Time Flies

It has definitely been a busy past few weeks!

Right after my last entry the sickness I mentioned hit me full force. Fever, Ear infection, shakes, weakness, sore throat, coughing.

Nasty. Then the ear infection caused a major cloggin in my noggin that even STILL hasn't fully gone away. The congestion is mostly gone, but there is still a slight lessening of hearing in my left ear. Very annoying.

Needless to say that cut my fitness pursuits significantly for a few days.

Running wise - I have started using Strava along with Runkeeper to track my running. One thing I really like about Strava is the 'segments' that they have, allowing for a little bit of friendly competition, and giving you goals to beat.

Kind of fun to hold 'CR's' (Course Records I think?) for a particular segment.

During the sickness I did not run as much as I wanted, but I did have a couple good ones.

Went on a nice run with the Davis County Group on the upper and lower Farmington Terrace Trails as well (These pics are on my instagram - yay!)

 

Beautiful Morning runs with that group - especially now that even with a 5:30 am start, you don't even need a headlamp!

After 2 weeks without BJJ I was very happy to get back to doing that - and even happier to see that when we started working on omoplata's  I wasn't completely lost and I was able to pick things up possibly faster than I had before! Yay!

Preparation for the physique contest in September is moving along - I'm still not sure what I want to change in my current routines to improve in certain areas like ab and arms definition...

Here's a torso progress picture from May 20th:

 

As you can see one of the major things that will happen before any competition is a spray tan and some other tanning lotions! If you know of any deals let me know!

I have added P90X Ab Ripper and plan to add a day of the Insanity Abs program into my weekly routine. 2 nights a week each program one time - should add a nice little hit to the abs. I haven't done those programs in QUITE some time - my first time doing Ab Ripper X the other night left me sore for longer than expected.

I love it!

On Saturday the Refuse2Quit guys (who I run with a lot, especially since one of them is my brother!) finished the Bryce 100 Mile race. I love the last line of the last paragraph before the video. (Which is awesome, you should watch it!)

We certainly have other friends and brothers who still need to run 100 miles. Time to make plans (Brent and Aaron).

HA! 100 miles is a REALLY long run. Like 24+ hours of running without really stopping!!

Maybe I'll do a 50 miler this year though... Who knows!?

The Last Two Months

Yeah...
I haven't been too good about updating my fitness blog since I stopped doing the daily digests...

It was a strange and crazy summer that's for sure! Trying to get ready to move and then having the whole thing fall through is really a pain!!

Some of the sites I am using to track workouts and progress though (and I've meant to write this post for a while - FINALLY getting around to it!) are the following:

• Bodybuilding.com - While I'm not fully into the full-blown body-building look. The art of building muscle is interesting to me. So I created a profile where I can track my weight and progress in a few different ways. If I ever get around to it I can join the community too!
• Runkeeper - I've used Runkeeper for quite some time and overall I like it a lot. My only problem with it now is my phone is starting to have issues, so I can't get the GPS to track my run properly. Frustrating, but still amazing that it even exists right? Plus I can always enter it manually and plot my run on the map. Awesome service.
• Nike + - for those times when Runkeeper doesn't work, I've tried Nike +... it does well when I can get it to work, but it too does all sorts of crazy things and due to my phone it too has issues with the right GPS tracking. I do like the way it handles music better than Runkeeper. Still the login screens take forever so when you are starting a race, it's hard to get it started.

Other than that - I have been doing Yoga VERY consistently (and I feel it in my shoulders when I miss - it really keeps me nice and loose) Running in prep for races, and pull ups, with occasionally other random workouts thrown in. Not horrible, but not a great way to achieve what I want. ALSO in the bad category, I have had WAY too much Sugar and Soda, and I can tell.

Saturday I ran in the Utah Marathon Relay with a team from work. We had 2 teams, the FUN team and the NOT FUN (i.e. FAST) team. Somehow they put me on the fast team! And we did amazing, got 2nd place overall and 1st place overall for the Mixed division. While I WAS the slowest on the fast team (stupid allergies, they've really given me some breathing issues lately) I was still faster than everybody on the 'Fun' team, even if it was only by a minute! Still it was great to run on a winning team. Here's my run. And here's a picture of the whole group!

This weekend I will be running in the Dirty Dash:



That looks like a TON of fun! Again this is with a team from work - I am filling in for a coworker who broke his foot. OUCH! While it will be fun, it is also a bit scary but not because it's a 10k and it will be very dirty, but because my team has a COSTUME. Short Jean Shorts, Bow Tie, Suspenders, Crazy socks if ya got 'em, and that's it!

I guess it's good Halloween preparation! And I always have fun getting into costume!

Finally - today I decided I needed (again) to get into a more intense workout schedule - so I did an Insanity Fit Test, hoping to continue the Insanity program for the 2nd (full) time. I probably won't update daily, but we'll see how it goes!

Here are the fit test results, along with the results of the one I did back in May:

• Exercise - 5/4/11 -  9/12/11
• Switch Kicks - 150 -140
• Power Jacks - 70 -69
• Power Knees - 102 -107
• Power Jumps - 82 -81 (Massive Asthma after this one yikes!)
• Globe Jumps - 14 -18
• Suicide Jumps - 28 - 26
• Push-up Jacks - 40 -42
• Low Plank Obliques - 85 - 114

Not bad, especially since I haven't been doing any of these moves since then!

