Charities Challenge - First Indoor Meet

We had the Charities Challenge indoor track this weekend up in the Twin Cities. I'm not sure whether to call it the first indoor meet of 2013 or the last one of 2012. I think as far as USA Track & Field is concerned, it is considered the 2013 Indoor Season so I'll call it the first meet of the year.

My training for this meet consisted of starting up Insanity: The Asylum Volume 2. I was only a week and a half into the program, but I can tell that this is going to be a great workout for my training. When I started the Championship workout, the first thing we do is a simulated 400 meters. If there was any question about whether or not this was the workout for me, it was answered right there.

I went up with another Master's sprinter and we took along three youth. Two of them were our kids and the other one was a friend of my son's. One of my goals has been to try to get greater participation at the meets so I try to invite anyone I can. If we can get people to experience the meets and how much fun it can be, hopefully they will come back and invite others.

It was the first track meet for one of the boys. The three were technically in different age groups even though my son and his friend are in the same grade. It was great to see the boys enjoying themselves while showing a lot of effort in the races. Since they were all different ages, they were each able to have first-place finishes in their races while racing against each other. There were also meet records set by all of the boys. In fact, the youngest boy also set the Minnesota state record for each of his events in his age group. Pretty good for his first meet ever.

My races were a little better than I did at this point last year, but not quite where I thought I should be. I made a tactical mistake in my 400 and I think it cost me some time. I gave up the inside lane when we made the break at the 160 mark. (Actually the break line was incorrect so we can't technically turn in our times for the meet.) I ended up running out in lane two around the third corner and was never able to gain back any ground. I was running against all high-school boys so time-wise I was with a good group. My time was 55.24 so it was about two seconds slower than my Indoor National time from last year.

Gives me something to work on for next time.


"The pride you gain is worth the pain."  -Dennis Ogilvie

Entering Another Asylum

I've been saying I would do it when it got closer to the start of my indoor track meets and the first one is only about a week away. So this week I started Insanity: The Asylum Volume 2. Here are some initial impressions and advice.

On the very first disc is an Agility Tutorial which teaches you the steps that are used throughout the workouts with the Agility Ladder. These are more complicated than Volume 1 so I highly recommend going through that tutorial ahead of time. Maybe even a couple of times. Shaun T mentions in the Power Legs workout that when you have to think about what you are doing, you're not thinking about how tired you are. That's true. However I found myself having to stop and rewind a few times to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I guess it does leave some room for improvement because you can't master the moves on the first time through.

The first workout is called X Trainer and it involves a lot of the Agility Ladder moves that you learn in the Agility Tutorial. It's pretty similar to Asylum Volume 1 workouts in that it's a lot of quick, total body training.

The next two days break up into upper body and lower body with Upper Elite and Power Legs. If you're a fan of push-ups you'll love Upper Elite. Both workouts also incorporate weights. Most of what you do is high reps and limited breaks so it's wise to pick a weight you can stick with even if it seems too light at the beginning.

This will be what I will use for my training to prepare for the first indoor track meet this weekend. My key focus will be on improving my endurance over these next few weeks. I would like to see if I can kick things off with a much lower 400 time than I started with last year. I guess goal #2 will be to do that without any injuries.

The quote for this week is something Shaun T says in almost all of the Asylum workouts - "The work doesn't start until you get tired."

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

All Will Be Well

There are times when life can get you down. You feel overwhelmed with everything going on and just plain beat up. I guess this is one of those times for me right now.

It probably happens to everyone and the best thing to do is find ways to cope. I find that having a focus for my training and finding things to do that I enjoy are important. There are some upcoming indoor track meets that I will take part in so now is the time to start preparing for those through my training and nutrition. I'll also be working in some new Asylum Volume 2 workouts.

Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving I should probably think of what I am thankful for. I am thankful for my health and my family's health most of all.

I'm also thankful that when I broke out my winter coat, there was $25 cash in the pocket from last year. Score.

Instead of just a quote this week, I thought I would put the lyrics to a song that I like to play to remind myself that everything will be alright. I've been playing it a lot this week. It's a song that I first heard from Tonic Sol Fa during their holiday concert. It's probably better known from the Gabe Dixon Band, although I prefer the Tonic Sol Fa version.

All Will Be Well 

The new day dawnsAnd I am practicing my purpose once againIt is fresh and it is fruitful if I winBut if I lose
Ooh, I don't knowI'll be tired but I will turn and I will goOnly guessing till I get there then I'll knowOh, I will know
And all the children walking home past the factoriesCan see the light that's shining in my window as I write this song to youAnd all the cars running fast along the interstateCan feel that love that radiates, illuminating what I know is true 

All will be wellEven after all the promises you've broken to yourselfAll will be wellYou can ask me how but only time will tell 

The winter's coldBut the snow still lightly settles on the treesAnd a mess is still a moment I can seizeUntil I know 

That all will be wellEven though sometimes this is hard to tellAnd the fight is just as frustrating as hellAll will be well 

And all the children walking home past the factoriesCan see the light that's shining in my window as I write this song to youAll the cars running fast along the interstateCan feel that love that radiates, illuminating what I know is true 

All will be wellEven after all the promises you've broken to yourselfAll will be wellYou can ask me how but only time will tell 

You got to keep it up and don't give upAnd chase your dreams and you will findAll in time 

That all will be wellEven after all the promises you've broken to yourselfAll will be wellYou can ask me how but only time will tell
All will be wellEven after all the promises you've broken to yourselfAll will be wellYou can ask me how but only time will tellYou can ask me how but only time will tell

Marion Jones - Press Pause

Recently, former NBA basketball player Chris Herren was in the area talking to kids at the local high schools about his struggles with drug addiction. I saw a story on his visit and the way that he interacted with the students and was very impressed with the way he has turned his life around. Now he uses his story to try to keep others from following the same path.

