Wrapping up Heavy Training This Week…

So I have been trying to get to this post for two days now. I broke my two day streak, but I’m getting better. Plus it’s getting to be holiday time which means I have NO time. So how have I been the last two days gone? Well, could be better, but definitely could be worse. I haven’t really been keeping to my eating habits like I should. I’ve been out three times this week for lunch, but I’m still doing well as far as budgeting and spending money. Raschelle, my fiancé, and I are cooking more and eating healthier. We are well on our way to saving for this wedding. Anyway, so that hasn’t been the shining moment and neither have my workouts, or schedule. I’ve done four workouts since I posted last. That’s an okay amount, but it could be so much better. Now, I’m not really saying that this is a bad thing because I’m just starting again; I have to build momentum into my workouts. However I need to take this seriously and the first thing that really needs to happen would be eating healthier, and then we can go for better workouts. All will come in due time.

As far as workouts are concerned, I have quite a few on tap. Wednesday night I had a swim, then I did some core work, and then, if that wasn’t enough, I went for a cold run. Here are the details on my swim.

	Meters	Drill	Time On	Time Off
Warm Up	1×25		0:27	0:30
	1×50		1:04	0:47
	1×75		1:31	1:05
Main Set	3×25	Right Arm	0:29,0:28,0:30	0:30,0:31,0:59
	3×25	Pull	0:39,0:41,0:41	0:20,0:33,1:03
	3×25	Left Arm	0:27,0:28,0:29	0:18,0:16,0:30
	3×25	Catch Up	0:27,0:30,0:29	0:17,0:14,0:32
	3×50	Slow Swim	0:53,0:53,0:53	0:36,0:36,1:07
Cool Down	2×50		0:55,0:54	0:33,0:35
	1×25		0:26

Overall it was a good swim, and I’m becoming a little bit more consistent. After my swim I changed and headed upstairs to do some core work. I did the same two exercised as last time, and headed out for a quick run. Here are my stats.

It was a pretty quick run by myself and it felt great being out in the cold making it happen.

On Thursday I was planning on a weight day paired with a bike. I took the advice of Chatter and got the same video he talks about here. We several frustrating events happened and, when I finally could play the video, it was too late to start a workout. I made a plan to make Friday a three workout day. I would Bike in the morning before work, run during lunch, and swim/core after work. Here is the info from my ride this morning…

I still don’t have a speed number, but I did hear back from Timex and they said that I could ship the speed/cadence sensor back to them and they would fix it for just the cost of shipping. That pisses me off, but that’s another post. It was a good ride, and I could only do about half an hour but the video is pretty good from what I have seen so far. Chatter is right, it’s tough, but not too tough and it’s definitely motivation. I have found that it definitely takes a little while to wake up. I find that I have to keep stopping and get off the trainer because I forget to do something, like fill a water bottle or turn up/down the TV. Oh well, I’m going to call it a success. My lunch run was decent. Here is the data…

Still think I should be running faster, but it was a comfortable speed and as I’ve said before, I’m trying to ease into training again so it’s NO BIG DEAL! Anyway, until next time!

Todays To-Do’s

So two days ago a blogger that I follow wrote a blog post on who we are. You can read about it here. His blog is very interesting and he is very detailed when it comes to his workouts and struggles. Thanks Mr. Maurer for great food for thought. Really is something interesting to think about. I’m planning on getting a post up later today about yesterdays workout as well. Talk to you soon.

Day 2 – Biking and Some Racquetball

Wow, day 2. I know, I know. You can hardly believe I am here for the second day in a row. Me, writing about my workouts. Crazy times! Anyway, I woke up early yesterday hoping to put on a movie and hop on my bike to get in a quick workout. It took a lot to get out of bed and get going but I did. I went out to the living room, got my watch ready and started pedaling. I looked at my watch and to my surprise my new speed/cadence sensor for my Timex Global Trainer wasn’t reading speed, only cadence. I got off to make sure that the magnets were lining up and that they were to the proper tolerance and everything was good, but still no speed. This really set me off as I had woken up just to get my ride in. I decided just to scrap it and I would look at it later. I got on the scale as well and I’m slowly but surely coming down. Yesterday I was good until pizza last night, but I ate half of what I usually do, and brought the rest home. I pledged this week to not drink soda, but I had one last night. I know, shame on me, but it’s the first time this week, and I think I can get over it. All in all Tuesday was a good day.

