Weight workouts

Yesterday afternoon, I did a lower body weight workout - front squats, back squats, alternating rear lunges and lateral squats. I'm not as beat up as I was after the same workout last Thursday, which is good because I increased the weights yesterday.

This morning, I did bent over alternating DB rows, incline DB presses, BB corner presses, BB corner rows, 50 push-ups and 50 inverted push-ups (which are really a form of pull-up).

Tomorrow, my wife and I will do an easy 8 miler together. We are both planning a fall 50 miler (I don't know what she's thinking, but I'm not going to dissuade her), so we'll do a lot of weekend training together for the next few months. My race is a month before hers, but mine is also easier (Maine Track Club vs. Stone Cat trail race - road vs. trail), and I'm already sort of in ultra shape, so my wife has the most work ahead of her.

Sunday is supposed to be beautiful, so I'll do something - probably ride and rock climb, which I think I mentioned yesterday.

First run since WS

Last night, while I was waiting for my wife to arrive to sign the paperwork for the new car, I had a little time to kill. And, it was "only" drizzling - the nicest weather in quite a while. So, I snuck in a 3 mile run. My left leg/hamstring felt terrible. I think the main problem is that ever since WS, I've stopped stretching and foam rolling the leg.

So, I need to get back to those activities. But, it's now been 10+ weeks since the injury and things are far from normal.

I'll lift today and tomorrow, and then run again on Saturday. Sunday, I'm hoping to get in a bike ride and my wife wants to go rock climbing. Hopefully, the weather will be good enough to fit both of those into the day.

The new car is lots of fun so far, but I'm curious to see how it does on fuel. It has the same fuel efficiency rating as my 2004 WRX, and if I get the same mileage, I'll be happy. I still question whether this car or any car that exists is environmentally consistent with the things I love to do in my life - being outside in nature - but that's not an issue I'll probable ever fully resolve on my own.

My new toy

This isn't the exact car I'm about to buy and that's not me behind the wheel, but in a couple hours, I'll be signing the paperwork for one of these:

Vermont 100 miler - will it be a canoe race?

The rain is never going to stop. This is ridiculous. It's pouring right now. Yesterday, we had rain storms, hail storms, thunder and lightning and it just transitioned to straight rain overnight.

The VT100 course is going to be as muddy as I've ever seen it, I'm afraid, and the race is still 10 days away. I'm not even running the race - just volunteering, crewing and pacing - but I still wonder how bad the mud will be. Agony Hill, at about mile 48 or so, is going to be really nasty. The last couple miles should be pretty bad too. Well, to be honest, I can think of a lot of places that are going to be tough. And, the rain seems to be creating a super-strain of mosquitoes that are relentless.

Nonetheless, I'm still looking forward to race weekend.

Tonight, after work, I'm picking up my new car. I'm hoping to sneak in a run in between when I'm done working and when my wife arrives to sign the car loan paperwork. As long as there's no thunder or lightning or hail, I imagine I can survive running in the rain for a few miles.

Lifting, mowing, and lifting

Last night, I did a lower body lifting workout - trap bar deadlifts, single leg Romanian deadlifts, kettlebell swings, and Swiss ball bridges/curls. Including my warm-up, the whole thing took less than 50 minutes and I could barely walk out of the gym.

Regretfully, when I got home, the rain hadn't yet started, which meant I needed to finish mowing the lawn. I spent at least 90 minutes finishing the mowing and it just plain sucked. From now on, I'm either going to mow every 3 days or so, or I'm just not going to mow at all. Mowing after a month of rain and rapidly growing grass is torture. It took me about 5 hours over two days to get the mowing done.

This morning was an upper body day in the gym, and my arms are so beat it's hard to type.

Running? I'm going to run tomorrow after work. I think.

I need to do some running miles between now and the VT100, just to be sure I'll be ready to pace. But right now, I'm having fun in the gym.

In about 4 months, the snow guns will be turned on in the northeast and ski sesason will be approaching.

Two workouts - one easy and one way too hard

I went out for an easy hour on my road bike yesterday. That was entire planned workout for the day.

Then, I took my son driving for a while.

After that, it was time to mow the lawn. I spent all day Saturday repairing my tractor. Within 5 minutes of starting it up, a belt tore, and I was left with only my little John Deere self-propelled mower. Because the lawn hadn't been mowed in forever and the grass was very high and very wet near ground level, this turned out to be a ridiculously hard workout.

It took me about 3.5 hours to mow 75% of my lawn. At 8:45, it was starting to get dark and I was beat. I had to call it a night and get a shower and some dinner before bed. Sometimes, the unplanned workouts are the worst of all. Every fall, when I stack firewood for the winter, I end up sore for a few days - same sort of thing. I guess if I was a caveman, I'd be used to all of this "functional" movement rather than just my gym strength or running endurance. But, I bet cavemen didn't have to mow the lawn.

It's supposed to rain most of the week again. The VT100 course could be really sloppy on race weekend. I think I'm going to wear my new Inov-8 shoes for pacing there. They are light, shed water pretty well, and even if the tread gets muddy, the shoe won't weigh a ton.

I am still so unbelievably sore (and other random thoughts)

I never worked out yesterday. The gym was closed and we had rain and thunderstorms all day long. Plus, I am so sore from lifting Wednesday through Friday that any movement at all hurts. Two of my three lifting days were upper body, but it was squats on Thursday that really did me in. I had done very little lifting, especially lower body lifting, since I hurt my hamstring in April.

My wife and daughter are out of town for the weekend, so my son and I had the day to ourselves yesterday. My son just got his driving permit this past week, so I took him out for his first ever drive yesterday. We stayed in empty parking lots for the day, but we may venture onto some little-used roads today. It's fun watching how excited he is to learn how to drive a car.

Today, it's windy but sunny outside. I may run a few miles with my son at an easy pace, but I think my main goal is to ride some miles on my road bike. Then, it's time to get the lawn mowed. I managed to repair my lawn tractor yesterday, so I have the tractor and a new self-propelled mower to attack the lawn. It's been 3+ weeks and if we don't do it soon, we'll have hay to sell pretty soon.

It's only two weeks until the VT100 and I'm hoping the course has a chance to dry out between now and race day. The mosquitoes are pretty bad right now and some dry weather would help with bugs and trail conditions.

I guess I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy right now. I just took two vacation trips, including one to CA to help their economy. Then, I bought a new lawn mower on Friday. And, I also put down a deposit on a new car the same day. Assuming that the paperwork all goes as planned and the dealer offers a fair price when they look at my trade-in this week, I'll be driving a new Subaru WRX by the end of the week.

My 2004 WRX has been the perfect car for me and my lifestyle. In the summer, it's just plain fun to drive, including on my long commute to work. In the winter, I put studded snow tires on it and it goes just about anywhere and always gets me to Sugarbush for my ski teaching gig. But, that car has almost 150K miles on it right now, and my wife's car has almost 130K miles. So, it's time to upgrade one of the cars. We haven't had a car payment for over 3 years right now, so that will be an adjustment. But, I've been very lucky in my employment situation recently and there is a tax incentive for buying a new car this year, so it's time.

The 2009 WRX is faster and more powerful than the 2004. Plus, I'm buying it in red. I have only gotten one speeding ticket in the 150K miles on the current WRX. Hopefully, the red color won't invite too much more scrutiny from the law.