Rain Run

I had BIG aspirations for the day, well not too big, but I wanted to go to a spin class, lift, and run 6-7 miles. Well I slept in for the first time in weeks, I was in bed til 9:30, epic. I didn't have to work til 5 so I figured what the heck. So I got up, ate some breakfast, relaxed and decided I was gonna go for a run, then my roommate told me it was even colder today and raining, great. So I ended up getting my taxes done, which I'd been putting off...big time. I also decided to suck it up and run I had an excellent relaxing run of about 8.5 miles and I did it in a little under an hour and 15 minutes (I really need a garmin instead of a cellphone) I was wearing ski tights and a raincoat, I looked ridiculous I'm sure. I still got soaked, but at least my ipod stayed dry! As you can tell from the photo my vision was limited to say the least. Thanks Burton for the extra big rainjacket, but very light! I had to pay extra attention crossing roads because I had horse blinders on with that giant hood. In the second photo, you can see just how wet I gotish, and I would say I wasn't sweating that hard, my face was soaked. I'm often lazy about going contacts vs. glasses (necessary for rainy runs) and I'm really glad I did it this time. My socks got soaked, I hit a giant puddle about .05 miles into my run, making me decide I probably should have just given up from the beginning on bothering with the rain coat. I didn't do my pushup training yesterday so I may do it when the gym closes tonight. Also when I look at this second photo I see why I love post-college housing, a draft special poster, and in the background my roommates Nike Soccer banner from playing at UVM. I also have realized from reading around blogs lately, that runners are just alcoholics with a hobby. Esp Jamoosh. Nothin but love for the guy though, esp if he sends me some of his homemade brew. So all in all today was good, I ran further than I wanted and it felt good!

Thanks mom

Everybody can thank my mom, she did it. Got me a camera (my bdays thurs, but she let me have it earlier...yay!) side note-she bought herself the exact same one. I went for a GREAT run yesterday, my overall pace was 9:14, but this may have to do with the fact that from .3-1.6 miles I was climbing straight up. I borrowed my mom's garmin. AWESOME, god I need one, and I watched my pace go as low as 12 min/miles, this hill was steepppp and long, and on the way back around the much gentler slope/flats I was able to go as low as 8:40, 8:20 and 8:50 for my last 3 miles, of my 5.5 mile run. I figured that was a pretty good turn around considering my first 2 miles were over 10 min/miles, and I had drank a myriad of White Russians and Labatt Blue's the previous night. Both foreign drinks...eh? Both delicious, and the labatts were enjoyed with some grilled steak, sweet potatoes, salad and homemade garlic bread. Holler. It was a pretty good weekend. So I have a few promises that are camera related to fulfill. I talked about posting running pics, bench pressing girls, and pushups with small animals on my back. Well I only did one of those can you guess which one??

OF COURSE I did pushups with small animals on my back. My mom's look may be confusing, but it is one that

shows how astonished she was that I was able to do SOOO many pushups with a cat on my back, thanks Rocko. My 100 pushup training is tough, Friday I had to do 5 sets, the numbers were 22, 30, 20, 20 and for the set where I was supposed to max I did 34. So thats 128 pushups in under 8 minutes, after an hour spin ride in a class where the instructor is running around with a drum and telling you to "grrr" (freaken awesome, I had my doubts) so I was excited, after this next week I have to retest my max, last thing I knew I was at 50, but I haven't checked since I began the program...so we'll see and I will update! Hope everybody is doing well.

Smile, buy me a camera

Three days in a row oh my god! So my blogging friends, there are few of you, but hopefully I can be entertaining for the 14 of you who appreciate me so far. My birthday is coming up, April fools Day, always fun to get big boxes with nothing in them. Ha fricken ha! POINT that I am trying to make, is I asked for a digital camera for my birthday (mom you follow this blog) SOO if all my followers could post a comment in support of me getting one, I will be able to add *current* photos of me running, doing awesome exercises (pushups with small animals on my back) bench press where I replace the barbell with a sexy and or hefty girl, depending if I'm going for glamour or glory. The road to 100 pushups is being crushed. Workout number two today. 5 sets, 25, 20, 15 15, and then 39 for my last! I was very excited because I didn't expect to be able to max more than 10 (I was beat) I had done an hour spinning class before. Whooped my lil hiney. But in the theme of sans camera I will not be posting any photos or videos(remember comment to get her to get me one, or tell your friends to follow me, or comment on her blog.) MY MOM And p.s. I'm not spoiled I'm asking for a very cheap minimalist one. But no photos today. Once *knock on wood* I have one, I will definitely be including videos of me doing my mike tyson jump rope workouts. If thats not a selling point...then I don't know what is.