I decided to watch the 30 for 30 documentary that ESPN Films put together about his story called Unguarded. I started watching one evening and ended up finishing it on a Saturday morning. My kids were around and started watching it as well. It's always interesting to see things through a child's perspective. They had a lot of questions. The one that my son has been asking me for a while is, "Why would anyone even take drugs?"  It's not an easy question to answer, but I usually tell him that it is because there is something in the drug that the person wants to benefit from. I also explain that not all drugs are bad, but in the case of how they refer to drugs in school, most of those drugs illegal or "bad".

The other night my wife had to work late so it was just me and the kids. I asked if they wanted to watch another one of the documentaries about a girl who won a bunch of Olympic medals and had to give them back for cheating. They both said they wanted to watch it (which is a miracle for them to agree on something) so I found it on Netflix and we started to watch. 

I won't go into it too much, but Marion Jones: Press Pause is about the aftermath of Marion Jones admitting that she took steroids. She had to return her five Olympic medals and spend six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her involvement with BALCO (Bay Area Lab Co-op) and a check fraud scam. The documentary was directed by John Singleton (Boys in the Hood) so I thought it would be pretty good. They didn't really go into too much detail about Jones' track career and the steroid use. It was mainly focused on her jailtime and how she was trying to get back to a normal life.

I don't think this documentary was really all that well done, but it did lead to some good discussion with the kids. It makes you ask the question about how far you would go to gain an edge if you don't think that anyone will find out. The message that I hope the kids got from it is that the the short-term gains are not worth the long-term consequences. Marion Jones won five Olympic medals, which probably felt great to her at the time. Now all of that is gone and her reputation is ruined. She will go down in history as a cheater, much the same as what Lance Armstrong is going through right now.

Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will.  

       - John D. MacDonald

What's Next?

I believe that I mentioned in a previous post that I won't be updating the blog as much since I'm not in a traditional training cycle right now. I didn't do an update on Extra-Life yet so I will say that it went pretty well. I was disappointed that I didn't make my fundraising goal, but I know that overall over 2-million dollars was raised for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals nationally. I don't yet have results for our specific hospital, but I know it was at least $686.

Even though I don't have any major track and field events coming up it's still a good time to look toward the future so I can plan my training and recovery accordingly. I did my cycle of the Beachbody Ultimate Reset a couple of months ago now and that went extremely well. I'll even have some exciting news about that coming up soon, but I can't share it quite yet.

Since I finished the Reset cleanse I have been working out to Chalene Johnson's Turbo Fire program. It's mainly a cardio program, but not as insane as Insanity. It's been keeping me in shape without breaking me down which is what I need right now. It has also given me a chance to work out with my wife for the first time ever since I started working out at home. The new Insanity: Asylum Volume 2 program came out earlier this month and I had planned to start it, but I'm enjoying the workout time with my wife and it's nice to be able to accomplish our workouts at the same time. If I switched programs right now I would probably have to go to an evening workout schedule if my wife keeps the morning. It's not worth it for me at the moment as long as I'm still getting a good workout with Turbo Fire.

I did pick up a special deal on Rev Abs, which is a total-body and core strengthening program with Brett Hoebel. He was one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser. They had a one-day deal where the entire program was only $22 for coaches with free shipping so I thought I should at least pick it up and add it to the collection. I started doing some of the workouts on days where my wife was running or working out later than me. I've really been enjoying it so far. The core training is one of those things that is very important for injury prevention in sprinters. I would love to do the 90 days straight through sometime, but for now I am working it in when I can with Turbo Fire. Kind of like my own little hybrid program.

So looking forward. I know that my plans always seem to change, but I am not currently planning to run in the USA Track & Field Indoor Masters Championships this year. It's just too far away and I'm not sure it would be worth it. I have a series of Charities Challenge indoor meets that I plan to run this winter and I'll probably try to make it to the Minnesota Indoor Championships as well. So the only National Championships this year that I plan to run is outdoor. It is in Olathe, KS which is probably about a seven hour drive. My buddy lives in Kansas City so I have a place to stay and hopefully we can get a relay together. It's also my birthday weekend so it should be a good time.

Extra Life Marathon

I'm participating in a marathon this weekend. Not the kind where you run 26.2 miles and then can't move for a day. I will be attempting to play video games for 24-hours straight to raise money for my local Children's Miracle Network Hospital, which also happens to be the place where I work. I've seen first-hand the heartwarming stories from the families who have benefited from Children's Miracle Network. I've also had a chance to meet the kids who we call Heroes. Kids who have been through more in their young lives than many of us could ever imagine.

Kids like Jonas, who at three years-old was diagnosed with a type of cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. He's already been through surgery and chemotherapy. Even with all he has been through his smile and energy are contagious. He says he wants to be a pilot, train engineer, astronaut, archeologist, paleontologist, and maybe a doctor when he grows up.

This year I am playing in the Extra Life video game marathon in honor of Jonas. I have had the opportunity to work with many of the children like Jonas who benefit from the money that Children's Miracle Network raises. These kids just want the opportunity to grow up and play and live normal lives. Just spend a couple of minutes with any of these Heroes and you'll know why I am so passionate about helping them and their families.

