Monday’s are chest and triceps, and today was a great one. Both training partners were back in action with me, and we jumped right in. Things started off a bit rocky, as my usual pre-lifting routine went a bit out of whack. Woke up at 5:30 as usual, went upstairs to have a glass of juice and somehow managed to only half swallow a pill I was gulping down. My sinuses have been f*cked up lately, and my post-nasal drip has been especially bad, soooooo my throat was already agitated and swollen a bit. Anyways I think the pill got stuck in my throat and it hurt like hell everytime I swallowed. Tried hot water and coughing which didn’t really work, so eventually sat over the toilet and made my self gag which shifted it enough to be properly swallowed. It wasn’t pleasant and it took my system a little while to calm down so I wasn’t really back in my body fully until the bench press, which meant my abs got a little jipped today.
The good news is that I benched a bit more than I usually do, bumped it up to 115 overall which is 10 more than I’ve been doing. It was definitely a struggle but overall I was pleased with today’s performance. A great start to week 2 of 12 I do believe.
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I was all alone today; partner #1 spent the night in the mountains and partner #2’s alarm clock didn’t go off. Made for an extra special challenge as it always takes a bit more to get motivated when working out alone. Hopped on the bus and headed up to the rec center, and ended up having a fairly decent bicep/back workout, though I do feel like my back isn’t quite getting the love it deserves. I was fairly pleased with my level of intensity for being alone, but will admit it still didn’t quite match the level I hit when lifting with others there to push me.
My legs are so incredibly sore from Wednesday. It feels good, I’m starting to get disappointed when I don’t get sore from a lifting session…
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Today was the first morning I ran, and it sucked. It was really tough, both because it was cold, and also because of the horrible ongoing case of sinusitis/rhinitis I’ve had for the last few years, which makes me cough A LOT when running and have a lot of snot and phlegm….sounds great yeah?
Anyways, in running what I thought would be my route for Intervals this morning I think I discovered the location and method I’ll be using for the forseeable future. A few blocks from my house there is a lovely hill at Mapleton and Broadway, which when I timed took me roughly 1 minute to sprint up before I hit complete exhaustion, and that’s a perfect interval. So the plan for the next few sesions will be to run over to the hill, run up it full speed, then mosey down and do it again, then again, and again, and again. For a half hour session with warm up and cool down that should equal about 5 intervals (1 minute sprint 2-3 minute recovery back down the hill).
We’ll see how that goes……
I also extended my Tuesday/Thursday morning sit from 25 minutes to 55 minutes, which was hard as hell this morning but is definitely more my edge for meditation.
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Brilliant as always:
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Wednesday is LEG day, probably the toughest day of lifting in the week. I was feeling much better this morning energetically, so much so I decided to pump up my weight on Squats and the Leg Press. This bump in weight, combined with a fairly high intensity slightly rushed lift (one of my training partners had to leave early), lead to me nearly puking and feeling like total shit after the Leg Press. I had to sit down for about 5 minutes to really recover, but by then I was pretty spent and didn’t really hit the following exercises as hard as I could have. Lesson learned! Take more time to recover on the massive exercises like squats, leg press, and dead lifts. My legs should be right sore tomorrow!
And no, I didn’t run yesterday, it rained the WHOLE day, and instead of going to the gym to run on the treadmill I went home. A failure I fully take ownership of, and that I’m going to try to make up for by playing some Ultimate tonight and running tomorrow morning, even if its raining again. (the only thing that might stop me is snow…..and since this is Boulder you never know!)
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Failure! I didn’t train this morning. Woke up at 6am, got all suited up for running, and then peeked outside and found what was a horribly unpleasant cold rain. Needless to say I was intimidated and decided to wait it out for a bit to see if the rain would let off, which as of 9:07am it hasn’t. Pretty bummed actually, not the precedent I wanted to set for my first day of HIIT. In the future I think I’ll start packing my gym bag even before running mornings, so in case this happens again I can just sprint to the bus and use the treadmill at the gym.
I’m not giving up hope for today though, I have a packed gym bag with me here at work and am going to walk straight to the bus stop when I get off and go straight to the gym to see if I can snag sometime on the cardio equipment. If I’m real lucky maybe it’ll even clear up a bit by this afternoon so I can train outside….