Jameson, Sir!

Vermont's jokes about the weather continued. I drove to work this morning in cold cold rain, and when I came back I was planning on running, but I opted for Toasted Oh's instead (ate a whole box, 2 bowls for breakfast and 2 for lunch.) I decided to finally go for a run at about 3:30 before I went back to the gym for work. I was lazy and wore my glasses because it wont rain...well it did, and wet glasses=blind, so I take my glasses off=blind. (Always wear contacts when running) Point in case I got wet. The picture is roughly how wet I got from running the past 2 days. Actually thats a picture of my dolphin impersonation from a few years back when I jet myself out of a pool. But the point is it was miserable...weather wise. The run was great, I did a 4.5 mile loop and made myself do a huggge hill at about the 3/4 mark. It was probably a half mile or so. The song I WANTED to come on came on during the hill so I crushed it.

That song may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it helps push me for sure. So running quality was actually pretty good in the end, felt good then and I feel good now. I had done deadlifts earlier too so I wasn't sure how my legs/back would hold up. Pretty soon I will be the Desperate Housewives of Vermont's drill seargent. I am going to be doing a bootcamp program Friday afternoons for 6 weeks, if it picks up it will continue. So people had better address me with authority. (Power trip, can't wait!) Tomorrow I wake up and do a spin class before work, and lift after I train someone, then a break and then it's time to work again. 100 pushups here we come!

Yikes

Holy neglecting my blog. So apparently I havent blogged since last Tues...whoops. I guess theres a lot I could be updating people on. The main things are of course fitness related. My leg/achillies is feeling a lotttt better so I ran 3 days in a row last week and took the weekend off and ran again today. So thats pretty, pretty awesome. I was driving to work today and it got cold again so I was blasting my heat and by the time I got close to my work I was like man this car is still freezing! I had forgotten that 2 days ago when it was high 60's I was too hot so I had switched from heating to cooling. What a difference. Last time I ran it was shorts and with sunglasses, today it was sweatpants/sweatshirt a winter hat and a prayer that the winds and rain didn't get me sick. I also stumbled across an awesome challenge that I have decided to partake in. Dangle The Carrot is holding a 100 pushup challenge over the course of 6 weeks, and having recently told my blogging friends that I was up to 50 pushups, I was like...yes I will. Today was my first day of training and it involved doing 5 sets of pushups in with 60 seconds of rest in between. The sets were supposed to be 14, 18, 14, 14 and then max for my last set. (I'm starting at week 3, cause I'm that badass) I rounded up and did 15's and 20's and then for my max I cranked out a screaming 35 pushups. It was hell. I really like this challenge, next I'm going to push myself for a pullup challenge (hate doing pullups.) No better way to get results then to make you do stuff you hate.

Get Some!

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What a GREAT DAY!!! I was outside and it was simply glorious. I hung out on the waterfront in Burlington and it was epicly gorgeous out. I had run an easy 2 miles earlier in the day and I was satisfied, I'm going to do 20-30 minutes of jump rope after work with some strength training as well. I'm trying to catch up with loss time (not too much, don't need to re-reinjure myself. But when its nice out like this I dont know if I can stop myself from running regardless. Here's a picture of some of my buddies from senior week last year. This is on a trip to the waterfront, and this picture about sums up how gorgeous it was today. The highlight of my day, besides the epic weather, was a young man training for....something. I was walking down to the waterfront with my friend Kat and this guy ran by us, saw a rock stepped on jumped off and continue running. Sleeveless shirt, basketball shorts, and questionable running shoes. We went on without thinking and we reached the boardwalk and saw our bud again. He was in a TRACK START POSITION, and ran a solid fast sprint (25 yards max...6 seconds probably?) Horrible pace, and he was hysterical looking. After that he ran over to a tree jumped up and as he swung he did one pullup...that was all (not the strongest or sexiest tool in the shed (his vert sucked too.)) He was heading over to a bike rack and I got giddy with excitement. "This guy is gonna do dips on the bikerack." Correction: Dip, uno, one. At this point I'm dying with laughter and kicking myself for not bringing a camera (we had already discussed this just because of the weather, long before we saw young Hercules.) He looked like the fellow with the chinstrap off to the left...give or take a few pounds, sans chinstrap, and a MUCH more intense workout face. As a personal trainer perhaps it is my right or DUTY to help this guy out, but all I could do was stare and laugh (hello gates of hell). I respect people trying to get in shape, but when you are making a fool out of yourself in front of 20-30 people doing exercises to show off that aren't impressive...well you're on your own. I mean after every sprint this guy was making noise like he had just won the Olympics, Vermont 2020!! Man that'd be sweet, maybe someday. God I love spring, brings out the best and worst of the winter shutins.

