Workout: Mar. 23rd-28th

One of the big reasons(excuses)  I have for not posting much lately is that my company has been getting ready for a two Trade Shows in Las Vegas.  I was out in Vegas from 22nd-26th staffing the two shows.  I made a slight effort to squeeze my workouts in, I started out great, got up 5:30am, which is big for me cause I am not a morning workout person, and did my workout.

March 23rd: 8x800m repeats at around 3min 15 sec.  I stayed in the Luxor, the big pyramid, and luckily was able to just run straight south on Las Vegas Blvd. (The Strip) and once I got out of the casino area it wasn't too bad.  Though it was cold, 40's in the morning. 

March 24th & 25th: off I had to be on my feet all day from roughly 8am-9pm, so it made it more difficult to connivence myself to get up and run in the morning.  That's my excuse and I'm stickin to it.

March 26th: 3x15min @ marathon pace(10.6 miles)

March 27th: 7.25 mile easy pace

March 28th: 9.6 miles easy pace.  Though I was out at the bar and up until 4:30am and I managed to get up at 8:30am and go for a run.  Let's just say it hurt for about the first 3 miles or so, more of those "stomach" pains I guess.  

The great thing that I learned about was that I didn't know where I was going to run, but I just Googled it and there were plenty of people that had blogged or posted information about were to run, what the conditions were like and everything.  It was really great, now at least you don't have the excuse that I didn't know were to run.  

New Heart Rate Monitor!!!

Well, even though I have been using it for about a week and a half.  I'm finally going to post about it now.  I got my new heart rate monitor, I finally broke down and bought one and I absolutely love it.  I went with the Polar FT80 with the GPS sensor and it is great.  It is probably more than I needed but it make tracking your workouts soooo much easier.  

It also looks pretty good, if there was a running watch that had any bling to it this would have to be the closest one.  It is very sleek and fits well, I don't really even notice it while running and I usually don't wear a watch.  The GPS sensor is great it tells you your distance and speed and have a really nice syncing system that records all your workouts and uploads them to your personal profile.  All you do is set the watch on the docking station and it uploads automatically.  

It also give you a lot of great data on your workout, (heart rate zones, distance avg. speed ect.)  anyways I would definitely recommend this watch for any somewhat serious runner, biker, or ect. the only thing is that it is expensive, $425 for the heart rate monitor and GPS sensor, so you have to be somewhat serious.  

Workout: Mar. 16th-22th

Alright, it has been a while. I'll break up some of the workouts into multiple posts.

March 16th: Off Day

March 17th: Full body strength training

       4  mile repeats at marathon tempo(7min miles)

March 18th: 8 mile easy pace

March 19th: Full Body strength training

       10 mile at 7:30 min mile pace

March 20th: 6 miles easy pace

March 21st: 5.8 mile easy but I was supposed to do 19miles.  I had stomach problems, probably from the night before.  

Workout: Mar. 12th-15th

Workout March 12th: 5 miles easy

Workout March 13th: 20min at marathon pace and 10 mins at marathon pace.  This was pretty tough being that I went to happy hour prior to working out and let say that 32oz of beer is not conducive to running at your marathon pace for any period of time. 

Workout March 14th: Went for a easy 6 mile run, we finally are getting some nice weather for a change. I got my new heart rate monitor Polar FT80 with GPS, super cool, I'll post about it later.

Workout March 15th: I was supposed to do another 13-20 mile race, but I went out for a race pace 18 miles. Felt pretty good but got really muddy and wet, but it was nice to get out in the nice weather.  50's, so can't complain.  

Need More Energy?

Believe it or not this little guy is the key to more energy.  It's a mitochondria and it is what convert food into energy...more or less.  So what helps these guys work the best?  Well these mitochondria become damaged from oxidation and so anti-oxidants help maintain them.  So this means a lot of fresh fruits and veggies.  

Here is a great article from Experience Life Magazine about how to get the most from your mitochondria.  

 

Read Article 

Workout: Mar. 10th

March 10th: Today I skipped my strength training but did a really good running workout.  I did to ladders 2x(1 mile-2 mile-1 mile) at 10 mph/6min miles.  I have been doing all my hard workouts after my strength training days, so that I can recover on my easy days.  I generally lift first then do my running which is fine except that my body is fairly tired before I even start my running.  Well today on a fresh set of legs is burned through the workout.  

At one point during my second ladder during my 2 mile set I was cruising along at 10.5 mph with relative ease, I should say that I never had the incline more than 1.5 so that diffidently helped.  But until the last set my heart rate was around 170-175 which is pretty good for 10 mph.  

