I did Day 1 of P90X this morning, and it was definitely tough. It was “Chest & Back” followed by “Ab Ripper X”. Chest & Back is almost all pushups and pullups, with a few other exercises thrown in, doing each twice. I made it through the first time OK, but had some difficulty toward the end of the second time through. I was much more tired for Ab Ripper X than I was doing it on its own, but it felt like a good workout. Tomorrow is Plyometrics, which I hope I can do quietly early in the morning since it usually is a lot of jumping. My arms are pretty tired right now, can’t wait to see how they feel tomorrow.

I’ll be running the Oak Brook Half Marathon on Labor Day, my first stand-alone half marathon. After running slower than I’ve done in training for the run portion of the Half Ironman, I’m looking to redeem myself in this, and actually try to race it. I felt good during my run today, and I tried to simulate the race to some extent.

I went 10 miles, planning on running the first 8 at 7:45 pace, and the last 2 at 7:30, which is the pace I hope to run next Monday. I was able to run the 7:45 pace for the first 8, and ran 7:10 for mile 9, and 7:07 for mile 10! I’m hoping to be able to run 7:30 for the first 10 miles in the race, and see what I can do for the last 5K. If all I can do is hold 7:30, or even drop to 8:00, I’d be OK with that. If I can pick it up like I did today, I’d be even happier.

Well, I’ve got one more week left of the hundred pushups challenge, and I see some real progress. There’s no way I could have done 40 pushups in a row, let alone come back and do four more sets after that. Plus, I think there’s a bit more size and definition in my biceps and triceps. Now just to see if I can actually do 100 pushups consecutively by the end of next week.

Now that that’s over, we’re going to start P90X. It’s a 90-day workout program that’s gotten some great results. We’ll be taking the Fit Test on September 3rd, and starting the program on the 9th, so I hope to post semi-regularly about how it’s going, and maybe even post some progress pictures.