LSD v. Speed

So in my marathon training I feel like I've worked my body into pretty good shape. I feel comfortable pushing myself in various areas, because I feel like I can handle it. Obviously for marathon training though I've mostly been doing LSD and yesterday I tried speed for the first time in a while. I thought I was going to die from this. Trying to push myself up a 1 mile run to the cliffs of Bristol after a mile warmup was harder than I thought. I was unable to run up the entire mile, as you can see its all uphill, and its rock hopping as much as anything else. Oh, and I probably should clarify, speed=speed workout and LSD=long slow distance (high school cross country). This was also one of the first times I ran while carrying my camera in my hand, not so bad, but I still want to get an arm pocket so I can store things, including cell phone in case a catamount attacks me...although cell phone probably won't save my life in that situation. This picture is of Bristol Cliffs from my parents house. I drove to a point a mile from the bottom of the trail to give my legs a little warmup. The second picture shows just how "user-anti-friendly" this run is. I don't know if you can judge grade, but this is decently steep (i'm taking these on the fly, no time to stop)

I goofed around with my camera and tried to take pictures of my legs running (downhill part) which was equally as grueling. Imagine how sore your quads get when you walk back from a hike, now try to push yourself down, after having just run/climbed 1 mile up.

My 4.1 mile loop total was about 46 minutes total. Which gives me an average pace of about 11:12. My first mile was 8:12, my second mile (all incline) was 14:48, my third mile (decline down sketchy rocks) was 13:27, and my last 1.1 was at a 8:50 pace. I can honestly say I don't remember the last time my heart rate was so high compared to the first .25-.5 uphill where I tried to push as hard as I could before I took a climb break (not calling it a walking break because it wasn't relaxing or slow paced) My calves are on fire today, and its convenient that I decided to take today off, because....it has been snowing since 8:30 this morning, it's not sticking where I live, but in the hills it is absolutely accumulating...crazy stuff.

Jamountainson

So lately I've been doing my best to crush some peaks in VT. Not many are all that impressive, last Tuesday I did Mt. Hunger with my friend Kat. It is a decently grueling climb. Not rock wall steep, but some difficult parts, i.e. where the snow was still 18 inches deep. I didn't take any pictures of this, maybe because I was wearing old running shoes with no grip and I was more concerned about survival and not breaking my leg (seriously) Whenever I stepped through the snow my foot would become jarreded in between some rocks, or land in a stream I didn't know was there. The top was beautiful, the climb down was equally scary. Snow/ice on rocks=not safe. (duh) The picture of Kat walking on the top doesn't do justice to the amount of snow. Because when we were in the woods, where trees shade the snow from melting, it was brutal. I am getting excited to do a lot of climbing this summer, it is good cross training while I plan banks to rob to buy myself a road bike.

Sunday I dragged my friend's Alaina and Dusty along to go and conquer Camel's Hump. Apparently the trail was closed....ye ye we saw the sign, but we also saw 19 cars in the parking lot, so we figured it

was one of those, go at your own risk Simba and Nala may eat you. So we get about 2/3 of the way up, and the spokesman forYour Day is Gonna Suck magazine told us the trail was closed and we had to turn around...rats. Well I was wearing the same old shoes that almost killed me on the previous mountain, and we were jussssst getting into the snow, so in the end probably okay. But, I got zero pictures of the epic views from there. Instead I have a picture of Dusty dangerously falling off a cliff, and then Alaina and Dusty mid hike. Notice anything odd about Alaina's hiking attire? "pink" shirt and gucci sunglasses. The mountains of Michigan reallllly prepared her for this journey.

Boston Marathon Spectator Report

Boston Marathon was epic. It was a ton of fun, and my sister did great. She qualified 3 times in what seemed like a week. Every other day was a text or email about her qualifying... again. Either way I am very proud. It was a ton of fun! Here she is with my mother after the race. We had a ton of fun watching and had a great bunch of people around us to cheer with. We would cheer for their friends and vice versa. I was fully decked out in bright colors so there was no way that she could miss me. I stand at 6'3 and was wearing these threads and our friend the Condor is 6'7 and impossible to miss. So we were able to find Emily over the rest of the world. I also had numerous people comment on my outfit. Apparently my hoodie was considered outrageous...you got me on that one. And the yellow sunglasses: giantvintage.com it is filled with tonnnnns of epic sunglasses for under $20. But back to the race, so we witnessed a course record in mens elite at 2:05, we saw wheel chair racers finish in the 1:20 range (insane) and saw thousands of people push their way to the finish which we stood just a hundred or so yards away from. It made me really excited for my May marathon, but also really nervous, esp. training wise.... but regardless, congratulations Emily!

