What's Next?

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

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

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

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

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

Extra Life Marathon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

First Pro Football Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

The deal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13 Pounds...What?

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

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

"Can you feel this?"

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

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

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

The Ultimate Reset - Week 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

USA Track and Field Masters Recap

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

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

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

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

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