Yay, I did it!

Worked out two days in a row...I know, shocking, right?

Today, I got back on the pavement and ran. But a little twist was added. I'm sure I've mentioned in here many times before the 1.37 mile loop, right? Well I decided to run it twice. The first time I ran it really slow...just to kind of get warmed up, I guess. The second time, I took it at what would be my race pace. The first one was in 15:11 and the second one was in 13:35. So I ran it about 2 minutes faster. The thing about that loop that sucks is there's that big ass hill I have to run up, and by the time I've scaled it I only have a mile left to run, so it takes a little while to get my energy back. So what I think I will do instead when I want to measure my splits is do the 2.12 mile loop. Sure it's longer but it's also a lot more downhill. And we all are huge fans of running downhill, aren't we? ;-)

Gymming it up tomorrow. There's a Mens Health workout the girlfriend and I are going to try. Don't be surprised if one of us is dead.

Still FailBlogging

I did forget to blog last Tuesday as I did actually work out before going to Minnesota - we lifted! For like the first time in forever!

3/10/10 db curls; 2/10/15 bent over rows; 3/10/15 two-handed tri extensions; 1/10/25, 2/10/30 cable cross

But, since then .... nothing until today. Went for the trail loop run (as i've unceremoniously dubbed it) - 2.14 mi in 22:44 for a 10:37.38 mile. Not great, but given that the weather is schizophrenic right now as it usually is in Colorado this time of year (sunny and warmish with a cold-ass wind) AND I haven't done crapola lately ... I'll take it.

But, two other things of note on this run:

- I recently bought these in red/black and today was the first time I've been able to test it out. I've worn other stuff by Skirt Sports and enjoy it and this was one of the first pairs of "pants" that haven't been running tights that I've actually liked. It may have admittedly been a little too warm for them today, but still, two thumbs up from me.

- I also recently picked up a pair of Drymax socks, always featured and pimped out by blogger Steve Stenzel from Steve in a Speedo. Since he swears by them and I'm always on the lookout for new running crap, I decided to give them a try. My verdict? Okay. My feet started overheating by the end of my run (though i will admit that might partially because the rest of me started to overheat) plus my feet were as sweaty as usual. Running in the socks was also a little weird as they're thicker than what I'm used to. I think I need to get in a few more runs in them, maybe some longer distances before I definitively say whether or not I like them.

Hi

Been a while, hasn't it? No excuse really, just life in general has been uber busy and working out has taken a backseat.

Anyway, the only excuse I'm going to make is that it is still winter (not anymore, but it was) and winter really has a negative effect on your workouts. Today girlfriend and I tried to nip that and decided it's time to just get back to basics. And by that, we mean simplify everything.

So we went for a run. Yeah, I definitely felt the effects of not running. I was slooooooooow. Not good, man. Not good. But I still finished it and had moments of brilliance. :-) It ended up being 2.14 in 22:11

I will workout tomorrow. If I don't, jump through my computer and hammerpunch me. :-)

The New Failblog?

Wow.

I haven't blogged in forever - partially because I haven't worked out in forever. I've barely had time to check my e-mail, much less check up on the blogs over on that ol' blogroll (and the others i haven't yet added).

The last time I probably seriously worked out was last Tuesday when Brandon and I went swimming. It was a decent workout:

4x25m free
1x300m breast
2x25m kickboard
4x25m free
2x25m kickboard
1x100m breast

for a total of 700m, but that's so not enough. I'm hoping I'll have a chance to focus more after this weekend (wcha conference tournament; no more column taking up my week!), but we'll see. With all the crap that's been going on, I've been neglecting myself in terms of working out and eating well and I've noticed. I've been feeling like crap the past week and I know why. I just need to suck it up and take time for ME and my health and well-being.

Hopefully we'll have time to at least lift and do SOMETHING before hitting the road to head to Minnesota for the WCHA Final Five tournament. Hopefully.

Swim

Yesterday I decided to get off my lazy butt and swim with the girlfriend. We grabbed the close lane and went at it. I ended up doing 1000 meters free without stopping, and then 50 meters kickboard.

Not bad, progressing still.

Hockey and Confusion

As Brandon mentioned, we played hockey last night for the first time in quite a while. It wasn't a bad skate, considering - had a couple of incidental checks (oops; once into the boards, another one open ice) but hey, it happens.

However, working out has been difficult in general lately just due to something crazy going on with my body - namely, nausea.

I've always had a weird love/hate relationship with food. I like food (well, for the most part), but food often doesn't like me back. Sometimes it's due to its unhealthiness (mcdonald's and i haven't spoken in years) and sometimes i just can't explain why something I eat just doesn't agree with me.

The weird thing is, it doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes, food doesn't agree with me and sometimes it does. I've tried to find a pattern with it by looking through food journals and can't seem to find anything.

In any case, I've been having food issues the past few days. I eat something, I get nauseous. It may take an hour or so, but it happens. The problem is, when I get that feeling, the last thing on my mind is working out as the feeling of "ohhh, wanna vomit" will get even stronger. Boo.

All I can say is hopefully something changes soon.

First...hockey

Last night I finally played hockey for the first time in like 2 months. It was rough for the first couple shifts, as I had to get my passing skill back as well as my lungs. But as the game got going, I fell into a nice groove. Most of my passes were good and I scored some good quality goals. 4 in all. It felt really good to play.

Why Wii Fit Can Suck (and race news!)

Before I get into explaining my title, I first want to talk about last night's swim workout. As we can on Sundays when Brandon's home, we split up our scorekeeping shifts so we can both work out - I do the first two games while he does whatever and then we switch for the last two games.

Anyway, we typically take the time to swim. Brandon came back to work telling me that he swam 1000m continuously for an endurance swim, which is AWESOME.

I got to the gym, luckily got a lane (pool was unusually crowded) and started swimming. I was thinking of an endurance swim, but my first 100m breast were really tough. So, I paused, took a breather, and did 4x25m freestyle because I really want to be able to swim crawl for my tri this year*. After that, I went back to breaststroke and did 800m without stopping ... barely. Then, for a cooldown, I did 4x25m back for a total of 1100m. Woo!

Anyway, onto the title. Since both Brandon and I were a tad sore from swimming last night, we both decided to do a bunch of Wii Fit today. We both did yoga, strength training and balance exercises and I also did some crazy hula hooping.

If you've never done Wii Fit before, when you first go into your Mii (character), the balance board (yes, it's an anthropomorphic character. that's annoying and something i want to stab half the time) says hi, mentions how long it's been since you've last been on and typically offers you a fitness tip. It gets cranky if you don't accept the tip, so we always say yes to the board.

Well, I don't remember what the complete tip was, but at the end of the tip, the board "said" that "Remember there's always something you can improve on!"

Which, granted, I agree with ... to a point. Still, part of me thinks it's such a bad message to send to those doing Wii Fit, telling them that their bodies will NEVER be perfect and that they should never, ever be satisfied.

Not to mention that I hate that Wii Fit measures your fitness by using BMI. According to the balance board, Brandon's overweight. I'm somehow normal but thinks that my ideal weight should be 148.6lbs ... something I haven't weighed since probably sophomore year of high school. Yeah.




* Brandon and I signed up for a tri! We're doing My Way or the Tri Way on July 25. We both signed up to do the tri the "traditional" way of swim-bike-run, but you can choose to do a triathlon, duathlon, aquathlon (swim-run-swim or run-swim-run) or aquabike (swim-bike-swim or bike-swim-bike). Given that I'm over 150lbs, I was pondering signing up for the Athena division, but went for age group anyway. Should be fun!