The Starting Blocks

When I came home from work the other night there was a box waiting for me. I was so excited I rushed into the house to open it up. It was a new set of starting blocks I just ordered over the weekend.

I've never owned starting blocks before, and it's one of those areas I haven't really spent a lot of time on. Unless you own or have access to blocks the only time you really get to use them is at a meet. As I get older, any little improvements I can make can make an impact on improving my sprinting times.

We've got an indoor meet coming up this weekend and the current plan is to go as a family. It's a very informal meet for all ages. My son will run and we should have a decent size group from our area going up. It's always fun to see the kids competing because they have the ability to get better every time they compete. As opposed to us Masters athletes who fight to slow our declining performances as much as possible.

My current training program is really a mix of different programs. I don't do any indoor training on a track, partially to give my legs a rest in the winter, but also due to not having easy access to a track to practice on. I'm still working out with my wife for about half of the week so those days are either Les Mills Combat or Turbo Fire. For the past couple of weeks I have been adding in P90X, RevAbs, and Insanity: The Asylum workouts. I still think Asylum has the best workouts for Track and Field so I try to get those in on days where I can really get a good workout in. The past couple of weekends I have done the Game Day and Championship workouts as my meet day simulations.

So we'll see if the hybrid workout approach pays off this weekend or if I will need to make some modifications and go more specifically to an Asylum-based program.

It will also be interesting to see how my son does with a block start. He's been practicing with the blocks, but it almost seems to be throwing off his first few steps. I think at this point he doesn't want to use them, but I'll have them there in case he changes his mind.

It's been fun to watch the kids practicing with the blocks. They take turns with a Nerf gun as the starting pistol and run through their whole starting sequence just like the pros. Very cute.

The quote for this week is from Insanity: The Asylum Volume 2 - Championship:

"Whenever there's 70 meters left to go in a 400 you've got two choices to make - you can give up, or you can keep going." - Shaun T

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

Finished Another Round of Insanity Asylum

I recently finished my best round of Insanity: The Asylum. I really tried to push hard this time and follow the program exactly as it is written. I did not do a good job toward the end of P90X2 and ended up putting some weight back on. I think that since the USATF Indoor National meet I let myself slide a bit.

I took a lot of video of this round and hope to put something together soon. For now, here are my new fit test numbers and before and after pictures.

I started out at 174 lbs and weighed in at 165 after the 30 days was over.

Not a lot of difference in the pictures from this round other than my chest hair disappearing, but I was able to cut some fat especially in my midsection. I also feel so much better and don't get tired as easily during the workouts.

As Shaun T says, "I'm smiling because I love it."

One week of Asylum left

I'm on my last week of Asylum. I've actually got a day off today, which is rare. There are relief days, which consist of mostly stretching, but only two actual "off" days. I can tell that I'm toning up and have dropped about seven lbs in the three weeks so far. I sometimes feel like this is the program that was made for me. Even though there are parts of the workouts that I don't do well with, overall it just seems to work for me. There are always those few last pounds that don't seem to come off well without a lot of effort. For me, this is the program that gets me there.

I'm also feeling pretty good about my cardio conditioning. I would still like to get better, but overall I've improved quite a bit through these past few weeks. I've been capturing video of my progress through the workouts and hope to put some recaps up on this blog or over at www.promisetobefit.com soon. One thing about being a video producer is that I edit video every day. Sometimes the last thing that I want to do after doing it at work is to go home and edit video. I'll get some videos posted in the next couple of weeks.

I'm going to quote Shaun T this week. "If your body left it up to your mind, you probably wouldn't do it."

Still Fits

I had a red carpet premiere event of a video I worked on recently. I decided that I should probably wear a suit to the event. But wait, I have a tux that I had to buy back in 1992 when I was in my college Concert Chorale. I have no idea when the last time was that I wore the tux, but I thought I would try it on to see if it fits. Sure enough it fit just fine. I was able to wear the tux for the night pretty comfortably.

At the time I purchased the tux originally (1992), I had been through my first season of college cross-country. I wasn't able to put weight on if I tried, so it's pretty impressive that I am able to wear anything that I used to wear at that time. It's a great feeling to know that even after all the weight I put on since college, I have been able to get myself back to my college shape.

I've started up my second week of Insanity: Asylum this week. I feel like I've hit it pretty hard and I'm really feeling strong right now. I weighed in today and I'm down four pounds from my weigh-in last week. Some of that is probably water weight, but it's still good to be back down under 170 again. That's pretty low for me, but I think I can probably still drop about five more pounds by the end of the 30-day program.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

—Jim Rohn

Time to get serious

Enough time off from workouts. Enough Reese's peanut butter eggs. Enough spending nights and weekends at work. It's time to get back on a program.