Both of our children were born premature. We received meal vouchers from Children's Miracle Network that allowed us to spend as much time as possible with them while they were in the hospital. We're fortunate that both of our kids are doing well and we didn't need further assistance, but there are many families in the area that need your help.

This will be my second time playing for Extra Life. The last time was a couple of years ago when I used to regularly play video games. Since I have started working out at home my video game playing has dropped significantly. It's just hard to justify spending time playing video games when there are so many other things I should be doing. That's what's great about this event. I'm able to play video games, but it's for a very positive reason and a lot of families will benefit from the money raised.

So here's my plan. I will get up and start playing at 6am on Saturday morning. I'm mostly planning to play on the Xbox 360, but I will also play some tablet games. We have a halloween family event in the afternoon for work so I will bring a Nintendo DS and some games with me so I can continue playing. I plan to dress up as a video game player. When we get home I plan to play with friends online and at the house. I will continue to play until 6am Sunday morning. I'll send out a quick update to all of my sponsors letting them know I survived and then go to bed.

If you would like to support me and the children and families that benefit, you can donate by going to www.extra-life.org. I am currently about 70% on my way to reaching my fundraising goal. This link should take you directly to my fundraising page where you can learn more about Jonas and make a donation

http://www.extra-life.org/participant/PeteHaack

Thank you.

First Pro Football Game

I took my son to his first professional football game this weekend. My wife was sent an offer for a buy one, get one free ticket to the game for Minnesota teachers and students. The offer was for two different games, but the other game is the day after the Extra Life charity event. I'm planning to stay up and play video games for 24 hours straight, so I don't think I will make it through an NFL game the next day.

This game took place on my daughter's birthday so we asked her if she wanted to go. She said no so it didn't seem like we should force her to go to a game on her birthday. So it was just me and my son. I know, bad dad. Leaving his daughter on her birthday to go to a football game. I think she was okay with it. My wife on the other hand...I'm not sure. I think she was just happy someone in the family was able to take advantage of the ticket offer.

In addition to being my son's first pro football game this was also my first game in over twenty years. To give a little perspective, the running back for the Vikings at that time was Herschel Walker.

This was one of those experiences that you would call a true father-son moment. Just an entire day with only the two of us. The Vikings also played pretty well and dominated the game. The final score was 30-7. There were some amazing plays and it was fun to see my son get so excited and get to feel like he was part of the game.

He told me on the way home that this was one of those days that he would remember for the rest of his life. Now he wants season tickets. I think we'll settle for watching the games on tv and maybe going again sometime next year. I wonder what he would have said if we would have lost the game.

Maybe it would have been another twenty years until my next game.

The deal

I didn't realize it had been so long since I have put up a blog post. I've been spending a lot of time lately on Facebook and replying to emails about the Ultimate Reset. I guess I have neglected to post. There has been a lot going on lately. I was featured as the Transformation Tuesday on the Beachbody Ultimate Reset Facebook page about a month ago. Things have kind of taken off from there so September has been a good month. If you want to check out my review of the Ultimate Reset program and see the before and after pictures that Beachbody reposted, you can find them at www.PromiseToBeFit.com.

The main thing that's going on around our house right now is football. My son is in third grade and started tackle football this year. It's been an exciting past few weeks. I wasn't sure how he would like it, but he loves it. I wouldn't consider myself all that coordinated so I didn't know what to expect going into my son's first game. The first time he touched the ball in the game he ran the kickoff back for a touchdown. I don't know where he gets it from, but it's fun to watch.

So I made a deal with my son for the last game. He wanted to practice knocking the ball away on defense so he has me throw passes away from him and he tries to deflect them. I think he just likes diving for the ball. I told him that he should practice trying to intercept the ball instead of just keeping the receiver from catching it. He should also try to stay on his feet. I told him that if he returned an interception for a touchdown that we would go out to eat wherever he wanted after the game the next day. This seemed to get him pretty excited.

Now for anyone out there saying I am bribing my kid. I am not running some kind of bounty program. I am not paying him to make tackles or hurt other kids. We were going to go out to eat anyway and I was probably going to let him pick the place no matter what.

Anyway, we were at the last play of the game. Our boys were up 30-6 and the other team had the ball. Their quarterback dropped back to pass and threw it in the direction of the field that my son was covering. He went after the ball and got the interception. Then he broke a few tackles and ran to the outside and scored. That was it. He got the interception for the touchdown on the last play of the game. Of course he had already told all of his friends about the deal so they were pretty excited.

After the game I asked where he wanted to eat and he picked a restaurant that would have the Vikings game on while we eat. You couldn't have wiped the smile off of either of our faces all afternoon.

So the moral of this story - bribe your kids. It works.

13 Pounds...What?

I lost thirteen pounds in the past two weeks on the Ultimate Reset. I figured after last week's weight loss that I was about as light as I was going to get. Honestly, I can hardly believe it. I even checked the calibration of the scale that I have been using. Imagine if I would have done this before a race. I would have to think that not carrying around an extra thirteen pounds would allow me to run even faster, whether the weight is from water, fat, or wherever else it is coming from. I'm already planning my diet and exercise strategy for next year to see if I can hit that All-American standard time in the 400 meters. I'm not really sure I want to go through this again, but maybe in a year I'll forget and only remember the results I got from the program. Just like every time I would start up another round of P90X and then suddenly remember how tough it was.

