I am sitting on the couch right now with my wife and two pugs. We are watching Die Hard on FMC for like the 200th time. We love this movie! The reason it is such a quiet night is that Annie has been under the weather the last few days. She is starting to feel better, but it looks like the sickness may have found a new victim in yours truly!
I have been downing Vitamin C all day long and hydrating like crazy in hopes of fighting this thing off before it even starts! If this tactic works then I am ready to hit the gym tomorrow morning with my video iPod and kick the crap out of Chest & Back!
The supplements (Cell Mass, Nitrix, and Creatine) are starting to kick in already since I started my new cycle on Monday. I have really missed how Cell Mass and Nitrix make me feel during workouts and am excited to get back in there.
I am going to have Annie snap off a few photos in a couple of minutes so I will have a comparison on days 30-60-90. If you are new to P90X make sure to take the before pics! They are the biggest motivational tool out there and if you follow the program you will see great results.
Also, my nutrition is going to be about the same as it has been for the last year. Ever since I began P90X I have pretty much followed the nutrition guide and will continue to do so. The only difference is that I will be using Phase II of the program instead of Phase I. The reason is that I weigh 152 lbs right now and really do not want to lose any more weight. Phase I is the "Fat Shredding" section and I am shredded enough right now.
See you tomorrow!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
Friday, August 7, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Countdown to the X: 2 days + Interval X
I wanted to go to the gym today and do a light 3-4 mile run, but I ended up getting home late and I had to complete a contract for my Real Estate company. So the gym was no longer in my plans. Instead as I was scanning all the docs I jumped upstairs and did Interval X from P90X PLUS.
I wore my old HR monitor and it said I burned 480 calories. This is also the first time I did Interval X since I began all of my cardio training. Even though this is a probably the toughest workout in the entire P90X and PLUS series I handled it very well today. I used to be dying by the time I got half way through Interval X but today I was holding strong. My HR got up to 174 BPM at one point but I think all the running in the anaerobic zone has really prepared me for Interval X. Also since yesterday was an off day that probably helped too. And I am now 5 days into taking Cell Mass, Nitrix, and Creatine so those are probably giving me a boost.
Tomorrow I am going to do Yoga X and then on Saturday I will begin my 3rd Round of P90X. It will be a hybrid round because I will be substituting pushups and pullups for dumbbells on a flat bench and a lat pulldown machine, respectively. And Plyo and Kenpo are going to be replaced with running, swimming, and cycling. So actually I will be doing more than what is required by P90X!
I will have Annie take a few before pics of skinny Jeff and we can see how this hybrid version works!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
I wore my old HR monitor and it said I burned 480 calories. This is also the first time I did Interval X since I began all of my cardio training. Even though this is a probably the toughest workout in the entire P90X and PLUS series I handled it very well today. I used to be dying by the time I got half way through Interval X but today I was holding strong. My HR got up to 174 BPM at one point but I think all the running in the anaerobic zone has really prepared me for Interval X. Also since yesterday was an off day that probably helped too. And I am now 5 days into taking Cell Mass, Nitrix, and Creatine so those are probably giving me a boost.
Tomorrow I am going to do Yoga X and then on Saturday I will begin my 3rd Round of P90X. It will be a hybrid round because I will be substituting pushups and pullups for dumbbells on a flat bench and a lat pulldown machine, respectively. And Plyo and Kenpo are going to be replaced with running, swimming, and cycling. So actually I will be doing more than what is required by P90X!
I will have Annie take a few before pics of skinny Jeff and we can see how this hybrid version works!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Couple more Triathlon Pics + 3.1 Mile Run
A couple more pics from the Tri on Sunday!
Today I went to the gym with Annie and we ran on the treadmill. Separate treadmills, not the same one. My legs were feeling a little tight today so I was going to plan on just doing an easy 5k run maybe at like a 9 minute per mile pace. Well, I ran my first 2 miles in 14 minutes flat. This was not exactly the easy run I should have been doing. So when mile 3 started I backed off and slowed it down considerably. I ended up going 3.5 miles total. Good run.
