It's Still Rock N Roll To Me

San Diego Roll Marathon weekend...so much good. My #1 memory of this weekend will be seeing my mentees enter the Pasta Party (if you've done TNT you know what I'm talking about). A very close second will be seeing them cross the finish line and wearing their finishers' medals. This season has been tough since I've been hobbled by injuries, but was all so worth it to see my teammates reach their goal. I'm a little hoarse from cheering for people all day.

My personal race got ugly at mile 8ish. My calves were miserable, but Dr. Chad had warned me that it might be a particularly uncomfortable race for me. I'm lucky I got as far as I did before the pain forced me to walk to the finish. Ah well.

Cheers to Steve who was a rock star supporter all weekend. Steve, thanks for hauling us to the starting line at 5 a.m and for putting up with the driving/parking nightmare of reaching three locations on the course when every road in town seemed to be closed for the marathon. You're a rock star - for reals!

Character Builder

When I was riding my bike there was on stop sign I called "the character builder". It's midway up a hill on the ride home. You have to decide to fully stop the bike and put your foot down on the ground. Then you need to decide to start pedaling again mid-hill when you're tired. The other option is to do a slow-and-go and hope that neither the coaches nor the cops catch you. Deciding to stop the bike when you're tired - character builder.

I've got a few character builder hills for running also. One is at the tail end of Sunset Cliffs. You go up a very steep hill and then do a little dogleg to go up the steepest hill I've ever run. You can pretend you don't know about that dogleg and skip that last part of the hill, but then that's not a character builder.

To prep for Dallas, I planned a little 10 miler though Sunset Cliffs. I blew away that hill, better than I've EVER done it. In fact, I was able to keep up with Pat who normally beats me easily on hills. A week earlier I bounded on up Laurel Street hill like it was flat.

I've got to credit the cross training from Peak Performance. We haven't been running hills, but I'm a much improved climber.

And This Is Where You Start Paying....In Sweat

This has been some week.

Monday night was our hardest core workout to date. Tonight at Rehab United was brutal. Our trainer Justin was in a no mercy mood. He's an absolute sweetie, but he can put together a killer workout - sumo squats with chest press, X-chops, shoulder & squat series, tall box climbs, ab dollies, 3 direction lunge series, medicine ball toss/catch, and water buckets. Then do the whole thing again.

Wow. Our sweat coefficient was very high tonight. Our entire team was as drenched in sweat.

At this rate, I wonder what Todd has in store for our Saturday workout at Velocity.

Just Blame The Dog

There are about 6 posts that I need to write - about mentoring for TNT's Peak Performance team (which is awesome), about the trip to Tucson, and about a bunch of other stuff.

For now, I'll tell you about my new workout mat. On Monday night the TNT training session is an hour of core work. Remember when old skool aerobic classes would finish with 5 minutes of torture abs? It's like that, only much more intense and it goes for a solid hour.

To soften the workout, I treated myself to a new extra cushy workout mat. My old mat is a thin yoga mat and it doesn't really soften much. Today was my first workout on my super-cushioned mat and at first all was good. Then, depending on the exercise, when I moved around the mat made a sort of flatulent sound. Lift, poot, lift, poot. It's tough enough to do the abdominal workout without laughing at faux-farts.

I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this problem when I return it to the store tomorrow.

Peak Performance Training Log

A brand new training log. This one is for the next 12 weeks which is my first season as a TNT mentor.