I'm on the home-stretch. The last seven days of the Ultimate Reset program and I am looking forward to being done. The food hasn't been bad, but it's the convenience more than anything that usually drives how I eat. I keep a lot of bars and Shakeology shakes around because I'm all about convenience when it comes to eating. I need something good for me, but it also has be easy. I understand now that the meals that I am having are really good for me, but there's a part of me that just wants to be able to throw a pizza in the oven, take it out in fifteen minutes, cut it up and start eating. One more week left. I am feeling really great though and have had a lot of energy lately.

"Can you feel this?"

So we're getting ready for school now. My wife is getting back to work and the kids will be starting up in a couple of weeks. This is the first year that we will have both kids in school so it will be nice to be able to take them to the same place every morning.

T-Dawg started up football camp and this is his first year of tackle football. I never played organized football in school so this is all new to me. We figured it would be a good idea to make sure we could get all of his equipment on so one night we put all of the pads on. Then the kids decided they needed to test them. My daughter got out a big inflatable hammer and started hitting him everywhere he had protection. They quickly realized that he did not have a cup. My wife went out and got him one a couple of nights later because it seemed like a good thing to have. The girls were out so I had him put the cup on and then I hit him with one of my daughter's play kitchen utensils a couple of times. Seems to work.

The quote for today is from Shaun T - "I'm smiling because I love it."

The Ultimate Reset - Week 1

I've been doing this program from Beachbody called the Ultimate Reset. It is a cleanse, but I don't have to starve myself or just drink only juice for a month so I figured I could handle it. I'll explain basically what it is. It's a 21-day program where you follow recipes made with whole foods and take various supplements. It is set up in three phases which are seven days each.

This seemed to be the right time to do the program because it is recommended that you do not do any strenuous exercise during the 21 days. Since I just finished up my last race for the summer I would normally take a little time off to give myself some rest. Well, that time for me often ends up being where I get back into some bad habits and gain back some weight. This way I can take a good amount of time off to recover without gaining weight. In fact, I should end the Reset quite a bit under where I started which was already pretty light for me.

I don't want to go into too many specifics about the program. You can get more information at UltimateReset.com if you want to know more. I would rather just focus briefly on my experience during this first week.

When I weighed in on Day One I was 169 lbs. Today I weighed in at 161 lbs. That's as light as I can ever remember being since college. I don't know exactly what to attribute that to, but with that kind of loss I think there must be a good amount of water weight. My biggest change has been giving up diet soda. I have been drinking a lot of Pepsi Max lately. I often lose track of how much I drink, but I'm sure it was a lot. That has been a challenge. I'll call it my very own Pepsi Challenge. The first few days my head was throbbing and I had  a feeling of just not being sharp mentally. It was hard to focus and I felt groggy. This did go away and I'm feeling pretty good now. I used to just be tired and feel like I have to drink a soda to get my energy back. Now I don't seem to have that dip that I use to have.

The food is also a big part of that. It's mostly things you would expect. Lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and little dairy. It does adapt as you move through the phases so there are things you can eat in the first week that you won't have later. One thing I noticed is that there are a lot of Japanese food items. Many of them are very alkaline-type foods which are good to counter the normal acidic foods that we usually eat. There is an entire collection of recipes and an online cooking segment for each recipe that you can access with your Team Beachbody username and password when you purchase the program. My favorite recipe so far has been the Nori Rolls, which are a lot like sushi. That's something I think I will eat even after the program is done.

One thing that really surprised me was the feeling I had during the first week which is very similar to working out. They say in the program that you are giving your body a workout from the inside out. Your body is working to remove the toxins that you've been putting in it for years. This is part of the reason why you aren't supposed to work out. Your body is already working hard.

The last thing I wanted to mention is the supplements. There are some pills that you take each day as well as a packet of green powder that you mix with water called Alkalinize. I do not like Alkalinize. I have to plug my nose and then I can drink it down, but I just do not like the taste. I looked up the ingredients and did some research on the benefits and it is some good stuff in there, but I have a hard time with that one.

So those are some of my thoughts on the first week. I'll be posting more of a full review on PromiseToBeFit.com as I go through the next two weeks. I'm already 1/3 of the way there so I'm confident that I can make it through the program.

"Your journey won't always be easy. But like all journeys of growth, it can change your life for the better."
 - Isabelle Daikeler - Cocreater of Shakeology and Beachbody Ultimate Reset

USA Track and Field Masters Recap

It was a pretty good weekend at the USATF Outdoor Masters Championships. There were a lot of great performances and many great people to meet and talk to. It's an interesting group. It takes a very dedicated person to compete at this level. There is a definite time commitment. Not only did many people have to take almost a week off to travel to the meet and back home again. There are the registration fees, hotel, and travel expenses. And then just the time that it takes to train to compete at a national event like this. We have some pretty understanding families who also have to put up with our schedules and time away from home.

The weather at the meet was not ideal. It was in the mid-90s for most of the days. I believe it was in the 80s for the final day, but it sure didn't seem all that much cooler. I didn't end up having to run a preliminary race for the 200 meters on Saturday, but I still had to show up and declare. Then we waited to see if we would have enough for a prelim. The timing was such that I needed to do my warmup just in case we were going to run. We had eight runners in our age group declare so we rolled over to the final the next day. It would have been nice to just take the day off to go into Chicago, but that's the way it goes.

For the 200 finals I wanted to try to get under 24 seconds. I haven't run a lot of 200s since high school so I don't really know the last time I was under 24 seconds. I knew from my indoor time and my practice times that it was possible. My fastest time in high school was 23.5 so it's hard to say that I could get close to that 20 years later. I was able to run a 23.86 which was good enough for 4th place. It's one place out from getting a medal, but honestly I was just happy with my time.