I finished up P90X2 and now I'm ready to get into my track training. I had a choice between doing the new 21-day Ultimate Reset or get myself back on a consistent workout schedule and eating plan. The reset seemed like a good option to reset my body since I've been slacking these past few weeks, but you're not supposed to work out while you're doing it. There is a group of coaches that are starting the Ultimate Reset so this would have been a good time. I just feel like working on my cardio and strength is a better option right now.

So here's my plan. Insanity: The Asylum for 30 days. I took new before pictures and statistics. I also video recorded my fit test and I will record a workout each week. When that's done I plan to do the P90X2/Asylum hybrid program that's included in the P90X2 guide. I'll have some track meets in there so hopefully those will fit in between the three phases. I think I'll stick with one or two track workouts each week and I'll try to do those on days that won't mess up the rest of the workouts. I should finish up around mid-August which will be right after the USA Track & Field National Masters Outdoor Championships. Then I'll think about doing the Ultimate Reset.

Sounds ambitious, I know. I'll just have to adjust and adapt my workouts based on my track schedule. This is the time to get serious. What I do now is going to have a big effect on what happens in August, so let's get out there and do this. No more messing around.

Peanut Butter Eggs

The Reese's peanut butter egg is my nemesis. It's a love/hate relationship. I love to eat them and I hate when I have to stop eating them. I know they are not good for me, but there is just something about them that makes me want them so badly. If I pick up a six-pack I will probably eat all six in one sitting unless I have to give some of them away. I have intentionally not picked up any peanut butter eggs for quite a while now. I know that once Easter is over they will not be available for a while so I thought I would pick some up. I bought four packs of six. The Easter Bunny also delivered some to us. There is one pack left and I'm pretty sure I ate most of them.

I also haven't been working out very regularly since the USATFONMC. I am going to do my last week of P90X2 this week and then switch over to Insanity: The Asylum for 30 days. It's easy to think of being either on or off a program and right now I feel like I am off. My diet needs to get back on track so I don't undo the progress of all my hard work over the winter. After all the peanut butter eggs are gone I won't have anything else to worry about. There is a great chocolate-peanut butter Shakeology recipe that I think can get me through until next Easter.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is it's time to start working out again.

What to do now

The USATFMNC threw a bit of a wrench into my normal training schedule. Since this was the first year with a big track meet in the winter, this is the first year that I have had my 90-day workout schedule interrupted. Even last year when I hurt my back I was still able to continue on with P90X with just a bit of modification to the schedule. My real problem with not being on a program where I know what I will do each day is that I am more likely to skip a workout. It's too easy when I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do for a workout to just pick the thing that is short or easy.

I also remember someone posting a comment on a blog at TeamBeachbody.com where he said that if he is not following a program where he knows exactly what he's supposed to do, then a bowl of ice cream goes into his belly while he watches TV instead. That's kind of how I feel too. It's easy to think that you're either on a program or off a program. When you're off you can sit around and eat anything you want because you're going to get back on in a week or two. Or three. Or four.

So what have I been doing these past couple of weeks? I've been continuing on with P90X2 for the most part. We decided to switch things up a bit for or Friday morning workout group. We did an Insanity Plyo workout last week. Insanity takes it's toll on my calves. With my compartment syndrome I am not able to do things like jogging for more than a few minutes without pain. For some reason the newer Insanity: The Asylum does not bother my calves. I actually find it better than trying to run on the track.

With my calves already sore from Insanity, I wanted to play basketball on Sunday since it was the last opportunity until next September. Between Insanity and basketball my left calf was not happy with me. So I had to take it easy for a few days. I've taken this opportunity to play with the kids every night this week. It's still active and I think it sets a good example that you can still play when you get older.

We did another Insanity workout this morning and I don't think I will have any calf issues this weekend. My plan is to do two more P90X2 P.A.P. workouts and then start back up on Insanity: The Asylum. That's a 30-day program so I will either go back to P90X or P90X2 after that along with starting one or two track workouts each week. I've just got to get back on to something.

The Shakeology Cleanse

I've got a lot to cover so I'm going to try to get it all down while it's still in my brain.