February 1 - February 7
Not my most consistent week, but a good transition week between sessions.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Surf City Half Marathon	Surf City Half Marathon	Good race, boring course
Monday	Rest	-	-
Tuesday	Lift	-	Ankle swollen.
Wednesday	Run	-	Ankle still swollen. Rx Rest.
Thursday	Lift	30 minutes conditioning	-
Friday	Rest	30 minutes conditioning	-
Saturday	Run 5 Miles	-	-
-
January 25 - January 31
I was sick and I had a sprained ankle
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Carlsbad Half Marathon	-	Sprained my ankle
Monday	Power Hour	Rest	-
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour	Sick	-
Thursday	Power Hour	Sick	-
Friday	Power Hour	Sick	-
Saturday	Rest	-	-
-
January 18 - January 24
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	RNR Phoenix	-	-
Monday	Power Hour /TNT Core	-	-
Tuesday	Power Hour /3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour /Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-	-
Thursday	Power Hour /5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Power Hour	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
January 11 - January 17
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Power Hour /TNT Core	-	-
Tuesday	Power Hour /3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour /Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-	-
Thursday	Power Hour /5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Power Hour	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
January 4 - January 10
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Power Hour /TNT Core	-	-
Tuesday	Power Hour /3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour /Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-	-
Thursday	Power Hour /5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Power Hour	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
-
December 28 - January 3
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Vacation	-	-
Monday	Vacation	-	-
Tuesday	Vacation	-	-
Wednesday	Rest	-	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	5 Miles	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
-
December 21 - December 27
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Rest	-	-
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Rest	-	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
-
-
December 14 - December 20
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	White Rock Half Marathon	-	Plantar Fasciae are mean
Monday	TNT Core	Core	-
Tuesday	3.3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	SFB Class	-
Thursday	5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-
December 7 - December 13
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	TNT Core	Core	-
Tuesday	Rese	-	-.
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	SFB Class	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Rest	-	-
-
-
November 30 - December 6
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	TNT Core	Core	Wow, my abs are crying. That inchworm thing is a killer
Tuesday	3 Miles	3.2 Miles	Laurel St. I cranked it.
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	SFB Class	-
Thursday	5 Miles Intervals	5.3 Miles	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-
-
November 23 - November 29
Not bad - especially considering we spent the weekend in Las Vegas.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	TNT Core	TNT Core	Oh, ouch
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Who knows 27 kinds of squats? I do.
Thursday	Rest	Rest	-
Friday	Rest	Rest	-
Saturday	6 Miles	11 Miles	Good. Jay is fast, but I tried to keep his pace.
-
-
November 16 - November 22
Canceled race. Lucky for me, because my feet were in bad shape.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Pasadena Half	-	Canceled. Darn.
Monday	TNT Core	TNT Core	-
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-
-
November 9 - November 15
Resting up for the Pasadena Half Marathon while starting TNT.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Pool, TNT Core	Pool, TNT Core	Wow, that was a burner of a workout
Tuesday	Ballet Barre	Ballet Barre	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and PULL UPS
Thursday	Swim	Rest	-
Friday	Rest	Core Class	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-

Updates

After a day of tests the pet emergency room vets were completely confounded by what was wrong with Toby. I took him home and he stumped us all by getting better on his own.

My bout with the croup is almost complete. Other than a lingering cough, I'm good. It's still a bummer since that cough/cold kept me pretty well out of cardio activities and I'm really worried about the half marathon this weekend. Ah, well. I guess I'll suffer on through it.

I did my first TNT Peak Performance Team workout last night. One hour - all core - all the time. That's a full hour of abdominals with only quick breaks for back. Yikes. My abadabas were screaming for mercy.

Man-Torture

Last night as I was at one of the TNT information sessions, I realized that the Peak Performance team starts with a fitness assessment. In less than 2 weeks, someone is going to assess my core strength, flexiblity, etc.

Noooooooooo!

Two years of marathon training has left me with little time to do other gym work, such as core work or weight training. (Excuses, excuses. I could have made time.) My pride decided that a few preparation workouts before my fitness assessment are essential. This morning I grabbed a Pilates DVD from my extensive collection and got down on the mat.

Pilates is tougher than you think. I used to share an office a former Army Ranger. He was a very fit guy and tough as leather. How tough? The man was in a grappling league. When I told him I did Pilates he said, "Pilates! I did that once. They should call that Man-Torture. That Pilates is how they get prisioners to talk."

I used to be good at Pilates - not great, but respectable. Today, I couldn't do one teaser and struggled with jackknifes. Not good news.

The Peak Performance team should be exactly what I need. Twelve weeks of focus on my overall fitness should make me a much stronger marathoner in the long run. (In the long run - I'm punny!)