We also ran a 4 x 400, which gave us a shot at a gold medal. I ran with some great guys from Kentucky who raced in the 400 hurdles. I was born in Kentucky so we had a connection. We were fortunate to bring home gold medals for the relay in a time of 3:37.18. This was my first National Championship so I was happy that they asked me to join them. Great guys as well.

So overall these were my results for the meet:
400 meters - 52.67 - 3rd place
200 meters - 23.86 - 4th place
4x400 meters - 3:37.18 (didn't get splits) - 1st place

400 Meters at USATF Masters Championships

It was a hot day at the USA Track & Field Masters National Outdoor Championships. It was 95 degrees and all sun at this time of our 400 meter race this afternoon. I ended up placing third with a time of 52.67.

I'm going to just briefly recap my thoughts on preparing and going through the day. The thoughts in this post might seem kind of random, but I've been standing out in the heat all afternoon.

I'm out here without my family. We were thinking about making a trip out of it, but I'm glad that my wife and kids didn't have to sit in the stands on a day like today. It also makes is easy for me to handle meals when I only have myself to worry about. I went to Target yesterday and picked up some groceries. I also have some packets of Shakeology that I use as my pre-race meal. My breakfast this morning was a couple of pouches of oatmeal. You're supposed to mix them with water, but I just eat them. Mid-morning I had an apple and some frozen blueberries and a granola bar. Then the Tropical Shakeology for lunch.

The story of the day was the heat. I waited until almost noon to show up and they were behind schedule because of a medical emergency in the morning. It's a pretty professional crew so they did a good job of getting close. I didn't do as much of a warmup as I usually do because I found myself getting short of breath while practicing accelerations. The check-in area is a big tent so there is shade. We sat in the tent for over a half-hour so I found myself starting to tighten up before the race. I brought some water and gatorade with me in the tent so I made sure to keep hydrated.

We had a couple of guys who were signed up, but did not run. I drew lane two which I wasn't really thrilled with. The one nice thing about having the inside lane is that you can see everyone at the beginning and position yourself coming around the final corner. The world champion for our age group, Antwon Dussett, was there and there are few people in the world in our age group who even come close to us. As expected he won pretty handily. Antwon was not at the National Outdoor Championship last year because he raced in the World Championship. Last year's National Outdoor Champion was in our race and got second place.

My goal has been to medal in the National Championships so I was able to do that again. It seems like I am perennially in the third spot. I've been fortunate to get third in the last two Outdoor Championships and the Indoor this past year. You can't control who is going to show up so I feel better about my time than my place. I had a goal to get under 53 seconds, which I knew I could get based on my practice times. I was able to get quite a bit under that with 52.67. The All-american standard for our age is 52.5 so I was close to that and it gives me something to shoot for next year.

I've got the 200 prelims tomorrow. I have been thinking that it would be very difficult for me to make the final, but based on some of the guys scratching out of the previous events I have a feeling I might have a chance. Mainly I want to be able to get under 24 seconds and if I do that I'll feel good.

Sorry. I've been all over the place here. I've just got a lot of thoughts going through my head right now. I'd better wrap it up and get my rumble roller out while I watch some Olympic coverage.

Holding myself together

It's starting to feel like the end of a long track season. Sometimes there is a fine line between overtraining and finding that sweet spot where you've pushed yourself to your physical peak. Hopefully I haven't gone too far over the edge yet. I am having a lot of soreness lately in my hip, lower back, and hamstrings. Not good to have at this stage. I've tried to get more running in because my training times have been coming down and my body was holding up pretty well. Then I hit the wall last weekend while running one of my go-to workouts.

It's four 200s with 75-90 seconds rest in-between. The rest time and speed both go down as the season goes on. I try to run the 200s at about 90-95% speed. It simulates the end of the 400 because by the fourth one it feels just like the end of the 400. After that last workout my hip really started bothering me and my hamstring started getting really tight. It was at the point where I could feel it while walking. I took a week off and ran my  primary workout I use to see where I'm at. It's an all out 300 followed by 15 minutes recovery and three 200s with a 200 meter walk in between. I try to get faster on each 200. Here were my times yesterday:


Distance        Time        Rest

300             37.91        15 min
200             28.04          5 min
200             27.67          5 min
200             26.58          Cooldown

The times were slower than the other two times I ran that workout this year. Maybe I can say that I was tentative because I didn't want to injure myself. Whatever the reason, what I need to do now is get past that and mentally get my focus back on running fast and not worrying about getting hurt.

I saw my massage therapist last week and my chiropractor this morning. I'll do the P90X2 Recovery and Mobility workout tonight which has a lot of rumble rolling. Then I will probably use the rumble roller again each night while I watch the Olympics. I won't do any more track workouts, but I plan to do at least one Insanity: Asylum workout this week. Those don't take quite as much of a toll on my body as running on the track does. One more visit to the chiropractor and hopefully I'll be ready to go on Friday in the open 400.

How to break 50 seconds in the 400 meters

There's a great site out there called SpeedEndurance.com that has a lot of great information on 400 meter training. They put up an article about how to break 50 seconds in the 400. The article is mostly about how to figure out if you can break 50 seconds based on how fast you can run shorter distances. I know that one of the keys to getting my 400 meter time down is to improve on my 200. That's been one of my goals this year. I'm currently trying to get it under 24 seconds. My fastest in a race was back in high school at 23.5. That's really not that fast. Since I converted to the 800 meters in college I never ran an open 200 meters.

