PBF Sprint Workout Two

This morning, a chilly and gray morning, I walked up to the school that one of my sons attends. A short 0.7+ mile walk in 15 minutes. Once at the school, I ran intervals on the baseball field. I warmed up with 6 rounds of 30 seconds jogging at about 50% speed alternated with 90 seconds of walking.

The real workout was 6 rounds of sprinting for 15 seconds at 75-85% speed alternated with 90 seconds of walking. I took a few minutes to drink some water and catch my breath when I was done. Then I walked back home, 0.8+/- miles in 19 minutes.

I felt really good afterwards. I love sprinting hard and lifting hard. Maybe one day I'll be able to lift as hard as I did through my twenties.

Primal Blueprint Fitness Lift Heavy Things

I did two rounds of the following exercises. I did As Many Reps As Possible ( AMRAP ) of each exercise. I took 1 minute of rest between each exercise. Total times was 25 minutes.

1. Knee pushups 20, 10
2. 2 leg assisted pullups 12, 9
3. Wall squats 15, 15
4. Elevated/Incline Jacknife Press 12, 12
5. Hand knee plank, side hand knee planks 40-25L-25R, 40-20R-20L ( these aren't reps, but seconds held in each position )

I'm not very proud of this performance. I'm just glad I did the workout. I think I had originally planned to do this workout on Wednesday, but my schedule is off this week. Still making scheduling adjustments. I think I'll sprint tomorrow and do a C25K run on Monday. Then perhaps another PBF LHT workout on Tuesday. You can find demonstrations of all the above exercises on the Mark's Daily Apple Youtube Channel.

Primal Challenge Day 19

Day 19 ( 20120120 ): Breakfast was lots of black coffee as usual. I kinda' grazed my breakfast over the course of a couple of hours. It consisted of three free-range boiled eggs, 3 or 4 slices of bacon, a bunch of raw cauliflower and a little salad w/ raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Dinner was Everyday Paleo Salisbury Steak, sweet potatoes and green beans. I drank a lot of water today. Now I'm having a combination of Crystal Light Iced Tea and Lemonade. I had two tablespoons of raw almond butter for dessert. Oh, the Salisbury Steak was made with grass-fed ground chuck. I thought it was quite tasty, but my family found it to be a bit gamey.

My only exercise thirty or so minutes of walking total. I intended to do a PBF LHT workout this evening, but I got home late and had to cook dinner. I'll get in both a LHT workout and a C25K run tomorrow.

Primal Challenge Days 16, 17 and 18

I have no idea what I ate on Day 16 ( 20120117 ). I know I was about 85% compliant with a paleo/primal way of eating.

Day 17 ( 20120118 ): Breakfast 3 egg spinach omelet and bacon. Lunch roast beef and salad. Dinner off the rails with two bowls of salad. I had some cheese as an evening snack. Only water and black coffee to drink.

Day 18 ( 20120119 ): Breakfast off the rails again. I'm on call this week and got paged this morning starting around 0430. I didn't cook breakfast but grabbed two egg McMuffin's from McDonald's on the way to work. I didn't have a lunch packed and intended to leave early this afternoon so I didn't go out for lunch either. I flirted with just fasting until lunch tomorrow but was too hungry after running this evening. Dinner was probably about 66% compliant: Ground beef/turkey in a sloppy joe sauce, large serving of green beans, baked french fries and small serving of salad. Again cheese for a snack. Only drank water and black coffee today. I drank lots of water.

Couch to 5K Week 1 Day 3

My nine year old son, MJB, had basketball practice this evening at seven at Brushy Creek Baptist Church. I took the opportunity to drive around to Eastside High School where I ran and walked on the football field. I was going to run on the track but it was hard asphalt or concrete. I wanted to give my knees a break, but even so I'm icing my knees now.

The first week's workouts consist of a five minute walking warmup which is followed by 8 rounds of jogging for sixty seconds alternated with ninety seconds of walking. The workouts are concluded with a five minute cool down walk. Here are my times for today.

Total	1.15 miles	18:30	16:03
inc WU/CD	1.53 miles	28:30	18:37

This was better than my workout a week ago today

Total	1.05 miles	18:30	17:32
inc WU/CD	1.49 miles	28:30	19:09

However it was worse than my workout back on Saturday

Total	1.25 miles	18:30	14:46
inc WU/CD	1.71 miles	28:30	16:36

I really should have done today's run on Tuesday or Wednesday. I ran sprints on Monday, so I figured I would wait a day before doing "distance" running. Wednesday I was just tired and still sore from my Sunday PBF LHT workout and Monday's sprints. Plus I got home from work far later than I intended.

Primal Challenge Days 14 and 15

Primal Challenge Day 14 ( 20120115 ): I honestly don't know what I ate most of yesterday. I do know that I ate two bowls of Seafood "Who Needs Rice" Jambalaya for dinner. Oh, LEB made an apple pie in the early afternoon and I couldn't resist having some. What else? Can't remember.

Primal Challenge Day 15 ( 20120116 ): I drank coffee with some sugar and condensed milk instead of my normal black coffee. Never got around to breakfast or lunch. I ate two bowls of beef stew for dinner. Not exactly primal as it had potatoes and corn among the ingredients. I also had 1 oatmeal and 1 white chocolate macadamia cookie ( LEB is on a baking spree at exactly the wrong time! ) in the mid-afternoon before heading to the movies with my sons. I drank mostly water during the day and had some Crystal Light Iced Tea/Lemonade with dinner.

