Thursday, September 27, 2012

Recovery and Zion's Prep

Last weekend sure was busy!
After the Dirty Dash we had TWO gatherings to attend that evening, so there wasn't much rest or recovery that night!

Sunday was more relaxing, and I slept A LOT.

Monday I decided to see how yoga would affect my feet, and it was fine, which made me happy. I hate feeling fantastic but not be able to do something because of a small injury you don't want to get worse. The Yoga class was great - I'm still not sure why I have no problem with a tripod headstand but I still have issues with the normal yoga headstand with forearms on the ground around the head. Weird.

Seems to be that wearing shoes bugged my feet most, so even BJJ on Tuesday didn't bug my feet!
In BJJ it was just me and Mat-Time, so we did some new stuff on what to do when you end up in Turtle. I missed the last class, so I was glad that the video was finally put up - but the bad thing about being the only person there is that there is no video to help remind me what we did! We did a simple escape from Turtle (up to hands and knees, Elbow up and twist them off) we also did some submissions while your opponent is turtle-ing. Interesting stuff... hopefully I can see a list of what we did so I can remember more!
Tuesday night I was really frustrated at feeling fine, but not being able to go running. Stupid feet.
I really want to be all right for the Zion's expedition this weekend!


Wednesday was really busy - and with all the busy-ness I wasn't sure if Yoga would happen at work, it DID, but I didn't make it. This week was a free week at Infusion so I took advantage and went to a Detox Power Yoga class. Interesting to take it from a teacher that substituted for a class we took last year - she's definitely improved as a teacher! Great tough class that made me wake up sore today!

Today BJJ was canceled due to a slight cold going 'round... so I'll have to come up with something later.

Tomorrow we head to Southern Utah. Saturday we will be hiking somewhere in Zion National Park - something I've wanted to do for a long time. I've been to Zion's before, but I was a younger teen, so I'm looking forward to this!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Fall Dirty Dash!

Friday morning I made it to the early morning Yoga class. Afterwards I had a nice meditative climb on the climbing wall using the auto belay.

I REALLY like Friday mornings because of those 2 opportunities.

Throwing in Crossfit Friday afternoon is normally a nice cherry on top, (although really a strawberry would be better, yum!) but because the instructor wasn't in and I had a busy work load, I didn't do anything in the afternoon. Plus I didn't want to be too dead for Saturday!!

In June we ran the Dirty Dash and had some awesome pictures taken by my younger brother. We entered those pics into a Facebook contest and both of us won entries to the Fall Dirty Dash.

Saturday was the fall Dirty Dash!

We made it up with enough time to try to win a free stay at a really posh hotel in a Wheelbarrow race, came in close second. We might have been able to win but our camera was banging around all over the place and we broke the strap. Whoops!

We took off at a good pace and got ahead of the crowd (our 10:20 wave was the largest wave with LOTS of people!) and finished the entire 5.5ish mile course in just over an hour and a half! Not too shabby! Now normally you don't do this for speed, but since we were a small team of two, we still had fun and pushed ourselves.
PICTURES!!









Yes... it was a blast! Next time we do one though, we will FORCE some people to do it with us. We definitely have a lot of fun with just the two of us - but we would love to share it with a bigger group and go crazy!

Oh... and I didn't wear socks with my shoes... bad idea:
OUCH! Ugly feet too! Double OUCH!
I'm hoping to be mostly healed for the Zions trip the day after tomorrow!! Today it still hurts to walk with  my feet covered...

The Dirty Dash was the second to last planned race of the year! All that's left is the TOUGH MUDDER in two and a half weeks!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Runnin' The Mile!

I need to give people awesome nicknames for this blog, I mean Kakes is awesome as a person and a nickname, and Warlordblade too! So yeah - everybody gets nicknames!

Back in Jr. High Gym Class every Friday morning was the dreaded "Mile Run".

EVERYBODY in the class had to do it - AND they'd post a list of the fastest kids in the coaches window outside the locker room.

I think my top ranking (somewhere around a 6:45 minute mile, but I don't trust my own memory on that!) was 11th or 12th once, and usually I was more in the middle to back of all the boys my age.

Awesome right?

The past two weeks have been our Olympics at work - I shared my plank results in the last entry. Today was the 2nd to last event - the "Triathlon". Yeah it's not REALLY a triathlon, not even close. The only thing related is that it has running in it. 3 people from the team pick one of the 3 events, Mile Run, 25 Burpees, 100 Jump Rope - and the combined time from start to finish is the teams score.  I took the Mile Run because a month ago in our anniversary HIIT warmup I ran around our block in 6:33 and thought I could do it faster on a flat course.

