I met my goals

As of yesterday, I had 3150m to go until I met my goal of 50km of swimming in December. Today, I put in about 3300m so I beat my goal by 150m. For running, I beat it by 13 miles. In retrospect, the running goal was too low. As for swimming, I met it but I don't think I'm necessarily a better swimmer because of it. The reason why is that the increase in swimming really bothered my shoulder a bit. Also, I put in a lot of junk meters where I was swimming just to get the distance and didn't get a quality workout. There were a lot of workouts where I would just get in the water and just swim because I was fatigued or my shoulder hurt. Eh, at least I tried. For January, I'm just going to try to get 3 quality workouts in a week and that's it.

Also, my morning weigh in was 197.

Remaining run miles: -13
Remaining swim meters -150

Easy week

I had an easy week this week for training because I skipped a lot of workouts because of vacation. I'm probably going to ditch my plans of running the AT&T half marathon in February. My body is just too heavy at the moment to do that kind of distance. I feel like I'm on the verge of getting really injured again and I don't want that. I may still do it, but I probably won't necessarily train for it. Oh, I ran 5 miles in 41:35 today and that was after 3550 yards in the pool.

New Balance mileage: 68.5

Remaining run miles: -13
Remaining swim meters 3,150

Weekly run mileage: 10 miles
Weekly swim distance: 6,550m

I swam!

I swam on Friday afternoon after I got back from TN on Thursday. I swam 3000m at the pool and my shoulder felt OK. I felt like I was swimming through syrup at first but I warmed up a bit after that. Nothing special. My knee still hurts from scraping dog crap off of my shoe. I also weighed in at 199.5 on Friday morning. Ugh.

New Balance mileage: 63.5

Remaining run miles: -8
Remaining swim meters 6,700

1 Year: Running (Relatively) Injury Free

Well, I started a year ago on Christmas Day of last year on a mission to run injury free. A year later, that mission was successful! I ran from December 25th. 2006 until December 25th, 2007 injury free! Woohoo! That is the longest stretch of consistent running for me in my entire life. I've had some issues such as the chronic PF that I've had in my left foot and the usual creaks and strains. Hopefully, this will keep up for a long time and I can continue to improve my running. I did somewhat hurt myself the other day but it is in one of the most embarrassing ways. I hurt my left knee by scraping dog shit of the bottom of my shoe. Yep, that's right.

New Balance mileage: 63.5

Remaining run miles: -8
Remaining swim meters 9,700

Long Run

I did a long run today. 14 miles in 2 hours exactly for a pace of 8:35/mile. Not bad. It was cold and my legs felt heavy though. My PF really acted up after the run and I was walking funny pretty much the rest of the day because of it and it's still bothering me right now. Being on my feet from traveling didn't help either. I really did a lot of calf and PF stretched when I could and it seems to help. I'm starting to think that I should trash my goal of doing the half mary in February and just try to get over this PF. I'll think about it some more and see how my foot does this week. Oh, I did reach my goal of 75 run miles this month! I may be able to hit 100 but we'll see how my PF dictates that.

New Balance mileage: 58.5

Weekly run mileage: 28.5 miles
Weekly swim distance: 12,000m

Remaining run miles: -3
Remaining swim meters 9,700

Shoulder Hurts

My shoulder hurts from swim practice. We basically did 21x100 on some insane interval and doing that much power hurt my shoulder. I ended up calling it quits after about 14 of the intervals and with the warmup and cooldown, I got in 2100m. Afterwards, I ran 5 miles easy around the neighborhood in about 43 minutes.

New Balance mileage: 44.5

Remaining run miles: 11
Remaining swim meters 9,700

My weigh in this morning was 197.5 which is much better than the 200.5 of yesterday. I'm glad that the holiday season is almost over and this is my last day of work for 2 weeks. The last couple of days have been OK. I swam Wednesday morning and then ran Thursday morning and swam Thursday night. Nothing special I guess. As you can see below, I'm blowing my goals out of the water for the month. I should meet the run after this weekend and meet the swim some point next week. The problem is that I won't swim for 4 days next week when I'm in TN for Xmas.

