for the most part. We got 2.5 miles in before he was dying and needed to walk. Not wanting to run off an leave him we walked for 3 minutes before getting another 7 minutes or so in before another quick walk. At that point we were close to a 'loop' and I got him to run out the remainder. He ran 3.5 miles in about 40 minutes which I was really impressed he was able to keep up and do. Given the walking I believe we kept up a pretty decent pace. I kept running and did another side trail and when I was circling back around my car it was just over 50 minutes so I decided to call it. I ended up being about .4 miles short of my mileage but felt great overall and given the walking I'm sure I could have finished the run 'on pace'. Not sure how often I'll go back out to this park but it's nice.

I'm finding that I am needing to break up my running routine some. The same 1 mile course was fine when it was 2-3 miles at a time for 8-10 a week. But doing the same look for 20-30 miles a week is going to drive me insane.

Feeling good overall. Can't wait for the extra work that I've picked up to die down so I can get back to sleeping a more regular schedule and relaxing. With everything going on I'm struggling sometimes to cope with the added stresses which isn't something I normally struggle with. Luckily I haven't fallen off the eating wagon this week so hopefully we'll be able to see some progress this next weigh-in.

That's all for this update. Might try to update again after my run tonight, but I'll definitely get my 10 mile update in if I don't before.

Marathon Training - Week 4 , 9 mile run

Marathon Training - Week 4 , 9 mile run

I missed Thursday's blog entry. I ran 3 miles. I struggled with the motivation to get out of the house and tried to rationalize not going for some time, but in the end my better judgment edged out and I went for the run and it turned out to be a decent run.

Now onto the main event, the long Saturday run. I can't properly describe the anxiety that I had about this run coming up to it. The last long run I successfully did was the 6 mile run on the first week. The next attempt at a longer run was 7 miles and that week was so hot or something that the run was terrible and I was left with this horrible 'I'm never going to be able to do this' feeling that I haven't fully been able to shake over the last few weeks.

Anyways, this morning I woke up and stretched out a bit and went for a run. I packed a gel packet and a took a water bottle and started out feeling great. I ran down the road for 4 miles or so and then stopped and took a gel packet and washed it down with about half a bottle of water. At the turnaround I was feeling really great. After the brief walk while I took some gel, my legs felt decent but got a little tight at times. Miles 5 and 6 were pretty good and Mile 7 and 8 were a bit of a struggle but I was able to keep running 'on pace'. My iPod ran out of battery just after 8 miles and it was at 1:22 which was a 10:19 pace. So I figure I finished the run somewhere under 1:33:00 which is everything I could have hoped for.

I didn't have any significant chafing, and I felt like I might have been getting a blister on my left foot but it hasn't developed. My heels are sore to walk on barefoot and my "index" toes are a bit sore and I think I've got some under-nail bruising. Legs still feel pretty good and while my knees are a little sore I think overall I'm doing great.

I'm full to the brim of 'Maybe I can do this after all' and I'm not as all concerned about next weekend and the distance it entails. I'm a month out from running 13 miles and essentially the half-way point but I think that if I can keep up the training I might be able to do this.

Anyways, having a great 4th. I'm glad that everything went as planned with my weekend so far. Maybe there is something to this training plan afterall.

Marathon Training - Week 4 - 4 mile run

Marathon Training - Week 4 - 4 mile run

Yesterday was my long "weekday" run. The way my training program is set up it slowly increments and eventually the Wednesday runs gets a little longer culminating in a 10 mile Wednesday run on the same week as my longer 20 mile run on Saturday.

Anyways, yesterday was slated for a 4 mile run and that is what I completed. I slowed down my back to a "comfortable" pace and ran to a neighborhood close to my house and back. I ended up doing it in 42 minutes or so for around a 10:30 pace. The pace was pretty comfortable to maintain and I think I could keep that up for a longer run so we'll see if I can't end up with a run similar to that this weekend.

I'm not sure if it was my shorts or what but I ended up with some chafing after my run last night. That doesn't happen often but it's annoying as hell when it does, I haven't noticed it much today so I am still planning on running my planned run tonight but we'll see. I don't really want to slather up vasoline or whatever you do for longer runs just to go out and run 30 minutes here and there, but if it becomes and issue I might have to.

I've been thinking that the shorts I use for running are more "athletic" shorts and less running shorts. I'm looking to maybe get a pair or two of shorts that are more tailored to running but at my local track store those shorts are 30-40 bucks a pair. That's alot to pay for a pair of shorts I'm not even sure will do anything. Maybe I need to just bite the bullet.

Does anyone out there run with specific running shorts? If so what brand and where did you get them.

Marathon Training - Week 4, 3 mile run

Marathon Training - Week 4, 3 mile run

Today was a pretty good run. I decided that I was going to go out and try and do some "speed" training and just see how quick I could run the 3 miles. I felt really really good for the first mile and clocked a very fast first mile. I kept up the pace for another half mile or so but by mile 2 I was slowing down and battling side cramps because my breathing got off pace.

I finished the whole run in under 28 minutes which is pretty quick for me compared to my normal runs and I'd be giddy to finish a 5k in under 28 minutes.

It's amazing the ups and downs you go through over just one run. It's funny that you can start and feel great, then feel terrible, then want to quit, then in a matter of moments feel great again. It's really sometimes a roller coaster but I guess that's why you develop such mental stamina from being a long distance runner.

Chicago Marathon Training - Recap

In light of the celebrity deaths of the last week I feel I should dust off my blog to let people know that I'm still here. The last few weeks have been incredibly busy but I've managed to continue my marathon training to the best of my abilities. P90x however has been chosen as the sacrificial lamb of my schedule.

The core issue with my time suddenly vanishing is that I picked up some side work for a company I know and that has been consuming my nights. Where I would normally be dozing off around 10-11 I'm now up till 1-2 banging out code for money and it makes waking up early impossible. I did it for 2 days before I was so worn out I could barely function. I could maybe find a way to fit the training in somewhere but with running my main focus now I'm just going to cut back on the amount of open time commitments I have outstanding right now in favor of sanity. This project will likely only last a couple more weeks and when it's done I'll look at picking up elements of P90x again. I don't believe I'll be able to do a full routine until after my marathon but I can likely do strength training of the off days.

Running has been going well. My weekday runs are going as planned and while I haven't been able to hit every run perfectly I've done almost all of them or done the best I could on the ones I did. Two weekends ago I was suppossed to run 7 miles but I could only get 2.5 miles in the morning before the heat stopped me and then I only got 5 miles that night before fatigue stopped me. That's a combined 7 miles, but I still wish I had done that distance non-stop. Last weekend cut back to 5 miles and I finished that without issue and it was one of my best runs ever.

This week is 3 mile Tuesday, 4 miles Wednesday, 3 miles Thursday, 9 miles on Saturday. 9 miles!. I really really am intimidated by this distance. I haven't ran anything farther ever in one continual run thatn 6.5 miles or so. I'm desperately hoping that I can complete this run without walking and "on pace" because I think if I can it'll be the exact thing I need to motivate me to keep going. If I'm not able to do it or have to start walking at 5-6 miles I'm worried that it's going to discourage me into the "if I can't do this what makes me think I can do that" mentality. I mean afterall it does only get harder every week.

I'm trying not to let negative thoughts into my head so we'll see where I end up.

Eating has been poor the last week or so. Not sure why I went off the page so much but I did. I haven't got on the scale but the last time I did I was down to 230.5 so we'll see where that number is on Friday when I weigh in again. Maybe I'll weigh in Saturday post-run to see what that's like.

Things are well overall and I'm going to attempt to revive my blog. I'm going to wish I had blog entries for all my runs in the future so I need to get back on the wagon.

P90x Round 2, Day 31,32 No Workouts, 3 Mile run, 1.25 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 31 & 32 No Workouts, 3 Mile run, 1.25 mile run
Diet :
Poor

Summary:
I hit the bottom the last two days but I'm hopefully on the upswing. Diet Wednesday was good for breakfast and then at lunch I decided to throw that in the trash and just eat junk. Same after work and then at home for dinner I ate more just to do it. Today's breakfast was ok, but lunch wasn't as good as I wanted it but dinner was ok. I think I've got the mental stuff worked out now and can get back focused.

Running Wednesday was really tough. I had to walk some which I wasn't thrilled about, but I finished. I thought that maybe my problem was that I was getting bored with the course so I tried a new run today down around my local park. I'd never tried the trail before and it was unbearably hilly. At some points it was almost like climbing. I got 2 laps around the trail in at about 6pm and called it a day. It was too hilly to realistically "train" and while I should have gutted it out I didn't.

I'm really looking forward to my longer run Saturday. I'm hoping I can work out some of my issues with an hour to myself.

I think instead of marking this whole week as "missed workouts" I'm just going to pretend it didn't exist and start over with this week again next week. It'll put me a week behind on finishing, but I think I'll feel better about it overall.

My routine has been really thrown off lately. I've picked up some side contract work and have been doing that after hours. Unfortunately it's been getting me to sleep later which makess waking up harder which I believe is at the root of this week's issues. Not sure how I'm going to resolve this because I can use the work and I'm not sure I can get enough done and get to sleep in a position that would get me up and feeling rested. We'll see. It's probably only going to last a few weeks, maybe I'll suffer through it.

P90x Round 2, Day 30 - Missed Workout, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 30 - Missed Workout, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Raisin Bran
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots
Snack: Jello Pudding, Fruit Cup
Dinner: Spinach Ravioli, Leftover Pizza, piece of lemon pie
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
I'm up too late tonight which means tomorrow I'll be in the same boat that I was in this morning. I was exhausted and couldn't get out of bed and when I finally did I managed to get my run in and nothing else.

I have to keep focused on the fact that running is my main goal right now, but that doesn't mean I can just start blowing off P90x unless I just agree that I can't do a full P90x regiment and maybe I'll do M,F,Sunday and use my other days for running. I could do my weight days on those and maybe overload saturday with stretching.