I ran a 24.00 in my last meet this year so I'm hoping I can get under that at the National Championships in a couple of weeks. My chances of making the finals look pretty slim for the 200 so I'll likely only have one more try. I bring up the 200 time because one of the formulas on how fast you can run the 400 is to take your 200 time x 2 and add 4 seconds. Since I was fortunate enough to run exactly 24 seconds it's an easy formula for me. 24 x 2 is 28 + 4 = 52. I'm shooting to get under 53 seconds so at least I know that's a reasonable expectation.

Here is a video that sums up the article. There's some good information although I wish they would have included the 300 meter formulas as that's what I've been using for my training.

Since it's been so hot out lately I have adjusted my training slightly for this week. I was planning to run 4 x 200s with 65 seconds rest this week, but I think I will shift that workout to this weekend. I have been pushing pretty hard on the Asylum and P90X2 workouts so that should keep my cardio and strength up. The workout I did in place of the 200 meter workout on Tuesday was Asylum Vertical Plyo and I'm sure I got a great workout in so I don't feel like I missed out on anything. I'm also feeling like I should back off a little bit on the track workouts right now. My hamstrings and lower back have been pretty tight lately and need some time to recover.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

It seems like we have had all sorts of events lately. The latest one was a walk to help victims of domestic violence. It's called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, and that's exactly what it is. A one-mile walk in high heels. It's two laps around Riverside Park in La Crosse. The even was very successful, raising over $16,000 for Gundersen Lutheran's Carilee Fund.

If you've ever tried to walk in high heels, you know how difficult it can be. Couple that with record high temperatures and the sun beating down on us and you've got a difficult task ahead. Like most of the other participants I got a pair of rental shoes from the event. The difficulty for me was not the high heel. It was the pointy toe section. I don't know how you ladies do it. While your toes are being squeezed together in the front of the shoe, gravity is pushing your foot forward making it even more uncomfortable. If I have it to do over again, I will get a shoe with a round or square front.

I also thought it would be nice to get some video of the event for work. I never thought it would be so difficult to keep up with the group or to walk backwards. Often when I video tape an event like this I like to get in front of the group and let them approach me so I can get shots of them walking by. I also end up walking backwards or sideways to keep up with them. I guess those are things that I usually take for granted.
Because of the hot temperatures they told us that we should consider only doing one lap, but about half of the guys kept going to make it the full mile. I compromised. I walked the first lap, grabbed my regular shoes, and ran around capturing footage for the second lap.

The DADs and a son

And boy was it hot. We had a small group called the Domestic Abuse Destroyers (DADs). Two of us work at Gundersen Lutheran so we walked with the Gundersen group. My son walked the entire thing with us. We didn't make him put on high heels. By the end we were all a sweaty mess, but it was all for a good cause.

And I didn't injure myself, which is a good thing a month out from the USATF National Championships.

The Warrior Dash

The crew after the race

We did the Warrior Dash race this past weekend. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Warrior Dash it is one of the most popular mud runs. The race is a 5k with obstacles. So how does this tie in to my 400 meter training? It doesn't. A group of us did it last year and someone talked me into doing it again this year. As regular readers of the blog may know, I don't do well with long distances. I have chronic exertional compartment syndrome in both calves and any running over a couple of minutes is difficult. So running a course on a ski hill that is mostly uphill on rough terrain is not the best thing for me. Again, I got talked into it. At least I said no to the Tough Mudder.

So my main goal was to not get injured. I did fine there although I've been pretty sore for the past couple of days. I also got caught by the neck on a section of barbed wire at one point, but didn't have much more than a little scratch. My second goal was to try to make a good workout out of it. I accomplished that too. I pushed fairly hard except for some of the long uphill sections. I was able to move pretty quickly over many of the obstacles.

Overall for our race day I finished 293rd overall out of 8,610 people. That's men and women and all age groups. In my age group and just men I was 102nd out of 1,725 which puts me in the top 6%. Not too bad for someone who doesn't do well with long distances.

There's talk now of doing another one in September. At least I would be done with all of my track races and not as concerned with messing up my training. And if nothing else, it's a good workout.

The Star of the North Games

Running hard

The Minnesota Star of the North State Games were this past weekend. Overall it was a very fun meet for me and the kids. My son came home with five medals so he was very excited. It was a little tough on my daughter because she was the youngest one there, but she ran hard and told me that she did her best. That's all you can hope for. As another Beachbody Coach, Traci Morrow recently said, "You don't have to be the best. You just have to be your best."

For the third year in a row they listed me as being 20 years older than I am. Normally it is a pain because they put the heats together ahead of time and it's hard to get put back in with the younger group. I will often try to run with the college and high school kids if I have the option. This year they organized the heats at the meet so we had the ability to combine the age groups. I forgot to correct them this year when I picked up my medals so I'm hoping I didn't take someone else's gold medals away.

200 meters

My primary focus is on the 400 meters, but I also wanted to post a good time in the 200. I had a goal of getting under 24 seconds which I thought was reasonable since I ran a 24.04 indoor and indoor times are typically slower than outdoor. I also don't think I have run under 24 seconds since I was in my 20's. The 200 was a pretty competitive race as well with a combination of high school, college, and young masters runners in my heat. I ended up just getting edged out by one of the younger guys. I got to talking with him after the meet and found out he is a college student at UW-L who is an assistant coach for our school's high school track program. Small world.

200 meter finish

So my goal was to get under 24 seconds in the 200 meters. My time - 24.00. I can't be too disappointed, but  I was so close. That's when you really start over-analyzing the race. If I had only leaned a little earlier...or come out of the blocks a little faster...or pushed a little harder around the corner. I guess it gives me something to shoot for at the National Championships in August.