So this morning for some reason I was REALLY nervous about this mile race. There are only 5 teams in this Olympics... so there were only 4 people other than me! Almost all of the fastest runners, the hardcore runners, marathoners, triathletes, crossfitters, etc were represented in this group of 5. For some reason the whole thing brought up memories and doubts WAY back from Jr. High.

So anyway, we lined up, started, and I took off in the lead - setting a very fast pace which I kept pretty steadily for the first quarter mile, then asthma or SOMETHING kicked in and I fell back a bit, allowing the verrrrry fast CrazyCrossfitter (who I expected to win but wanted to try to beat him!) to pass me. I held onto 2nd for the rest of the race even though I let 1st place get even more ahead of me.

I finished the race SECOND place in 6:07 - but since it was closer to 1.1 miles... my one mile pace was FIVE FORTY ONE!!!! CrazyCrossfitter ended up beating me by 30 seconds!  He kept a FAST pace the full time! He told me he didn't think he'd be able to keep my pace at the beginning - but then I faded so he didn't have to! He usually beats me in the Crossfit workouts too so I don't feel too bad. He's an amazing guy. Motivation!

The air has been HORRIBLE lately due to fires and inversion - so all 5 of the runners (not one of us was over 7 minutes for the mile - fast group!) had breathing issues afterwards. I'm still dealing with severe allergies right now! (Essential Oils and Neti Pots are helping - not essential oils IN the neti pot though... I'm not that crazy!)

Our burpees guy ("MatTime" Micah, who is also my BJJ instructor) did great and handed off to our jump roper. Our original jump roper had a sick daughter, so she had to stay home today. We had to have one of our other two girls fill in, and only Ajax was in today and she had to scrounge up some suitable attire for jumproping! Ajax is AWESOME, but she's not so fast at jump roping. I'm glad she could help us do the event. We ended up with 4th place, which is consistent with all our other finishes! SO close.

Speaking of 4th place finishes, the 'Sit and Reach' contest that I thought I'd be fairly competitive in with all the yoga I do was held on Tuesday. I tied for 4th at 24". Doh!

OKAY. So back up to the rest of the week that didn't get covered:
Monday morning great yoga class at work. That night we ran with UltraMarathonBro (Matt... not sold on this nickname yet!) and "ITthisisleesha" (Alicia always answers her phone like that - but I'll have to come up with a better nickname sometime!) UMBro and I decided to take the Shepherd Creek trail up to see where it goes - looks nice now and we were only a few miles (ha ha ha 'only a few miles') from Francis Peak. We went not even TWO times as far as I ran today, in NINE times the time! Pretty rough uphill. But I think that's why I can run that flat ground so fast now. It was nice and dark when we turned around which made for fun downhill trailin', but we had to get back since it was a school night for my kidlets.
Took some pictures of the nasty air, it was better up high than it was today down low for sure!
Boy... My wife is SO LUCKY to be married to such a handsome man!

You can't even see Lagoon Amusement park that isn't far!

Nasty Air!
Tuesday had BJJ, but unfortunately ShoulderMuscles our camera guy (who also won the sit and reach with an impressive 27" stretch!) wasn't there with his camera. We did some sweeps from the guard some of which I'd learned before. 3 people in the class, MatTime, me, and VeganBossB (my first boss in my first job where I still work - whoa that was ten years ago!). He's significantly bigger than me, so that makes some of the stuff fun, but it is not as big a deal now that I've been going for a while and have more experience. When I first started, the size was more of an obstacle, but now that I am starting (still VERY BEGINNING) to understand technique (Barely!) it makes a difference, and that's awesome!

We did Sit-up Sweep, Sit-up Sweep to Kimura, Sit-Up Sweep to Take the Back. Then we did Scissor Sweep, Wing Sweep, Scissor Sweep to Leg Hook and Scissor Sweep to Knee Push. On the Wing Sweep Brian easily winged me up and over (wheee flying!) right onto my back on something hard...
His own thumb! Yow! He dislocated it and FreeSpirit (yoga teacher/trainer) is now mad at me (somewhat jokingly, I hope!) because he is one of the participants in their test boot camp program. Hey HE threw ME! 

Also been getting a LOT better on that left-side hitch that was happening in my muscle-ups. Still have a little work but it is almost gone! Yay!

Wednesday (Arr International Talk Like a Pirate Day!) I rebounded basketballs for free-throw shooters for the competition (I was supposed to do that but did soccer instead since somebody forgot to show up the soccer day) and an awesomely tough hour of yoga with FreeSpirit. Wednesday classes are always more difficult for me because it is AFTER lunch. I think I mentioned this before. Even though our team didn't eat out this week (Busy busy busy China Oracle Implementation!) I had a delicious bacon wrapped chicken thigh and slice of delicious roast beef and salad for lunch before yoga. SO good.

