I'm Going to the 2013 USA Outdoor Championships

A little while ago I mentioned on the blog about how I wasn't going to be able to compete in the USA Track and Field Masters Outdoor Championships because of a scheduling conflict. I'm still disappointed about that, but I am excited that I will be attending the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships this coming weekend. Now just as a point of clarification, these are the elite track and field athletes. People like Tyson Gay, Sanya Richards-Ross, Justin Gatlin, LaShawn Merritt, and Allyson Felix.

This is the meet that is used to determine who will represent Team USA at the IAAF World Championships August 10 - August 18 in Moscow, Russia. The World Championships only take place every-other year, so most of the big stars of Track and Field will be at the US Championships this year. 

It also happens to be taking place in Des Moines, Iowa at Drake Stadium. I haven't been back to Drake since 1995 when I was there to compete in the Drake Relays in college. My first memory of the Drake Relays was the year before that when I warmed up on the track with Carl Lewis and stood about five feet away from him as he started the 100 meter dash. But that's a story for another time. Des Moines is about a four-hour drive from my home so it works out great. Me and my son are going to go down there for three days. It should be some good bonding time for us and he seems to be excited about it as well. We're especially looking forward to the 100 Meter Men's final on Friday night. 

Our seats are in the section right after the finish line in the second row. As long as we get some good weather this weekend it should be a great time. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll consider it a week-after Father's Day weekend for me and my son.

One night a father overheard his son pray: 
Dear God, Make me the kind of man my Daddy is. 
Later that night, the Father prayed, 
Dear God, Make me the kind of man my son wants me to be.
~ Unknown

USA Track & Field Minnesota Masters and Mid-America Open Track & Field Outdoor Championships

We had the USATF MN Association Open and Masters meet this past weekend up in the Twin Cities. It seems like it is early in the track season to hold the State Championship meet, but the always run it the day after the Minnesota High School Track and Field Championships at the same venue. They also run a regional meet called the Mid-America Open.

The way it works is that if you are from Minnesota you are competing in both meets. If you are not, you are running in the Mid-America meet. The Minnesota meet is broken up into age groups, so the open division is 19-29 and Masters is five-year increments after that. My current age group is 35-39. So it's possible for a Minnesota resident to place twice in one event. For example, I placed first in my age group in the 400 Meters for Minnesota and third in the Mid-America Region Open. They used to have different age categories for the Regional meet, which meant that for age groups like mine without a lot of participation, I would come home with a lot of medals. I like this way of doing it better because it adds more value to being able to place in the Region.

As far as my times from this past weekend, I was pretty happy with my performances. Based on the weather conditions at the meet, my limited training so far this year, and my times I was hitting in practice, I was expecting to hit about 54 seconds in the 400 meters. I ended up running 53.28 which is quite a bit faster than I ran last year at this time. It at least gives me a small amount of hope that I might be able to get under the All-American Standard time of 52.5 seconds. With my shortened season I only have one more chance to hit that this year at the end of this month. And you never know what the weather will be like on that day.

Speaking of weather, we had some pretty rainy conditions this past weekend. It was pretty cool and was sprinkling a little bit for the 400 meters, which wasn't too bad. There was a pretty strong wind on the home stretch, but it wasn't terrible. By the time we got to our 200 meter race it was raining pretty hard. They were having some issues with the timing system so we were standing out in the rain for quite a while before our race. There's always a concern about staying warm and not straining any muscles when it gets colder out so the longer we were standing there, the more nervous I got. I went out a little tentative in the 200, but at the same time I really wanted to get to the finish line to get it done. I thought I ran a pretty good race considering the conditions.

Unfortunately, the timing system that they used for the meet had some issues with the rain and did not register the starting gun. They brought us all into a tent at the end of the meet and explained that they did not have our times. It was disappointing, but at the same time it probably doesn't really matter all that much. I don't think my 200 time would have been all that exceptional anyway. It would just be nice to know where I'm at even if the conditions were poor.

As I have mentioned a few times before, I am kind of a fairweather person when it comes to training outside on the track. I figure at my age it might as well be a nice day if I am going to run around outside. Otherwise I can just do my workouts in the comfort of my home. I might need to reconsider that a little bit and just go off of what my training schedule says I should do.

So with that, here is the quote for this post -

There is no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.
-Bill Bowerman 

The Masters Championships Dilemma

I was soooo looking forward to the USA Track and Field Masters Championships this year. I feel like I had a pretty good showing last year, placing 3rd in the 400 meters and 4th in the 200 meters. I was also just over a tenth of a second away from hitting the All-American mark in the 400 meters.

