Ooooh That Smell

Another week has come and gone and as much as I wanted to put off a couple of workouts throughout the week I got in everything I had planned along with a couple spur of the moment activities.

Last Sunday evening Jen and I did our push ups challenge workout and a core workout which gave me the opportunity to sleep in a bit on Monday morning. I've got just a handful of Monday mornings left in which I can sleep in and I think I am going to take full advantage of them. After work I ran my four mile route along the river and took it nice and easy. It was pretty warm out so for the first time in a while I wore just shorts and a long sleeve shirt.

Monday - Four miles: 33:30 - 8:22ish

Tuesday morning I was up in time to get in a full hour on the trainer. I watched an episode of Knight Rider then for the last 15 minutes (KR is typically 42 minutes long without commercials) I started Scooby Doo and the Mystery of Zombie Island. As easy as it is to get up and hop on the trainer in the mornings I am really looking forward to being able to get out in the mornings for an actual ride. Tuesday evening I walked home from work, had a snack, got my swim stuff together, and headed out to the pool for masters. The new group I am swimming with only has an hour session in the evening so at this point it looks like I will typically get something in the low 2,000's each time vs. something in the low 3,000's like I was in CA. Hopefully as I get back into swimming shape I'll be able to get in more yardage in the hour we swim.

Tuesday - 60 minutes on trainer - 2,200 yards @ masters

After swimming Tuesday evening I did my push ups so Wednesday morning all I had was core and abs work which doesn't take me too long. This gave me a chance to relax a bit in the morning and watch some TV while I ate my breakfast. Wednesday after work I headed out for some speed work; I had six miles total with three consecutive miles at tempo pace. I ended up running them slightly faster than tempo with the three miles coming in at 6:52, 6:53, and 6:42. I had to take a quick break after the third mile because it ended right at the beginning of what I call "manure mile". See, the parks department recently put new topsoil and fertilizer out along some sections of the river and one of them happens to be right at the spot where my tempo miles were ending. Needless to say the overpowering smell of fresh pungent fertilizer can be very vomit inducing when you are sucking in large gulps of air at an elevated rate. Thankfully everything stayed where it was supposed to and after 30 seconds of recovery I was off and running again.

Wednesday - Six miles, three @ tempo pace, 44:35 - 7:25AP

Thursday morning I was up and on the trainer again for a 45 minute spin before work. Jen and I had dentist appointments that afternoon so I got off work early to go meet her and walk to the dentist's office. It was our first appointment there so I wasn't sure what to expect; let me just say that it was awesome. The first thing they had us do was take x-rays and boy was I surprised when right after taking the 360 image
the hygienist told me that I could turn around and see the x-ray on the screen behind me. That's right, they take digital x-rays so there is no film, just an image on the screen. Later on in the exam she took what appeared to be a pen but what was actually a small digital camera and stuck it in my mouth and took close up pictures of my teeth! It was the first time I had ever seen a pictures of my teeth and it was pretty freakin cool. The rest of the exam was great and we have definitely found our new dentist. After then dentist we headed out to the pool to get in some yards - I ended up doing 1,500 before we wrapped it up and headed to get some dinner.

Thursday - 45 minutes on trainer - 1,500 yards non-masters

Friday morning I was up early to do my push ups and core work. Tuesday evening I had done my push ups after swimming and I felt tired so the last set was pretty hard. Today they seemed a bit easier since I had given my arms time to rest over night. After work I had an easy four on the schedule then we ate a quick dinner and had some friends over for drinks. Towards the end of the evening the push ups challenge was brought up and next thing I knew it was a push ups showdown. I was able to do 35 which was an increase over the ten I did in my initial assessment. The next test I have is in two more weeks and I'm eager to see how those results turn out. Today I start week three of the challenge and I have seen that a lot of folks fall off the plan after this week. I'm hopeful that I will be able to stick with it but 100 in a row still seems like a shit-ton of push ups to me.

Friday - Four miles - 31:00 - 7:45AP

Saturday was our long run and we ended up getting a late start since I decided to start working on our taxes after breakfast. Filing a two-state return was a little strange but I got it figured out thanks to the folks at Turbo Tax and by 1:00 we were heading out to do 12 miles. I was planning on running the first few miles with Jen then running ahead on my own for the second part of the run. This worked out well for us last week and this week went much the same. We ran the first 3.75 miles together at which point I made a pit-stop and Jen continued on. I hooked up my iPod and for the first time in many months I listened to a DJ Tiesto Club Life mix - I forgot how much I like listening to him while I run. The weather was really great on Saturday and for the first half of the run we were running towards Mt. Hood which gave us some great views.

Saturday - 12 miles - 1:39:41 - 8:18AP

Sunday we walked up to North West to have some breakfast and do some grocery shopping in the morning. After relaxing around the house for a while we decided to go walk around in the neighborhood in North West and check out the houses that are up in the West Hills. Once we were up in the hills I started noticing quite a few sets of stairs; at one point we stopped at the top of this long mother and decided to see how fast we could run up them.




We walked down to the bottom of the stairs (three flights with 51, 51, and 52 stairs respectively) and peeled off some layers before making the run to the top. I was wearing jeans but figured that they wouldn't hamper me too much since I wouldn't be trying to take long strides. As we were getting ready this guy walked by us and started up the stairs - I decided to time him and see how long it took someone walking at a steady rate - 78 seconds later he was at the top. I thought I would take
the stairs one at a time to start then pick up the pace on the second flight and push hard to the top. I took a couple deep breaths, hit the start button on my watch and started up. Three steps into it I realized that taking one step at a time would slow me down and I took off in a full two-at-a-time sprint to the top. At the end of the first flight I felt good, at the end of the second I knew I was going to have to
dig deep, by the time I was halfway up the third flight my quads were burning and my heart was pounding. I reached the top and stopped my watch, 30.97 seconds! I turned around to watch Jen come up the last flight and encouraged her to push it to the end. Once she was at the top we caught our breath and continued on our walk. About a block away was another set of stairs; we didn't run up this set but after seeing them I knew I would be back to this spot to run both sets and see how I hold up. Next time I'm going to bring my HR monitor and see just how hard my blood pumper is working.

Weekly totals: Run 26 miles, Bike 1hr 45 minutes, Swim 3,700 yards, Push Ups 270

FYI - Sunset is at 5:29 today in Portland - four weeks from today it's at 7:08!!!