I'm less than a week out from the USATF Indoor Masters National Championships in Indiana. I don't yet have my entire trip planned out , but I'm pretty close. Just working out some details of what time I can leave on Thursday. My first race is the 400 meters on Friday afternoon at 3:30 pm so I've got a little time if I didn't want to get all the way there on Thursday night. They are going to run the 400 as a timed final, so we should have a couple of heats and I'm not sure how they put them together. Then I think they just go by time for the places. So you could win your heat and not place. I guess I would rather do that than have to run prelims and a final.

I have been tracking my exercise time for a thing at church called the Journey to Jerusalem where we log our miles and try to make it a certain distance by Easter. As I tracked my time over the past few weeks I realized that I have not taken a day off from exercise during that time. I also did about a week and a half of two workouts a day. Some of those workouts were Insanity: The Asylum followed by P90X2. No wonder my back is mad at me. My lower back problems have returned, but I have stayed ahead of it so far. I had a few days at work with a lot of standing and that seems to be the worst thing for it. I just need to be really careful right now not to push it too hard.

I also weighed in last Friday and the scale showed 172 lbs. That's probably lower than I usually am at this time of the year, but when thinking about having a national track meet next weekend, that's a little higher than I would like to be. I still think I need to take about a second off of my 400 times that I ran so far this year and the lighter I can be while still maintaining strength, the faster I should be. I don't want to add too much more cardio into my workouts and I realized that it is probably my diet more than anything right now that is keeping me above 170 lbs. It's odd to think that not too long ago I was 200 lbs and would have been more than happy to be under 190.

What I decided to do was something called the Shakeology Cleanse. I will go into more detail on what it is on Promisetobefit.com, but basically it is replacing breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a shake. Then you only eat fruits and vegetables for the rest of your snacks. You're supposed to do it for three days. I am just doing it for one as a test run. Drinking the shakes is the easy part because I have three different kinds here at home and there is a lot of variety in some of the recipes. The eating of only fruits and vegetables the rest of the time was the difficult part. I think I could do this for three days and I'm sure it would really take some weight off in a short period of time.

What a month

February was a very busy month. I haven't posted to the blog much this month and probably haven't been doing a very good job checking in with the people I am coaching. I had a big project at work that took up a lot of time including nights and weekends. The problem is that even now that the project is almost done, everything else has built up behind it. It's like being gone on vacation for three weeks and coming back to everything that has come in during that time, only without the break of actually being on vacation.

So here's a quick update. I decided to run the USA Track & Field Masters National Indoor Championships in a couple of weeks. I plan to run the 400 and the 200 meters. Since I am not currently training on a track all of my workouts will be Beachbody programs. I'm still going through P90X2 and plan to stay on schedule, but I have also added Insanity: The Asylum workouts as well. I think the Asylum workouts help me to train my speed and endurance as much as possible without actually running on a track.

I'm currently doing 2-a-day workouts on about half of the days each week. Typically this would be some kind of cardio workout in the morning and then the P90X2 workout at night. I may also work in a high intensity cross-trainer workout for 20 minutes when I can get away at work. If I do the cross-trainer then I only do one other workout. I need to work on my endurance and also burn off a little fat. I'm about 7 lbs heavy right now for where I would like to be for competition. I'll need to focus a little more on the diet and may do a Shakeology cleanse this week.

I'm also planning to move to Phase 3 of the P90X2 program. I hear the workouts are pretty intense so that will be a good thing right about now. I'll take part of my competition week as the start of a recovery week which will include a few days of Yoga. I've got it all figured out in my head so we'll see how my body responds.

I'll try to update a little more often than I have been lately. It helps to keep me on track and think through what I am doing. We'll see how this all works out. Last year was the first time that I ran an indoor meet for a long time. This year I ran three indoor meets so far so I have at least been on the track. The competition looks pretty good for the Indoor Championships so I will have to step up my training, especially this week.

Charities Challenge Track Meet

I had my first indoor track meet of the year (or you could say the last meet of the year) this past weekend. They did not have blocks for us, which was a bit of a surprise. Otherwise it was a great meet and very well run. I wanted to see how I could do only using Insanity as my workout program. Last summer I backed off on the training on the track and used Insanity: Asylum. This year it was the original Insanity program.



We only ended up four people in our heat for the 400 meter dash. Just as we were lining up the first heat of the 400 Meters, one of the officials pulled a couple of us out because he wanted a couple of people from the fast heat to run with two late high school aged entrants. They thought it would be better to split up the fast heat into two groups of four than to have the younger guys run against the older men. As it turned out, the other two kids probably would have been better off running with the older heats.