I'll think about that idea.

Day 30 was today. Weighed in and am down to 232. That's a total of 14 pounds lost for the first 30 days. My "goal" is to be under 225 at day 60 if not closer to 220.

Feeling good today, just tired.

P90x Round 2, Day 29 - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps

P90x Round 2, Day 29 - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Diet :
Breakfast: Raisin Bran
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Pudding, Fruit Cup
Dinner: Healthy Vegetable and Chicken soup
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Not the best workout today, but I did give it a decent effort I suppose. For some reason I seem to have lost some strength or at least some motivation over the last week. I definitely do not enjoy this workout as much as the other workouts in the first week.

Tomorrow is the weigh-in day for Day 30. I'm actually not going to be surprised to find out that I'm down a bit from last Friday. I just don't feel like I've done enough to take any backwards steps.

Plyo tomorrow. I have to run as well, so we'll see how that goes. Might cut Plyo short for running, maybe not. Running is the focus now but don't want to use that as an excuse.

P90x Round 2, Day 28 - Rest

P90x Round 2, Day 28 - Rest
Diet :
Breakfast: Healthy French Toast (WIN!), juice
Lunch: Leftover Pizza
Snack: None
Dinner: 6" meatball sub (subway)
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
For opting out of the stretch and choosing to "rest" I sure didn't do much of that yesterday. I woke up to some super awesome healthy french toast. It was pretty much just egg whites, splenda, and whole wheat toast with some "healthy" syrup but it was awesome. I wanted to eat another 20 slices, but only ate 2.

Anyways, after breakfast I went down to my basement and began working on finishing that. I'm attempting to finish my basement but haven't made alot of progress on it over the last few weeks because every time I went down there I'd find a way to talk myself out of working on it. But yesterday I pretty much spent all day either working on it or driving to the store to get things to work on it. BUSY!

Diet was a little higher than a "clean" day, but I'm not worried about it. Still was pretty low in consumption even if the things I ate were a little higher calorie.

I haven't done the best at putting 100% into the "recovery" week and I can tell. At least I've been able to stay focused on my running.

I AM OFFICIALLY SIGNED UP FOR THE CHICAGO MARATHON. This will only end badly :)

P90x Round 2, Day 27 - No workout, 6 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 27 - No workout, 6 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: 3 egg veggie turkey and black bean omelet, Juice
Lunch: Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Snack: None
Dinner: Caesar Salad and PIZZA! (planned cheat)
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Today was very plus/minus. I had a friend come into town that I haven't seen in a few months and he ended up hanging out at the house all day. So I opted to skip Yoga and the begging of my wife who desperately wanted to skip her workout as well.

This could have been a wasted day fitness wise because I didn't get up in time to run this morning but I made the right decision and went for a run later in the night. The planned distance was 5 miles but I ran a "penalty" mile for missing the last two distances. It wasn't the best run ever because I was burping up pizza for potions of the run and it was hot and humid. BUT I GOT IT DONE. 6 mile in just under 1:02:00 which I'm pleased with. Because I was able to do this I'm going to sign up and pick my official charity tomorrow for the Chicago marathon and my official training starts next week.

So not the best last 2 days but not the worst either. Will probably "rest" tomorrow instead of stretch because I have alot of work to do around the house, but if I'm feeling like I need a good stretch I'll change my mind.

P90x Round 2, Day 26 - No workout

P90x Round 2, Day 26 - No workout
Diet :
Breakfast: 4 egg Vegetable and chicken omelette, Diet Coke
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar
Dinner: BBQ Chicken, Cauliflower and cheese
Unplanned Snack: Skinny Cow Ice Cream Bar

Summary:
Today didn't start off very well and it just sorta ebbed from there. I woke up and tried to workout. I had no interest in Core Synergistics so I tried Cardio X. I got about 10 minutes into that and realized I was just faking the motions so I quit that.

I went to eat breakfast and didn't have enough eggs, so for some reason that put me into a funk. I went to work and ate there hence the slightly raised level of eating at breakfast.

That slight binge seemed to quell the damage and I managed to get through the rest of the day on the plan.

BUT IT WASN'T ALL BAD!

I got up this morning and weighed in. 233 total puts me down 13 for the first 4 weeks. I'll probably jump on the scale on day 30 to see how it goes officially. So that worked well, somehow it wasn't enough to keep my morale really high for the morning, but hopefully I'll bounce bad and get a good run in tomorrow followed by some Yoga.

P90x Round 2, Day 25 - X Stretch, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 25 - X Stretch, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Pudding, Strawberry Jello w/ Fruit
Dinner: Pork Tenderloin, Mashed Potato, Green Beans
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Today went exactly according to plan. Got up early and rocked out 3 miles on the run. Probably the best run to date and I finished 3 miles in just under 28 minutes which is really fast considering my normal time. I felt really really good and finished feeling great.

The workout this morning was Stretching. It's usually my Sunday exercise, but during the "recovery week" I do it on Thursdays. It was nice to stretch out after my run and I was sweating bullets during a good portion of the stretch.

Diet 100%.

Looking forward to weigh-in tomorrow.

P90x Round 2, Day 24 - Kenpo X, 2 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 24 - Kenpo X, 2 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Pudding, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: Vegetable Fritata
Unplanned Snack: Serving of Vegetable Pasta, Skinny Cow Bar

Summary:
Another day in the books. I went out for another run this morning BEFORE my Kenpo workout to try and change things up and it worked out for the most part. I only got 2 miles instead of 3 in because I had to head back to the house and use the restroom. I have no idea what I will do if this happens during a longer run, I guess I'd go back to the house, use the restroom and then continue my run. Same thing I'd have to do during a race I suppose.

Got a good Kenpo workout in after the run. I fast forwarded through the breaks to keep my heart rate up and give me a better workout. All in all a good workout.

Diet today went well until after dinner. Was pretty hungry so I ate a small portion of leftover vegetable pasta and a 100 cal ice cream snack. Feel better after eating it, but I might have been able to get along without it.

Running and Stretching(?) tomorrow. Strange to have stretching mid-week. I think I'll do the stretching after the run in order to maximize the stretching.

P90x Round 2, Day 23 - Core Synergistics, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 23 - Core Synergistics, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Pudding, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: Shrimp and Rice, Corn on the Cob
Unplanned Snack: 3 orders of celery and some ranch.

Summary:
I can't believe I didn't post the blog last night. It's irksome, but I honestly forgot. I went out with some friends and on the way home made the mental note several times to blog when I got home. But when I got home I let the dogs out and went to sleep without it even crossing my mind. Go Figure. At least I only missed the blog and not the workout.

Yesterday was Core Synergistics. I'd like to say that after the 100% with Yoga on Monday that I turned around and rocked out this workout as well, but it didn't happen. I gave a mediocre effort to this workout and only made it about 30 minutes into it before I just lost interest. Rather than refocusing and finishing the workout I ended it early and went for my run.

The run was the highlight of my morning though as any effort I neglected during my workout came out during my run. I as able to run 3 miles running the slightly tougher course loop than I usually run and finished in 29:50 which was really satisfying to see.

I felt good about the effort as a whole for the morning workout even though I didn't do as well as I wanted to with Core synergistics.

Diet was good. Went out with some friends and they hadn't eaten yet so we ended up at a Buffalo Wild Wings playing trivia. They got food and while I didn't avoid eating, I did order alot of celery and ate that instead. I ate probably 50 pieces of celery or some retarded amount like that. But celery is good for you I guess. I also drank probably 2 gallons of water yesterday so that was good I suppose.

P90x Round 2, Day 22 - Yoga X

P90x Round 2, Day 22 - Yoga X
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Juice
Lunch: 6" Subway Club, Baked Lays
Snack: Carrots and Celery, Granola Bar, Jello Pudding, Peaches and Strawberry Jello
Dinner: Vegetable and Chicken Pasta, Dinner Roll
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
I am rather reluctant to commit to "recovery week" for some reason. I'm not sure what it is but it probably has to the fact that this week is such a departure from the other weeks in the program. The first round of P90x I barely ever did Yoga and when it came to recovery week and was two times in the week it pretty much ended up as two days I didn't do anything and that really threw off my momentum so for some reason I'm still apprehensive about the recovery week.

BUT, so far so good. I think that today's Yoga might have been the best Yoga workout so far. Usually this workout really feels like it drags on, but this time the first 45 minutes really zipped by. I've stopped looking at the clock as much as possible during Yoga and for some reason that really seems to help the time not feel like it's slow.

Diet went well today. I'm really thinking I can stay clean eating till this Friday and have some good progress, I mean it's practically Tuesday already so I can make it another 4 days without temptation. If I can't do that I've got bigger issues.

Running tomorrow morning again. This is my last week before I start Marathon training in earnest. All the work to this point has really just been pre-training and it's been tough so I'm really not sure what to expect once the mileage starts increasing. But so far I have been doing well on the longer runs so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Core Synergistics tomorrow. This sometimes stresses my back, so we'll play it cautiously.

P90x Round 2, day 21 - X Stretch

P90x Round 2, Day 21 - X Stretch
Diet :
Breakfast: Italian Scrambled Eggs, Juice
Lunch: Leftover Lasagna, Garlic Bread, 1/2 apple
Snack: Small Pineapple/Chocolate Sundae
Dinner: Louisiana Steak from O'Charleys, Baked Potato, Caesar Salad
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Stretched out today instead of resting. Felt like I really needed is and generally felt much better afterward.

Diet was a bit higher than the rest of the week but it was cheat Day and it was mostly planned.

Short blog today because it's late. Can't believe the weekend is over already.