My 400 was pretty uneventful. I was mainly running out by myself so I really just had to focus on what I was doing because there wasn't anyone else there to push me. It's at times like this that practice, discipline, and relaxation all come into play. I ended up running 53.30 which I was happy with. I know I will need to get under 53 at the National Championships in order to place in the top three so I've got a little work to do over the next month.

4 x 400 relay

The best thing about the meet was being able to watch my kids run. My son has really improved on his racing and takes it seriously. My daughter also ran very hard. They both ran the 100 and 200 meters, and my son ran the 400 meters, 4x100, and 4x400 relays with some other kids. Probably my proudest moment was after the meet when my son said that he would like to start training for long distances. I said he can do that if he wants and we can get into some 5k races. He said he means the 400 meters. He wants to train for it so he can get better. Nearly brought a tear to this old man's eyes.

All done

Getting Ready for the State Games

Even T is getting some foam rolling in tonight

Tomorrow is the MN State Games so it's a busy night of getting ready. I'll be running the 100, 200, and 400 meters. Both my son and daughter will also be running. My daughter is five and this is her first track meet so she'll probably just do the 100, but possibly a 200 as well. We'll see how the 100 goes. My son will run the 100 and 200. He's signed up for the 400 so if he wants he can run in that, but it's up to him. You never know what kind of mood the kids will be in. It usually depends on how well they do or think they might do. I can almost be assured that if my son thinks he can win a medal in the 400 that he will run it.

So tonight is a stretch/recovery night. I don't do a workout on the day before an important meet so I can give my legs a break. I also try to get some foam rolling in to work out some of the knots in my legs and upper back. I used to go to a massage therapist a couple of days before a meet, but if I'm not in really rough shape I can get by with just the foam rolling. I recently purchased a smaller Rumble Roller that I can bring along with me to meets. The larger one that I have does not travel well, but this should fit right in my bag so I can use it between races.

I only had one track workout this week, but next month I will go with two. One will be early in the week and the other on the weekend. This meet tomorrow will take the place of a workout. Then next weekend is the Warrior Dash so I will definitely need some recovery after that.

Well, I've got some foam rolling to do and we've got an early morning. I'll post our results later this weekend.

Sioux City Reunion

We took a trip to Sioux City this past weekend for a reunion at the college my wife and I attended. It's been about five years since we have been back and a lot has changed. The event was a reunion of folks who were a part of a tutoring program for Vietnamese kids who had recently come over to the United States. Our fraternity was involved as our main community service project. We volunteered time at a local church tutoring students of various ages after their normal school day was done.

It was great to see how the program had such an impact on the lives of not only the students, but also on the teachers and volunteers. The main message that I left with on Saturday night was to not pass up opportunities to make a difference in your community. When you see a chance to be a positive influence, take it.  The people who put this program together are some of the most selfless people that I have ever met. Our Chapter Advisor for the fraternity, Gene Ambrosen, has been a  mentor to so many people over the years. He is a shining example of how we can make a difference and pass along valuable lessons to future generations.

In the words of Gene-O - "It's important that the "new generation" know the importance of giving of themselves. The only way that happens is for each of us to continue to show them "how it works." We must continue to demonstrate it for them by our actions."

On the Track Again

This would be mainly a recovery week based on my P90X2/Asylum hybrid program right now. I would still have a few more intense workouts to start the week since I started in the middle of a week originally. After the MN Masters Championships my legs have been pretty sore. I'm especially having issues with my left calf so I am going to try to be careful with it. I am quickly realizing as I try to get back to running more that this is going to be an issue for me all summer. To help this I picked up some new shoes for my Beachbody workouts.

On my way from from St. Paul I stopped off in Rochester and tried on a lot of shoes. I need a pretty specific type of shoe which is not as common because I tend to supinate when I run, meaning that I run on the outside of my foot. This limits my shoe choices since more people pronate or run on the inside of their foot so there are more shoe options for them. I picked up a pair of Reebok RealFlex shoes for my training. I also tried on some running shoes and found a pair that would work well, but were pretty expensive at the store. I will probably check online to see if I can get a better price.

I was scheduled for X2 Plyocide tonight, but I decided to run at the track instead. The kids just started tennis lessons and wanted to play that evening. I figured I would do a quick workout at the track and then play tennis in place of the Plyocide workout. I had a workout in my training log from last year where I did a quick 300, 200, and 100 with a walk recovery in between. The pace is not fast, but the intent is to simulate the end of a 400. With a warmup and cooldown I could get that done in about a half-hour.

So here was the workout:
Distance         Time         Rest
300 meters     43.35       200 walk
200 meters     28.03       300 walk
100 meters     13.11       Cooldown

Then we played tennis as a family for about an hour. The kids have these low-speed tennis balls that I had never seen before, but I love them. They don't go very far and me and my son were able to get some pretty good volleys in. I could run down just about anything he hit to me because the ball moved so slow so it was a pretty good workout. My calves are feeling it now, but it was pretty fun.

Now I'll follow through on my recovery week which will consist of a couple of core workouts, yoga, and stretching.

A Windy Track Meet

We had the USA Track and Field Minnesota Open and Masters Championships today and boy was it windy. The meet was in St. Paul which is about a two hour drive for me. Since it was forecast to be in the 90s we decided to have the rest of the family stay home so I went up by myself.