Supposedly Yoga is best if practiced on a stomach that has been empty for a few hours other than a glass of water about an hour before.

And now we are caught up!

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to Yoga and Climbing in the morning and Crossfit in the afternoon! I also need to pick up my Dirty Dash packets - because it's Fall Dirty Dash time on Saturday!
Awesome!!!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Rest Days?!

Wednesday's Yoga class at work is always harder than normal because my work team goes out to eat for lunch every Wednesday. As part of our Primal lifestyle... if I eat out, I basically get steak or ribs or something like that (YUM what a horrible diet ha!) so that heaviness really makes Yoga more difficult!
That night I decided I needed to go on a run since it has been a while since I've hit the trails and I felt like I needed it - so I went up to the Davis Creek trail. Some idiot took a dirt-bike up there and it really tore up the trail. Annoying how people can ruin things for others. That area is Private property has been closed up and cracked down because of dirt bikes going where they aren't supposed to go. I would hate to lose such a hard trail. I ran up to Little/Pretty Valley and back in 30 minutes. About 20 minutes up and 10 minutes back. That is a hard trail! Luckily I DO know the family that owns that land, so I could probably work something out with them if I needed. Still... be considerate of others people!!

Thursday was the first event in our work Olympics that I was taking part in. PLANK!

I made it almost 9 minutes before my hips and lower back started hurting - if it weren't for that pain I probably could have gone a bit longer. My hips have been an issue lately - I need to strengthen them or figure out what is wrong with them. Anyway, I ended up in 5th place with that time, the winners went 18 minutes! Crazy. 

Thursday I went to BJJ class again, 2 times in one week! I think I'll definitely retain more if I can continue to go 2 times and have the video as a refresher
Here's the video:

There were some really fun moves to learn!

Friday is normally a pretty busy day for me in my fitness schedule. Early morning Yoga that is just awesome followed by a half hour of playing around on a climbing wall? What could be better?  Oh yeah, throw in some crazy Crossfit to finish off the day and WOW I feel great and tired.
Unfortunately THIS Friday I worked at home so my amazing wife could attend an Essential Oil convention, so I missed those workouts, and considering all the craziness and large amounts of working out, I thought a rest day or two would help. My Yoga teacher especially has been trying to get me to rest a bit more...

Yikes... that didn't work. I felt HORRIBLE on Friday, and then Saturday too! I finally made myself try some pull ups and muscle ups that I could barely do. Resting can be good, but I don't think my body was ready for it this time. Weird.

Anyway I got some good sleep today after feeling crappy this morning, and I'm feeling a bit better.

Hopefully that will continue this week and into the weekend - Dirty Dash weekend again!!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Jujitsu Videos are Great!

It really is cool to be able to SEE what I learned in BJJ soon after learning the technique. Even better to see ME struggling (like in the last one!) to get a move right.
Just from the video on Thursday until yesterday (Tuesday) I think I improved on the basics that continued.



I think it also helped that I was the one getting my arm ripped out of the socket - you learn it pretty quickly that way!!

The Scissor take-down is a lot of fun!

No running happened which is a bit of a bummer. Kakes put together a workout I was looking forward to but people were late so we didn't have time - we WERE able to help get a new couch for my brother and sister-in-law that she really wanted to get into her house, so that was good!

And I threw in 5 muscle-ups, 10 toes-to-bar and then 2 more (barely they were pretty bad!) muscle-ups after I got home.

Maybe we can find a way to get up in the mountains tomorrow/today whatever.

Also - I'm still going to keep an eye on it - but I think the higher glucose and Triglyceride results were from the ice cream I ate the night before... it was about 12.5 hours before, so supposedly it should have cleared out... but I ate a LOT. So who knows.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Biometric Update

Did a Biometric screening this morning because I wanted to see how things have changed since March.

Here are the earlier results
  • March 2012 Results
  • Blood Pressure: 111/56
  • Total Cholesterol: 214
  • HDL - 32
  • Triglycerides: 97
  • LDL: 163
  • Glucose: 90
  • Heart Rate: 62 beats/minute 
 And this morning's results
  • September 2012 Results 
  • Blood Pressure: 117/65
  • Total Cholesterol:213
  • HDL: 44
  • Triglycerides:125
  • LDL: 144
  • Glucose: 100
  • Heart Rate: 59 beats/minute
Blood pressure is basically the same, not really a big surprise there. I think it was higher because I was thinking about the poked finger on the same side as the pressure cuff!
Total Cholesterol went down one point, hooray! My HDL went up - which is great - it's back into the range where it should be. My LDL went down a bunch, which is fantastic, although it is still 'borderline high' according to the CW values, I'm not too worried about my cholesterol at this point, especially since things seem to be moving in the right direction.
The Triglycerides jumping from 97 to 125 is a bit weird, especially since it is higher than it was in 2011...
And Glucose up to 100? That's the very bottom reading for Pre-Diabetes... yikes. I don't think I need to worry too much, but I could probably use a refocused effort at not cheating with soda and/or candy and maybe even doing a week or two of 100% Primal to kind of reset.