P90x Round 2, Day 20 - Kenpo X, 5 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 20 - Kenpo X, 5 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Gatorade 2, Protein Bar
Lunch: Turkey and Pepperoni Sandwich with baked Lays
Snack: Granola Bar, Yellow Rice
Dinner: Healthy Lasagna, Garlic, Berries and Whip Cream
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
What a long day. Woke up early this morning and hit the road for another 5 miles run. That's two weeks in a row with a good long run on Saturday. It's nice to get the whole run in and not have to walk and I think after another 5 mile saturday and next week's training runs I'll be ready to start my marathon training. It's hard to believe that in a matter of weeks I'll be running 6,8,10,12 miles at one time. Luckily it's getting slightly easier to run on a regular basis. I'm not sure if it's conditioning or losing the weight that I am, but I imagine it's some combination of those two.

I started a Kenpo workout later in the afternoon with my wife thinking I might be able to double up on it like I did last weekend but that didn't work out as well as last weekend. I was just too tired to put in another cardio workout. I was on the move from the minute I woke up and by the time the afternoon rolled around I was just out of gas. I got about 1/2 the workout in and then decided to help coach my wife and get her some encouragement to get that little bit extra out of her workout.

Diet was good today as there weren't any cheats planned or unplanned and we had some friends over for healthy lasagna. It's actually really good. Turkey, cottage cheese instead of ricotta, fat free cheese, whole wheat noodles, and then pack the sauce with TONS of vegetables. We haven't had it in a while and it was really quite delicious. Might eat it for lunch tomorrow.

I imagine if I hit the scale tomorrow I'd be pleased with the results but I'm going to hold off for next Friday and hope that I can give 100% this week and put up the best numbers I can for my first 4 weeks and new pictures. I'm really interested to see how the pictures turn out and I'm really interested in the Day 1 to Day 120 pictures as I imagine those will be the biggest change. I doubt I'll post them online, but if things keep up like they are I'm pretty sure I'll post the Day 1-Day 180 pictures at the end of this round.

Recovery week isn't my favorite thing, but I'm going to fight to give it my best effort. 2 Yoga workouts and no weights. And on top of that the Core Synergistics really taxes my back sometimes. But we'll survive I'm sure.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

P90x Round 2, Day 19 - Legs and Back

P90x Round 2, Day 19 - Legs and Back
Diet :
Breakfast: 4 Egg Whites w/ Onion, Peppers, Tomato, Diet Coke
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Carrots and Celery, Cottage Cheese, Potato Salad, Baked Beans
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Cup, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: Chicken Burritos
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Finally I got a good night's sleep and what a difference it makes. It's amazing how much better you feel when you actually close your eyes at night and open them the next morning with no interruptions. Amazing.

Today was was Legs and Back and while I didn't get the entire workout done, I gave it 100% for the 2/3 I did complete. I just slept in a little later than I wanted to and had to be into work for an early meeting so I got in what I could.

On the scale front I weighed in today at 234.5 which is 1.5 down from last week and a total of 11.5 lost for this round of P90x. I'm hoping to end this first phase having lost at least 13 pounds but I'm secretly hoping for a total of 15 pounds which is absolutely mind blowing and more than I could have hoped for. 1.5 total for this week isn't what I'd hoped for but considering my eating has been a little looser and my fitness hasn't been up to the same level as the previous two weeks I'm happy that I've lost anything.

Busy Saturday in front of me already so I'm going to make sure I get up early tomorrow and get my 5 mile run in. I'm sure I'll end up doing Kenpo too to give my wife some moral support, but I'm sure I'm going to want to rest instead.

Have a great weekend everybody.

P90x Round 2, Day 18 - Yoga X, Missed Run

P90x Round 2, Day 18 - Yoga X, Missed Run
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Orange Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Carrots and Celery, Baked Potato
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Cup, Oranges Fruit Cup
Dinner: Pepperoni Chicken, Garlic Green Beans
Unplanned Snack: Skinny Cow Ice Cream Snack

Summary:
What a dreadful morning. I haven't slept well at all for about 3 days and even though I went to bed at 9:30 I laid there and when/if I did sleep it was terrible.

So I woke up this morning exhausted and did my best to do Yoga. I got 45 minutes into it and during a break actually started falling asleep. So I called it quits and went to eat breakfast.

I was pretty much exhausted all morning until lunch and even after that I was tired.

I skipped my morning run in hopes that after work I'd have the energy to finish it them. But I proved to myself why I do my workouts in the morning because life happened and I didn't get my run in.

Weigh-in tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some sleep.

P90x Round 2, Day 17 - Shoulders and Arms, 2 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 17 - Shoulders and Arms, 2 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: 2 pumpkin muffins, orange juice
Lunch: Turkey and Roast Beef Sandwich, Carrots
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Cup, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: 6" Subway Club, Baked Lays
Unplanned Snack:

Summary:
I didn't sleep very well last night and it reflected this morning when I woke up. I almost skipped my workout and had rationalized it to the point of acceptance before I realized that it was fruitless to try and avoid it and got out of bed. I got a good workout in spite of not originally wanting to do it and then got a good run in.

I only got in 2 miles this morning instead of the three I had planned, but I felt pretty good after 2 miles so I'm sure I could have gotten in 3.

I'm not sure what is up with my diet for this week, but we'll see how Friday's weigh-in goes. Last two weeks I put up great results but had pretty low energy. So far this week my energy has been really high and I'm wondering if that means my results will suffer.

I can't believe it's only Wednesday this week is going so slow. Yoga tomorrow. I'm sure that will be even slower.

P90x Round 2, Day 16 - Plyometrics, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 16 - Plyometrics, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: 4 egg whites w/ onion and green pepper
Lunch: Turkey and Roast Beef Sandwich, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Jello Cup, Orange Fruit Cup
Dinner: Leftover Chili Mac Soup
Unplanned Snack: Ice Cream

Summary:
Not the best workout today. Not sure if it was the Ab-Ripper or what from yesterday but I woke up this morning with a fairly sore back. I tried to rock out the Plyo but I could only get about 2 sets into it before my back was just bothering me too much. All the squatting and jumping was just really uncomfortable so I stretched out a bit and went for my run to see how that felt.

Run went great. It was sprinkling some outside which kept it nice and cool. It's amazing how 2 days off rests up the legs and makes running more manageable. I'm sure running tomorrow will be a chore.

Diet was about 90% today. Went well except for the stupid after-dinner ice cream. It's low fat blah blah blah, but still I didn't need it and I shouldn't have eaten it but it's done and there we are.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

P90x Round 2, Day 15 - Chest and Back, Ab-Ripper X

P90x Round 2, Day 15 - Chest and Back, Ab-Ripper X
Diet :
Breakfast: Raisin Bran
Lunch: Turkey Sandwich
Snack: 2 Mexi-Melts
Dinner: Chili Mac Soup and Tortilla Chips
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Today was a day off from work but I didn't let that keep me from getting a good work out. I did slip a bit on the diet eating the leftovers from yesterday's cheat meal instead of throwing them into the trash. I should have just gone ahead and chucked them, but I didn't and there I am.

Chest and Back was today. I didn't miss an opportunity and gave it 100% today improving in a few repetitions on a few of the workouts. I will really miss this workout for the next 6 weeks.

Diet pitfalls are done for this week. I'm going to tighten the belt and get back in the saddle running and we'll see where we end up Saturday. I know the diet has skipped a few beats, but my energy is amazingly high.

Don't want to go back to work tomorrow, but can't wait to get back to the routine.

P90x Round 2, Day 14 - Rest

P90x Round 2, Day 14 - Rest
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: Taco Bell (Volcano Burrito, Chicken Burrito) [Unplanned Cheat]
Snack: None
Dinner: Grilled Chicken Salad, Corn
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Today was a little bumpy but I survived not that much worse for the wear. It started out fine with a good breakfast, but at lunch it went a little off the rails. The family went out to run some errands and we thought we might have had a little more time to get lunch but my daughter let us know that we were out of time. We looked around where we were and there weren't any sandwich places (those are our default emergency healthy eateries). It was pretty much between Dairy Queen and Taco Bell so we went with the Bell because we hadn't been there in a while. Now old me would eat ALOT of taco bell. And when I say alot I'm saying that it wasn't uncommon to order 6-8 items and finish them all. Well I ordered significantly less to eat this time around, and I could have ordered alot less. I ate one burrito and felt sorta full. I shouldn't have eaten the second burrito, but I wasn't bursting at the seams so I finished it. I tore off as much of the tortilla as possible because I always do that because I don't need the extra shell, but it still was an unplanned cheat meal.

I thought about stretching today but really didn't feel like I needed it and after running errands and knowing that I had some around the house stuff to do when my daughter woke up from her nap I opted for the rest part of rest/stretch. Hindsight I might have done things differently but I don't regret the decision.

I have Monday off from work for Memorial Day but I'm still going to get my workout done. Looking forward to another great week.

P90x Round 2, Day 13 - Kenpo X

P90x Round 2, Day 13 - Kenpo X
Diet :
Breakfast: None
Lunch: Turkey and Roast Beef Sandwich, Whole Wheat Goldfish
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Pumpkin Muffin
Dinner: Steak and Shrimp Japanese Food, Spicy Tuna Roll [PLANNED CHEAT]
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
I was able to sleep in a little this morning and work up feeling like a million dollars. I got out of bed, stretched a bit and went out and ran 5 miles in just under 53 minutes. It was a pretty tough run but I finished it without stopping and felt pretty good about it afterward. It's still interesting to me how different every run is to me. I would assume that it'd be similar every run, but it's not. Some days 3 miles is a breeze, some days every step is a chore, I suppose that's part of the allure of running. I've got to repeat this same running schedule next week so it'll be interesting to see if next week's 5 miles is any different.

I almost called it day with the running, but the wife was doing Kenpo today and I figured I would be her moral support and do it with her to encourage her. Alot of work I didn't want to do but after finishing it I guess I felt better.