Blog Name Change

SOOO I think I may change my blog title from Crush til it Hurts to Overtrain til it Hurts, and the title of Everydayiscrushday to Everydayisovertrainday...or undertrain. So In the beginning of my training, I pushed too hard and hurt my foot, made myself wait, recovered and now I may have pushed myself into a hip injury. I'm going to kind of take it easy...as easy as instructing a bootcamp and watching my sister run in BOSTON can be. The watching a race will be easy, other I don't know. So the worst part about my darn hip injury (maybe injury) is that it was feeling, okay kind of tight after my 13.6 and then today to enjoy my last day of sun before 8 days of rain I went and hit some golf balls on the driving range (preteens were chipping further than I can drive) so to say the least I suck. Golf isn't for me, who wants to WALK around to all the holes, maybe if running was involved i'd like it more, not who can swing the club the fewest times per hole, but who can get the ball in the whole, the fastest, running with clubs in a competition with others...not dangerous. Sounds fun. So despite my claims of overtraining, I've been undertraining in my pushup challenge. So I'm going to post an old picture of me from the top of Half Dome in 2008 (love using yosemite pictures) Here I am doing a pushup looking down 1000's of feet... crushing, thats what I do...when I train correctly. My form isn't great there, but sorry if I was concentrating on the eagles soaring below me (altitude joke) and not my hips and knees. But regardless, if I injured my hip because of stupid golf. p.s. Good job Phil. then man oh man am I gonna be livid. I will update on my hip status soon. Im 98% sure its tendonitis... which sucks because it means slowing my training down, and then overtraining again....hmmm am I learning my lesson here?? Clearly not.

Breaking records

Wowza, I am failing hardcore at keeping up with my blog. I have been getting my milage up, which is awesome, and am feeling pretty darn good. I ran the longest run of my life at 13.6 miles on Sunday, my previous record was 13.1 (VCM half last May) So every long training run up until/including the marathon will be a new record breaking run for me! So yes I am breaking records every week or two.

I've also had a big life change. I can't help it I am a believer! Officially converted and preaching. http://www.guenergy.com/ I love gu, it is epic, and the chocolate flavor that tastes like brownie mix, epic. I used gu first for my 10 mile run, and then Sunday for my 13.6 mile run and loved it both times. It is just glorious and I think it does give me energy so I love it, also it tastes like chocolate heaven. So I am excited for the marathon which is coming up ohhh so soon. I also need to work on my beach body. That is me (the male) in Arizona last March (not VT weather.) So sometime soon I need to get a good consistent workout program going, despite running and lifting 5-6 days a week I just feel like I'm not where I want to be. I was lifting 4-5 days/week last year and running 3-4 and just felt great all the time. I think it might be tough that when I'm at my gym working, even after my shift I don't really want to workout there cause well...its my work. Eating the same food isn't the same when you're at work or home, and same with working out. I need to get over this and make myself get on a 3 day consistent set, but no guaruntees. I keep finding myself working out and wandering aimlessly around the gym doing exercises with no meaning or relevance. I constantly have members talking to me and asking questions (when im not getting paid to do so) and despite my warm heart, deep soul and giving hands, sometimes I just want to grunt and throw some weight around... is that so wrong of me? When I wanna crush some fitness I'm gonna go crush, not help somebody decide if they want to take 8:45 spinning or 9:00 Zumba.