Nutrition-Juicer Part II

I got my juicer today and tried it out.  It works great so far and is super easy to use and clean.  I made some apple carrot juice which was quite good.  I also made a strawberry, kiwi, mango juice for breakfast tomorrow, which I tried and was great.

It has a screen so that you don't have to get the pulp, but I don't mind it and it just adds some fiber.  The strawberry, mango kiwi, tastes very similar to the Naked Juices that are like $4 each. Granted this is still not cheap, but allows you to do a lot more.  

I have some wheat grass seeds in route and I'm going to try and grow some this spring and summer, I heard that it is really good for you and I can juice it in my new juicer.  

  

Books

This is not directly related to running per say, but I just got done reading the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.  I thought is was just a great book and I hope to try and implement the techniques that Covey discusses.  

It is not only methods to becoming an effective person but it talks about a better way to view life and others around you so that you can be a better person and well I guess more effective for the better.  

How this relates to running is that too many people do not reach their potential or goals because of a lack of time and effort to get their workouts in.  This book helps you to implement techniques in your life to better balance your priorities which hopefully will allow you to reach your goals running or otherwise.

Definitely check it out its in your local library or buy the audio book and listen to it while running; can't get anything better than that.

Nutrition

I have been treating myself to a few rewards and here is one of them.  No, its not a meat grinder, it's a juicer.  It is the Healthy Juicer Electric GP62 by Lexen.  It is a masticating juicer, which means that basically it grinds the fruit though an auger, not by shredding  and spinning like centrifugal juicers.  Masticating juicer produce more juice, but are a bit more expensive.  This guy was on sale for $145.  

But I think it will be well worth it especially for breakfast on the go and refueling after the gym. Plus it is a great way to get the nutrients that you need quickly and easily.  It is suppose to arrive this Thursday the 12th, so I'll have to let you know how it works.    

Post Run Recovery:

Well, I did promise to provide some advice from my experiences running.  One of the big things that I have learned is how to recover well from my races and workouts.  One thing that really helps me is massage.  Of course you need to always try and do a good cool down and post run stretch. 

Ideally I would go and get a sports massage, but I can't afford to get one every time is have a hard workout, but even massaging my own legs or rolling them using the large form roller works great.  It actually hurts a bit when doing either, but for me it helps to reduce soreness the next day.   The key is to do it right after your post run cool down and stretch.  So give is a try or if you have a running partner or loved one that is willing to massage your sweaty legs even better. 

Workout: Mar. 6th-9th

March 6th: Off, I had to work and drive 4.5 hours.

March 7th: I went home for the weekend and a friend of mine from High school is big into Triathlons and Running and I went out for a nice 10 mile run with him through some pretty good hills.  It was really nice to run with someone, I haven't been able to to that since probably last fall.  

March 8th: My alarm didn't go off, so I had to delay my big run until today.

March 9th: Supposed to be 18 miles but took a wrong turn and ended up being 20.5 mile.  I felt great though and even ran most of the last 6-4 miles around my marathon pace, but I think I'll probably feel it tomorrow.

Workout: Mar. 5

Workout March 5th:
Thursday's workout was strength training again and then I did 10 mile at MLR(30 secs slower than my marathon pace) this was about a 7min 24 sec mile per minute pace.

I felt pretty good but I could tell my legs were already tired from the strength training. I wanted to do about 13 miles but wimped out.

Workout: Mar. 3rd-4th

Workout Mar. 3rd:

I felt pretty good while doing my strength training.  I actually have shifted to doing 3 sets of 12+ on all my exercises and have been switching up different exercises for each muscle group.  Because the body adapts quite well, you need to change the type of exercises you are doing in order to get the maximum results.

It has been about 6 months since I really changed up my routine.  After the strength portion I did 5 sets of 1000m runs at my 10k pace(10 mph).  I felt pretty good for the firs 4 but that last one was kind of tough.

Workout Mar. 4th

Fairly easy paced 6 miles.  I incorporated 3  1/2 mile hills into the run so that I start getting used to them for the Boston Marathon.

 

Workout: Mar. 2

Workout Mar. 2nd:

Today was a easy recovery day just went for 3 miles really easy on the treadmill.  My legs felt pretty tried so I didn't really want to push things after the tough 13.1 I did yesterday.

Workout: Mar. 1

Workout: March 1st

Today I was supposed to run a 1/2 marathon, but there wasn't a good race around the area, so I just did a hard 13.1 miles.  I clocked in around 1 hour 34 mins, which is about 7 min 10 sec miles.  Not too bad considering the weather conditions and the lack of anyone pushing me pace wise.  I would like to run around a 7 min mile pace for my marathon, so a little slower than I'd like.