Cheat meal was today. I feel a little groggy after eating it with the additional intake, but I think overall the day wasn't off the charts. It'll be nice to get back on schedule tomorrow and stretch out and get to work again.

Feeling alot better today and I'm hoping I can ride this energy into better results next week.

P90x Round 2, Day 12 - Legs and Back

P90x Round 2, Day 12 - Legs and Back
Diet :
Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Kabob Meat and Veggies
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Oranges Fruit Cup
Dinner: Chicken Cassoulet
Unplanned Snack: Skim Milk Protein Shake with Strawberries, Peaches, and Blueberries

Summary:
Today was not a great day. In fact today was probably the worst start to any day I've had in the last few weeks. I think it all goes back to last night's dinner and it being very very low calorie and clean. There wasn't very much substance to the meal. Add to that some poor sleep last night and I woke up with almost no energy. I got on the scale, and then tried to work out and it just wasn't working. I got about 30 minutes into the workout and was so exhausted I felt like I was about to just crash out so I cut the workout short. I wasn't giving 100% up until that point anyways so I didn't see the value of torturing myself when I wasn't going to get much out of the workout.

So after cutting the workout short I ate a little more than I usually eat for breakfast. It was still clean eating but the quantity was up. It took a while for it to kick in but eventually my energy level started to pick up and I felt a lot better. A LOT BETTER. I really think it was just the culmination of low calories and poor sleep that eventually ended with me having no energy to do anything. But I believe it's starting to turn around, after eating a bit more for breakfast I feel alot better today.

But back to the weigh-in. I got on the scale and weighed 236 this morning. That's another 3.5 pounds lost from last week and a total of 10 pounds for the first two weeks. I'm slightly concerned that those numbers are a little drastic, but I am getting 2-3 hours of work every morning before eating anything so calories I'm burning are all reserves from my stored fat and whatnot instead of burning off the food I've been eating. We'll see how my energy continues to go and if it slumps again I'm going to have to increase my consumption. We'll know more as the rest of the week plays out.

Tomorrow I'm supposed run 5 miles. It's scheduled to rain for the next several days, so we'll have to see how the running goes over the next week. I can't miss any of the runs, but if it's pouring rain in the morning I might opt to run after work instead. If it's still pouring then, I might be running in the pouring rain several times next week.

So overall It's a mixed day. I lost weight for the week and feel great about that, but my energy was really low today and I'm not happy that my workout sucked so much. Compromise I suppose.

P90x Round 2, Day 11 - Yoga X, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 11 - Yoga X, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: 3 Egg Whites, 2 Pieces of Turkey Bacon, Banana
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: Pork Tenderloin, Green Beans, Rice
Unplanned Snack: Skinny Cow Ice Cream Snack

Summary:
Yoga today was as hard as I had imagined it would be. Not only that but it was LONG. The fact this is an hour and a half without anything else to break it up is never lost on me during this workout. The fact that I've actually completed it 2 weeks in a row is testimony to how hard I'm trying to turn the leaf and give 100% to this new round. I get one hell of a workout doing Yoga, but it just drags on. Then when I'm finished I had to go out and run 3 miles.

Running today was tough. If I hadn't stretched out with Yoga I'm not sure I would have made it but I finished it. I'm going to be so glad to not be running tomorrow. I need the day off from this week of added running before Saturday's 5 mile run. I'm worried that I might be pushing the envelope some with the running and bordering on over-training, but I hope not.

Eating went well today. I didn't get to eat before I left the house and had to eat at work. I usually eat terrible at our cafeteria but today I went for 3 egg whites and turkey bacon which for me in that environment is a big step forward. I'm still sorta hungry all the time so I'm thinking of adjusting my intake upwards slightly next week.

Can't wait to weigh in tomorrow. I'm really hoping for a good number. If it's the same as last week I'm going to really struggle with the "why the hell am I doing this" demon.

P90P90x Round 2, Day 10 - Shoulders and Arms, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 10 - Shoulders and Arms, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Bowl of Raisin Bran
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Oranges Fruit Cup
Dinner: Irish Chicken Breast, Broccoli and Cauliflower
Unplanned Snack: Granola Bar

Summary:
Today went by very fast. Waking up this morning seemed like a bit of a chore but I ended up with a really great Shoulders and Arms workout. I absolutely regret not keeping a workout log during my first Round of P90x. I honestly can say that probably cost me some results I could have had in the first go round. Today during my workout I referred back to my previous numbers several times to see what reps I should try to improve on or what weight I used last time and based on my log inputs from today compared to last week I can tell I got a much better workout overall. I've only got up to 20's right now for dumbells and I'm going to have to very soon make the decision to either buy more weights, or invest in something like the bowflex dial-a-weight.

Running was very difficult this morning. I wanted to quit running at almost every point along the way but I kept going and finished my 3 miles in around 33 minutes. Not the fastest time I've posted, but I could definitely tell that my legs were still feeling the 3 mile run from the day before. I'm suppossed to run 3 tomorrow as well before taking Friday off from running but I'm not sure how that is going to work out. I keep telling myself during the runs to keep going because the urge to quit is only going to be stronger as I increase the mileage and so far that's keeping me going when I really want to give up. I mean if I can't do 3 what makes me think I can do 5 this weekend, or 10 two months from now. It's not the best logic, but it's helping me at the moment.

Meals went good today. I went out to hang out with some friends tonight. I was feeling a little hungry when I left the house and I knew that bar food was going to be too tempting to not grab some fries off somebody's plate or something. So I grabbed a Granola bar from the cabinet before I left and ended up having to eat it when I was there to avoid cheese fries and nachos that my table ordered. But I ended up leaving only eating that bar and drinking water so I'm pretty glad that happened. I weigh in again this Friday and after last week's super amazing results I'm hoping to put up another week of good numbers and the closer I get to Friday the more I want to resist cheating. I'm still getting really hungry about 2 hours after meals and sometimes even after I eat I'm not really "full". I know alot of this is because my calorie count is low but I'm hoping as I lose weight this will sort itself out. So far it's not dramatically affecting my workouts or my overall energy so until then I'm going to stay the course. I would be easy to increase my snacks to something more substantial if need be.

Overall things are going well. Yoga tommorrow. I'm sure that workout is going to drag on forever and then I still have to run. What a long morning I'm in for.

P90x Round 2, Day 9 - Plyometrics, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 9 - Plyometrics, 3 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Bowl of Raisin Bran
Lunch: Salad with Turkey,Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Mixed Fruit Cup
Dinner: Flat Iron Steak, Parmesean Potato Fries, Corn
Unplanned Snack: One bite of a brownie, Skinny Cow Ice Cream Bar

Summary:
Plyometrics is the worst and best workout in the P90x series. I end up at the end of this workout drenched in sweat and physically exhausted. I finished today's workout exhausted and still facing the demands of having to run 3 more miles before I was finished with my workout. I didn't know if I was going to be able to get out and run the full distance today but I found a way to get it done. After having 2 days without running it was really more of a struggle than I would have liked to run today, but it might have had something to do with the fact that it was unusually chilly outside this morning. I was so hot inside working out that when I went outside and it was so chilly I was actually really cold for the first 1/2 mile or so before I warmed up. This week is 3 miles during the week and 5 miles on Saturday. Saturday will be a tough run.

Eating still went well today. I'm starting to adjust I think to the eating and exercising schedule but we'll see Friday if the results are still there. I can't imagine cutting back even more on my diet so I'm hoping that's not needed.

Overall things are going well. My back is a little sore, but we'll keep and eye on that. If need be I can take a day off and stretch.

P90x Round 2, Day 8 - Chest and Back, Ab-Ripper X

P90x Round 2, Day 8 - Chest and Back, Ab-Ripper X
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Apple Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey,Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola bar, Jello Pudding, Oranges Fruit Cup
Dinner: Chicken, Rice, and Green Bean Casserole
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Today was the start of week 2. The challenging part of the second week is matching or surpassing the results and the intensity that you put forward in week 1. I'm feeling rested and ready for the week so Bring It On!

Today was Chest and Back. This workout is always good to see how well you're doing because it's actually an extremely basic workout. Pushups and Pullups. And none of the fancy variety that they use in the later weeks, these are the straight forward push and pull variety. I did much better this week than last week in regards to consistency. I matched all the numbers that I put up in week 1. And I matched all the numbers in round 2 of the workout that I did in round 1 which I didn't do in Week 1, so I've got that to build on.

Eating today was good. I found that my starving tendencies from last week are subsiding slightly from last week which I'm hoping is a trend going forward. I am well aware that the diet is where the progress comes from, but when you're hungry all the time that sucks. It's not surprising that the first week I was pretty hungry considering how much I used to eat. I had to get my stomach to shrink down to what normal people are used to eating.

Overall week 2 is going well. Plyo tomorrow and running. I have a feeling that will be the suck.

P90x Round 2, Day 7 - Stretch X

P90x Round 2, Day 7 - X Stretch
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Pineapple Orange Juice
Lunch: 6" Turkey Subway sandwich w/ double meat, whole wheat goldfish crackers
Snack: None
Dinner: Beef Kabobs with Cherry Tomatoes, Onion, Green Pepper, Pineapple, Mushroom
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
I am stretched out. I used to skip this workout and instead opted to rest on the "rest or stretch" day, but I've decided in Round 2, like Yoga, I'm going to do the stretch every chance I can get. I really was good to get all the kinks worked out that I had gathered up during the week. My back is still a little sore but overall I think it's holding up quite nicely to the week's activity. I really thought my calves were going to be killing me today based on how sore they were last night but this morning I woke up and they weren't as bad as I had anticipated.

My eating this weekend was very good considering my usual weekends. I had my one planned cheat meal for Saturday and for the most part avoided all other deviations. We went and got Subway for lunch on Saturday and while I usually eat a footlong per meal I decided to stretch it out over two days instead which was a good choice. I usually struggle to keep it between the lines for the weekends so it was a nice surprise to get through the weekend with only planned deviations.