Overall I thought it went pretty well. I should have gone out faster, but I'm just not used to the pacing for an indoor meet yet. I'm going to try to get into a few more of these meets and I should be able to improve my times later in the winter. I'll also be starting up P90X2 as my primary workout program. It is specific for sports performance improvement so we'll see how that goes.

First Week Insanity Impressions

I made it through the first week of the original Insanity program, so here's some impressions so far. It's going to be difficult for me to talk about the program without comparing it to Insanity: The Asylum so I'll get a couple of things out of the way first. Insanity is broken up into two 4-week segments with a recovery week in between. The workouts from this week have been easier compared to Asylum, but I have a feeling that after this first month they will get harder. Plus the Asylum is meant to be a sequel to Insanity so I expected it would be harder. There is also a definite timed structure to the Insanity workouts that is not as apparent in the Asylum. Alright, no more comparisons.

Each workout in the first 30 days has the word cardio in it. There's a good reason for this. These are all cardio workouts. There are no pullups or resistance moves. For folks without weights, bands, and pullup bars this is appealing since there is no equipment needed. The program starts with a fit test that you take every couple of weeks to track your progress. I like to be able to look back at numbers to see where I have improved so it's nice that it is incorporated into the program with specific days assigned to take the test.

There are five DVDs that you rotate between for the first 30 days.
Fit Test
Plyometric Cardio Circuit
Cardio Power & Resistance
Cardio Recovery
Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs

You start out each workout with a warmup. So far the warmup has been the same for every day except  for the Cardio Recovery day. I have yet to make it through the entire warmup without taking a break, but I'm working on it. That will be my goal by the end of week two. That's sad to say, but it shows how intense this program is. I don't see a lot of difference right now in the types of exercises for the different days except for the Fit Test and the Cardio Recovery day. The Cardio Recovery is kind of a stretch and balance day, but there is still a fair amount of cardio work. I expected it to be a pretty easy workout and ended up having to take a couple of breaks.

I ended up missing a workout on Friday night unexpectedly, so I did two workouts on yesterday. I did one in the morning and one around 5 pm. I really wanted to play basketall today and didn't think I could get in an Insanity workout and basketball. I don't want to get behind on my schedule and I know it will be hard enough with the holidays coming up to not miss days. My plan is to do two workouts on any days that I need to make up a workout or shift my off days where needed. I'll just have to keep a check on my my body so I don't overdo it.

My plan is to post some short thoughts on the workouts a few times a week as I go through the program. So look for updates throught the week.

"Don't hate me, because I'm going to make you look good." - Shaun T

http://teambeachbody.com/shop/-/shopping/Insanity?referringRepId=111635

Without a plan

I've been working out without a plan for a couple of weeks now. I thought I would go back to P90X workouts for a few weeks, then take a week off for vacation, and come back to P90X until P90X2 comes out. But I started missing the Asylum workouts, especially the fact that they are usually 30 - 45 minutes long.

I find it is difficult to just decide at the last minute what I want to do. In fact, what I really want to do is lay down on the couch and watch a movie. That's why my brain must tell my body that it needs to push play on the workout video and do it. Once I'm started, I'm committed. It's starting that's the difficult part.

So tonight I decided to do P90X Back and Biceps mainly because I was looking for a good weightlifting workout. I am not as concerned for these next couple of months with keeping my weight down and I would like to increase my strength before starting P90X2. I did the Asylum Strength workout which mainly worked my chest and shoulders so I wanted to back off from that. In fact, I probably should have done a plyometric workout or yoga tonight, but I felt like lifting weights instead. I will probably be taking tomorrow off so I think this was a good choice.

I need to get back on some kind of a routine and have a plan so I don't fall into the danger of deciding not to work out. Take the decision making out of the equation and then there's nothing to it but to do it. I like these little quotes that Tony Horton and Shaun T use so I think I'm going to incorporate them into my posts from now on.

"Do your best and forget the rest." - Tony Horton

Who got the better delivery?

Today I came home to find yet another t-shirt waiting for me. This time it was the Insanity: Asylum - "I'm Committed" shirt for completing the Asylum program.

But this time there was another box waiting there by the door as well. A larger one with my daughter's name on it. We just had her birthday party this weekend so we opened them up at the same time to see what we got. It seems that we both received clothes. Hers were for Barbie dolls and mine was for me. Hers was a gift from her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Taiwan and mine was a reward for completing a month of some of the hardest workouts available on DVD. 

Happy birthday to my little girl.