Fitness

Lara and I both have a hard time taking a full rest day. I seem to get lethargic/down while Lara gets anxious/disturbed. Either way it is no fun. What seems to be the perfect solution is to never take a rest day.

My typical rest days are Thursdays & Sundays which are perfect days to trail run. When I run on these days I take it easy on my overall pace and walk the hills if they are steep. Getting outside and working up a sweat is the perfect way to fend off the rest day blues.

Yep it happened, Lara and I are doing crossfit... and we love it!

Right around the first of the year, Lara and I found ourselves in kind of a fitness plateau. We have both kept up our routines of gym workouts, running, yoga, yada, yada... but keeping focused during the dark days of winter is not that easy. No sunny runs or stand up paddling left us both feeling a little light on the stoke side. Step in to Crossfit.

Eating the right foods and portions to stay lean is a huge challenge. Many times a day I presented with options that seem better and that my craving mind is steering towards. The cafe has free pastries this afternoon... The smell of Great Harvest Bakery as I ride by in the morning. Beer and Nachos. The list goes on and it is a challenge to stay on course.

We have our training routine down three days lifting at the gym, long run on Saturday, yada yada. To mix it up say yes to some weird stuff like the YES man. Hey want to go to a power yoga class after running a half marathon? (I do not recommend that one... sent me in to exercise induced fever.) I am going for a 55 mile bike ride want to come? A guy on our Warrior dash team hurt his ankle, want to come? Want to do the Boston Marathon for charity? These are all things that I have said yes to. I kind of think of it like the that movie the Yes man with Drew Carrey.

 

My shortest workout of the day is the morning run. It may be the shortest but mentally it is the most important.

Every morning I step out of the door and go 3-6 miles. My body will be stiff, sore and cold. Inside the house kids may be crying as they wake up and joust over toys. My mind may be racing with work things to do or could be hazy and sleepy. All in all everything is against the run including the Seattle rain.

I must go.

As the first mile drops away my body warms up. My head starts to clear. I may smile. My energy for the day has been found. This little therapy session can be as short as 20 minutes and as long as a hour.

Don't miss the morning run!

Like everyone else, I saw the infomercial and pulled the trigger on P90X. P90X is a DVD based training plan to get you super ripped in 90 days.

The level of fitness that I was starting at was so low after sitting in a office chair for 3 years. P90X got me to start moving but it also set unrealistic expectations of what could be achieved in 90 days. If you make that drastic of a change in 90 days in all likely hood you will return to the bad habits that got you there after it is done. I had some results and felt a lot less lethargic but my results were not physically noticeable.

The reason that P90X did not help me break through was lack of accountability. If I missed a session no big deal... If I drank too much at party no big deal. I could put off the session until later. This is where a real person training you can be a big help. It also did not give me a clear picture of diet wise what I needed to do to see results.

During the time of P90X I also had not changed my eating and drinking habits. I could have created the muscle build of a hulk but under the fat of a un-balanced lifestyle it would be still in-effective.

So is P90X going to get you fit? No probably not. Can P90X help you do more pushups and pullups? Yes for sure. In the big picture without diet P90X is only 50% effective.

This is a collection of tidbits after 15 years of trial and error to get fit. The bottom line is that to get fit, I needed to change my lifestyle and pretty much every habit that surrounded food, exercise and life priorities. That sounds a bit daunting but the changes made one at a time and are now habit.

The bottom line is that to change my body and level of fitness I needed to make changes elsewhere.

I finished the Boston Marathon last monday with a time of 4:14. My Dad and I ran it together and had a great time. What a crazy awesome experience. With 25,000 runners and over a million fans it was a day that I will never forget. I trained my butt of for it but accomplishing the goal was very rewarding. Even better I was able to raise over $3,000 dollars for a great charity, Massachusetts Eye and Ear. http://teameyeandear.com/ As a team we so far raised $133,681.72 which will help a few people get the treatment that they need.

Thank you so much to all of my supporters, our hosts in Boston the Posely's and to all of you who sent such nice notes of encouragement! Liz was a great help keeping everyone updated and our lone supporter on the course. In our busy lives with Luca I could not have done this without all of Lara's and Lorraine's help taking care of him.

Thank You all for making this possible. I feel so lucky to have all of your help. :-)