Also, today is day two of taking my BSN Supplement Stack and I already feel like it is kicking in. I can't wait to start hitting the weights again!
Tomorrow I am going to rest up again. I have decided to start my new round of P90X on Saturday instead of Monday. The main reason is that the rest days will be on Fridays. It always seemed that in the past Fridays are always tough to get a good workout in.
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
Monday, August 3, 2009
Triathlon Pics and My Future Training Plans
After a day of thinking about what I want to do I have have come to a conclusion.
I am too darn skinny right now (152 lbs). This has been brought on from all the cardio (swimming, running, and biking) that I did in order to train for the triathlon. My problem is that if I want to continue to do Tri's I need to keep on doing the cardio training. I saw serious gains in all three of the Tri sports from the time I began. So, if I stop altogether then I will probably lose all those positive gains.
Now what I really want is to have the build that I did while doing P90X but also not lose any of the cardio gains that I have developed.
So, I am going to do both! The way it is going to work is that I am going to do all the P90X Strength Training workouts + Yoga and substitute the P90X cardio (Plyo and Kenpo) with running, swimming, and biking. I am going to do the full 90 day schedule and on the rest weeks I will increase my cardio workouts even more. Instead of push ups and pull-ups I am going to do dumbbell bench presses and lat pull downs. My buddies Boomer and Steve have tried P90X this way at times and have had good results.
Also, today I stopped at the Nutrition Depot and picked up Nitrix, Cell Mass, and N.O. Xplode. I am going to stack these supplements along with Creatine. I started the supplements tonight.
And I am pretty sure I want to try another Tri! Not ready for the Olympic level yet so another Sprint will be just fine. There is one in October about 20 miles from my house. It is currently full but it sounds like on the day before you can show up at the sponsoring Local Running Shop and they will sale you one of the packets that was not picked up ... I might try this!
Anyways, I will ramble on more later and am planning on starting the training very soon.
Here are some of my Triathlon pictures:
I am too darn skinny right now (152 lbs). This has been brought on from all the cardio (swimming, running, and biking) that I did in order to train for the triathlon. My problem is that if I want to continue to do Tri's I need to keep on doing the cardio training. I saw serious gains in all three of the Tri sports from the time I began. So, if I stop altogether then I will probably lose all those positive gains.
Now what I really want is to have the build that I did while doing P90X but also not lose any of the cardio gains that I have developed.
So, I am going to do both! The way it is going to work is that I am going to do all the P90X Strength Training workouts + Yoga and substitute the P90X cardio (Plyo and Kenpo) with running, swimming, and biking. I am going to do the full 90 day schedule and on the rest weeks I will increase my cardio workouts even more. Instead of push ups and pull-ups I am going to do dumbbell bench presses and lat pull downs. My buddies Boomer and Steve have tried P90X this way at times and have had good results.
Also, today I stopped at the Nutrition Depot and picked up Nitrix, Cell Mass, and N.O. Xplode. I am going to stack these supplements along with Creatine. I started the supplements tonight.
And I am pretty sure I want to try another Tri! Not ready for the Olympic level yet so another Sprint will be just fine. There is one in October about 20 miles from my house. It is currently full but it sounds like on the day before you can show up at the sponsoring Local Running Shop and they will sale you one of the packets that was not picked up ... I might try this!
Anyways, I will ramble on more later and am planning on starting the training very soon.
Here are some of my Triathlon pictures:
My friend has a bunch more and a couple videos. She burned it onto a DVD and of course all three of my computers are not compatible with so I am going to need to go flash drive it.
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
Sunday, August 2, 2009
I am now a Triathlete
I made it out alive!
My wife and our good friends Annie and Chris spent the weekend at New Braunfels, Tx in a little vacation house. Chris was competing in the Tri as well and it was nice to have a buddy with me.
We woke up at 4:30am this morning and got to the race site at 6:00am. We parked off in some field adjacent to the race location and walked our bikes up to the transition area. We found the bike racks that had our age groups listed on them (30-34) and began setting up the transition area. Once the transition area was all good we went to the lake to find our wives and see where we would be starting.
