I Forgot

I had a blast this past weekend and I forgot what kind of workouts I did last week. Swimming was meh since I tweaked my shoulder again but I'll get back into the pool tomorrow. And I have been doing weights for my shoulder so that's helping. Biking was me as well unfortunately. I blew off my long ride over the weekend to ride today and it is suppose to rain all day now. For running, I actually put in a decent 13.5 miles or so. And my shoes smell so bad at the moment. They seriously smell like ammonia and cat piss. Nasty! And now that it is towards the end of the month, I thought this was going to be the month that I get below 190 and stay there. With 5 days to go, I'm at 194 this morning. I know that it is because of the alcohol and that's the key to me but I drank something like 7 of the last 9 nights. Now, I'm not getting shitfaced every night, but I do go out and have 1 or 2 drinks a lot of those times. There is nothing else going on there besides by lack of discipline.

On the positive side, I've actually been having a lot of fun lately and being social. I volunteered at the Longhorn 70.3 yesterday and that was a blast. I was out there for 9 hours and I was so exhausted last night that I couldn't sleep.

And there isn't much more about the past and I just need to concentrate on the now.

Weekly run mileage: 13.5 miles
Asics mileage: 225.5

48:18

That was my time at the IBM Uptown Classic 10K this morning. This is actually my first ever standalone 10K. I've done 10Ks in triathlons before and I've actually gone faster in tri 10Ks, but I gotta start somewhere. The plan was to use this 10K as a baseline for winter training. Then, in the spring when I'm 15lbs lighter and in much, much better running shape, I'll crush this PR and come in at something like 41:57. Well, we'll see if that happens. The weather was nice and cool, but I was overdressed for running. I wore my REI Powerstretch top and that was fan-fucking-tastic before the race, but about 3 minutes in, I was hot. And I was hot the entire race. I took off my gloves and was thinking about taking off my hat as well. Next time, I'll skip the super warm parka and just wear a tech t-shirt. For the first 3 miles, I was on a 7:44/mi pace and I was quite happy with that since I was gunning for a total time of 47:59. However, the mile from 4-5 was brutal with some good hills in there. I think that mile was 8:20 or so. I recovered and blew up again in the middle/end of Mile 5-6. We ran through the IBM parking lot which was a slight hill and a lot of people passed me. I got another wind towards the top and passed a lot of those people and I finished strong. My heart rate was about 160bpm at the beginning and climbed pretty much the entire race until about 181bpm when I crossed the line. The last mile and a half had it at 170+ but I was able to hold on for the most part. Also, I paced the run pretty well with a 7:47/mi for the first half and 7:46/mi for the last half with a pace of 7:47/mi overall.

Oh, I checked and this is my 3rd fastest 10K. I actually went 2 minutes faster in the 2007 Austin Triathlon but I was in fucking amazing shape (for me) at that race.

Other than the race, this was a recovery week for me. It was an easy 13.5 miles of running or so. I fucked up my knee doing strides and drills on Tuesday night. I don't know what I stepped in or on, but I slightly twisted my knee/dislocated it. It wasn't bad but I tried to do 1 interval out of 4 and stopped after the 1st one. It isn't worth it and it was feeling very janky, too. I iced the hell out of it that night and I ran on Friday morning without any problems. I think swimming 3x/week is a bit much for my shoulder especially since I've been lazy with weights the last week or so.

Oh, and I have a very positive attitude about working out right now and I'm very motivated to do what I need to do to get better, get stronger, and get faster. Weight is still a bit of an issue so I gotta watch the alcohol but I think I can drink smarter, still have a social life, and still be able to go run the next morning. I need to limit myself to 2, *maybe* 3, drinks and that's it. Overall, things are going pretty damn well at the moment.

Weekly run mileage: 13.5 miles
Asics mileage: 212 miles

21.5 Miles

I ran 21.5 miles this week. The first time that I've run 20+ since January of 2008 when my plantar fasciitis really set in. I'm feeling good, too. My body is feeling OK. Well, I had to go see Dr. Laurie last week because of some issues with my back, but luckily, those issues weren't keeping me from working out (yet). Those are on the mend. I hit the pool twice last week as well and my shoulder is starting to feel better with the weights that I'm adding in as well.

My weight is meh. I got down to 191 last week but it keeps going up on the weekends just from a few drinks on a single night. I have to stop things because I want to get down to 175. I know I can do it but I'm missing the one thing. Well, I know what the one thing is (alcohol) but it is really tough to go out, have a social life, and not have a couple of drinks on the weekends. If anyone has met me, I can be a bit of an introvert/social retard at times and a little bit of liquid courage really helps out. Things are coming together though so we'll see how this recovery week goes.

BTW, I fucking hate my Polar S720i HRM. I need a new one so badly.

Weekly run mileage: 21.5 miles
Asics mileage: 198.5 miles

Something has changed

I don't know what happened, but it seemed that something changed with my workouts. I wasn't just slogging through them but it seemed that I was having quality workouts and pushing my body. And it felt fan-fucking-tastic! I'll keep it up and see how it goes. I did stuff every day and only missed a few workouts. I take that back; I missed on Monday (rest day) and Sunday (hungover). I would've had at least 21.5 miles for the week but I stayed in bed instead. I'll get 20+ this week though. I'm very glad that things are turning around and I'm interested in seeing how things will go over the next few weeks.

Weekly run mileage: 18.5 miles
Asics mileage: 177 miles