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This morning I started a 12 week intensive fitness program. I’ve been lifting for several months now with my mate Casey, but decided to up the intensity a bit. Last week I had a fancy test done at our gym, which calculated my Body Composition and broke it down into exact numbers.
Thus, I now have some hard numbers to drive my goals, which makes them a bit more concrete. I currently have 23.6% body fat, which is high for a male in my age group, and why I have a lovely buddha belly. My goal is to reach 18% in 12 weeks, which translates to about 10 pounds of body fat. Now to be clear my goal isn’t actually weight loss, and I won’t be dieting. I’ll have a strict eating routine, but one that nourishes my muscles and leaves me feeling fulfilled. So in 12 weeks the goal is to see the amount of muscle mass go up, and amount of fat go down, which may lead to me actually gaining weight as muscle weighs more than fat.
So, join me on this crazy adventure, I’ll be doing a mini training update each day talking about how the experience is going.
This morning was Chest/Triceps with Casey & Rollie. I’m coming off a nasty illness that had me bed ridden last week, so I wasn’t quite 100% just yet. Despite that it felt great to get back in and hit the weights; chest is a particularly weak area for me and one I’m actually still in the process of learning to exercise. I often cheat and bring in my triceps more than I should when doing our various bench press exercises (normal, incline, decline). Learning to feel what my chest muscles are, and how to lift with them is a great exercise in awareness that I’m enjoying more and more each week.
more updates to come tomorrow when I attempt my first 30 minute H.I.I.T. running session, which should be a hoot.
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As of yesterday I’m going sober for 30 days, no booze until Memorial Day weekend at Mike’s wedding. I’ve been sick in bed all day which has reminded me how much I prefer feeling good over feeling shitty.
So far Steve & Casey are with me, others care to join?
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view of flatirons from our office.
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Do you Twitter? If not its time you should start, twittering is the new blogging. (it was even started by the creator of Blogger.com)
The premise is real simple: You have 140 characters to type what you’re doing at the moment, and you can input via the website, text message, or instant message. You then receive ‘twitters’ from all your friends in any of the same mediums.
Why is this cool? Writing two sentences takes no time at all, isn’t hard to do, and consequently means you’re more likely to do it. Lower barrier of entry means anyone can twitter throughout the day when doing the things they already do.
What does this create? Apparently they’ve dubbed the twitter affect “ambient intimacy”, meaning you know what’s going on with your friends in a PASSIVE sense, without having to talk to them all the time. twittering has already scored me a ride home from the airport and led a friend to meet us for Lebowski at the boulder theater last night. Over the last few years I’ve often logged into AIM or Gtalk not because i necessarily had anything to say to my friends, but because it was just comforting knowing they were ‘logged’ in and there. Twitter is a natural extension of that.
Plus, just think how much LESS boring phone calls with friends will now be. You’ll actually have some stuff to talk about as you’ll each have at least a vague idea of what the other has been up to, and can quickly move on to the shit that really matters instead of the boring weather/hows work bs.
So yeah, twitter: harnessing the power of the web to bring those farther apart closer together.
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So the website is finally up and complete, we’ve moved into our office, desks, printers, conference tables, its time to get busy!
Check out the first of many projects we’ll be working on:
The Chief Good: Conscious Business Consulting.
Let’s keep this world rockin.
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one day i’m going to take a trip and manage to fly both ways without delays.
this time, 7:00 became 8:15 which is now 8:40 which better damn well stay that way, as the last public means to get from denver to boulder tonight leaves at 12:10am, and I really really don’t want to spend the fucking night in the airport.
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One of the most exciting things about being back in an office is that I now have a place to go to for meditation again! I’ve missed the old Tuesday/Thursday morning sits with my main man Casey since leaving I-I, and am delighted to announce that with our new The Chief Good office myself and Duff will be hosting 30 minute sits M-F mornings at 8:30am starting tomorrow!
Needless to say I’m very excited to get back into a regular sitting practice.
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Winner of the Huffington Post Contagious Festival, January ‘07. I co-created it with my cohort Toby Rogers.
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August 3-5th, just bought tickets, they’re cheaper if you get them pre-sale. Why, you might be asking, have I already bought them when the full lineup hasn’t even been announced?
Simple:
It’s in Chicago, so it’s a good excuse to go home, and PEARL JAM is headlining day 3.
Nuff said. Get ready to mosh.
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