After pizza I decided to head to the gym with a friend and play racquetball. I planned to do weights yesterday after the game, but we got started late so I put off the weights. Besides, I’m pretty sore from starting all of this stuff back so it’s probably better to ease into weight lifting. We played for about an hour and I was on my way home. When I came in a decided I was going to get my ride for Tuesday in, at least a little ride. I figured if I road I would still have time, HR, and cadence to measure so I rode without speed. My early impression of the trainer is that it’s mentally tough. I put on an episode of Top Gear UK and chugged away. I really need to get a fan for the trainer to keep a little cooler but besides that I think my set up is perfect. That’s only my second ride of any distance on my new trainer, and it went so much better than the time before. The last time I rode there was a weird clicking sound that made me stop and check it out. I wound up tightening a couple bolts and hadn’t ridden since. To my surprise everything worked marvelously and was pretty quiet. I have an email out to Timex but apparently it’s a common problem. I’ll see what they say. I should have gone with the Garmin but I figured it would probably be easier to sync with the Timex sensor. Oh well, you live and you learn. Here is the data that I do have. It’s cool to have cadence as another benchmark for training.

Anyways guys, thanks for reading and I will see you tomorrow!

Training Plan Beginning – 11-12-12

Yesterday marked the beginning of my triathlon training “plan”. It’s not really a plan, as per say a workouts that I do every week. I don’t have a target race yet, but I know I want to keep in shape. There are several running races and many more triathlons that I’m interested in next year so we will just have to see how that goes, but until then I’ll be swimming, biking, and running to stay in shape. Yesterday I weighed myself in at a solid 225.8 pounds. That’s about 10 pounds heavier than my lightest a few short months ago. With the wedding looming, and pictures to be taken I have to get on it. I’m trying to watch what I eat, but I think I might try to take it to the next level and try out the app “My Fitness Pal”. It’s a standard calorie counting app but it integrates social media and a wide variety of calorie values for many restaurants. That should help me start handling eating a little better. Plus it will give me more information that I can share with you all in the form of calories taken in vs. calories taken out. You all are really what matter, right? Ha-ha, anyways…

Last night was my first day back in the gym in a long time. My plan now is the following.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Morning Run	Spin Class /Trainer	Track Workout	Spin Class /Trainer	Lunch Run	Long Run	Long Trainer Ride
Swim – Drills	Weights	Swim Fit	Weights	Swim – Enduran	Weights
Abs/Core	Abs/Core	Abs/Core	Abs/Core	Abs/Core	Abs/Core

That’s a lot of activity, but I’m starting out slow and building back some endurance. Last night I started out swimming. I did 800 meters total which consisted of the following…

	Meters	Drill	Time On	Time Off
Warm Up	1×25		0:24	0:15
	1×50		0:48	0:32
	1×75		1:17	1:02
Main Set	2×25	Pull	0:26,0:26	0:10,0:24
	2×25	Kick	0:36,0:40	0:23,0:49
	1×25	Ladder	0:24	0:19
	1×50		0:50	0:25
	1×75		1:19	0:40
	1×100		1:54	0:35
	1×75		1:26	0:19
	1×50		0:58	0:16
	1×25		0:29	0:30
Cool Down	1×75		1:31	0:29
	1×50		1:00	0:15
	1×25		0:31

This workout went well, but I can definitely tell that I have lost a ton of endurance. It’s a great starting point though. If you read my workout schedule, you will see on Wednesday a swim section called Swim Fit. That is a class at my gym where they give you pointers on things to help your stroke and teach you how to do others. So I will be doing that on Wednesday every other month. That should help me with my mechanics, and the swimming three times a week should help with endurance.

My second workout last night was a quick two mile down and back from the gym.

You can see that it was pretty slow, but it was my first run back after my half-marathon and it felt good to use those muscles again. After I ran I did a couple core exercises. I did 4×15 angled situps and then 4×15 seated Russian twist. All in all, it was a good night and a great start to training/weight loss. Hopefully now that I have started back these posts will be a little more consistent. Thanks for reading and head back tomorrow!