Week one is in the books and so far I'm feeling pretty good. I'm ready to make it through the next week and see what progress I can make on next Friday. I'm hoping that my running goes as planned this week because I really need to start making progress on that front if I have any chance of doing my marathon training in June. It's taking alot of mental stamina to get through my runs now and I'm hoping that goes away or I can find a way to mitigate that. Otherwise running for 4-5 hours is going to be like pulling teeth.

Overall, week 1 going great.

P90x Round 2, Day 6 - Kenpo X, 4 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 6 - Kenpo X, 4 mile run
Diet :
Breakfast: Raisin Bran w/ Skim Milk
Lunch: 6" Turkey Subway sandwich w/ double meat
Snack: Peanut Butter and Strawberry Protein Shake
Dinner: Red Beans and Rice w/ Sausage, Grilled Potato Salad, Caesar Salad, Hush Puppies
Unplanned Snack: None

Summary:
Today was a long day. I decided against waking up early to do my run favoring sleep instead, but I got it all done later in the afternoon. The wife and I are both doing P90x this time around in case I haven't mentioned that. She's doing the P90x "Lean" but after the first two days for the week we are on the same schedule which is nice. So today we worked out together and rocked out some Kenpo X. I love this workout. It's absolutely the best workout in the program and it really flies by and I barely feel like I'm working out.

Today was also my "long" run. I didn't know if I'd be able to get 4 miles finished because I should have been running that distance for the last 2 Saturdays but I wasn't able to get it finished. I was able to get it finished today though. It was brutally difficult and hotter than hell when I decided to run it, but I finished it. I'm not sure how I'm going to finish 5 miles next week though. I ended up sweating off about 40 gallons of sweat, but I finished it. I'm sure I'll be wrecked tomorrow.

Today was cheat meal day. We ended up going out to a local southern cooking place and there wasn't the healthiest stuff on the menu, but I ended up doing what I felt was ok. I didn't sweat it too much though because it was my cheat meal.

Anyways, I'm tired and my calves are exhausted but overall I'm doing pretty well and I'm looking forward to wrapping up week one with a good stretch.

P90x Round 2, Day 5 - Legs and Back, Ab-Ripper X

P90x Round 2, Day 5 - Legs and Back, Ab-Ripper X
Diet :
Breakfast: Raisin Bran w/ Skim Milk
Lunch: Salad with Ham, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Oranges Fruit Cup, Jello Pudding Cup
Dinner: Chicken Alfredo, Rolls, Caesar Salad, Ice Cream Sandwich
Unplanned Snack: Cup of Chicken and Rice Soup

Summary:
So I decided that Today (Friday) is going to be the day I weigh in. With Fridays and Saturdays being prime days for cheat meals I knew that Friday morning is my best chance to get consistent and good numbers.

I weighed in this morning at 239.5 which is down 6.5 pounds from last Sunday. You have to love the first week of the new fitness. You get to put up some big numbers and get that boost of momentum and positive reinforcement that you need to justify your first week of hell.

My diet might need to be adjusted slightly after the last few days. I had a feeling that I was lower than I might need to be in regards to calories, but today I was absolutely starving all day. I'd eat my meals and within 30 minutes I'd be absolutely starving. I know it led to some extra eating that I would have liked to avoid but there didn't seem like much I could do about it. I drank as much water as I could tolerate today but was still starving. We'll have to take a look at that next week.

On to workouts. Today was Legs and Back. I'm still not any closer to doing a pull-up, but it's good to keep getting 2 chances a week to work on this for the next 90 days. Legs day is really tough, it's ALOT of lunges or lunge-similar exercises. I can only take so many one legged squats and side/back/front lunges before my legs are screaming but I did the whole workout and felt really good about it afterward.

Tomorrow is supposed to be Kenpo X and a 4 mile run. I've got a busy morning already lined up so I'm not sure how it's going to work out. I know that I'm probably going to have to get up extra early and do my run before I head out for the morning and then do Kenpo later in the afternoon. We'll play it by ear.

Overall feeling really good. Just hungry all the time.

P90x Round 2, Day 4 - Yoga X, 1.25 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 4 - Yoga X
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Pineapple & Orange Juice
Lunch: Salad with Ham, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Mixed Fruit Cup, Jello Pudding Cup
Dinner: Garlic Shrimp with Pico de Gallo over Rice
Unplanned Snack: Potato Chips

Summary:
I believe that I owe Yoga an apology. 3 months ago on my first week back on the fitness wagon I tried this workout. That experience did not go well. I was tired and the idea of a extremely long workout didn't appeal to me much. Every muscle I had was extremely sore and I lacked the basic core strength and flexibility to complete the workout. Overall it was an atrocious failure and as a result of that failed experience I developed a hatred for that workout and never tried it again during my first round of P90x. I did other Yoga on my Yoga days, but never Yoga X again.

Well today I did Yoga X. I went in with a fresh slate and the "I'm going to give this another chance" mentality and guess what. I finished Yoga X. Not only did I finish it, but I dare say I enjoyed parts of it. It's still a bit repetitive in the first half during the "strength" portion. I don't mind the workout, but it's frustrating having to start all over from scratch for every step of the series. It's still very long and I can tell that on days where I'm not feeling 100% motivated it's going to be a chore finishing a workout that long.

I didn't get to my running this morning and instead did it tonight. It wasn't the best run and it was hot and humid so that wasn't the best situation either. I went about 1.25 miles before I had to pee so bad that it caused me to cut my run short. I was a bit disappointed but I don't have any concerns that I could have finished 2 miles.

Meals today went as planned except at lunch. I went to eat with a friend and he didn't finish the chips that came with his lunch, next thing I know I'm eating potato chips. They weren't too awful nutritionally and the bag was only 130 calories with I imagine helped me to justify eating it at the time.

I haven't run the specific numbers on my new diet, but I know they are at or lower than where I want to be. I need to keep an eye on it overall because the last two days I've gotten pretty hungry at weird times and I'm worried that's going to cause me to crack down the line.

My back is kinda sore today. I have back and legs tomorrow. I'm hoping that I don't aggravate it any more.

Overall still feeling pretty good. Thinking I might weigh in tomorrow and make Friday my weigh-in day because Friday or Saturday are usually good candidates for "cheat meals" and I don't want those to throw off my weigh-ins.

P90x Round 2, Day 3 - Shoulders and Arms, 3 mile run

P90x Round 2, Day 3 - Shoulder and Arms
Diet :
Breakfast: Sausage Sandwich, Apple Juice
Lunch: Salad with Ham, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Pineapple Fruit Cup, Jello Pudding Cup
Dinner: BBQ Chicken Breast, Broccoli and Rice
Unplanned Snack: Impulse eating of French Fries

Summary:
Got a great arm workout in today. I think I've figured out the trick to the weight workouts to keep me from skipping or shortening workouts. It's the logbook. I didn't keep the log of my workouts the first phase of P90x and I regretted it, so I made sure to get it set up this time. And so far it appears to be keeping me in line.

I can already feel it in my shoulders and upper arms and I'm sure tomorrow I'll be sluggish. Tomorrow is the worst day of the week... Yoga. P90x Yoga is the hardest most sadistic thing ever. I hate it so much and last round of P90x I skipped most of them. Can't do that this time around.

I missed Ab-Ripper today. I simply ran out of time in the morning with lifting and running and would have been late to work if I tried to shim in another 15 minutes. I'm disappointed, but I get 3 tries at it a week so hopefully I can make it up to myself.

Eating was pretty good today, but I can tell I'm burning off what I eat because I found myself eating french fries today while out playing cards and I didn't even want them. They were way to salty and not that good but I kept finding myself going back to them. I tried drinking alot of water to keep my mind off it and I'm actually still starving now which means I probably should have something to eat before going to bed, but I'm likely to just try to get to bed.

Running today went really well. Got 3 miles in which is the first time I've gotten that in the last few weeks. I'm still not sure this weekend's 4 miles is going to come very easy, but I'm going to give it my best. Right now my legs and body seem to be handling the running well, but if I'm going to try to run some distance I need to get my breathing and my mental game stronger. Those were the two areas I kept noticing today.

I haven't decided if Fri, Sat, or Sun is going to be weigh-in day. I usually try to get my weigh-in recorded before any cheat meals so the numbers look better so maybe that leads me to weigh in every Friday. But the "week" ends on Sunday so maybe that's better. We'll play it by ear.

P90x Round 2, Day 2 - Plyometrics

P90x Round 2, Day 2 - Plyometrics
Diet :
Breakfast: Sausage Sandwich, Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Pineapple Fruit Cup, Jello Pudding Cup, 3 Orange Slices
Dinner: Pork Tenderloin, Broccoli and Cheese

Summary:
It's a day 2. Plyometrics, or as they say "Death by Jumping". This is the only workout that if I give 110% to I feel like I'm about to throw up after the first 15 minutes. I've given Kenpo X more than I could have given and never gotten ill, I've done the same with just about every other exercise at some point and plyometrics by far is capable of getting the most out of me.

It's funny though, because it starts out easy. I little squat jump, some heisman, a bit of this, a bit of that. And next thing you know you're dog tired and sweating like crazy and can barely pick your feet off the ground let alone rock out the "rockstar hops".

Feeling pretty good so far. Definately not like the first round where I couldn't even straighten out my arms after Day 1. I can definately tell the difference between using the bands for my back workouts and going back to the pull-up bar. Granted I'm still no where close to being able to do a pull-up but I can tell that I got a heck of a back workout and I think long-term this will get me closer to being able to do pullups than the bands could.

Meals are going ok so far. I went out to eat with a recruiter friend of mine today and while he would have picked up lunch without issue, I ate what I brought. I hope I can keep up that resolve for a long time, but to be honest I think it depends on what the scale says on Sunday. If I do perfect eating all week and do my best on the workouts and running and the scale barely moves I can't imagine I'll be as motivated to keep it going strong. But I'll try my best to keep it up for the first 30 days and then re-evaluate if needed.

