Arriving at the gym later than normal, I had a plan. I started out by running as hard as I could on the treadmill for 3 minutes. Not long at all, but wanted to get started on the next part. After this little warm up, I started one a circuit. I did 100 steps on the stair climber. After this, I went over to the hanging crunch support and did 10 of those as well. I then walked over to the chin up bar, but it was a pretty special machine. I had never really used this before, but the machine is weight assisted. For example, I weigh 205. If I set the weight pin on 100 pounds, it adds that much weight against the weight of my body. By doing this, my body weight actually lifts that much weight by pulleys, and when I pull up, the 100 pounds pushes me upwards, allowing me to use the chin up motion to work my arms and back when it is still difficult for me to lift my full weight. This is what I decided was enough, so I started back on the stair climber. After 45 minutes of shoving myself as hard into this circuit as possible, I was almost finished. A few minutes later, I completed my last chin up. Total, I had finished 1000 steps, 100 hanging crunches, and 100 pull ups with assistance. As I walked into the house, I commented to my wife that I couldn't feel my shoulders. She responded with, "well, you look like hell..."

I'm still taking that as a compliment.

-brad

Being my third night here, I was feeling much more comfortable. I went down around 11:00pm and swam a few laps to warm up. My arms and chest were feeling sore, so I took some time to sit and started at 11:20 with a long swim. I made it about 25-30 laps before stopping, but took another small break and started a 5 lap circuit. After 10 sets of this, I wandered into the showers and hit the gym. I completed 30 minutes on the elliptical again, but at much lower intensity than Sunday. I also did some more free weights and got onto the bike again for about 20 minutes. Once back in my room, I looked in the mirror. I knew I had been losing weight, but after the past few days I had not really thought about it all that much. I could definitely see the progress when I looked at my stomach from the side, and from the front, I could see the beginnings of definition. I felt way more excited about this.

So I made it down gym in the hotel, kind of excited because there was some information in the room about the Precor machines that were recently added to the gym. They looked nice, so I started with 30 minutes on the elliptical cross-train machine. After this, I did about 20 minutes of work with free weights on my arms and took a few minute break to check out the other stuff in the room. Then I started my 30 minute trip on the stationary bike. All in all, the programs I selected went really well on machines, and I felt great. According to the workout summary on the machines, I burned about 500 calories total. While the machines didn't seem to live up to the hype of the information left in the room, they were pretty sweet.

- brad

I got lazy. Not at exercising, but at posting about it. Damn. I swore I wouldn't do that, so now I'm going to make sure I keep posting but this week has been a little weird. I did get to the gym Tuesday and Wednesday morning, but Thursday was a rest day. I have lost a total of 20 pounds so far since I started this exercise regimen, and that is pretty damn good. I also made it in to the gym with a few coworkers on Friday right after work. I did 1000 steps on the stair machine and sets of pull ups, along with row and crunch intervals in the middle. About 2 hours after leaving the gym, I headed to the car to drive for a day or two. Minnesota, here I come.

- brad

Monday I went to the gym in the afternoon.

I did a circuit type workout, starting with 10 minutes on the elliptical machine. From there, I went to 200 steps on the stair climber machine. Back to the elliptical for 5 minutes, then 200 more steps. One more time on the elliptical for five, and 200 more steps.

This was the original plan, followed by some weights and going home, but a friend suggested if I did 600 steps, why not 800. He was leaving the gym as I was starting the last 200, so I decided he was probably right, but why not 1000.

I then did 5 minutes on the recumbent bike, and back for 200 more steps. Repeating this process, I did 5 more minutes on the bike, then 200 more steps. I thought that I had plenty of time left before I needed to be home, so I went over to the other side of the gym. I figured I would continue the circuit type workout, and started with 10 hanging leg lifts. I then did 10 crunches. After 10 more leg lifts, I tried 10 reps on a machine that is basically being seated and then using the lower back to push back the rear of the chair, similar to a row but using more lower back. I have no idea what this is called. 10 more leg lifts and 10 more crunches. 10 more leg lifts and 10 more reps on the mystery machine, then 10 final leg lifts. I left the gym for the house feeling stronger than when I arrived, mostly due to being energized and ready to get to work on this health stuff. I also was finishing up my antibiotics, so the medicine was taking care of the chest pain, and using my inhaler much more regularly. This week was going to be hell in the gym, because I was going to make sure it was. I planned out my next two days on the ride home, thinking about arms and upper body on Tuesday and repeating the circuit on Wednesday.

