the second phase

Ok, so I skipped a few days of updating the site, got a little busy. I rocked it up this week, with my only failure being a missed Kenpo session. I went golfing on Saturday and was sun-burnt and exhausted afterwards and promptly took a nap. So, with the decision of Kenpo vs Yoga, I chose to do Yoga. My reasons behind this being that Yoga, for me, is much harder than Kenpo, provides alot more flexibility and burns calories, while Kenpo is pretty much a cardio workout, which I can get from running.

I’ve updated my P90X log with a bunch more data for this week. Also, I want to congratulate the Tiger on his completed 50 miles! He made it the way through, lost some weight and got more stamina. He crushed me in the challenge, but never fear, for Revenge of Chan is our new challenge with a higher mile rate and I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED AGAIN! Also, check out Mardagan’s P90X blog, he’s making some great progress.

Ok, so I started Week 1, got to Week 2, got deathly ill for a week, took a week off, re-did Week 1 and here I am, starting Week 2 now and not sick ( yet ). I’m way behind everyone else in the program, which sucks, but I’ll get there! I also have to get back on my diet ( bleh ) to drop these pounds and rebuild them back up as nice, lean muscle.

So you may have noticed that the theme on this site kept changing. The basic reason being that I couldn’t find a damn theme that I was entirely happy with. Redoable was nice, but had bugs due to it no longer being developed. I fixed a few but more just seemed to keep popping up. Hemingway had it’s issues, as did Foilage. I went back to Emire, which has no bugs, but I had that theme for a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time. Finally, I found this one, called dreamplace. I think it looks cool, it doesn’t have any bugs, scales well and has the calendar that I wanted, although it doesn’t highlight the days, which is something I’ll have to fix.

As for other things, I finished my first week of P90X ( again ). Thanks to all who have left comments, I really appreciate them. I ended up missing Friday due to work issues ( I had to go in at 4 AM, left at 2 and fell asleep ), so I did Legs and Back on Saturday and Kenpo today and I’ve got Chest and Back tomorrow. I’m down to 190 lbs and 20% body fat at the moment, so from here I’ll start the blog pages back up again. Everyone is alot further ahead of me in the program, which sucks but at least it keeps the motivation going for me.

I totally flailed on my challenges with the Tiger, due to my sickness and recent work issues. I won’t be making my goals either, so I’ll have to reset them. At least I got the Tiger running though and hopefully we can start another BeerChan challenge back up.

Anyways, I have to head off to go bowling in a sec ( no more beer. ), but keep checking the site for more updates!

Well, you may have noticed that there’s been a lack of updates the last week. On Sunday night, I started getting a bit stuffy. Monday morning wasn’t too bad. I really brought it on the Chest and Back workout. However, when I woke up Tuesday, it was a whole different story. I was clammy, sneezing, breaking out in sweats and in general agony. I tried to do Plyometrics, but after about 25 minutes, I was lightheaded and about to faint. I figured I’d take a break and try again, but I only got in about 10 minutes before I almost puked.

So yeah, I took off the next few days while I tried to recover and here I am, still recovering. Unfortunately, this has allowed the Tiger to gain a rather large lead on me in our challenge and I basically need to restart P90X. So I’m going to consider last week a prep-week and start the program again. So, starting Monday, I’ll be starting up the blog again on day 1, assuming I’m fully recovered.

And I’m still going to kick the Tiger’s ass.

It’s Sunday now, so sorry I didn’t post yesterday. Basically I did the Kenpo routine and with 1 or 2 extra minute long breaks, I got through the whole thing. I was covered in sweat by the end, but all in all, a very good time. I also did the stretching today and while it doesn’t count as an actual day of the P90, I felt I should do it to increase my limberness. Only problem is while doing the shoulder stand, I tweaked my neck a little bit and now it hurts to turn to the left. Hopefully it’s gone by the time I have yoga on Thursday.

Hell, meet Plyometrics. Dodgeball! Hell ain’t got nothing on Plyo. Seriously. Oh, Em. Gee. While I was able to get through the video, I took extra breaks and was not able to keep up with alot of the reps. Some of the times this was due to me watching for a moment to see what the level of Satan’s realm I was about to descend into, other times it was due to the fact that these people actually aren’t human and really are T1000’s from the future.

It also didn’t help that I ran my fastest 2 mile in awhile last night ( clocking in at 10 minutes and change for an average for the run ). I had been intending to only run 1 mile, but then a damn good song came on and I couldn’t resist. I paid for that this morning, waking up with sore legs and then going into the plyo routine. So, lesson learned: Do not run hard the night before plyometrics.

Tomorrow is shoulders and arms. Hopefully that will give my legs a bit of a rest before I suffer through Yoga.

The 1st day is complete! 89 to go. Man, it was painful to see what bad shape I’m in. I got through the first work-out, my arms basically wet noodles. The exercises aren’t difficult, but if you don’t pace yourself, you won’t be able to work to failure on the second time through. On some of the last exercises ( diamond pushups, anyone? ), I wasn’t even able to get past 2.

And I thought I was done.

But nooooo, then comes the Ab Ripper. The unholiest of unholies. Dreamed up by some sadist, this thing made me flail and contort my body in ways that just are not human. Unless you’re Tony. Or that black dude in the back who was busting them out. Why don’t they have some fat dude on one of the mats and show what you’ll look like for the first month as you try and keep your legs in the air for 15 minutes.

I did learn that I’m going to have to wake up earlier ( woke up at 7 AM today ), since I wasn’t able to walk the dogs afterwards due to time constraints. And well, if I can’t walk, I can’t run, and if I can’t run, I can’t kick the Tiger’s ass in our challenge.

So I’m getting all setup for tomorrow, the first day of P90X. 90 days of total commitment not only to a exercise plan, but a diet plan too. I did the fitness test and passed, although I should have stretched a bit more before I started it. At the end, my legs started tightening up during the 2 minutes of jumping jacks. With that all done, I recorded all my information and have logged it over on my P90x Log. I’ll make daily updates here about how I felt about the workout and such, but my actual log of statistical information will be over on that page.

The hardest part I feel, believe it or not, will be the diet and cutting things out, like alcohol intake. I’m not going to be 100% on the dot of the whole diet, but I want to stay in the 90% range, which means having an occasional beer or maybe sticking to something with vodka ( cranberry juice? ).

Ontop of all that, I’ll be running more frequently. I took my photos today and man, was that scary.. scary AWESOME. Heh. I look like I have a beer keg for a stomach. I’ll post them once I’ve completed the program. At the moment, I’m too embarrassed of them to post them now.

Wish me luck, or, if you’re green like jelly, post some rude comment.

With all the recent running, my shins have been KILLING me.  I mean seriously, they contacted an arms dealer and got a pair of giant machetes that they feel they need to stab me with everytime I run.  Another name for this would be called shin splints.  Now, my shoes weren’t the most comfortable and really didn’t have much in terms of support or padding but when I got them, they were really the only Nike+ shoes out at the time.

So I went to a local running specialist store and had them check out my feet.  Besides smelling of roses, I’ve found that I have a normal arch and don’t overpronate much at all, so I don’t need stability shoes.  After trying about 5 pairs, the salesperson recommended one of the pairs.  It was, surprisingly, not the most expensive pair either.  She explained what she liked about each pair on me and why she liked these the best.  Overall, it was a really good thing to do and she was very helpful. So now I’m the proud owner of a pair of Etonic Prayas.  The one downside to these was that they aren’t Nike+ compatible.  Do not fear, however, because you can always buy something like this!

Now that I’ve got the Tiger on the bandwagon, I best be running!