Running went well today. Got 2 miles in without much issue. I can tell that as I increase my runs on the weekdays I'm going to have to solve the eating before running issue. While my run didn't have any issues I could definately tell that I had less in the tank than I usually do in the afternoons. The problem is with doing P90x and then running I'm not sure where that leaves eating. I might have to get workout gels or something and eat them after I finish working out while I'm getting my running shoes on and whatnot. That'll only give me 5-10 minutes between working out and running to get some more energy. But maybe that'll be enough.

Anyways, Shoulders and Arms tomorrow. I need to get than in and run 3 miles and still somehow find out a way to get Ab-Ripper done. It was so much easier skipping Ab-Ripper most of the time in Round 1. I wish I hadn't made the goal of not skipping Ab-Ripper during this round.

P90x Round 2 - Day 1 - Chest and Back, Ab-Ripper X

P90x Round 2, Day 1 - Chest and Back, Ab-Ripper X
Diet :
Breakfast: Oatmeal, Juice
Lunch: Salad with Turkey, Cottage Cheese, Carrots and Celery
Snack: Granola Bar, Fruit Cup, Jello Pudding Cup
Dinner: Chicken, Rice, Dinner Roll

Summary:
Round 2 of P90x has begun. I know that there is alot ahead of me having gone through this before but I'm optimistic that this time I can achieve what I wanted to during the first round. My weight during the first round got got down to as low as 242.5 and I started today at 246. I have overhauled my eating habits and I really hope that I stay motivated enough to keep eating healthy and workout out at 100% for the next 90 days.

I have a few goals for the second round of P90x. I want to eat healthy every week, with only having 1 cheat meal every week. I want to do all my Ab-Ripper workouts to the best of my ability. I want to not skip a single Yoga workout. I want to do X Stretch every Sunday and not just "rest".

I believe if I can stick to the goals above, I'll get everything I want and more out of the next 90 days.

During this phase I will also be running and training for a marathon later this fall. I hopefully will be able to balance both of these out. I don't want to burn out or run out of energy so we'll play it by ear.

We'll see where it goes from here. Day 1 was a success so far.

P90x Round 1 Wrap-UP

So the last part of my P90x journey didn't end as well as I would have hoped it would have. For the first 2 phases of P90x I was a rock, I didn't miss any workouts and I felt really good. Then a few different things happened and between injuries and apathy my last 30 days were terrible.

But from what I have been able get out of the program. P90x works. My core strength is much better than what I started off with.

But it's not a miracle program. It's a lot of blood and sweat and you can only get out what you put into it. It's asks alot, but it gives back alot too. The infomercial shows you the absolutely best cases that they can muster, but it's not fake. There are some programs like the thighmaster that say use this for 30 days and you'll look like this 6-packed model. That's a load of crap. But with P90x the basics are there. The eating plan, the viscious workouts, the structured program. The basics are all there. I can't say that you will end up like the television commercial, but if you give 100% to the program, the program will not fail you.

However, I didn't give it 100% for the first 60 days. I gave it 85% of the fitness front, but unfortunately I only gave it 60% in the eating. And I really believe that is what prevented me from losing the weight that I wanted to lose.

Overall the program works. Hopefully this next round that I am about to start I will be able to build off the success from my first round and achieve everything I hope for.

P90x Day 86 - No Workout, 2 mile run

No workout today, but I don't think I'll get any more workouts in this round of P90x. I'll summarize it in a blog at the end of 90 days, but in a nutshell I got 60 amazing days on the program and then fell off motivation wise.

However, the running is still going fine. I haven't missed a planned run yet since I put everything down on paper and I have ever run between now and October 11th on paper so there is no more guess work or excuses.

Today was a 2 mile run that I got in at about a 10:15 pace. Pretty average run but felt good to get out and go. I need to start post-stretching more. I'm starting to realize that.

Other than the failures on the workout front and generally disappointing eating habits things are good. My wife and I have been talking and when she starts P90x in 2 weeks I'm going to do another phase and cut my daily calories down to between 2000 and 2200. It'll be a struggle to start counting calories again I'm sure, but it's what needs to be done if I'm going to lose some weight. I'll be eaiser to lose weight in June/July/August because the runs are constant but aren't incredibly long yet. Toward the end of August all the runs are over 12 miles and I can't imagine a low calorie diet is going to be easy to sustain with the amount of calories I'll be burning. I still have a hope of losing 20-40 pounds before August so I can run. Of course with the way I've been eating lately it won't happen. But I just need to stop making those decisions, it's in my power to do so.

P90x Day 85 - No Workout

No workout today. Nothing to add otherwise.

P90x Day 84 - 3 mile run

Yesterday's run was moved to today. I'm absolutely exhausted, but I went out and still got my run in. I had thought about getting 4 miles in, but instead I opted for gradually increasing my miles and got another 3 mile run under my belt.

3 miles in 32:00 today was a slightly slower pace than usual but it felt pretty good. I could probably keep this pace up for bit longer if needed.

What a long weekend.

P90x Day 83 - No Workout

No workout today but spent all day slinging a hammer and a 3lb sledge in my basement. I forgot how hard manual labor can be.

I'm working on finishing my basement and my parents came into town and my dad gave me a hand. Spent the entire day slinging nails and wood and am absolutely exhausted.

Didn't run today due to time, but moved it to tomorrow. I making my "Saturday" runs into "Weekend" runs. This will make me slightly more flexible.

P90x Day 82 - No Workout

Missed workout today, but got an old fashioned workout mowing my yard.

Not much else to add. Extremely busy.

P90x Day 81 - No Workout, 2 mile run

I didn't get a workout in today but got a really great run in tonight. I continue to struggle with eating and motivation, but I'm already working towards the next 90 days and am planning out my eating changes that I will be making in about a week.

I got 2 miles in tonight in under 19 minutes. That's pretty quick for me but I felt really good running. Between 1.5 miles and 1.75 miles I had to fight a real doozy of a side cramp that I just couldn't get rid of. I took me almost a quarter mile of focusing on my breathing to get it under control. I finished strong and was really glad when it was all over that I was able to power through it all.

No run tomorrow. Legs and back. Looking at a 3 mile run Saturday. I'm looking at 2 miles T,W,Th next week with a 4 mile Saturday. Then I'll bump my weekday runs up to 3 miles and my weekend runs up 1 mile until i get to 3,3,3,6. That's where I'll "hold" until the second week of my marathon training when I start going up from there.

Overall feeling pretty good. Wishing my eating was better, but it's currently not important enough to me to make the change apparently. Truth is easy to type, harder to accept and change.

P90x Day 80 - Back, Biceps, No Run

Today just flew by. I swear that for every hour that everyone else had today, I got 20 minutes, it just went by that fast.

Workout this morning was sub-par but I got some back and bicep work in. I've now mentally convinced myself that I have to baby my back, so I allow myself to skip alot of exercises I shouldn't. I need to work on that.

I should have ran today, but I got home late from work and between that and trying to get out the door to play poker (I do this every Wednesday) I just didn't get my run in. No excuses, I just chose not to do it. I'm not in my "training schedule" yet so I won't knock myself too much for missing it, but come June I hopefully won't be missing any runs. I could have done it when I got home from cards, but I figured running at 11pm was counter-productive. I'd probably end up awake all night.

Big Winner tonight at poker. I always love when that happens. Took some advice and worked on my game about 3 weeks ago with a friend of mine. It's been paying off. Still feels weird to play this way.

Yoga tomorrow, but will be stretch X I'm sure.

P90x Day 79 - Cardio X, 2 mile run

The last 30 days has been a very strange roller coaster in regards to my workouts. There are weeks that I start out feeling like a million bucks and by Thursday I'm done with it all and having to start over on Monday. Other weeks I get the entire workout week finished and feel like a million bucks. It's strange how things go from good to back from week to week. But regardless this last 30 days has been a significant struggle in relation to the other 60 days.

Today I got a good workout in. The schedule says Plyometrics, but I did Cardio X instead. It's a little Yoga, a little Plyo, a little of this and a little of that. I actually like this workout. It's a good quick workout that hits a bit of everything and leaves you feeling pretty good.

Today was back to running. I did a 2 mile run in just under 20 minutes. First mile was way to fast and I finished it in about 9:10 the second mile was not as fast but I had to back it down to keep from giving into the "this sucks, give up" voice in my head.

My legs are still a bit sore from Saturday's race, but hopefully this will help them out. I need to continue to stretch my calves, because I've got some every so slight heel pain in my left foot that I need to make sure it doesn't turn into something else. Overall I'm still feeling pretty good though and I'm going to try to run 2 miles Wed and Thurs of this week and get in a 3-4 mile run on Saturday.

Back and biceps tomorrow. Should be a good workout hopefully.

P90x Day 78 - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps

Baby did a bad bad thing. I broke another one of my "rules" today. I figured I was already missing workouts and eating poorly, why not throw another rule in the trash.

So I got on the scale. It wasn't pretty, but it honestly was needed. I needed to see the effects of my actions and it'll give me 2 weeks before the end of my 3rd phase to get it turned around. I no longer am hoping to lose more weight this phase, but if I can get back to where I was or lose some weight, I'll be more than thrilled.

My bad feels good and my running is going really well considering. I'm 7 weeks away from the "start" of marathon training. The first week of training is 3 mile T,W,Th and a 6 miler on Saturday. I've almost got the 3 miles on T,W,Th under my belt and I feel confident that I'll be there when training starts. The longer runs I'm not so sure. I really need to do another 3 mile run this weekend and ramp up probably a mile a week until 6 miles. I think it's going to be hard no matter where I am, but If I can get to that point I think I might be able to move up slowly over the next 20 weeks.