My first thought was that the swim looked a hell of a lot longer than I imagined. Then we found out that over 1000 triathletes were participating in the event and over 100 in our wave. After a quick warm up swim and some stretching exercises we were ready to go!
After the first two waves were off if was now our turn. The countdown started as it hit "zero" we were off. Now I had spoke with many people who told me that the beginning of the swim can sometimes be a little rough. That is not a correct statement. It was downright violent! Arms, elbows, feet, knees, just flying everywhere and I took a few solid shots! About a minute or two in I found a lane and was doing my Total Immersion stroke and "BAM" ... I swam right over top of someone. It was one of those situations where the only thing you can do is just keep going - so I did. And it was right at that time that I took a hard shot to the mid-section. More precisely, I took a hard shot a little lower than the mid-section - the nuts! It hurt like hell and I ended up rolling over on my back and breathing like I was in a Lamaze class.
From this point on the swim was absolutely brutal. I had an extremely hard time with my breathing and I laboured throughout the rest of the swim. Everyone says that swimming in a pool and doing an Open Water Swim are as different as night and day - they are right! Once I recovered from the ball bashing I found myself zig-zagging all over the lake. It was very difficult to see where you were going but once you did it was even harder to get there! The swim portion was 500 meters and I probably did 650-700 meters! My time on the swim was 13:59. I was hoping for 12:00 but was happy I just made it.
So once I finished it was a short jog to the transition area to grab my bike. I found it with no issues! I threw on my cycling jersey, helmet, sunglasses, socks, and shoe ... shoe, not shoes(s)! Yes, one of my shoes was missing, the left to be exact. I eventually located it on the other side of the rack. I jumped down on my stomach and reached under the rack and grabbed it! Off to the races! My transition time was 3:05. The shoe incident cost me a good minute.
Now I thought the swim was bad but it was nothing compared to the bike ride. Only it wasn't physically brutal it was a number of things completely different. One(1): my $119 bike sucks! Two (2): New Braunfels has hills, Houston does not! Three (3): The longest section of the course was just recently Chipped and Stoned by the County!
So what does each of these things mean to me? First, I did well on the bike when I was on a flat stretch (which was very rare) and when I was going uphills (which was not at all rare). The problem was that I would pass people going up the hills and then they would pass me going down? My bike just couldn't keep up with the bad-ass Tri and Road bikes that were a plenty. I passed one guy 4 different times going up hills and he passed me 4 different times going downhill. It was sort of frustrating because I was busting my arse but could not make and gains. And it wasn't like they were slowly passing me ...oh,no...they were passing me going downhill like I was sitting still. Second, the hills took me a little time to get used too. We don't have that type of terrain in Houston. After I got the shifting down it was pretty fun! Third, the roads were in awful shape. If you have ever seen an asphalt road recently chipped you know what I mean. Little rocks and other debris is all over the place! This is not a comfortable thing to be experiencing on a road bike. Maybe it is because I am a very inexperienced cyclist and have never been on rough roads like this, but the dudes on the fancy Tri and Road bikes seemed to have no problems with the poor conditions. Me ...? I felt like I was going to blow a tire at anytime throughout most of the race! After the race everyone was talking about it and I saw quite a few bikes with flats along the course, but since this was my first time, that may not be that unusual.
Despite the unusual road conditions I still had a smile on my face the whole time during the bike ride. I was not going very fast but it was a lot of fun! My time on the bike for the 14.8 mile ride was an unusually slow 55:32. One thing for sure is if I do this again I need a better bike.
I dropped my bike off at the rack and grabbed my hat, garmin 305, and water belt. I had a small rock in my shoe so I had to take it off and get the rock out. My time in the second transition was 1:57. Not bad, but still could have shaved a few more seconds.