Daily Exercise Digest 43

Today:

• L-sits at my desk - so wide grip - I'll try to get a picture sometime, I practice on the cubicle walls a lot my coworkers think I'm odd. Which I am.
• Insanity: Pure Cardio - Wow I haven't done this workout in quite some time. Great workout! I must say by the end of Insanity one of the reason you are good at it is because you've been doing these moves for 2 months! So I wasn't as able as I was before, but I was able to get through it MUCH better than my first time doing it last year! The plan is to do a Hybrid P90X/Insanity program after the Ragnar. We'll see how it works out.

1 Week until the Ragnar Relay!

Daily Exercise Digest 23

I've been combining these 'daily' entries a lot lately!
Oh well!
As long as I'm documenting what I've been up to and I'm improving and forcing myself to keep working!

I'm happy.

It's not like many people are checking out these awesome 'Daily Digest' entries anyway.

Yesterday:

• 3.72 miles pushing a running stroller with 2 adorable little girls (f)
• Demo a few of the ridiculous Crossfit moves from Monday, could barely do them (f)
• Attempted some jump-assisted muscle ups on thick playground monkey-bars but could neither jump nor do the dip above the bar once my chest reaches that point. Pretty funny!

Today:

• 10 pullups
• Insanity Fit Test (Did comparison photos to my Insanity Results from over a year ago. (see below))
• Exercise - 5/4/11 -  3/10/10
• Switch Kicks - 150 - 157
• Power Jacks - 70 - 80
• Power Knees - 102 - 125
• Power Jumps - 82 - 85
• Globe Jumps - 14 - 15
• Suicide Jumps - 28 - 28
• Push-up Jacks - 40 - 58
• Low Plank Obliques - 85 - 124
• Interesting to see where I'm still tired from Crossfit on Monday! I did especially HORRIBLE at the power-knees, push-up jacks and the low plank obliques!

Here is a comparison of today and February of 2010:

Awesome hair today eh? OH YEAH!
And here's a front flex if you want to compare from today and March 2010 when I first finished Insanity:

Considering it's been over a year - I'm pretty pleased with where I am. I still have improvements to make, but Yoga, Running, and Intermittent Fasting have been great!

Insanity and the Abs

This morning I started the second week of my second Insanity cycle.

On top of that for some reason I feel like I should keep going to Yoga on Mondays and Wednesdays here at work!

It is extremely tough to do both, but at the same time I think the extra yoga stretches help my body recover somewhat from the morning's insane workout.

Hopefully it will help with my goal to get ridiculously good abs! Unfortunately with the end of summer and the craziness that entails (work, stress, home for sale (hopefully soon), trip to Canada, work conventions) - nutrition and healthy eating takes a bit of a dive!

I've also stopped doing the ab workouts I was doing, but hope to re-incorporate those as soon as I can!

Insanity and Intermittent Fasting

Yesterday was the 2nd day of my second round of the Insanity workout program. That program really is quite tough!

On top of that, it was my first day of Intermittent fasting while doing the program. I was a bit nervous! Especially since I'm in the middle of figuring out what's wrong with me (allergies anyway) - and I was surprised that I wasn't shaking or miserable all day because I had done an intense workout without feeding my body before or after.

I wanted to do another little run before eating, but I was unable to because of work and timing.

I also cheated a bit with some candy that I picked up at the Allergy Clinic... but it wasn't enough to affect the fasting from my point of view.

One of the main reasons I 'm doing Intermittent Fasting is because while I don't normally care about food so much (eat to LIVE not live to EAT, etc) when I DO eat I really want to enjoy it and it is amazing how much more I enjoy my food! Plus it gives you more room for error when you are letting your body use up every little bit that's left in there instead of adding new calories and nutrients to process.

I even worked late because I got to work pretty late, and it wasn't a problem at all!

I weighed myself yesterday after Insanity and last night before bed - right now I'm hitting between 162 and 165.

Later today or tomorrow I will post the 'before' pictures that I took yesterday - I'm happy with my progress, but still have QUITE a ways to go.

Insanity - Round TWO

Earlier this year I did Insanity which my wife had given me for Christmas.

It was a GREAT 60 day program that I felt had pretty dang good results, but probably not as good as I could have achieved if I had made a few more changes along with the program.

This morning I did the first fit test with my wife - she is starting it (really starting it!) for the first time and I'm going to do it with her because I need it myself, and hopefully we can motivate each other to keep strong with it.

It was interesting that in some ways I did WORSE than my very first fit-test, even though I am in better shape now than I have been in a long time - including when I finished Insanity back in March.

This is a good fit test - but honestly I think to do well in the fit test can mean more that you are better at those particular exercises and not necessarily fit. Basically what I really want to see is what my final numbers are compared to my final numbers from last time. :)

We'll try to take our 'Before' pics today sometime and I'll probably post them soon with more Insane updates.

My one concern is that my allergy issues that I'm still looking into will be a roadblock. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen.

I got up before SIX AM this morning to do this! So it's ON!