It's a big undertaking and I'm really nervous about doing it, but I have a plan in place and I feel like it can be done.

Plyometrics tomorrow. I'll probably try to do this again, but I might go out to Cardio X instead. The number one goal is still overall fitness and not getting hurt so we'll keep that as the focus and move from there.

I'm regretting the lost opportunities of the last 30 days, but there is nothing I can do about that at this point. Forward moving.

P90x Day 76 - Missed Workout, 5k run

Today should have been Kenpo but instead a went a ran a 5k. I set a new personal record at 30:12 which for the first 5k of the year is actually somewhat surprising. I really have to attribute this to some of the running I've been doing lately, but mostly to Kenpo, Plyometrics, and Leg day.

I really think that once my conditioning catches up with my fitness I could easily be looking at a sub 30 mile if not closer to 29 or even 28. That's hard to imagine.

I really think that if I could stop giving in to every dietary whim I come across I could slim down and then it could get really interesting.

Overall I'm extremely thrilled with my finish.

P90x Day 75 - Missed Workout

Today should have been Legs and Back, but tomorrow I have a 5k to run and I figured it was better to rest my legs in preparation.

P90x Day 74 - Stretch X, 2 mile run

What a great fitness day.

I ended up not doing Yoga today. I know, harbor your surprise a little longer. Instead I did Stretch X after my run and I feel really good right now. Hopefully this will keep up and I'll continue to feel good for the future weeks.

Anyways, I got home and got in a really good 2 mile run. Got 2 miles in right at 20:00 which is right about my normal pace. I was a bit faster on the first mile than the second, but it averaged out.

I'm taking tomorrow off from running, but I'm supposed to do legs and back. That'll be in preparation for my 5k Saturday morning.

Anyways, so far so good. Almost 2 weeks left.

P90x Day 73 - Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, 1.5 mile run

I actually missed this blog update last night because I got in late from playing cards but yesterday was a good workout.

I got an excellent Shoulders and Arms workout and only had to skip a few workouts (bent over flys) in order to play it safe for my back.

1.5 mile run in just over 15 minutes. I think I pushed the 1 mile pace a bit faster than I had recently because about the time I rounded 1.25 I was really starting to feel it. Between increasing the distance this week and running back to back days I got to 1.5 and decided that it was good enough. I've got another run tonight that I'm hoping to get 2 miles in.

Overall I'm feeling really good the last few days. My back issues haven't bothered me in a week or two and I seem to be mostly back on the P90x wagon although I'm not sure the intensity is there to the degree that it was the first 30 days. Something I need to look at.

Next workout is supposed to be Yoga. I think I'll sub out stretching instead and get my run in.

P90x Day 72 - Missed Workout, 2 mile run

I missed a workout today. I missed "A" workout, but I still got exercise in. I wanted to do my P90x today in the morning and get my planned run in this afternoon.

I woke up just a hair late today to get my workout in because I had to go in to get screened for diabetes. I got a flyer in the mail a few weeks back offering free screening for diabetes so since I hadn't had a screening before I figured knowing was better than not knowing. Good news, I'm rock solid and don't have anything.

But anyways so I had to do that this morning and got a late start to the day. I had planned on doing my workout at night and getting my run in after that but I just didn't feel like working out till 10pm.

So I figured I'd test the waters and I bumped my running distance up today. I got 2 miles in with about a 10:35 pace which I'm happy with. No significant pain or stress anywhere, but I did notice a few twinges in my right knee while I was running. Assuming there is no significant pain tomorrow, I'll keep the same distance tomorrow.

Anyways, I'm irked that I missed my P90x workout today, but I think I balanced the scales.

Tomorrow is Shoulders and Arms. Looking forward to that.

P90x Day 71 - Chest and Back

I can't believe I'm less than 3 weeks away from completing my first round of P90x. I can seriously remember a time when 90 days seemed like an eternity, and here we are almost finished with it.

Another good workout today. Chest and back. It's still amazing to me the improvement I've made in doing push-ups over the last 2 months. When I started I could do more than 1 good set of push-ups and today's workout I was able to do almost all of them without issue.

I'm still babying my back some so I didn't do bent-over flys today. I don't regret this decision though because my back actually feels really good today and did for most of last week.

I hope that I'm able to keep up my lifting and my running over the next few weeks and my back only gets stronger. I'm just going to be aware of the exercises that put more strain on my back and be diligent about doing them with proper form.

This coming Saturday my work has a 5k that I signed up for a while back. I'll run it, but I'm not sure how my time will be. But I really don't think I care. My goal will be to finish and feel good about it on Saturday and Sunday. This will be a real test of my running and if it's causing my back pain.

Anyways, feeling good for a Monday. Plyometrics tomorrow. We'll see if that or Cardio-X gets done.

P90x Day 69 - Kenpo X, 1 mile run

Just because it's a weekend, doesn't mean you can't get a little bit of exercise going.

Today was a really good workout. Kenpo is my favorite workout I think of all the DVDs. It really goes by quickly and at the end you've ended up with a pretty good workout.

I had to ease up on 2 exercises during the workout because I could feel it starting to really workout my back. I still completed them, but I had to go a bit easy on it.

I also got a really good run in today too. Finished the mile in about 10:30 and then walked with my wife for about another 1/2 mile. Overall it was really good.

Really glad that I ended up turning this week around. Feeling really good right now and with 3 weeks left I'm optimistic that I'm going to end up on a high note.

P90x Day 68 - Legs & Back

Today was an odd day.

I woke up crazy early this morning because I'd been drinking water all night and had to hit the restroom. So on the way back to bed I was thinking of all the things I had to do today. Mow the lawn, wash the car, maybe grill out. Then it hit me... today wasn't Saturday. UGH!

So there I was, super awake and I decided that if I went back to sleep it wasn't likely that I'd get up with the same awakeness that I had at that moment. So I did the bizarre thing and just went ahead and got up to work. So I was at work at 4am and then got to leave at lunch. I actually got a ton of work done with the hours where nobody was around.

So anyways, I was really tired and the rest of the day sorta played out as it did. But then after the kid went to bed I realized that when I came home I didn't work out like I had planned. So I ended up working out later than I wanted to and with alot less gusto than I wanted to. But surprisingly it turned out ok. I did 10 reps of every exercise and took no breaks. So after 10 reps I'd skip to the next workout and while they were setting up or talking I'd be doing my 10 reps of that and moving on. I cut about 30 minutes off the workout from just following the DVD and felt pretty wiped out afterwards. I was really surprised at how much of a sweat I worked up and even though I felt pretty tired before, it ended up being an ok workout.

I really almost skipped the workout because of the day's circumstances, but I couldn't stand the idea of having to mark down another missed workout. After the last 2 weeks of spotty workouts I am doing everything I can to stay the course.

Tomorrow is Kenpo and another run. Hopefully with all the Saturday chores I'll fit it in without having to do it late at night.

P90x Day 67 - Stretch X, 1 mile run

Starting to feel like the old me again, or at least the cobwebs are gone and I'm starting to get a bit of that energy spark back.

Today's workout was supposed to be Yoga, but I woke up and instead did Stretch X. I can't say for certain if that was the right move, but I still feel pretty good today. I actually got my stretching done in the morning and did my running at night, which puts me close to my desired schedule.

Got another run in tonight. 1 mile in 10:45 is off the pace I want to be at, but really not THAT much slower than where I want to be overall. Once I can get a steady base of running under my belt I'm pretty confident I can shave any time that I want off of my time and get me down to where I want to be. For now this pace is getting the miles I need under my belt and I'm still feeling pretty good.

Tomorrow is Back and Legs. Need to keep a mental focus on my lower back and make sure I don't do anything to set me back. No running tomorrow so it'll be nice to rest up.

P90x Day 66 - Back & Biceps, 1 mile run

3 days into this week and so far I'm still alive.

I can feel that my back is pretty sore but it's not enough to hinder me from anything or make me change my schedule...yet. It always seems to be worse in the morning so I'm hoping that tomorrow morning won't be me waking up and going "what have I done". That was pretty much what happened last Thursday.

Another good workout today. Much better than my Monday workout. I have noticed that some of the exercises on P90x assume that you have a rockin' core and a strong back because things like bent over rows and whatnot are really putting a strain on my back. I realized that pretty early into this DVD and had to skip some of the exercises that really involved my lower back. Better safe than sorry.

Today's run was ok. I'm still slowing it down alot which makes finishing the jog alot easier. I know I could do it alot faster, but for some reason I think that was jarring my back more. However I'm starting to notice that the slower runs seem to be more stressful on my knees. Can't win for losing I guess.

Diet is still a weak point. Correcting that slowly, but it's far and away the hardest area to reign in.

Tomorrow is Yoga. We'll see how that goes. I haven't been good about doing Yoga recently and If I don't get up in the morning my chances of doing it tomorrow go down drastically because of the time it takes to do that routine. Between that and running it'd be a 2 hour workout easy. Here's to wishful thinking.

P90x Day 65 - Cardio X, 1 Mile Run

Back to the basics.

So far so good on the new fitness front. I didn't do Plyometrics today but I did Cardio X for my workout. I haven't done this workout before because it's not on my "training schedule" for the normal P90x program. But it really wasn't a poor workout. It's sort of a bit of everything workout. You do some Yoga, do some Kenpo, some regular cardio, some core work. It's really not that bad of a workout, and considering that it's a much shorter workout than the others it's definately going to be my "if nothing else do this workout".

I got my 1 mile run in today. I didn't get a time on it because my iPod ran out of juice between usages apparently. I'm sure it was much slower than my usual runs, but I intentionally backed it down some. It was a slower pace but I was able to do it without alot of stress. I am trying to eliminate things that might be the cause of my back being sore. I didn't know if it was moving up in distance too fast, so I'm correcting that. I didn't know if it was pushing myself to run faster so I'm working to correct that.