So my training took another little dive. I went on a mini-bender. (mom stop reading here) so basically starting last thursday I celebrated pretty darn hard for my birthday. Well the celebration for the bday was thurs, and then friday was 90's night and saturday I went to Boston to visit an old roommate/hopefully future roommate somewhere down the line. This photo was taken at a club called Sanctuary, it had 3 floors, heaven, earth and the basement, well that was hell, and had stripper poles with fat guidos all up on them. We did not spend much time in hell. Heaven was fun the bartenders bought us drinks (must have been my saucy looks) and it was nice, until my Boston friend ditched the rest of us and told us to meet him somewhere. Well I dont know where anything is, we took a taxi there so for all I knew I was in Shanghai (wasnt) eventually we met up with him, but not before buying some 8 dollar street meat (boston greasy version of philly cheese steak....sort of worth it?) Then we had to stop at 7/11 for some french bread pizzas to cook, and I bought a powerade to ward off the hangover (im a smart drunk) So after 2 am I consumed god knows how many calories of fat and grease...that will help me get my goal time. (Mom start reading again here) The next day we went to the Boston Celtics game, they were playing the Cleveland Cavaliers. So of course Lebron was there, we got there early and watched him warmup from courtside...absurd. SOOO GOOD I dont remember him missing a shot. The game started, the cavs were getting blown out, Lebron had 10 points in the first half, and somehow finished with 42. A quiet 42, which means he was unreal. Sadly our seats were nosebleeds, but whats nice about the garden is all seats are pretty good. The game was epic, my training was nil on saturday and sunday due to traveling, so I got a 6.6 mile run in today at around an 8:30 pace, which I figured was okay considering my head felt just....dumb. I may do a second post about Boston later this week, either on the cab drivers or playing basketball with some interesting kids.

Fooled ya

So I turned out to be an April Fools baby, and the point of this post isn't too get bday wishes (but they're allowed.) So I have been the butt end of plenty of April fools jokes, esp since its my bday... empty presents, big presents with small gifts (annoying when your a kid) etc etc... Or the classic, "Hey Jameson, happy birthday have a good day...April fools hope your day sucks!!" Anyways point in case, at one of the gyms I work at I do the closing shift, so whenever other people have birthdays I get to polish off the Ben and Jerry ice cream cakes or finish a few fresh cookies, so my reputation as an eater has grown at my gym. (I'm realllly trying not to eat sweets but I find excuses all the time, like running, lifting, or just being in a mood where I think I deserve it.) So at this said gym people write their birthday's on the calender and then they tend to have food brought in for them, so obviously I did this.... I get into work (20 minutes ago) and I've been having a good day, tons of bday texts, phone calls etc etc...and my boss and this girl are talking about their sugar high. Apparently they had gotten some fancy cake, and so my boss goes, oh well ya know what inspired it actually, and he points at my name on the calender under birthday. He says "Ye, we saw that you played an April fools joke on us so we figured we would get some cake in your honor." WELL the cake gotten in my honor was finished before I got here, so his only response was "April fools" as in we bought you a cake and ate it all. He was convinced it was NOT my birthday, cmon man I filled out a W4 didn't I?? So birthdays are always interesting... So this is a photo from my birthday 3 years ago...horrendous goatee, I weighed 215-220, I dropped down to 175 before putting muscle on which brought me back to around 190. So I can't complain about the positive changes I've made in my life the last couple of years. Below that picture is a semi-recent one of me and my sister. Although I may look a lil goofy (damn you 2 dollar switchbacks) (slash I love you 2 dollar switchbacks) I must say I look a lot better than in the previous picture. If you guys disagree...then yikes I have a problem. Also, my sister and I are super gangster.

M-ILL-E (emily) not a big deal. So to keep this fitness/running related yesterday my client surpassed her 2 week goal by 2.5 pounds, so due to our agreement she got to train me for 15 minutes (otherwise it was tyson squats for her for a lonnng time)...apparently making her do countless squats and step ups, planks, crunches etc etc... has paid off, she learned how to be a trainer...pretty much, she made me do 22 of everything (eve of my 23rd bday) and was even making me drop my knee right down to the floor on my lunges. Today my shoulders are SORE! Which I just don't get, I've been doing cleans, deadlifts and shoulder exercises all the time, but this woman made me do nonstop exercise for 15 minutes, and she made me do things that apparently just ripped my shoulders/traps. Maybe I'm TOO mean of a trainer. All the rows and lat pulldowns hit me deep. So that means I was too sore for my pushups. After work this morning. 8-12, and 5-9, great bday shifts... I decided I wanted to run a fast 3 miles....sooooo nice out! So I did 3 miles in about 22 minutes, or around 7:20 pace, so I was happy. I'm sick of these training runs at 8:40-9 pace. I'm not a super fast person, but I love pushing it for 2-3 miles. Either or, its been a great bday and I like where I am going compared to just a few years age.