Race Report

Make sure to check out my race report for my half marathon last weekend. You can find it in the races tab!

Thanks!

Kick But Moments in Pictures…

I follow Chatter’s blog everyday which gives me inspiration to take on the day. Today he blogged about pictures that make you feel like you owned the moment. Something special. Here is a link to his post. Well mine happened at my second triathlon. I was feeling good and killing my run however towards the end coming around the bend I hear a pair of feet on the path behind me. I wasn’t feeling that hot at the time, being the last leg of the event, but as we came around the corner she pulls up beside me and tell me to come on. We started sprinting towards the finish and duking it out. It was great moment and you can tell by my face, it pushed me to my limit. Looking at this picture certainly makes me feel like I kicked butt that day. Go on over to Chatters blog, and read his post, its definitely worth a read. Thanks for reading…

I got engaged this weekend…

So this weekend was CRAZY! It was a lazy start but ended with a Sunday full of craziness. I’ve been planning a proposal for a month now and the day was finally upon me. This plan included sneaking away from Raschelle to make signs and plan this idea. The plan was to run my half marathon in the morning and then pop the question after. I’ll have the race report either tonight or tomorrow so that aspect will be taken care of. After I finished we crossed the river over to my car and I put on some shorts and a new shirt because I really didn’t want to look like crap for this occasion. She had no clue what was about to happen. I grabbed the ring from my mom and away we went towards the spot I had picked for my proposal. I had some of our friends come down from Raleigh and they were waiting with some signs which you can see here…

We got in front of Port City Java, a great vantage point, and I pointed out the signs. At first she was a little confused, thinking that it was just a coincidence. Then they flipped it and she instantly started crying. You can see the picture here…

I got down on a knee and popped the question. It was a great moment. Here is a picture…

After we were done everyone came down to check out the ring and we went to grab some lunch. As we got there I started to feel REALLY quezzy, so much so that I had to sit outside while everyone ate inside. Pretty sure it was low blood sugar but after I cooled off a bit we had a blast. We went back and took pictures of the signs that you can see here…

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All in all it was a great weekend, and it will be a story that we can tell people forever. I would like to thank everyone who participated in this elaborate plan. Rachel, Dan, Alex, Brad, Marianna, the drunken Browns fans, the crazy lady in the window, Aaron, Danielle, and my mom and dad. A extra special thank you to Jamie who took all of these photos so we can remember them forever. Love you all and you made it a special day for Raschelle and me.

Now after this Half Marathon I’m taking a week off of training and just relaxing. After this week I’ll start back training. I don’t have a plan as of yet I just don’t want to lose too much of my endurance. My plan is to start training for another Half Marathon and mixing in training for sprints as well. My goal for the end of the year next year is to do a half iron distance triathlon. This will be great for getting into shape for a wedding. Right now my plan is to hit the weights/core 3 times a week, Spin Class twice a week, Run four times a week, swim three times a week, and then do a long trainer ride once a week. It seems like a lot but hopefully it will leave me in shape for the season next year.

Thanks for reading…

Upcoming posts…

I will be posting tonight about my weekend and upcoming training, and tomorrow night Ill post my half marathon race report. Stay tuned.

Last weekend…

This weekend was excellent. I got some time to chill and have fun, but I also got a nice run in that I needed before my half marathon this weekend. My training schedule is slowing down right in time for this half marathon and I actually have time to relax. I decided to go on my last big run on Saturday and it turned out something like this…

 

All in all it was a good run and I was able to really keep my heart rate in check for most of the run. Its definitely not possible for me to hit my 2 hour goal but I’m thinking 2:15 will be a good target. All in all its been a good weekend and I’m looking forward to starting base training in a couple weeks, maybe with a couple more posts a week. Anyways, have a great day guys!

First workout with my new watch…

So here is the workout data from my first run. I’m not liking the GPS path on the map but Ill let it slide for now. It looks a bit inaccurate. Other than that it was a great run to break in the new watch. Now to put it to use next weekend!