Insanity: Part II

A couple days into the Insanity workout, and I'm pleasantly surprised.  It doesn't monopolize my time as much as other workout routines are supposed to (mostly because of the intensity of the workouts allowing for shorter workouts).  This makes it much easier to do it in a busy lifestyle.

The other pleasant thing is that I don't feel so wiped out that I can't do other things throughout the rest of my day.  My calves are a little tight from a new type of workout - and I assume that will go away after a while - but the workouts themselves would allow me to go running if I wished to do so.  I think I could probably run 10 miles today if I wanted to.

Insanity

First time doing the Insanity workout this evening.  It's pretty intense.  I'm totally bought in...I can't wait to get up in the morning and do the next day's workout.

Metatarsalgia?!?

So, it appears that I have metatarsalgia, which feels like a very bad bruise on the ball of my left foot.  It seems to have happened during my run on Tuesday in North Carolina, and, if I can say, it is pretty painful.  But only really when I'm walking in my bare feet.  Luckily, it doesn't really impact my workouts if I'm at the gym since my training shoes are different from my running shoes.  That's the thing, apparently this injury doesn't hurt as much with better padding at the ball of the feet. 

It's interesting how much I'm learning about the human body.  I have to admit that I am kind of flying by the seat of my pants here.  I didn't do any research on running beforehand, and I'm attacking these injuries one at a time as they come up.  First I had Achilles Tendinitis, which was pretty painful, then I had a bruise on the top of my left foot from tying my shoes too tight, and now I have this.  The whole thing is a process, and I'm starting to feel like I'll have to get some advice on how to be more proactive about these types of issues before they get too overwhelming. Although, the approach of tackling these problems as they arise may be the best way to go...after all, how many foot problems could there possibly be?  I've gotta reach the end of them sometime, right?

Long Runs

Today I had a run of just under 11 miles, and it really took it out of me.  I actually feel pretty good right now, but my pace was really slow - much slower than I have run other long runs.  I'm trying to figure out if that's because of the length of time since my last run (almost two weeks), the relative high altitude (nearly 3600 feet at it's highest points) or the difficulty of the trail.  I tend to think that it's some combination of all three of these - especially the trail.  The Boone Fork's Trail is a five-mile loop that's much more difficult than other trails that I've run...there are more exposed roots and rocks than can be counted, more cliff climbs than I care to remember, and the general muddy conditions.  This is a much more difficult trail than the Osmanthus Trail that I run in Virginia Beach.  On Osmanthus, I can average between 9 and 9 1/2 minutes per mile.  On Boone Fork, I average between 11 and 11 1/2 minutes per mile.

I must say, I think I need to start working on my speed, but there's got to be something that makes Boone Fork so much more difficult.  I wonder if there's some sort of trail rating system that gauges the relative difficulty of trails on some sort of scale?

Definitions of Exercise

I think my wife and I have different definitions of exercise.  I told her that I wanted to go running this morning, thinking to myself that a 12 mile trail run sounded great on a nice breezy day.  My wife says "Great...you should take our son".  It's not that I don't want to play with my kids, it's just that I didn't really think that he would be up for a 12 mile walk let alone a 12 mile run.  He may not even be up for a 12 mile drive....

Anyway, we negotiated so that I went to a local park with my son and daughter and challenged them to races.  My daughter was much more interested in picking flowers and chasing butterflies (but somehow she still always seemed to win!).  My son was game for the races - at least at first.  But he faded really fast. 

The result is that I only ran about a mile (if that), but I still feel good about it if it leads to my son and daughter getting a better appreciation for running and exercise. 

Nose To The Grindstone

Today was the first day that I was able to get back into the gym, and man it was tough.  My back feels okay, but I really struggled through my 1/2 hour on the elliptical.  I was feeling the layoff, and felt like I needed a nap as soon as I got home.  I'm thinking I want to go for a run tomorrow - even though it's supposed to rain.  We'll see how I feel after a good night's sleep.

End Game

I was thinking today about the what I hope to accomplish from the Mudder-A-Month challenge and from the Tough Mudder in general.  There's no great insight here - mostly I just want to be helpful and raise some money, but there's the ancillary benefit of being motivated to stay fit.  This got me thinking about some of the people that I've seen running Tough Mudders - and not just people my age or younger, but the people who are quite a bit older.  I was wondering if I would be running Mudders when I'm in my 60's.  There's absolutely nothing that would keep me from doing that, I think.  But, it got me thinking about the nature of the person who is doing this kind of thing when they're getting to that age.  Do the start when they're in their late 30's like I did, or is this a lifetime choice of testing themselves from the earliest days?  I like to think that I was an active kid, but the reality is that I was much more bookish than I was athletic.  That's not to say that I wasn't active.  I played sports in High School, and I remember being outside more during the summer than being inside, but the desire to test myself physically seems like a relatively new characteristic. 

I wonder if it will fade as if it were a passing phase, or is this a real lifestyle change?  I guess I'll really only know if I'm 65 and running a Mudder.

Back Woes

My back is officially killing me.  I haven't been able to do much of anything the last couple days, and it's all because my lower back is trying to tell me something - and not too subtly either.  On Sunday morning, I rented a chainsaw because we had some old lumber in our back yard.  This was left over from when we had some trees taken down about a year ago, and we were keeping it for firewood.  It had really just become a eyesore of a pile of pine since it was too big for us to burn in our firepit.  I spent a couple hours out there cutting each of the pieces into smaller portions that would allow us to burn them, but the constant lifting and bending really took a toll on my lower back. 

I'm starting to feel as if I'm making excuses for not working out (international travel, back problems, etc), so I have to really fight through the next few weeks and make a concerted effort to get back into the swing of things.  If it were just me being lazy, then I would be disappointed in myself, but I have had legitimate reasons for not working out.  That doesn't let me off the hook, though.  I need to buckle down and get at it again. 

Now, having said all this, I will be buying my 2013 Tough Mudder Annual Pass this coming week, which means that I'll have to run in at least 4 Mudders to make it cost effective.  That should definitely put a fire under me.

International Workout Results

So, I'm back in the states after a 12 day holiday in Greece, and I thought I would give a quick update on the kinds of workouts that I was able to undertake while I was out of the country.  First off, there's no way to do much lifting unless you want to do body-based stuff like pushups, pullups and situps.  I did my share of those, but I was also looking for a way to do some running as well.  My intention was to find a nice long beach, get out there early enough to avoid the majority of people and then just run as long as I could.  That concept sounded good in theory, but it was impossible in practicality.  The beaches on Paros and Santorini tend to be relatively short (maybe 100 meters long) and are almost always packed with people.  This left me with the idea of trying to find roads or trails to run along.  I wasn't really looking forward to the idea of running on Greek roads, because the drivers are crazy and the roads tend to wind around blind corners often.  But, it ended up being the only thing that I was able to do.  On Paros, I found a remote road that was about a mile long that went from where I was staying down to a little beach.  I ran four laps on that road for a total of about 8 miles.  Once we moved over to Santorini, I found a 3.5 mile loop road that was pretty deserted.  I only ran one loop along that road, but it ended up being about 6 miles total because I had to backtrack and refind the main route at several instances.  I would have liked to have run another loop, but the traffic was starting to pick up and the heat was really starting to kick in.

What's the upshot?  Well, it can safely be assumed that you can find places to run, but you'll have to check the paths and/or roads out ahead of time to ensure that you know your way.  Additionally, if you're going to run, you almost have to be done before 10 am because the mid-day heat is tremendous.  In my case, I was able to do some water work almost every day, but only got to run the two times while I was there.