Feeling a bit of a downer mixed with a general apathy today... I think the high Glucose and TRG has at least something to do with it, although it probably shouldn't. Also I'm wishing we had more money for Halloween endeavors. I might just put up a pallet Pirate Ship in our yard this year!

I am looking forward to a running night tonight.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Yoga, Climbing, Crossfit, Trail Running, Mudder Training CRAZY!

Wow.

Exhaustion.

Pain.

And even after all that I could STILL do muscle-ups at the peak of exhaustion! WOOT.  (I did 3 today after our Tough Mudder workout AND last night after our trail run)

I think I can consider that goal COMPLETE.

Warning folks, this is a long post with probably too many pictures!

SO. Yesterday.

Fantastic early morning yoga class with the awesome new yoga teacher/wellness intern followed by a solid half hour climbing on the wall. I used chalk this time to avoid the chafed hands I had on Wednesday, but I climbed fast and went up and across and back down and all over that wall a lot, so by the time I was done - I had some painful spots on my fingers that may turn into climbing callouses. Also I need to get a chalk ball to put into my chalk bag - just loose chalk is a bit harder to rub in properly.

That wall is already not very hard for me... but I can still get a dang good workout in and I love it!

Work got busy - but I still felt like I needed to go to Crossfit.

Warmed up with a half mile run (the route would be included in our workout) and some double kettlebell cleans, squats and presses, since that is also what we were doing for the workout. I had 2 35 lb kettle bells for the workout. When we were done with that, we started the workout, to finish for time:
Run .5 miles
Double Kettlebell Clean, DKB Squat, DKB Press 10 times
5 burpees
DKB CSP 8 times, 5 burpees, 6 KB, 5 b, 4 KB, 5b, 2 KB, 5 burpees
Run .5 miles

I finished 2nd out of everybody in a time of 14:32, the next person came in just before 15.

After the main workout we had 2 more workouts, the first being Russian Twists with a kettle bell - 20 seconds on, 10 second rest, 8 rounds. Yikes! The first 4 or 5 rounds I was all right, then 35 lbs was tough!

We finished off the workout with about 20 yards of Handstand Walks. I still can't even do a normal handstand, let alone walking on my hands! So I kicked up and pedaled my hands a few times and came down until I made it across. Now that I've completed me muscle-ups goal (though I will definitely continue to improve on them!) Handstand might just be my next major one.

So that was a crazy good amount of working out for one day right?

WRONG! Okay, so yeah, really you were right, because that is most definitely a crazy good amount of workouts, but I wasn't done yet.

I hadn't gone running up in the mountains all week! That's horrible! So my sister came over and watched the kids while the most lovely Kakes and I went for a run. 3.5 miles up Farmington Canyon, we kept a 17 minute pace, which was great for the way I was feeling, and we got some good pictures!
And we all know that's really what's important right?!

Definitely the pictures!!










Man... how many times can I pose the same way in one post?! (the answer according to this post is FOUR... wow)

So after that crazy day (worth 2040 points on Fitocracy, woohoo!) I was tired. Exhausted.

And of course excited to see what punishment could be dished out by my friend Justin today in our Tough Mudder workout!!

Unfortunately only Justin and I were there from the team, AGAIN. But I DID bring my sexy arm candy so she could experience the pain "ABSOLUTE FUN" of our trainings.

Yum! Arm Candy! Mmmm
Our workout today (which incorporated a few of the same things we did 2 weeks ago) consisted of 3 15 minute sections:
Warmup/Round 1:
Run for 2 minutes
Bear Walk for 1 minute
Run
Monkey Bars!
Run
Crab Walk
Run (sheesh is there some sick pattern here or what?!)
Monkey Bars!!
Run
Walking lunges (my nemesis!)
Round 2:
Run 2 minutes (wait more?!)
Tire Flip 1 minute
Run (Most definitely more!)
Sledgehammer
Run
Sandbag (70#) lift (clean, clean & press, whatever)
Run
Jump Rope
Run
Dip Walk
Round 3:
Farmer Carry 2 minutes
Burpees 1 minute (yay no more running)
Sled pull (sandbag in sled)
Jump angle sprint (Broad jump forward, Sprint to the side and forward for about 10 yards, repeat)
Medicine Ball throw and chase (17# ball - split the tape some need to fix it!)
Goblet squat (20# kb)
Agility Ball throw and catch - mean little sucker bounced all over the place - fun!
More MONKEY BARS!
and Box Jumps.