When I started the run my legs felt strong but goofy. Which from my brick training this was about right. I finally found my rhythm and started to feel good about a 1/2 mile in. At this point my energy level was a lot better than I thought it was going to be and I was beginning to feel guilty about not busting it on the bike more. At around the 2.3 mile mark I could hear people cheering at the finish and I decided to kick it in some. At this point I probably passed a good two dozen people and sprinted my way into the finish. My mile splits were - 9:11/8:55/7:52 for a total of 25:58. My goal was 28 minutes. I was hopeful for 26 minutes so I was very happy with this time. I was even more happy that I got stronger with each mile on the run.
Overall I had a wonderful time. The swim was violent, the bike was frustrating,and the run was awesome! I wish I could have had better times in the swim and bike, but a lot of my difficulties can be chalked up to inexperience and in hindsight I had an absolutely awesome time so I can honestly say I am not at all disappointed. I believe I trained enough because not at any single point did I feel like I was too tired or even struggling. The funny thing was that I felt like I was prepared for certain things to happen like a flat tire or leg cramp. But things I never even considered were what occurred - Like the crappy roads and getting hit in the boys.
So, the question is can I see myself doing another Triathlon? I am not sure yet. I might need a day or two to reflect and consider if this is something I want to do again. If I do decide than the first thing I need is a bike that is made for this. A good bike could have knocked probably 10 minutes of my time! I guess I just don't know right now.
Also, we have a bunch of photos and some short videos from today. We are having some flash drive issues and I don't have the energy to work it out right now. Tomorrow I will get them all posted. My buddy Chris took a header on his bike during the dismount. He only suffered a small scrape on his knee so we can laugh about it now and our wives got some good pics of him eating asphalt! Pictures tomorrow.
I am going to take the rest of this week nice and easy. A few slow runs on the treadmill and that will be it. Next week I am considering starting a full round of P90X again. But am just not sure with that either ... I am quite indecisive today aren't I!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
My wife and our good friends Annie and Chris spent the weekend at New Braunfels, Tx in a little vacation house. Chris was competing in the Tri as well and it was nice to have a buddy with me.
We woke up at 4:30am this morning and got to the race site at 6:00am. We parked off in some field adjacent to the race location and walked our bikes up to the transition area. We found the bike racks that had our age groups listed on them (30-34) and began setting up the transition area. Once the transition area was all good we went to the lake to find our wives and see where we would be starting.
My first thought was that the swim looked a hell of a lot longer than I imagined. Then we found out that over 1000 triathletes were participating in the event and over 100 in our wave. After a quick warm up swim and some stretching exercises we were ready to go!
After the first two waves were off if was now our turn. The countdown started as it hit "zero" we were off. Now I had spoke with many people who told me that the beginning of the swim can sometimes be a little rough. That is not a correct statement. It was downright violent! Arms, elbows, feet, knees, just flying everywhere and I took a few solid shots! About a minute or two in I found a lane and was doing my Total Immersion stroke and "BAM" ... I swam right over top of someone. It was one of those situations where the only thing you can do is just keep going - so I did. And it was right at that time that I took a hard shot to the mid-section. More precisely, I took a hard shot a little lower than the mid-section - the nuts! It hurt like hell and I ended up rolling over on my back and breathing like I was in a Lamaze class.
From this point on the swim was absolutely brutal. I had an extremely hard time with my breathing and I laboured throughout the rest of the swim. Everyone says that swimming in a pool and doing an Open Water Swim are as different as night and day - they are right! Once I recovered from the ball bashing I found myself zig-zagging all over the lake. It was very difficult to see where you were going but once you did it was even harder to get there! The swim portion was 500 meters and I probably did 650-700 meters! My time on the swim was 13:59. I was hoping for 12:00 but was happy I just made it.
So once I finished it was a short jog to the transition area to grab my bike. I found it with no issues! I threw on my cycling jersey, helmet, sunglasses, socks, and shoe ... shoe, not shoes(s)! Yes, one of my shoes was missing, the left to be exact. I eventually located it on the other side of the rack. I jumped down on my stomach and reached under the rack and grabbed it! Off to the races! My transition time was 3:05. The shoe incident cost me a good minute.