Sunday Funday

So all in all it has been an interesting past few days. College basketball has stolen most of my time so I neglected running, and since I got tickets to the UVM/ Boston University game I ended up drinking in the morning to prepare (sorry mom). So Saturday was good, I hung out with some kids who I graduated with and hadn't seen in a bit and we drank classy beers like Labatt Blue Light and Busch. We brought our friend Morgan to the game, he is a great captain afterall. So UVM ended up winning the game, we ended up rushing the court, and I had several people tell me they saw me on national t.v. and I ended up seeing myself when I watched sportscenter that evening. Probably the main reason I was lucky enough to be on it would be due to Marcus Blakely.

I can't try and tell anyone that

this is the first time that Marcus has made an opponent get on their knees and bow to him. Either way, if he hadn't have dunked and kept something replay worthy for sportscenter, my hopes and dreams go down the drain.

Those videos are a taste of what Marcus does to embarrass people.

Back to me though, so I felt pretty worthless today, so when I woke up and cleaned it was a good start, I made a bbq cheeseturkeyburger pizza with peppers and onions...yum, and I went for a run in the rain which was actually very satisfying, I stopped by my gym for some quick repetitions of the old iron. I used the speedbag, did some endurance work, and crushed 50 pushups (last 2 were questionable.) So all in all it was a good day in the end.

Yellow and green hat, would be yours truly, not a shot of my beautiful face, but take what you can get!

Trading

Who remembers elementary school? Does anyone else besides me remember trading? Someone had some oreos somebody else had some goldfish...boom-trade. Sick of your power ranger toy? Jeff has a ninja turtle...well there ya go. Those times were awesome, you aren't paying for new things, but you are trading something of yours for something else thats new! Well I have been tackling the trading market lately (no not stocks.) I am aware that I lack flexibility so I was interested in trying out Yoga, so I traded a personal training session with a super nice yoga instructor for an introductory lesson. Both were fun and it didn't feel like work. That was wicked cool. Last week the massage therapist from one of my gyms was heading out of town, I walked her two adorable yellow labs and played catch with snowballs, I got my first ever professional massage for walking two dogs? I probably would have paid to do that. Also she is my running coach and she is awesome. Look at that picture! Is walking those guys worth a massage, if you answered no you are 1.a robot 2.a cat or squirrel 3. afraid of cute creatures or 4.you are married to a swiss male/female world renowned masseuse, and even then you prob want to walk these guys. Well anyway, trading talents has been awesome for me in the past week (walking dogs isn't really my talent.) So I guess all thats new is my week has been relaxing, despite working til 9 PM 4 nights a week, and starting work @ 9 am 4 days a week, I get a break but yeah, its interesting, and I work 6 days a week...god I had short shifts, by what I just posted you would think I worked 60 hours, wrong, I'm just hovering around 40 hours. I have been craving Ben & Jerries ice cream cake! I started creating a remix today (yes if it is hot fire I will post a link.) This has a lot to do with my 24inch imac I purchased on tax free day. So take-away message for the night? If you have a talent, go trade it to save both of you money, you get something out of it, and you are helping somebody else. (No sexual jokes please, okay fine, I'll probably laugh.)

