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

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 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.