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."

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.

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."

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 Week After the USATF Indoor Championships

Well, it's been about a week since the conclusion of the USA Track and Field Indoor National Masters Championships. I need to come up with an acronym for that to shorten it up. From now on it is the USATFINMC. That's much better.

I didn't get an update posted after the meet, so here's what happened on the last day. I ran the 200 meter dash. We had preliminaries in the morning. My goal was to make the final if possible. I knew it would be a fast field of runners and only six spots for the finals so it would be tough, but possible if I ran well. I ran my best indoor 200 and made the finals in the 5th spot. My time was 24.04 (so close to being in the 23s). My left hamstring was starting to get pretty tight so mentally I was concerned about it in the final. I tried to stay as relaxed as possible and get a good warmup in prior to the race. My time was not as good as the prelim, but I still managed to get 4th place.

Overall it was a pretty good meet. Since indoor times are usually slower than outdoor I am pretty optimistic about the outdoor season. It's also bee nice enough that I can start some training on the track early this year.

Since I've been back home I did one P90X2 workout of P.A.P. Upper and Plyocide. I also did one Insanity workout and a short workout on the track. The track workout was three 200s with a 200 walk recovery between each one. I try to stay around 27-28 seconds for each 200 so they are not too fast. It's important not to take too much rest in between. This will help to build up to some of the endurance workouts I have planned for next month where I run 4 - 200s and keep increasing the speed and reducing the rest as the season goes on.

My back has been feeling pretty good lately, but I will continue to keep an eye on things and keep stretching and icing. I have been feeling pretty sick the last couple of days. I normally don't take days off from working out, but I think I can afford to take it easy right now and let my body recover before hitting it hard again.

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.

P.A.P. Upper and Lower - P90X2 Phase 3

I've gone through both the PAP Upper and Lower body workouts this week. One thing I can say for those who are just getting started with P90X2. It all leads up to this. Just like the Karate Kid had to learn to paint the fence before he learned how to do Karate, you must first master Phase 1 and 2 of P90X2 to get to the P.A.P. (Post-Activation Potentiation). The workouts were not that bad. It's more of a circuit than many of the other workouts in Phase 1 and 2.

Dr. Marcus Elliot can explain things much better than I can so here's a video about how P.A.P is used in P90X2.


Good stuff. Well, I'm a week away from heading to Indiana for the Masters Track and Field Indoor Championships. I can feel that I am not in as good of shape as I would like to be right now. My lower back has also been bothering me so I've been trying to back off a little bit on some of the workouts after doing 2-a-days until early this week. Now I'm just trying to maintain some conditioning and keep my back healthy until next week.

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.

P90X2 Phase 2

After four weeks of P90X2 Phase 1 I decided to move on to Phase 2. If you were going through P90X2 and missing all the pullups from P90X, you're in luck. The first workout in Phase 2 P90X2 has all the pullups you will ever want to do and then some. My back hasn't been this sore since my first week of the original P90X a couple of years ago. I'm loving my Rumble Roller now more than ever.

I started taking this E & E pre-workout supplement and that has helped me feel more energetic during my recent workouts, but I have also felt like I was going to throw up a couple of times. I believe that this has happened because I have pushed myself to the point of being nauseous. I'll have to monitor where I'm at during my workouts and try some workouts with and without the supplement to see for sure. I'm unsure if I will try to use this for my track workouts. I have looked into similar supplements in the past, but some of them had ingredients that were on the banned list for the NCAA, so it's not something I want to take a chance on since there is now drug testing in USATF Masters.

While I was doing my workout tonight my daughter came down and said, "Daddy, you used to be just a little bit fat before you were doing your workouts." I wasn't quite sure what that was all about, but when I got done I found out she had been watching a show on TLC called My 600 Pound Life. I caught some of the show and it is amazing to see the transformations that people can go through, but also how difficult it is to stay on track.

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks for me at work so the blog is probably going to be updated a little less frequently. But I'll be here. Shoot me an email at phaack@beachbodycoach.com if you have any questions or need anything.

How to keep going when life takes over

This is my craziest time of the year. I have a big project at work for our CEO with a tight deadline. As the deadline gets closer I know I will be working nights and weekends to get it done. Just because this big project is going on doesn't mean that everything else goes away either. So how does someone keep working out with even less available time in the day? The answer for me is commitment.

I have made a commitment to do my workouts and I am going to stick with it. That doesn't mean that I might not have to switch some workout days around or modify things a bit, but I will get my workouts in. I'll do it at 10 pm if I need to. As Jeff Hill said on one of the Team Beachbody Coach calls "Once you make a commitment, the decisions you make will be surrounded by that commitment."

There's a reason I started the P90X2 program. I want to to be healthy and energetic. I want to look good and feel good. If I forget that then I am simply going through the motions to get to the end. If I remember my "why" and focus on it, I can push harder and use that as my motivation to get through the tough times. Life rewards action.