Son of a female dog

Today was a success, as in I ran 3 miles FINALLY. It has been far too long since I ran anything, and I know its gonna be a little bit before I'm back on my marathon training schedule...aka prob not until after the marathon. I am participating in the Global Warming My Ass 6.66 Mile Run I was hoping to win, but I had a problem with my running today (besides an injury) I decided to take my friend's dog Cora for a run. She isn't slow to say the least. she is pretty darn fast in fact. When you take her for a walk, you are pulling with all your might to hold her back, and her owner even has a special collar that makes it uncomfortable when she pulls (terrifying without it) so yeah shes a pretty athletic dog. She is a pitt/boxer mix and as scary as she looks to some people she is a sweetheart. Well anyway this b*tch (female dog) is super athletic and I was like hey I'm gonna run a personal best for 3 miles. She towed me down a couple of hills and then I found her other big trait-curiosity, and no shes not a cat. Every squirrel, fellow dog, or cat that we saw, resulted in an abrupt change in direction that almost knocked me over several times, and by the time I had her back on course some other dog would appear with its owner ready to tango. I should add, those hands in the picture are mine, and NO I'm NOT choking a dog. Not that this machine of a canine would feel it... Anyways she went from pulling me down hills to pulling me towards squirrels 2 parking lots over, so overall I would say my run was more like 4 miles and I got in a great upper body workout trying to maintain this beautiful beast. She is fairly small, I dont think she weights anything more than 35-40 pounds, but pound for pound (ONLY MUSCLE) she is probably matched up to any dog out there. Side note- all things weight lifting/personal training are going great. 3 miles-30 minutes, at a 8:30 pace...how is this possible?? Just ask the dog...

Inspiration?

I ran a mile on Monday and my calves are STILL in serious pain. Granted I haven't been abiding by the rules of a day off MEANS a day off. I've been training clients, jumping on and off bosu/versa balls and doing different strength training including my lower body. How do I get back Ontrack? P.s. thats one of the gym's I work at. Anywho, I am struggling to get back on the running train, granted its painful to do. If I take time off, I get furious at myself for not running. If I run and hurt myself more, I'm screwed.



So I need time off, but I need to be active, if I could be anywhere right now, it'd be in perfect health at Yosemite either running or hiking with my mates. To the right is a photo of me coming down Half Dome (With style.)

Good side note-I haven't done pushups in a while and I busted out 46 in a row today before work. This gives me an easy upcoming goal-50 pushups, shouldn't take long.

Exercise for Love

Apparently some people would like to have more exercises of the week. Previously I chose the donkey calf raise (hillarious, feel free to read back to late January) I was trying to find pictures from a "couples workout" I read about. Sadly I couldn't find the hillarious ones, so I found one with two women instead. If done correctly, the person doing pushups onto a person's knees can give them a kiss when they do a situp. Hillarious right?



I at least imagine that the point of doing something like this is to express love for each other. Maybe I will try to do exercise of the week every tuesday or...just some weeks when I remember. Sidenote-I altered my running gait, aiming for balls of feet, I am in serious pain. This is from running one mile....talk about back tracking in the training. I also picked up another client for personal training at my gym, and submitted an order for a 24" imac for tax free day!! Good day, I think the guarunteed check for training may have inspired me to finally get a new computer (much needed, money doesn't grow on trees)

Random Crush Facts

1. I can't be a vegan mainly because of cheese...but I also eat meat 3-4 times a day. So there are a lot of reasons, but I love cheese, esp. sharp cheddar, CABOT.

2. I have killer dance moves, and I use them constantly to meet the ladies.

3. I am a sleeper in the kitchen. People are surprised at the awesome stuffed shells and baked ziti that I make.

4. Laughter is my life, I like to laugh, often at the misfortune of others.

5. Music is absolutely my life. If I didn't have an IPOD I would freak out, I havent gone more than 4 days without owning one in the past 4 years.

6. I grew up with cats, but can't wait to get an awesome dog. As cute as cats are, they can't go on runs, or play fetch, or play dead.

7. Exercise is a way for me to relax, I can relax by having techno blasted into my head when I'm on a run.

8. I love watching and playing basketball more than any other sport.

9. I'm either really tall, can jump really high, or a medicore combination of both.

10. Dubstep is taking over.