#bodyweight rows

[kcowgill]

4/23/2017 12.00 miles Why not? YTD: 418.70 miles 478 days in a row

I had some time, the weather was nice, why not go for a long run?

Lifted later on in the day, still not going “all out”*.

Then I drilled my taekwondo forms for a little over 20 minutes since I was having trouble remembering them all, and Master Chung was going to let me take a make-up test on Monday.

[kcowgill]

4/18/2017 3.20 miles Quick one on the treadmill YTD: 391.45* miles 473** days in a row

I think I started out trying to match my fastest pace from yesterday’s run, and possibly even go a little faster? I don’t recall specifically, but I think that’s what was going through my mind. Regardless, asking for two pretty good runs two days in a row is (I suppose) asking a lot. SO I petered out not hitting the 4 that, while not scheduled (officially), I was still shooting for in an attempt to offset that annual goal deficit.

* After catching up posting runs through yesterday I ALSO caught up on updating my spreadsheet, and I noticed the YTD values I was entering “manually” (without the help of my spreadsheet) had drifted off. I may at some point go back and correct them, but probably not.

** I also noticed during my last post that I had gone from day 467 to day 477 and continued on from there. I couldn’t let that stand, so I already went back and corrected it. But if you saw the wrong one(s) and were confused, my apologies.

P.S. I also went shopping for a wall clock to replace one that we’ve had for years, but recently fell off our wall and got completely destroyed. I actually found all the pieces and was able to figure out which gears went where, but the plastic housing had cracked and wouldn’t keep everything in place tight enough to continue to keep time. So I went clock shopping and sent my wife pictures of which clocks they had, and she said “I want that big one in the lower left.” “Ok, I like it too, but it’s BIG. I mean, REALLY big.”

P.P.S. I bought that leather jacket on a trip to Italy with my wife’s family 10-11 years ago. I haven’t worn it for maybe 6 years. Can you guess where I’m going with this? I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it - the thing’s huge on me. Not quite a tent, but just ... big. “I thought this thing used to fit?” “You were bigger back then.” “I wasn’t THAT much bigger, was I?”

Oh I also started back up my lifting routine, easing into it a bit to try to avoid the inevitable soreness.

[kcowgill]

3/14/2017 4.50 miles Only a small glitch YTD: 250.39 miles 437 days in a row

“Laced up” after the kids went down. Really though I wore my (still) muddy Vibram Lontras - I’ve put a lot of miles in my Inov-8′s lately and I thought I’d get a better feel for the slippery/snow-packed ground in my Vibrams. And possibly wash off some of the mud. So anyhow, no laces.

The GPS glitch gave me only about a tenth of a mile or so - I was keeping a pretty even pace the first two miles so when I saw my 2nd mile split come up a minute fast the math wasn’t too hard to work out. I also extended my 4 mile route by going ALL the way up to where Milwaukee and Elston meet instead of cutting through just past Austin. Why? Because extra mileage, yo. Also I felt fine, and I had plenty of time. I had even talked myself into switching over to my 5 mile route early on if I got stopped by a particular light - but I didn’t so I just soldiered on.

VERY shortly after I got home I lifted.

I had written out most of this workout yesterday before I decided to call it off, but today I made a few changes to my plans. I upped the weight on the 6 and 7 rep sets of deads since last time I exceeded my plan/goal. I had also written in an extra back-off set at 170, intending to do maybe 8 reps, but after I hit 7 at 205 I had had enough.

I was originally going to do a 1x10 push pull roll with this workout, but since I didn’t do that workout yesterday and I would’ve done a 5x10 push pull roll today... well, I did it anyhow. I really would like to have a week where I hit ALL of my workouts - and as a bonus do them ALL on the ORIGINALLY PRESCRIBED day. That last part isn’t going to happen this week, but I can at least shoot for checking them all off.

And speaking of checking off, I section off a hunk of my whiteboard for every workout I do (in my basement. I don’t bring the whiteboard to my gym). Today I’ve filled up the whole thing with a full month of workouts.

It’s a thing of beauty.

I heard from Sam (my co-worker, who DIDN’T forget his workout clothes) that the hot tub at the gym was merely warmish. I’ll be upset if it’s not fixed by the time I want to get my stretch on tomorrow...

(Eagle eyed readers will notice that though I normally post something about family taekwondo on Mondays, there was no such mention today. My son’s still prohibited from strenuous physical activity following his outpatient surgery last week, and my daughter’s been ill (just a cold, but a tendency to develop nose bleeds. My wife still went to the black belt class at 6:20pm. I took one for the team :)

[kcowgill]

3/31/2017 1.10 miles Easy mile YTD: 327.0 miles 455 days in a row

I wasn’t sore yet from my squats and lunges the day before, but I knew it’d be coming (and it did). Glad I’ve got this easy mile on the schedule.