For anyone who knows me, there is one thing that I really dislike and that is wind. I guess it's all those years up in the flatlands of the Fargo/Moorhead area. It's also an issue I have with losing my breath when I run into the wind. I don't know if it's the way that I breath while I am running, but it is very difficult for me to catch my breath when running into a strong wind. Today's wind up in the Twin Cities was between 20 and 30 miles per hour.

For the 400 meter race there was a cross wind where it really hit me at the final turn. The worst part was there were a bunch of small buds on a couple of trees that were blowing right into our faces. They were going into my mouth and eyes while I was making the turn so I had to put my head down and take short breaths. Very frustrating going into the final 100 meters. My time was a little over a second slower than my time at the Indoor National Championships. World Champion Antwon Dussett was also in the race and it didnt' seem to affect him, so I need to find a way to do better despite the conditions.

The 200 meters wasn't any better. The wind shifted to being in our faces for the entire home stretch with a big gust hitting us with about 30 meters remaining. I ended up running over 25 seconds for the first time in a long time, so that was disappointing. I still came home with two gold medals, but it's the clock that's my main opponent right now.

In the end, considering that I have only been to the track for one workout so far this year I guess I can't be too hard on myself. It is an eye-opener that I have some work to do before the National Championships in August. The good thing is that there is enough time. I have another meet in two weeks so I will shoot for some better times. I've got a good plan for the next two weeks which will include 3-4 track workouts, P90X2, and the Asylum.

Time to focus and stay on track, no pun intended. As someone once told me, "Don't be defined by the past and don't underestimate the potential that you have." I've got a new goal to run under 53.5 seconds for the 400 in two weeks and under 24.5 for the 200.

First Real Outdoor Track Workout of 2012

I'm falling behind on a lot of stuff right now. It's hard to stay motivated when my mind keeps shifting to other things I should be doing. One key that I heard one of my workout buddies on Team Beachbody say was that motivation will only last for so long. Then discipline needs to kick in. I've been doing pretty well with the P90X2/Asylum hybrid, but getting out to the track and posting to the blog have suffered lately. Since there are two recovery days each week on that program I will try to work it in where my track workouts and meets take the place of a recovery day.

I do have an outdoor meet this weekend. It's the Minnesota and Regional Masters Championships. I always thought it was unusual that the Championship meet is the first outdoor meet of the season, but they use the same venue as the MN State High School meet, which is Friday and Saturday. I assume that they have staff and equipment already from the High School meet so that is the best time for our meet.

I'm already feeling some soreness and some calf issues so I don't want to push it too hard this week. I wanted to get a little speed work in, but nothing too fast. I alternated 100 and 200 meters at about race pace with a walk recovery. Here's basically my workout and times:

Warmup - 10 minutes

Distance      Time       Rest
100m         13.45       200m walk
200m         27.91       300m walk
100m         12.84       200m walk
200m         26.72       300m walk
100m         12.76       3 minutes

Four practice starts with blocks on the 400 meter start curve.
Cooldown

Here's the quote of the day from Shaun T -
"Sports performance is about combining the strength of your heart with the strength of your mind."

The family that runs together has fun(s) together

I thought I would get a track workout in this weekend. Unfortunately, I trusted the psychics who predict the weather and said it was going to be storming all morning. I got up and did a plyometrics workout indoors and then looked outside to see a beautiful day outside. I'm kind of a fairweather runner. I will always work out, but I don't like running at the track if it isn't nice out. I'm doing this for fun and running on a sloppy track and wrecking my shoes is not fun for me.

The Minnesota State Games has Track and Field events for all ages coming up in less than a month. My son has competed with me for the past couple of years and really enjoys it. My daughter said that she would like to run this year. I told her that if she came to the track with me for a workout that she could run. I want to make sure she can handle the start and stay in her lane. She did very well, even with all of the advice from her big brother.

If any of you know how hard it is to write a blog post while your 5 year-old is asking question after question about what you're writing you'll understand why I'm going to wrap up this post. I think we're going to play some Kinect Sports Track and Field.

Bye.

Relief

Since finishing up another round of the Asylum I have been taking the recommended recovery week. There is an actual recovery week plan on the Asylum workout calendar. Here's what it looks like:


Insanity Asylum Recovery Week
Day 1: Rest Day
Day 2: Relief
Day 3: Speed & Agility
Day 4: Rest Day
Day 5: Speed & Agility
Day 6: Relief
Day 7 Rest Day



My last rest day was last night so I'm back at it tonight. My plan at least initially is to do the P90X2/ Insanity Asylum hybrid program that is in the P90X2 guide book. Since I'm only a couple of weeks away from my first summer track meet I really need to start training on the track. My last meet this summer is in August so I don't want to start too early and burn out, but I do need to get going. I will start with a workout this weekend. That means that my Beachbody program schedule will need to be modified so that I can get the workouts in without overtraining.

I have had nightly events going on all week and my wedding anniversary is tomorrow night. It's been great timing for the recovery week, but it's going to be pretty hectic trying to get back into it again. After our church choir picnic tonight I will get the kids off to bed and do the P90X2 Balance + Power. Then I think tomorrow may just need to be an off day. It's my anniversary and I either need to get up early in the morning after already doing a workout tonight or try to get one in tomorrow night and end up in the dog house. Our Friday morning group is also planning to do an Asylum workout so I would have the same issue of working out at night and then the next morning.

I can't wait to start logging some 400 meter track workouts soon and I'll post my workouts and times to give you a feel for what I'm doing for training. If you're new to the blog, my typical plan of attack is to do most of my workouts at home and then one to two track workouts each week. That keeps my legs healthy while keeping my conditioning at a good level.