I'll leave you with a couple of quotes today.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky

"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." - Jim Rohn

The cooking experiment

I've been trying out some new recipes lately in an effort to help with the dinner around the house. I also wanted to make sure I am incorporating some P90X2 friendly meals for dinner. So far I have tried three recipes from either teambeachbody.com or the P90X2 diet guide. One has been moderately successful with the family and that was a breakfast frittata. The other two did not go so well.

Normally we do pretty well for having healthy dinners. My biggest problem is that I am a pretty picky eater, especially when it comes to things that are good for you. I could eat cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and pizza every day. But I have to choke down a chicken breast or most vegetables, especially cooked veggies. The rest of the family likes them, so that leaves me to either force myself to eat them or grab something else for myself.

So I picked out a few recipes from the P90X2 diet guide that I decided I would make. My first attempt was fish tacos. Now I'm sure that when prepared by someone who knows what they are doing these are probably delicious. The problem is that instead of someone who knows what they are doing, I attempted to make these. Needless to say they did not turn out so well. My son keeps reminding me of the time that we had fish that didn't taste like anything.

As I mentioned, the frittatas turned out well. For the kids I cheated a bit. What they got was more of a ham and cheese omelette. Mine was completely egg whites, but for theirs I still used some yolks. It's hard to mess up eggs too much and I have been making omelettes for years, so it's a small victory.

Yesterday I made up some chicken bacon ranch wraps. It's one way that I can eat chicken and enjoy it. It also has a good mix of vegetables inside that I can make up to bring to work. It's a complete meal all wrapped up in one convenient package. My son didn't like that there were onions in it and my daughter took all of the insides out and just ate the tortilla shell. My wife ate hers, but only wanted a little bit because she was not very hungry when we started to eat.

So I guess the moral is that I can still make up these foods for my lunches, but maybe I should stick to homemade whole wheat pizza when I cook for the family. I know they like that.

First few weeks P90X2 impressions

Normally I like to put out a post after a week on a new program of my impressions. This time I thought a week was not enough. I officially started P90X2 on January 2, 2012, although I had done a walkthrough of some of the videos prior to that. The thing I noticed about many of the exercises that made P90X2 different from P90X was the learning curve.

P90X2 workouts involve a lot more balance and stability than I am used to. It has taken me a little while to get the hang of some of the moves, or to be able to do them without falling over. It can be discouraging, but I had the exact same feeling when I did P90X YogaX for the first time almost two years ago. I got better and eventually learned to embrace the things that are difficult. It's more rewarding to accomplish something that is hard than to do something that is easy from the start.

The length of the workouts is roughly the same or shorter. Yoga is about 30 minutes shorter, and the Ab Ripper routine is only on the schedule once a week for the first level. There is a greater emphasis on core strength through the normal workouts so there is not as much need for a specific ab routine more than that.

The one big thing that I notice is that the workouts seemed easier to me than the original P90X when I started. Now I see that it was more a matter of me trying to figure out the moves instead of just doing them. Once I started getting the moves down I found that I was trying to keep up with the folks in the video for reps and it was not so easy anymore. I could also increase my weights on the exercises that use them. This is also level one of three so it is going to ramp up. I'm looking forward to starting up level two in a week or two.

What I've been up to this year

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I haven't updated in a while, so here's a brief recap of what's been going on in this new year.

At the request of my Beachbody Coach I finally put together a YouTube video talking about my transformation journey. That took a fair amount of time to edit so I've been taking it easy on the blogging and updating at PromiseToBeFit.com since then. Here's what I put together for my transformation video:



After posting the video I was asked to write a guest article for Pledge 2 Stay Fit talking about my story. Here's a link to the article: How Team Beachbody and P90X Changed Pete Haack’s Life. It's also been picked up on a number of other sites as well, so I've been busy lately answering a lot of questions about my nutrition and workouts and helping others get started on their transformations.

I've also officially started P90X2. I'm about a week and a half into it. I had Lasik surgery two days ago so I had to take a couple of days easy, but I should be back to normal workouts soon.

Last Sunday I ran the 200 and 400 Meters at an indoor track meet. My 200 was almost identical in time to my previous meet a few weeks ago. My 400 did not go very well. I got out slow and never really figured out my pacing. I let myself get behind another runner and couldn't commit to whether or not I was going to pass him until it was too late. Indoor 400s are just difficult for me mentally to keep from relaxing too much on the first lap and leaving way too much for the end. I'm hoping to get one more meet in this year so I can at least post a decent time.

It was an all-ages meet so my son ran at the meet also and did quite well. I think I get more satisfaction from watching my kids accomplish things than I do for myself. So while I was disappointed with my performance, I was excited to see my son break two of the meet records. He cut about 25 seconds off of his previous 400 meter time...while I can't even cut 1/2 second off of my time. Oh, to be a kid again.

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.