New Balance mileage: 39.5

Remaining run miles: 16
Remaining swim meters 11,800

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Man, I gotta be quick because I have to go to bed to swim in the morning, but I had a great workout tonight. We met at Peace Park and after the warm up, we did 2x1.25 mile loops with 2min rest in between. We left on the first loop and about 4 of us took the lead. The 4 of us ended up finishing pretty close to each other but it quickly became obvious about our strengths. On the inclines, Chris blew everyone away. On the downhills, I blew everyone away. This course was hilly so it became a battle of who could do better at their strength and the others' weakness. I "won" the first loop and had a time of 9:35.4 for the 1.25 miles or so. That's a pace of 7:40min/mile which isn't bad for this hilly of a loop. Chris came in a few seconds behind me and then Matt a few behind that. We started off on the next loop and we were all gunning for each other. Chris made a move about half way up a long, medium grade hill and I stuck with him but a bit back. On the next downhill, I blew him away and carried the momentum up the next incline. He knew he had me beat on the incline so he powered up it and actually came by me pretty damn quickly. I picked up a gear and stuck with him about 4' off of him. We crested the hill and had a quarter mile descend. I put on some speed but at the end, he ended up catching me and passed about 6' in front of me. The last move up the hill worked because it burned me out enough that I didn't have much left on the descent. My time for the second loop was 9:36.9. After going balls out for 2 of these hillacious loops, I fell off only bet a second and a half. Most other people fell off by 10-20 seconds. Not bad.

I started figuring some things out though. I think I found the form that I need for descending. I've been working on it for awhile, but I think it clicked today. I had to because that was where I was going to put some time on the other guys and if I slowed down with bad form, they would catch me. Basically, I opened up my stride a bit, land on the front of my food and not the heel which will slow me down, and lean forward. Whenever I get tired, I get more of an upright posture and land on my heels. Not good. I just had a great time this workout because I pushed myself when I was feeling very slovenly.

The swim workout this morning was also great because I decided to throw some speed back into the workout. My supraspinatus was a bit fatigued, but it wasn't bothering me. I need to work on that a bit but the workout today were pretty good. A B on the swim with an A on the run.


New Balance mileage: 35.5

Remaining run miles: 20
Remaining swim meters 18,400

Lazy Week

First of all, I hate holiday season. 198.5 this morning and I don't think the next 2 weeks are going to be any better but I'll try. Last week was the laziest week that I've had in awhile. I only swam 3 times and ran twice. I skipped 1 swim, 2 run workouts, and 2 weight sessions for various reasons. Most of it was work related though. Hopefully, this week will be much better since it is the week before Xmas and my boss is off this entire week!

For my shoulder, it is getting better. My chiropractor, Dr. Laurie Buob, thinks that I have injured my supraspinatus. I'm getting some ART done and it feels better. I'm also not going to use paddles for the rest of the year since that tends to bother my shoulder more.

Finally, I'm putting it all on the line. Warning! There are about to be gross pics posted. I've been worrisome about my weight lately since I just can't stop gaining weight especially with my weigh in this morning. To give myself more motivation, I'm posting pics of myself with my shirt off to show my progress. Be careful because there is pasty, doughy white skin about to be shown. And imagine the jiggle in those rolls when I run!

Fitness 1
Fitness 2

Yep, it's out there now. These were actually taken 2 weeks ago when I was 195. It's out in the public now and I won't post more pics until I get down to 180 or so.

New Balance mileage: 30

Weekly run mileage: 11.5 miles
Weekly swim distance: 9650m

Remaining run miles: 25.5
Remaining swim meters 21,700

Well, I'm on track to blow both of my goals out of the water, no pun intended.

Weigh In

This morning's weigh in was 195.5. Sucks because I barely ate 2000 calories yesterday but ran for nearly 2 hours and burned off over 1500 calories from working out. However, I did eat and drink like crap on Saturday night, woke up at 10am and went to bed at 8pm. Eh, I can't wait until the holidays are over. Also, my PF is bothering me pretty badly today and my IT band on my left leg flared up yesterday and is hurting moderately today.

Sunday Run

Well, I did my long run today. I did 12.5 miles in 1:51:00 for a pace of 8:53 per mile. I wasn't exactly well nourished today (i.e. hungover) and it was getting hot so it wasn't a great run for me. My PF was bothering my left heel was really hurting today. I did 2 laps at Barton Springs afterwards and man it was cold. Also, the temp dropped about 15 degrees in 30 minutes today. A cold front must have blown through while I was swimming. I had Chipotle as a post workout meal and I'm now about to go to bed at 8pm.