Also got my lifting in at the gym.

I’ve got all sorts of excuses lined up for why I did so poorly on my bench press at 145. I’ll just leave it with this: today was the first time I’ve ever had to put the bar back on my chest and dump the weights off to one side, then the other. That’s right - I thought I could AT LEAST get the 4th out, but lol nope. No spotter, no safety rails, so what’s a guy to do? I was a little embarrassed, but I soldiered on and got the rest done. Including my push, pull, roll using the equipment at the gym. (I added the checkmark emoji’s just before posting thus the later timestamp).

[kcowgill]

3/30/2017 2.18 miles No intervals, just ran easy YTD: 325.90 miles 454 days in a row

I just didn’t feel like pushing it this day, so I didn’t.

Lifted later on.

[kcowgill]

3/16/2017 2.23 miles Ok, not too bad! YTD: 258.93 miles 440 days in a row

So if my back pain* yesterday was a 3-4, today it was1.5-2. Still not great, but at least I didn’t accidentally tweak it while running today. And since I felt up to it, I did some intervals!

6.0mph for .25

7.5mph for .25

6.0mph for .30

8.0mph for .20

6.0mph for .35

8.5mph for .15

6.0mph for .35

9.0mph for .15

I was going to split that last interval at .40/.10, but I decided .10 would hardly be an effort at all, so at the last minute I decided to just make it .15 instead. Besides, those rest intervals were getting too long. I’m still over the moon that 6.0mph/10:00min/mile pace is essentially ‘rest’ for me. I remember when I’d hold that pace for a couple of miles and I’d be wheezing by the end, heart rate through the roof.

I walked over to the gym with Rene. We ran on treadmills next to each other, but there were too many other people nearby and I don’t want to be the creep snapping photos of people who’re there to work out and not have their face wind up in some schmoe’s tumblr. On the way over we were discussing the differences in our training styles. He’s been consistently faster than me, but he’s always pushing. I’m actually keeping a mostly consistent pace (but I suppose gradually having it creep up) and my effort is decreasing as I go. I expressed that I’m OK with keeping my effort down because I’m trying to keep my run streak going, whereas he gets to take a reasonable number of rest days :)

Quick stretch in the hot tub afterwards, and no recurrence/aggravation of the back pain, so that’s a win.

And nearing the end of the night with a bit of trepidation, I went downstairs for lifting. I was worried I’d aggravate my back at LEAST with squats, so I made sure I paid extra special attention to what my body was telling me as I went. And it pretty clearly told me... “Keep going!”

I kept the weight the same from last week, but eagle eyed readers will note that I got 6 reps at my max weight instead of just the 5 from last time. So, 1) my back isn’t interfering with squats, AND 2) I should increase the weight. I switched my lunges from 4x6 to 5x5. Just a little more (1 rep to be exact) but I figured the caution was worthwhile. I did my push, pull, roll and decided that I should up that to 2 sets on my ‘off’ days (while keeping 5 sets on the designated other days). It’s time.

* I was thinking that another possible cause might be Tuesday morning as I was walking from the train to my office, one of the sidewalks was super slick and I slipped - I didn’t fall, but catching myself (by suddenly tensing all sorts of things) might be the culprit. MAYBE.

[kcowgill]

3/28/2017 2.02 miles Treadervals! YTD: 319.70 miles 452 days in a row

I put off my lunch (AKA going to the gym) for various reasons until super late in the workday so I didn’t take the time to stretch in the hot tub. Split these at .2m slow .3m fast at 6mph and 7.6mph. I think last Tuesday I did 7.5? I’ll probably keep creeping this up. Because why not?

Wore my new Inov-8 shoes. Had an issue with one of the shoelace eyelets digging into the top of my foot. I think the fabric of the upper is just a little too stiff in that spot, so maybe I can loosen it up with a shoe stretcher or something?

Finally lifted. Combined my Sunday workout with my Tuesday workout. Will possibly regret that, as well as taking a week off. Oh well.

[kcowgill]

3/29/2017 4.02 miles Ran with Rene again YTD: 323.72 miles 453 days in a row

Oh, here’s me without a beard (again). I didn’t recognize myself. Still don’t :)

The only thing I really remember is that the gym was crowded enough that we went over to the far side for our treadmills. And there were enough other people around that I didn’t want to snap a pic with Rene for fear of accidentally getting someone else in the picture. I gassed out and started slowing down at the 3 mile mark. I’d been running a pretty intense caloric deficit - I just couldn’t eat back the calories loseit.com reports I’d been burning.

Did my push, pull, roll routine.