It's somewhat irritating to not be out there pushing myself to run faster, but if I'm able to finish a marathon at the pace I ran today, I wouldn't be upset with that feat.

Overall today was ok. I set out to sabotage myself from the start but by the end of the day I had rebounded and gotten a good workout anyways. Tomorrow is Back and Biceps.

Here's to start of the next 25 days.

P90x Day 64 - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps

Starting over. It look 60 days but I hit the wall. I didn't work out the last few days of last week and on top of that I didn't blog either. But I'm past that.

I've looked up some marathon training plans and I think I'm going to an additional day to my running plan. I'm going to do 1 mile T,W,Th with 2 miles on Saturday or Sunday. I'm going to try and slow it down some by only going up .5 miles every other week. That'll put me around where I need to be by the first of June hopefully. I'm hoping this will be slow enough to get me to where I need to get. I honestly can't get any slower if I need to be running 3-4 miles by the first of June. If this doesn't work out I'm going to have to rethink my marathon.

I've decided to overhaul my diet for a short-term sprint. I can't "live" on a diet where I eat the same thing every meal for weeks and weeks but I can lose alot of weight on that and I think that's the best think for me. I'm going to target somewhere around 2000 calories per day and stamp that meal out over and over again till the first of June. Hopefully if I can lose a chunk of weight before June it'll help my overall running effort. I've done a strict diet like this before and had good results, but 3 months in I crashed. I'm hoping to get about 2 months out of this diet before I ease off it somewhat in order to train for my marathon and get some more energy.

I'm not giving up on P90x either. Today wasn't the best workout but it got done. Tomorrow is suppossed to be Plometrics, but I think I'm going to sub it out for Cardio X. Because I'm going to be running tomorrow I just figured that the extra high impact exercise was something to replace as a precaution.

I took pictures for my 60 day. I haven't looked at them.

Less than 30 days remaining. I think I've turned the corner. Although I thought that last week. If we can make it this week with no missed workouts I think I'll be back on course.

P90x Day 60 - No workout

Hooray for 60 days... I'm going to celebrate today with...another...missed...workout. Wooo.

What a lousy day. I have no idea what happened last night in my sleep. I'm pretty sure I jolted up in my sleep about 4am and lurched for the end of the bed for some reason and pulled my back. Either that or I dreamed that, I honestly am not sure. But when I woke up my back was really killing me which sucks because it felt good when I went to bed.

Add that together with the fact that I had to be out of the house early to take my dog back to the vet. It was just alot of stress for the morning and I didn't deal with it well. Turns out my dog is going to be ok. They took an x-ray and found out that the lump on his nose was really just a backed up infection caused by one of his teeth. I got his teeth cleaned while he was under and after that and analyzing the xrays he ended up getting two of his teeth pulled out. I feel terrible that I had to choose that over getting his teeth fixed, but it was SOOOO much money to get that work done. I didn't get the news about his health until later in the afternoon so this morning was just full of worry and stress and I didn't make good eating choices as a result.

Stupid ass stress. I very rarely have stress. I mean I do but I don't let it get to me very often, but when it does and I get worried about stuff I get in a real funk. I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't power through it or at least get in stretching, but it is what it is.

Tomorrow will be Legs and back. Note the WILL. I'll also get Day 60 pictures taken.

P90x Day 59 - Shoulders, Triceps, Biceps

Feeling really good today. Got up again this morning and knocked out a great workout. I got up a tad later than I wanted to this morning and if that happens tomorrow I won't have enough time to get my Yoga X workout in because of the additional time sink.

I took my dog into the Vet this morning so I hope everything is ok with him. He's got a bump on his snout that's very tender to him that's been there for a couple of weeks. We've watched it and gave him benedryl thinking it might just be a ant bite or something, but it's still there. In light of the things that went on this month with John Stone's dog Turtle I'm going to go ahead and get him a clean bill of health.

Workout today was Shoulders and Arms. It's nice to get back to this workout as I've been "push/pull" for the last month. My arms are really tired today, and it's funny how you can do the same exercises, but based on what order you do them in or what you pair them with you can get entirely different results.

Anways, Yoga X tomorrow. I'm going to be disappointed in myself if I miss this workout.

P90x Day Day 58 - Plyometrics

Got up again this morning. It was a dreary and rainy morning so it took a bit longer. I actually must have slept funny because I work up and the other side of my back was really bothering me.

I got up and did Plyometrics this morning and while I didn't feel like I could give jumping and squatting 100% because of my back, I modified it some and got a decent workout. I cut the DVD a little short once it got into the really intense stuff towards the end of the workout. I was already sweating and felt good but could tell my back was getting sore, so I just went ahead decided to be cautious. Or lazy. I can't tell which one, but I want to believe I was doing the best for myself long-term, but I might have just been giving myself a reason to quit early. Who knows.

Not sure if I'll do any running today. I really want to but after last week I'm sorta concerned I might have ramped that back up too soon. Maybe I'll just do a mile tonight.

Looking forward to the workout tomorrow. Feeling pretty good today considering so I'm hoping this keeps up.

P90x Day 57 - Chest, Back

Maybe, just maybe, I'm clawing my way back onto the bandwagon. I got up this morning and got my workout in and feel alot better this morning as a result.

Today was the return to the first 3 weeks workouts. Over the next 4 weeks you alternate between week 1 and week 5's workouts. I remember how hard this workout was the first few weeks I did it and now coming back to it it's actually amusing at how un-intimidating it was. Maybe it's because I've done the next set of workouts where you do a rediculous amount of pull-ups, maybe it's just that I'm more confident in myself now. Whatever the case I felt really good going into today's workout.

AND IT SHOWED. Today was by FAR the best workout I've had at least in regards to push-ups. I started out with a set of 20 standard pushups (something I'm sure I couldn't do 8 weeks ago) and mixing in back workouts got a set of 15 military push-ups, 10 decline push-ups, 8 diamond pushups, and 6 "dive bomber" push-ups. All perfect form and not going to my knees. I know without a doubt that I couldn't have gotten close to that feat on week one, but add in the fact that I did almost those same numbers on the second pass through the exercises (you do them twice) and I am acutally shocked at how far I've come.

I don't know if it was the morning workout, or the almost week off to rest and recharge, or what. But this was a really great workout and has me really feeling high on myself right now. I only wish I'd made the same progress will pull-ups but I think I'll just keep plugging along and pull-up progress will be my goal for the next 90 days. I still think that losing more weight is the key to pull-up progress for me.

I didn't do Ab-Ripper today in order to give my back a rest. So far it feels pretty good today. I'll play it by ear this week with running and workouts in order to give me the best shot at a full and quick recovery.

Hopefully this new energy will stay here and I'm on the rebound. Tomorrow is plyometrics. I'm a bit concerned about that workout with my back, but we'll see how it goes. I may or may not add in a run as well.

P90x Day 56 - Phase 2 Results

Well I went ahead and weighed in today. I was super reluctant to do it and expected to see a jump in weight honestly based on the rough run I've had of it in the last few weeks and some of the eating choices I made. Looking back on them the choices weren't "that bad" but I felt pretty bad at the time after indulging in them so I was just certain in my mind that they were the worst possible decisions.

Anyways, I lost another 2 pounds for this phase. 2 pounds in 4 weeks isn't really that great, but with all the things I've gone through in the last four weeks I'll take a loss of any kind as a positive.

That puts me at 8.5 pounds lost for the first 8 weeks of P90x. Not exactly where I wanted to be when I started, but I've lost a pound a week on "average" so that's well within the "healthy" range.

Surprisingly my Body Fat % hasn't really gone down much. It said today I've only lost .5% over the last 8 weeks. Now granted I know my electric hand-held BF reader can fluctuate and may not be the most accurate, but I assumed that since my clothes were fitting better and I can "see" muscle growth in the mirror that number would have moved more than it has. Who knows. Maybe at the end of the first round of P90x I'll look around and see if I can't find a place that will do the "water tank" BF reading for cheap and get a precise reading that way.

Overall I can't complain too much. I feel better than I did when I started, but this last 4 weeks has been a real burden with sickness and injury. I'm somewhat glad that I've only missed 3 workouts for far in the first 8 weeks. It's not 100%, but it's better than most.

5 more weeks remaining in Round 1 of P90x. I'm pondering going back to the pull-up bar and seeing if I can get some more results, but I might just wait and do that for round 2. I was at the park with my daughter the other day and I still can't do a pull-up on my own. It wasn't really that close either, which I'd hoped it would be. But honestly I need to lose more weight because that's the biggest thing (pun intended) holding me back.

Let's hope that I can give 110% for the next 5 weeks. My "ultimate" goal would be to lose 11.5 pounds over the next 5 weeks and make it 20 pounds for the first round of P90x. But my more realistic goal is to lose 6.5 lbs and get to 15 pounds total. Both are going to take a considerable amount of commitment and better choices than I've made in the last 2 weeks. Hopefully my valleys are behind me and I've only got peaks to look forward to.

On the running front I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'm worried that my back injury is related to my running so maybe I'm ramping up the distance to fast. I might cut it back to a mile for a week and see if that helps. I don't feel like it's too much but maybe my "infrastructure" isn't ready for the pounding that 20-30 minutes of running delivers. I definitely didn't have this issue last fall, but I also took a longer period of time to get up to the distances that I was running.

P90x Day 55 - No Workout

Still no workouts today. I thought about booting up the stretching dvd today but I plan on doing it tomorrow in preparation for the next week so I didn't know if stretching two days in a row was my best choice.

I can tell my back is still sore, but it's getting better. I think that if I just stayed with P90x alone I'd be ok, but it might be the addition of running that's throwing it off.

I'm supposed to weigh-in tomorrow. I'm not really optimistic about this. It's been a rough few weeks. I'm hoping that I've lost some weight, but honestly at this point I have no idea what could happen.