the second phase

I screwed up Week 2 of phase 2 again. I got through 3 days and then a combination of work and laziness on the weekend resulted in only 3 of 6 workouts being done. Way too low for me for me to consider a week accomplished.

So, once again, I’m restarting week 2. I completed today with no issues.

In other news, I was able to visit our San Diego campus last week on Friday to meet with our parent company and man oh man. Just take a look at these photos to see how insane the campus is:

What I wouldn’t give to work there and not the office I’m in. It’s not just the campus, it’s all about their corporate policies and such. They really understand what it means to be an enterprise company. Hopefully some of their learnings will come filter down to our management.

So I’ve almost made it to the first recovery week. This week was full of plyo, arms and shoulders and yoga. I failed to do legs and back today due to issues and having to walk the dogs, so I ran 6 miles instead. I’ll do the workout tomorrow. Besides, I’ve got to get some runs in to compete with the Tiger and blow him out of the water this time!

Other then that, not much has been going on. I’ve been watching alot of DVD’s lately, mostly TV series. Right now I’m in the middle of Battlestar Galatica and I’m loving it. I’ve got alot of work stuff I’d like to talk about but nothing solid yet, so not really much of a point to it. We’re looking at some configuration management products, mostly OpsWare and Blade Logic. We’re going to be implementing some DNS architecture, LDAP, syslog, some virtual server stuff ( hopefully on VMWare ESX ) and a bunch of other things. I really need to take some time to write up some tutorials from the notes I’ve gathered.

I’m still studying some of the JFS2 specs but haven’t had much time with the P90X and everything.

Anyways, my fam is coming down soon for Easter and I’ll be busy with them, maybe I’ll have some updates soon. I’ve updated the P90X Log with my last few workouts, so go check it out. 30 day pictures coming soon!

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.

Or so I thought. Yoga? Psh. Only women do that crap.

Yeah, I was wrong.

I was surprised at how difficult it was. After 20 minutes of Plank, down to Chataranga, up to Upward dog, back to Plank, to Downward Dog. Holy crap-o-li. The thing I was surprised at the most though, is that I actually really enjoyed it. Well, when I wasn’t falling onto my head or screaming in agony from trying to wrap my leg around my head.

I’m definitely looking forward to my next session of it!

So, the third day in. Woopdee-doo ( I know that’s what you’re saying.. 3 days, wowee ). Today was the shoulders and the arms workout, basically meaning alot of curls in different positions and different forms. I took this one a little easy I think, mostly because I had no idea what weight to use and I didn’t want to wear myself out way too early and not be able to finish the routine. I think I went a little TOO light, because while I was starting to work up a bit of a sweat, I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough and that’s what this program is about. That’s why, before every session, 2 bright red words show up.

BRING IT!

And that’s what I need to do. I’ve been good about writing down what weight I used and how many reps I completed, so next time, I’ll know what weights to use in order to really be burning at the 12th through 15th reps.

I watched James and Jeremy during their Core Synergistics training last night and wtf? I thought they were on a recovery week. That session looked like Plyo’s twisted twin brother. Tony lures you in with the ‘Recovery Week’ and then BLAM! ( No, not Pam the Blam ), kicks your ass with this session. I wish I had started when they did so we could do the workouts together but there really is no room in our work gym for 3 people to do P90X and I’d be fighting James for the 5lb weights. I use them as my motivation to keep going though, so it still helps to know other people are experiencing the pain that I am.

Oh yeah, how could I forget? I then had to do Plyo’s little snotty brother, Ab Ripper X. Yes, he might be smaller in that he’s only 15 minutes long, but WHO THE HELL INVENTED THIS THING? By the end, I can’t even sit and bring my legs up off the ground, which, unfortunately, the last exercise requires that you do for a full %^()@# minute. I took alot of breaks in order to get through all the routines and all the reps, but holy mother of.. ( I won’t say it Mom.. ).

The diet continues and I will say that it’s really hard to cut big starchy carbs entirely out of your diet ( I’m not doing Atkins here, no worries ), even if it’s only for the next 3 weeks. Mostly because I love sandwiches and oatmeal and bagels and kashi cereal and all that good stuff. Only a little while to go, however, before I can have at least 1 carb per meal, which will make things alot easier.

Tomorrow is yoga. For some inexplicable reason, I’m scared.