Awesome workout. My shoulder hurts. I think it is from yesterday's handstand walking attempts. Or the falling.

Saturdays are for PAIN!


Okay so I haven't had the workout of the day yet, but I'm already in pain from the rest of the week!

It's been a great week! So this is a LONG post!

Last Saturday we had a very busy day so I only got in some pullups and curls... at least I got something in!

Monday was Labor Day and we took it easy for most of the day - then in the evening we went to my Aunt's house for a barbecue - and had a quick HIIT workout for those who wanted to do it! We had a bunch of people it was nice!
Here's the workout:

Warmup:
Pushup x10
Air Squat x20
Lap around yard
- Repeat for 2 times



Workout:
Jump Rope
Shovel Glove
Medicine Ball Throw and Chase
Tire Flip
KB Swing
Ab Wheel Rollouts
Burpees
Chair Dips
1 minute interval – very short break to move between exercises

Normally you'd repeat for a few rounds... but we had a bunch of people sitting around watching us waiting to eat... so we just did one round. Still a decent quick 15 minute or so workout!!

One advantage to people that didn't do it - More Pictures!



  





Tuesday we ran around a wilderness park, trying to see if it was a good place to practice some of the awesome freerunning/parkour workouts from DemonDrills (Check out the intermediate and advanced playlists too!!) Had fun playing Tag with the wife and kids and running around on the little trails!

Wednesday I climbed on the climbing wall for a half hour in the morning, went to an awesome and tough Yoga class after lunch (and a big lunch from WingNutz made it more difficult!). Practiced some Wall handstands too - getting closer!

Thursday took it relatively easy - went to BJJ at work and we videoed it! So here's a long video - if you skip to the end (right after the credits) you can see me NOT getting the moves I'm trying to learn... Slow brain that day or something!

So yeah... That catches us up to but does not include YESTERDAY.

Yesterday was crazy. So I'll post about that later today after we do our crazy Tough Mudder training workout!!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Are you asking me for a Backyard HIIT CHALLENGE!?!?!

Yoga was fantastic yesterday morning - and we are starting to get a lot more people to come out to the classes! It helps to have a new teacher, new times, and more awareness for sure. It was really funny though, I was running a tiny bit late, but when I walked in there were 4 guys (not including me!!) lined up on mats to do yoga and NO WOMEN!! Then 3 ladies showed up.

Next up - Climbing! I enjoy climbing a lot. I've always known that. For some reason I've always been apprehensive about asking somebody with equipment and stuff if I could tag along... Not sure why. I still haven't done that. BUT I'm pretty good with indoor stuff and everything, so I like training people on the safety requirements of my work's new climbing wall. Especially when some of the people I train are friends that will NOT try working out in other ways. Even better when after the training they go "Hey, I could do this kind of exercise! That was fun!"

I couldn't go to Crossfit yesterday because I got really busy with a work issue. This particular project has been a lot slower than we've wanted, but it's FINALLY getting momentum and should be good.

It was all right that I missed the crossfit class though, because we had a lot of fun last night doing a Backyard HIIT with my sister!

Kakes put together this great workout for us, she's amazing. And also extremely hot.
I mean she is really really really good looking. I'm a very lucky man!

Warmed up with an 8 round tabata -
Football sprints for 20 seconds, pushups for 10 seconds - 4 minutes total.
Great warmup, I made myself do 10 pushups every time. By the end I was actually doing 10 faster than the 10 seconds.

Then we started the workout:
30 KB Swings (35 lb Kettle bell)
20 Weighted Reverse Lunges (2 25 lb plates)
1 minute Double-unders Jump rope
50 Medicine Ball tosses with a partner (17 lb ball)
1 min max pull-ups (I did 2 sets, 1 set of 10 regular pullups and 1 set of 10 semi-close-grip chinups)
20 each side tire slams (16 lb sledgehammer)
50 chair dips (I'm sore from this one!)
30 leg throws
20 Wall runs (These were VERY hard to do last!)

Loads of fun and sweaty-ness!
Blurry Picture time!!

Medicine Ball Throws!

Pullups!!

Sledgehammer!!!

Wall Runs!!!!

Even the kids got into it!!!!!
Life is good folks. Don't let it pass you by!