Saturday morning at 8:30am I made my way to the old high school in town. I grabbed my paperwork from the front table. Looking around for a few friends that would be meeting me, I dropped my shirt from the race in the car and took a quick puff from my inhaler. After some light stretching and discussion with a few people, I went up to the start line. I was in pain, mostly from the respiratory infection. As the race started, I headed down High street in the middle of the pack. I wasn't concerned with place nearly as much as time. I was doing great for the first mile, right on pace. The second mile took me through the cemetery and up a rather large hill. This definitely took the wind out of me, and I slowed behind pace. The third mile seemed to drag on forever, but I remember looking back with a few blocks to go before the mile mark and seeing two people near me, then at the three mile mark they were still in the same spot. I found out later that they were closer, but moving much slower, and I had decided that I didn't want them to catch me. I finished the last .1 of a mile, rounding the corner into the school. The time was horrible. I was slower than the last 5k by about 20 seconds, even though I'd been training much harder. How could this happen? Then, more pain in my chest. I grabbed the inhaler out of the car and walked around the parking lot. After wandering into the school, I found I wasn't the only one who had done worse than expected, but that I still placed in my age group. I sat around for a while and then walked up to get my medal. Third place, men 20-29. Not bad, I guess...

I took Thursday evening off so that I could spend some time with my son. We went swimming and played around the pool for a while. Friday afternoon was looking like I would be heading to the gym, but a sudden downpour brought some cool weather out and I thought it was a good opportunity to run the course that I would be running on Saturday. This was my "dry run" but it was more than a little wet. I was aiming for a 27 minute run. That would work out to about 9 minute miles the entire way. With no one running on the course other than me, I knew I would be a little slow, and I came in at 31 minutes. I think tomorrow will go better though. In other news, I also went to the doctor this morning and found out I had a slight upper respiratory infection. Antibiotics should take care of it, but running tonight and tomorrow may be made much more interesting by it. I plan on loading up on the cough syrup before the race, mostly because I have been coughing to the point of vomiting, but hopefully this will be out of my system soon.

Today was a rushed workout day. I left work and headed straight to the house - changing and jumping right back into the car. I arrived out at the gym by car due to time constraints. On my way in, I found an old friend in there, lifting. I worked my way to the elliptical for a 10 minute warm up. After that, I worked on arm and upper body lifting in order to continue the work my way to creating an opportunity for myself in the first third of the race. If I can strengthen my lats, my abs, my core, and my arms, I can swim faster (in theory). My legs will carry me through the bike and run, but my upper body has to finish the first leg before that can happen.

In other news, I learned today that the team for the mini tri relay in September is set. Two coworkers will be on my team and we will be sporting jerseys of a small business from nearby Chillicothe known as Tinklebelts, which is footing the bill for the entry fee so far. This is awesome because I wasn't so sure about it, but our swimmer also happens to be the owner of said small business, so advertising it as much as possible is definitely in her interest. Being part of a team has just become a huge motivation. Look out for upcoming plans for jersey designs and plans for this race!

I rode the 2 miles out to the gym again today. I felt great on the way there and spent a few minutes wandering around after I got there. I made my way first to the elliptical in order to build up a decent base of a workout. 30 minutes later, I was sweating up a storm and ready to collapse. I had burned 379 calories according to the little computer on the thing. I then worked on my legs, doing leg lifts and presses. I was feeling great and excited to be consistent in making it to the gym two days in a row.

Using Mapmyride.com to figure out distances, I came up with a plan for this week. I biked the two miles to the gym on Monday evening and went in. I spent 45 minutes going from machine to machine, lifting with a combination of my arms and back. My theory is that this will not only allow me to trim precious minutes off my swim time as I get my core muscles built up, but that I will feel better and be more rounded in my exercise as well. I then finished with the two mile ride home, feeling weak but confident. This week was going to turn out great!

I felt like crap for a few days. Sunday I squeaked out a bike ride to the next town and back - about 25 miles total. I was dying on the way back, mostly due to fatigue from the days before and general activities. The next day, I felt destroyed. My arms, legs, and back hurt in a ridiculous manner and then I was coughing up a storm. To top that all off, I was attending a conference for my job on Wednesday and today, which set me up to be out of town at least one night, and after a conversation with my boss I found out that it meant camping nearby the conference site. I took an extra pair of gym shorts and shirts, plus some goggles and all the mp3 stuff I could find. Of course, the camp site was too far away for us to pick up wireless.

After the first day of meeting and such, the students were going nuts about wanting to play basketball, which I wasn't up for, but I did head to the campus pool. I swam about 10 laps, then walked upstairs and hit the stationary bike. After about 5 miles, I gave up. It was completely uncomfortable compared to the bikes at my normal gym, or my actual bicycle. I got off of that and started jogging on the indoor track - but only finished a mile. The weirdness of running on a track that takes 15 laps to get a mile seemed to overcome my desire to exercise. Part of this was probably due to being in a different situation as well.

On Thursday, I was taking part of a crew to a work site for a service day at a national park. We were scheduled to dig a ditch, one foot wide and one foot deep, along a handicap accessible trail that goes from the park HQ to the nearby bird blind. I ended up grabbing a pulaski and cutting away at the ground even though there were plenty of people helping. It seems like a heck of a tool, so I worked with these kids from about 8:30 in the morning until we were supposed to eat lunch around 11:30. After lunch, we worked until we were supposed to go on a tour around 2:15, but since we had been on the tour before, we took a 20 minute break and started back up until 4. My arms are definitely feeling it now that I'm back home and sitting on the couch. Taking off for the 4th weekend, but may pull off a bike ride on Sunday or Monday...

- brad