Primal Blueprint Fitness Sprint Workout

I ran a total of 1.2 mi in 21 mins 56 secs and burned 238 calories as tracked by CardioTrainer. I did this using the Novice Sprint Workout from Primal Blueprint Fitness ( PBF ) which you can get from Mark's Daily Apple. I warmed up by doing six rounds alternating running at 50% speed for 30 seconds followed by walking for 30 seconds. The real work was another six rounds of sprinting at 75% speed followed by walking for 120 seconds.


I really enjoy sprinting far more than distance running. However, I know in the pursuit of overall fitness being able to run a quick 5K is important. So three of my four weekly "Move Frequently at a Slow Pace" PBF workouts will be me continuing with the Couch to 5K program.  My third workout of that program will be tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Primal Blueprint Fitness Lift Heavy Things Self Assessment

I started the 28 Day Primal Challenge, which seems to focus on the dietary portion the 30 Day Primal Challenge at Mark's Daily Apple, about two weeks ago. The only working out I did the first week was walking. I started the Couch to 5K program last Thursday and continued it yesterday. Today was my first Lift Heavy Things ( LHT ) workout of Primal Blueprint Fitness ( PBF ), really a self assessment.

I completed 1, in my opinion pitiful, round of the following exercises. But I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself as I haven't been doing any workouts other than walking for months.

1. 14 Pushups
2. 02 Pullups
3. 22 Squats ( my old aching knees were the limiting factor rather than my quads or cardiovascular system )
4. 06 Divebombers
5. 25 seconds in the forearms/feet plank position

According to these results I will do two rounds of As Many Reps As Possible ( AMRAP ) of the following exercises on Wednesday:

1. Knee Pushups
2. Assisted Pullups ( 2 legs on stool or chair )
3. Wall squats
4. Elevated Jack Knife Press
5. Hand/Knee Plank and Side Knee Planks

Tomorrow I will do a short sprinting workout.

My Must Have MacOS X Extras

So, when I started my new job I was issued a shiny new MacBook Pro 13. I asked for recommendations for must have free or open source software from some of my Mac savvy friends. Below is my current list of third party FOSS software that I use daily or frequently.

1. iterm2 - I haven't even begun to scratch the surface on all it's capabilities.
2. F.lux - Good for the eyes ;-)
3. Dropbox - Important files from any location.
4. KeePass - I love it for it's cross platform goodness. I run it on Linux, Windows, MacOSX & Android. I keep the database available to all via DropBox.
5. ClipMenu - Just started using this. I'm a long time user of Parcellite clipboard manager in Linux land.
6. Time Out - Helps me remember to take short breaks throughout the day. I generally use Workrave on other platforms.
7. Chicken of the VNC - Nice way to access a GUI session via either TightVNC or X11VNC running on my CrunchBang (#!) Linux workstation when I'm not in the office. Course I mainly just ssh in from iterm2.
8. Chrome - I know studies show Safari is faster on MacOS X, but I use chrome on Linux and Windows so why not here, too?

Given all that, what's the best way to keep all of those and a few other less crucial tools up to date? On my Debian or Ubuntu based systems it's just a matter of doing a `sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade' (or dist-upgrade). Voila' all my software is upgraded. I remember back in the day reading about Fink and ports for Mac OS X. Anyone using them? Got other suggestions?

Gratitude Journal 20111101

I am thankful for

1. My new-ish job at Clemson University.
2. An automobile to drive back and forth to work.
3. Money to buy gasoline to commute.
4. LEB making dinner.
5. The unofficial port of CyanogenMod 7.1 for my HTC Thunderbolt.
6. A sunny day.
7. Life.
8. The ability to think and learn.
9. The many wonderful, free resources on the internet.
10. The ability to drive a car.

I acknowledge myself for:

1. Abiding by our agreed upon "No electronics on Tuesday evenings."
2. Not buying junk food out of the machine at work.
3. Taking a 10 minute walk.
4. Drinking water.
5. Putting away the leftovers after dinner.
6. Helping LEB with ice for her back.
7. Using the inversion table.
8. Eating a healthy dinner.
9. Listening to an audio program while driving to work.
10. Getting home before dark!

Health Challenges

I went for a regularly scheduled medical appointment this morning. Appointment was at 0815. I signed in at 0809. At 0840 I went up to the receptionist and notified that I had been waiting for over 30 minutes and needed to get to work, thus the 0815 appointment. They finally had a nurse take me back.


Challenges

1. Weight had increased to 259.4 (clothed) up from 257.6. I believe this was largely due to me regularly eating ice cream, almost daily in fact.
2. Blood pressure was 140/90 which was up from 110/70 last time I was at the doctor's office, approximately 3 months ago.
3. Blood sugar was 110. This was despite having a meal of steak and asparagus on Sunday evening and then fasting until Monday evening. I broke my fast after doing an intense workout of Intu-Flow, Kettlebell Swings and Prasara Yoga. All I ate was grilled salmon, salad and a "paleo" brownie which I think was made with almond or some other nut flour. This morning I only had black coffee and water before going to the doctor.

So, I will continue with my exercise regimen. I will be strict with my paleo eating. My goal is 240 by 15 October 2011!