Now I thought the swim was bad but it was nothing compared to the bike ride. Only it wasn't physically brutal it was a number of things completely different. One(1): my $119 bike sucks! Two (2): New Braunfels has hills, Houston does not! Three (3): The longest section of the course was just recently Chipped and Stoned by the County!
So what does each of these things mean to me? First, I did well on the bike when I was on a flat stretch (which was very rare) and when I was going uphills (which was not at all rare). The problem was that I would pass people going up the hills and then they would pass me going down? My bike just couldn't keep up with the bad-ass Tri and Road bikes that were a plenty. I passed one guy 4 different times going up hills and he passed me 4 different times going downhill. It was sort of frustrating because I was busting my arse but could not make and gains. And it wasn't like they were slowly passing me ...oh,no...they were passing me going downhill like I was sitting still. Second, the hills took me a little time to get used too. We don't have that type of terrain in Houston. After I got the shifting down it was pretty fun! Third, the roads were in awful shape. If you have ever seen an asphalt road recently chipped you know what I mean. Little rocks and other debris is all over the place! This is not a comfortable thing to be experiencing on a road bike. Maybe it is because I am a very inexperienced cyclist and have never been on rough roads like this, but the dudes on the fancy Tri and Road bikes seemed to have no problems with the poor conditions. Me ...? I felt like I was going to blow a tire at anytime throughout most of the race! After the race everyone was talking about it and I saw quite a few bikes with flats along the course, but since this was my first time, that may not be that unusual.
Despite the unusual road conditions I still had a smile on my face the whole time during the bike ride. I was not going very fast but it was a lot of fun! My time on the bike for the 14.8 mile ride was an unusually slow 55:32. One thing for sure is if I do this again I need a better bike.
I dropped my bike off at the rack and grabbed my hat, garmin 305, and water belt. I had a small rock in my shoe so I had to take it off and get the rock out. My time in the second transition was 1:57. Not bad, but still could have shaved a few more seconds.
When I started the run my legs felt strong but goofy. Which from my brick training this was about right. I finally found my rhythm and started to feel good about a 1/2 mile in. At this point my energy level was a lot better than I thought it was going to be and I was beginning to feel guilty about not busting it on the bike more. At around the 2.3 mile mark I could hear people cheering at the finish and I decided to kick it in some. At this point I probably passed a good two dozen people and sprinted my way into the finish. My mile splits were - 9:11/8:55/7:52 for a total of 25:58. My goal was 28 minutes. I was hopeful for 26 minutes so I was very happy with this time. I was even more happy that I got stronger with each mile on the run.
Overall I had a wonderful time. The swim was violent, the bike was frustrating,and the run was awesome! I wish I could have had better times in the swim and bike, but a lot of my difficulties can be chalked up to inexperience and in hindsight I had an absolutely awesome time so I can honestly say I am not at all disappointed. I believe I trained enough because not at any single point did I feel like I was too tired or even struggling. The funny thing was that I felt like I was prepared for certain things to happen like a flat tire or leg cramp. But things I never even considered were what occurred - Like the crappy roads and getting hit in the boys.
So, the question is can I see myself doing another Triathlon? I am not sure yet. I might need a day or two to reflect and consider if this is something I want to do again. If I do decide than the first thing I need is a bike that is made for this. A good bike could have knocked probably 10 minutes of my time! I guess I just don't know right now.
Also, we have a bunch of photos and some short videos from today. We are having some flash drive issues and I don't have the energy to work it out right now. Tomorrow I will get them all posted. My buddy Chris took a header on his bike during the dismount. He only suffered a small scrape on his knee so we can laugh about it now and our wives got some good pics of him eating asphalt! Pictures tomorrow.
I am going to take the rest of this week nice and easy. A few slow runs on the treadmill and that will be it. Next week I am considering starting a full round of P90X again. But am just not sure with that either ... I am quite indecisive today aren't I!
Thanks for Reading,
Jeff
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