This year the National Championships are going to be held in Olathe, KS. When I asked my best man, who lives in Kansas City how far it is from him, he said it's only minutes away from his home. "Perfect", I though. A good excuse to see my friend and run in the meet all over one long weekend. Maybe we can even get a masters relay team together. They have had the date up on the website for the past year and it just so happens it was scheduled for my birthday weekend. I would actually be running the 400 meter finals on my birthday. This is great. I cleared my schedule for the weekend and a couple of days before and after. I was so excited.

Then they opened up the website for registration...

"That's not the right date" I thought to myself as I clicked the link for the webpage. They moved the date up by a weekend. How can this be? They have had the other date on their website for the past eight months. I had a sinking feeling in my gut that we had something else going on that weekend. I walked upstairs to check our master calendar and sure enough, we have a family trip scheduled to go to Wisconsin Dells. My wife's sister is coming over from Taiwan with her kids and her entire family has blocked off the time to be there.

I tried to figure out any good way that I could make it work and I can't come up with anything. So it looks like I will be missing the National Championships this year. I'm still training, but for a much shorter season. It's also harder for me to get motivated to get out and train hard without having as much at stake. But it might be a good opportunity to try some different things with my training.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.  - Sri Ram

USATF Minnesota Indoor Championships

The Minnesota Indoor Championships were last weekend at the University of Minnesota. After my little bout with illness over the past couple of weeks it was up in the air if I was going to run or not. I really didn't make the decision until that morning, but I decided it was best if I didn't run. It was tough to be there watching the Masters races. Actually, it was much tougher than I thought it would be. I put so much into getting ready for this meet that it was disappointing to not be able to see what I could do.

It was good to see some familiar faces at the meet. This meet was better attended than many of the Charities Challenge meets so it was fun to catch up with some folks that I haven't seen in a while.

The afternoon was the youth meet and we had a pretty good showing from the La Crosse area. Many youth from the La Crosse Track Club were there and put on a good showing of the track athletes from our area. My son and his friend competed in the 60, 200, and 400 meter races. Even though I was disappointed to not run myself, I have found that I almost get more happiness from watching my son compete and have fun.

Here is his 400 meter race. He is starting in lane five and his friend is in lane six.



There was a post that Shaun T made on his Facebook page today that I really liked and thought I would share with you today.

Not everyone is good at math but its time for you (and me) to create and solve our daily equations.

I want you to come up with three equations. 3 equations that you create. And by solving these equations you are producing answers that you will LIVE by for today.

My three equations are:
... 1. Workout + eating well= a healthier day.

2. Speaking my mind + keeping others feelings and interpretation in mind= positive results

3. Doing one thing that makes me happy + doing one thing that makes someone else happy= a better relationship.

Write these equations on a post-it note and look at them once an hour. Hopefully this will help you have a more productive day! A day that is filled with goodness that YOU created.

- Shaun T.

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

My busy time of year

January is normally the busiest time of year for me at work. It's also one of the times where people are starting their workout programs again so the Beachbody Coaching really takes off right now as well. I normally have a pretty big video project that I do for our CEO that takes up a good portion of time, as well as nights and weekends early in the year. This year the deadline is about a month earlier than normal. We knew this going into the year so we planned to get an early start.

Sounds easy enough. Just drop everything else and work on the big project for now. Then get the other ones done next month. Well, there are always other things that come up that need to be done right away. Here's an example of how someone's decisions that can seemingly not have anything to do with you can end up having a big effect.

This weekend we have a grand opening for our Behavioral Health Center. It's a beautiful building and will be a great asset to the community. We were supposed to have a special guest speaker, who will remain unnamed, but you can probably figure it out. She is a multi-time Olympic athlete and highly decorated Big 10 runner for the University of Wisconsin. For someone who loves Track and Field like I do, I was very excited about this. It's not very often that I would have a chance to work with an Olympic Track and Field athlete for my usual job.

She was going to talk about her struggles with depression and stress the importance of behavioral health care. As you probably know she has been in the news a lot these past few weeks for her side business of being an escort. I'm not going to get into that, but the point is that because of the news coming out her appearance did not happen.

Instead of being able to work three events with an Olympic Track and Field athlete, the decision was made to show a video instead. This meant that we had to pull something together fairly quickly. Time that I normally might have spent working on the video for the CEO was now going into getting a video ready for the Behavioral Health Center grand opening.

I enjoy working on these kinds of videos anyway and I think it turned out well. I just know it's going to be a really busy rest of the month. That adds a lot of stress. I'll plan to keep on working out in the morning with my wife (we are currently going through Les Mills Combat). There may be some late nights and weekends, but I'll stay on track with my training as much as possible.


“It's up to you today to start making healthy choices. Not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind.”  - Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."