New Balance mileage: 18.5

Weekly run mileage: 28 miles
Weekly swim distance: 13,850m

Remaining run miles: 37
Remaining swim meters 31,350

Nothing special

Man, my workouts have been pretty mundane lately. Nothing special and nothing really new to add. My weigh in yesterday was 195 so I am making some progress. I swam another 3300m and ran 6 miles in 49 minutes today. I'm feeling OK as well. I had some ART done on my shoulder this afternoon and it is feeling a lot better. I tried out my new pair of New Balance shoes and they were fine. Eh, that's it.

New Balance mileage: 6
Nike mileage: retired

Remaining run miles: 49.5
Remaining swim meters 32,250

Thursday Run and Swim

A 4.5 mile easy run and 3400m swim today. My shoulder was fine during the swim. Nothing special.

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 235.5 miles

Remaining run miles: 55.5
Remaining swim meters 35,550

Wednesday Swim

Did 2850m. Shoulder was acting up a bit and other than that, not much to say.

Remaining run miles: 60
Remaining swim meters 38,950

Eh

Eh, not much to say. I weighed in at 196.5 this morning. Hmmmm. This morning, I swam 3400m and this evening, I ran about 5 miles. The weather this morning was freaking freezing. It was about 32 degrees or so. Burrrr! This even was a run around the neighborhood, but I took a new route. It was perfect running weather though. It was in the upper 50's, maybe 60. I wore a short sleeve shirt without a hat or gloves and I felt great while running. It was cool when I stopped, but perfect while running. Also, my Nike's are about flat, too.

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 231 miles

Remaining run miles: 60
Remaining swim meters 41,800

10 Miles Today

Today was the longest run that I've done since Longhorn. I was going to take it easy and I thought I did, but I must be getting faster or something. I did the 10 miles in 1:23:28 which is a pace of 8:20/mile. Not bad for an easy run. I felt pretty good but my heart rate was a bit elevated the second half of it. No matter what, I thought it was a good run. I felt comfortable and the weather was excellent. Oh, for those of you that are in the colder parts of the country right now, thin Austin "winter" had a high of 82 degrees today. Most excellent. After the run was 2000 yards of recovery swimming. I just did 10x200yds and wasn't pushing it at all.\

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 231 miles

Weekly run mileage: 23 miles
Weekly swim distance: 12,850m

Remaining run miles: 65
Remaining swim meters 45,200

75 miles & 50,000 meters

Since it is December 1st, I've decided to set a goal for the month. I will add a couple of metrics (man, I hate that word but it fits) to my blog to track. Here they are:

Remaining run miles: 75
Remaining swim meters 50,000

This should easily be accomplished if I swim 4-5 days per week and run 4-5 days per week. I almost went 100 run miles, but I think that might be a bit too much for me. We'll see if a month of fairly focused training will help me out.

I didn't do any workouts on Thursday. I wasn't feeling that well. I woke up that morning and was pretty dizzy and lightheaded and I had those spells throughout the day. Thursday was a run day and I was going to do about 6 miles with some intervals and fartleks in there. I did a run on Friday to make up for it but I didn't do the mileage. I just did the 3.1 mile neighborhood loop and did 5x1min strong, 1 min easy. Total time was about 27:09. It was a decent run. It was raining slightly but it was around 65 degrees so it was comfortable. It also feels good to run faster than to run slower. Before the run, I did a weight lifting session at the gym. I was focused and I was able to do it in about 30 minutes which is about all the weights that I think that I need right now. Well, I do it twice a week but that's it.

Before that in the morning, I went to the pool. I wasn't feeling it that morning. I still got in the water but did about 1350m. I got out because I just wasn't there mentally and my should was bothering me a bit. I talked with my swim coach about my shoulder and we agreed to move me down a lane. I won't be doing any faster intervals and I especially won't be doing them with paddles. I've noticed that paddles tend to hurt my shoulder as well as the faster intervals. Also, I've greatly increased the yardage while increasing the intensity at the same time and that's just a recipe for disaster. For the next 2 weeks, I'll keep the yardage up but I'll take the intensity down a bit. I may do 1 faster workout a week if that. I followed this advice this morning and my shoulder hurt a bit at first but once I warmed it up, it felt fine for the rest of the practice and that was about 3000m, too. I'll keep up with my shoulder exercises and keep it easy for 2 weeks and I should be fine.

Other than that, not much is going on. I weighed in at 196.5 on Friday so I've barely gone down in weight this week. For some motivation, I need to take a before shot and then hopefully take an after shot in a few months when I've lost 20 pounds or so.

New Balance mileage: 0
Nike mileage: 221 miles
Remaining run miles: 75
Remaining swim meters 47,000