Training in Montana

Hiked to Woodbine falls with the family during the heat of the day, a 2 mile round trip. After dark I repeated the trip as the family went to bed and I wasn't ready. Amazing to do that with just a headlamp. I look forward to pacing somebody at night sometime.

Went on my favorite trail today while camping, up past Sioux Charley Lake. Amazing foliage, lots of bugs. Two went in my mouth, and a butterfly landed right between my lips. I blew it away. Lots of plants rubbed my calves along the way.

Got back to my family who were playing in a cove off the river. I got in and cooled off nicely. Gorgeous overcast day.

6 miles this morning from the Y. It has begun: early morning seminary for my 9th grader. Until he gets his license this December I'll be driving him to the church 5 days a week at 6:30 am. I then drove downtown to the Y, ran, then showered. I guess this will be my routine for the next few months until he can drive himself.

Good run. Legs very tired from a longish few days of running. 9:45 pace the first mile, then got into the 8s and high 7s the rest of the way. Wasn't sure I'd go 6, but figured I might as well as I had time.

AP: 8:20

Did 4 this morning while waiting for my son as I had to take him to a meeting at the High School. Legs are definitely tired. Think I'll be taking a rest day tomorrow. Or maybe I'll go 2 so that I have a perfect backward cascading of miles. 10, 8, 6, 4....

AP: 8:21

4 miles this morning. I have some foot aches and pains and I stopped after 100 yards and contemplated taking today off as well, but then I realized that yesterday I took a planned day off and I was more tired than if I'd run. I started running again and went slowly. I was doing 10:30 paces the first mile, trying to warm up a tender left achilles and a cranky right plantar fascia. The achilles has been gradual and the PF has been since after the 50K in June. I need to put some effort into fixing these. I didn't realize how sore the achilles was until camping last weekend, and while trying to get to sleep my right toe rubbed against the left achilles, right above the heel. It was sore! Hmph. I probably should back off from running, but I'm already way backed off so does that mean stop for a few weeks? Not sure how to heal my heels.

Too tired and busy for a run, but mostly too tired. Probably did too much going for an 8 miler two days after a 10 miler when I haven't been running much. Tired of being tired. Will take a break for a while to get my feet healed.

Went to Boot Camp, but we had a sub. After every station she had us doing lunges around the track (100 yards). It was killer, and stupid. After 2 times of doing that the 3rd time I ran it, and then I left. I don't do following stupid directions very well. Ran 1 mile on the treadmill then did situps and 2X25 pushups. Felt better, went back to work.

Went to spin class at Noon with Lindsay the crazy instructor. She is known at our Y as being the mad woman who will kick your butt. It was a great workout, and halfway through my forearms were sweating. That's the sign that I've got a good sweat going on. I bet my shins were sweaty too but I didn't look. She starts at 12 and ends at 1, so a full hour (most do 50 minutes). Awesome workout, I slept great that night.

Boot Camp with Chantelle, our normal instructor. She is beastly and has the biceps to prove it. Any woman with defined biceps wins major props from me as that's pretty tough to do. Great class, as always, full of sweat. Not much cardio but a good mix of upper and lower. Should sleep pretty good tonight.

Noon meeting today, so I skipped out of work this morning and did 9 am Boot Camp. Different instructor, not nearly as hard stations, but it was good to see a different way of doing some exercises. We did 30 second planks after every 1 minute station, and that was pretty awesome. After 30 minutes we did a core pyramid, 50 crunches, 40 mountain climbers, 30 elbow crunches, 20 legs out & in, 10 scissors, then climb the pyramid back to the crunches. It wasn't killer, but it was good. At the end of the whole session, when stretching, my arms and legs were so sweaty I couldn't grab onto them without using a towel. Success.

Insanity class. The Y added a new Insanity class on Saturdays, and since the Boy Scout merit badge day AND they boy's football games got cancelled due to a 24-hour drenching rain, I hit the gym. It's a good class and I was sweating like crazy. Lots of plyometrics, i.e. jumping around and moving up, down, and sideways. I enjoyed it. I think I enjoy Boot Camp a bit more, but I'd do this again in a heartbeat (or about 165-185 bpm).

I'm not sure when I'll get back to running as my foot and achilles are still there. Maybe I'll have to give up all activity for a while, but that doesn't sound fun so I probably won't.

Noon Boot Camp. The power was out when I got to the Y, so the air conditioning was off. Eegads, it was hot. I felt really good today, though. I wish I could have those Superman days every day. I was able to push myself pretty hard on nearly every station and that's rare for me. It felt fantastic. An hour later I've finally stopped sweating. Yay.

Noon Boot Camp. Thought I had other commitments for the week that would preclude more fun at the gym, but thankfully this opened up. Good workout, lots of lower back muscle group so the next day I'm nice and sore, but not incapacitated.

The PF in my right foot is feeling a lot better, but the left achilles is still tender to the touch, so I think I'll hold off on running for another week. I'm staying in good cardio shape from the classes, but looking forward to some good long runs in my future. When I start back I'll go slowly, 2-4 miles at first then build up. I also need to slow down my runs quite a bit. I think I've been going too fast for my aging body. Slowly slowly catch a monkey, that's what I've been taught.

Not much time today, so I did a microwave workout: stair stepper. 20 minutes, 122 flights of stairs, bpm 168+ for the last while. Cooled down on the treadmill for 5 minutes.

Hit the gym after work and planned on doing the stair stepper the whole time, but after 5 minutes I decided I'd do some TM running. Ran 3 miles at 2% incline, and progressive from 6.5 mph for a couple miles to 7.2 and up and up. Last .3 miles I was at a 6:58 per mile pace. A bit too fast for my feet and lower legs right now, but I was in a hurry. It felt pretty good.

Right now I'm focused mainly on exercising, in whatever way. Spinning, Boot Camp, Insanity, running, whatever. Give me an hour of sweat and I'm tired at night and I can fall asleep easily. That's my goal right now: to be tired enough at the end of the day that I can fall asleep by 10:30. That gives me 7 hours of sleep and keeps me going.

60 minutes of spin class with Psycho Lindsay. Loved it! I wasn't feeling it for the first half of class, legs felt a bit dead, I was yawning while sweating like a horse, and then 30 minutes in I finally woke up. Great push to the end, felt great the rest of the day. Dog tired at night and got some good sleep. Success.

Boot Camp. Good session, lots of upper body. Felt really low for most of this, should've eaten a bit more to get some sugar before class. I made it through and felt good.

No workout Thursday or Friday, but Saturday I went to the gym with my wife for the 8 am spinning class with Lindsay the crazy woman. It was awesome. I felt much better than I had on Tuesday and I powered through, keeping up with Lindsay and burning some good calories. Total mileage was 24.5 miles. Not bad for a 1 hour class.

Boot Camp with Chantelle. Good class, lots of sweat. I felt pretty good but not great. Not enough rest on the weekend. During abs at the end I wasn't feeling it so left a few minutes early. For my personal injury records, during the warmup run my groin muscle (that often gives me problems) started acting up. Not sure what that's about or when I hurt it. It wasn't horrible, but hasn't hurt when running in 12 months or more. Grrr.

I've hardly run this month, mostly by design, but I'm starting to miss it. My feet aren't really feeling much better but if I get running and they hurt worse, it may give me the impetus to do something about it. It was really nice going to spin class with my wife, but no reason I can't get up early and run, then take her to spin class.