We’re now four days into the Insanity program, and it’s going well so far.  We’ve now done the Fit Test (might post the results later), Plyometric Cardio Circuit, Cardio Power and Resistance, and Cardio Recovery.  We’ll take them each one at a time below.

The Fit Test walks you through the eight exercises you do for one minute each to see how fit you are.  You’re supposed to do as many of them as you can for one minute, and write it down.  You then do this again every other week to track your progress as you go.

More later.

I’ll post a little more about it later, but just wanted to quickly let everyone know I’m about to kick things up a notch – with Insanity.  It’s a new 60-day workout program from the same company as P90X, and they claim it’s the hardest workout ever put on DVD.  From what I’ve seen, that could be true.  We’re two days in but have only done one workout (plus a Fit Test on day one) so far.  Tonight we do the second workout, and I’m hoping it lives up to the hype.

Today was my fourth consecutive Naperville Sprint Triathlon.  I wasn’t expecting too much from the swim and bike since I haven’t been in the water since this same race last year, and have only biked a handful of times in the same period, but felt fairly confident in my running ability with hoping half marathon training would carry me through.  Well, I guess I was all wrong, since my swim and bike times were only seconds off my fastest splits, and my run was over a minute and a half slower.  And I lost almost another minute in the transitions.

The 400m pool swim start, besides taking almost 40 minutes to get in the water, was fairly uneventful.  I got a good start, and stayed pretty consistent when I wasn’t trying to get around slower swimmers.  I got out of the water, and felt pretty good, a quick look at the clock had me estimate my time around 9:00, which I thought was pretty good for my fitness – official time 8:07.

It’s a decent run from the pool to the transition area, and I was a bit out of practice, so the T1 time was a bit over 4:00.  Then on to the two-loop bike course which had a few hills.  It was also pretty windy this morning on the course, which hurt heading south, but felt great coming back north.  Altogether, I was able to average a 19.7mph speed, with a finish time of 41:42, seven seconds faster than last year.

T2 was pretty uneventful, I switched shoes, grabbed my hat, and was off running in just under 2:00.  As soon as I started running, I knew I was in trouble.  Usually my legs feel sluggish getting off the bike, but my Garmin shows my pace right in line with a normal 5K time.  Today, I felt extra sluggish, and I was barely faster than my normal easy run pace.  I really struggled to stay under 7:45/mi pace for the first half mile, and was able to slowly pick up the pace.  My third mile, I finally felt good and got into the low 6:00/mi range.  There was another runner over the last quarter mile or so who was trying to kick it in around my speed, so we kind of paced each other in, and my final 5K run time was 22:03.

Overall, I was satisfied with my effort, I just envisioned losing time on the swim and bike, not the run.  I finished in 1:18:07, for 249th place overall, out of over 1,700 finishers, and 25th place in my age division.  Considering I was not properly trained for it, I’ll definitely take that.

Saturday was my Long Run day, and it seemed to go pretty well. I was able to keep my pace fairly consistent for the whole eight miles, and actually felt pretty strong in the end. The Garmin data is available here.

I only did pushups and Ab Ripper on Wednesday, so I will be restarting Week One of the Hundred Pushup Challenge tonight, followed by Ab Ripper X. This is my first recovery week for half marathon training, so it’s just three days of easy mileage.

I think I’ve finally gotten a somewhat solid routine down, after six months of irregularity. I’m doing six days of workouts, with either Saturday or Sunday off, depending on when I have more time to get my long run in.

I’m following a modified Runner’s World SmartCoach training plan to get myself ready for the Oak Brook Half Marathon on Labor Day. I’ve taken the SmartCoach printout, and changed it from four to three days a week (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) due to time constraints, but kept the same mileage. I’m also going to be modifying the paces with the help of the Daniels Running Formula.

On the days I don’t run (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) I’ll be doing the Hundred Pushups Challenge again. Once I complete my pushups for the day, I’ll do the 16 minute Ab Ripper X (part1 part2) routine from P90X. All of that should help me regain some of my core strength, which should help with my running as well.

I also hope to start using this blog again as a training log, to keep track of how each of my runs are going.

Last time I wrote, I thought I had about two weeks until I became a father. Well, it turns out I only had a few days, so a lot of the plans I had written about got changed. My Fit Test which was planned for the Saturday after I finished P90X turned out to be the day my wife went into labor. Then the first two weeks at home were spent just trying to survive with our new little roommate, without much thought of working out.

Now that our son – Gavin William – is 8 weeks old, my wife and I have both been able to get some workouts in. We started a couple of weeks ago with some P90X Yoga, which I despised when I went through P90x, but is much more bearable when not doing it alone. We also did Legs and Back, and Shoulders and Arms. I’ve been trying to get a few runs in, and have also gotten in some time on the stationary bike.

I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle at the end of March, so I’m going to try getting in some quality running workouts over the next few weeks as the daylight lengthens. My PR for the race is 34:08 (8K), so ideally I’d like to beat that, but I’ll have to see how much time I have for training to see if that’s a reasonable goal. I’ve got 8 weeks until race day, and the longest I’ve run so far this year is 10K, so I’ve got some work to do. But I feel like I’ve maintained a decent level of fitness, so hopefully it’ll come back quickly. I’ll try to make some more regular updates as I hopefully run more frequently.

Today was my last day of P90X! It feels great to have gotten all the way through something like this, and I’m definitely looking forward to moving on, but also incorporating the ideas into my future workout regimen. Tomorrow is a rest day, and Fit Test Saturday morning. Then I have to figure out what to do for the next 3 months or so.

I like the idea of just taking a half hour to do some strength training a couple of days a week, and knowing that I can now get a much better workout in that half hour than I would have 3 months ago. I’ll probably do a lot more running, with some cycling thrown in, and some maintenance strength work. And I know I’ll keep doing Ab Ripper 2 or 3 days a week as well – still plenty of progress to make with that.

Thursday was the Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot 5K. I didn’t really know what to expect since I haven’t been running as much, and hadn’t done any speed work when I did run. However, Megan had taken a class for PTs to treat runners, and the instructor preached the importance of core strengthening. She mentioned a stat about a significant improvement to running times by changing nothing but adding core strengthening. So I though that maybe I had a shot with all of the core work during P90X.

I lined up race morning with the 6:00 pace group (they had signs out), and waiting for the start. It was a fair amount of people, so I wasn’t surprised to not move right when the gun went off, but I was surprised to find people walking with strollers lined up in front of me. Apparently they just let people stream in from the sides, and everyone got in at the front, making it extremely difficult for me to get a good start. I spent the first half mile weaving in and out of people, and only being able to go 7:30-7:45 pace. When I was finally able to pick up the pace, I was pretty steady at about 6:15, but the damage had been done, and my first mile was 6:55. After that, I was in the 6:00 range, and kicked it in hard to cross the finish in 19:45. Had I been able to start unobstructed, I could have easily cut off another 30 seconds, and maybe a minute – which would have been a PR.

I’m not going to complain about it, but it is good to know that P90X has helped me improve my running. Now I just need to take this gained strength, add in some decent run training, and start kicking some serious butt in the spring.

Also, this is now my final week of P90X. I’ve done two days so far, tomorrow is basically and off day, then two more days, and off day, and I’ll take the Fit Test again on Saturday. I’ll post all of my results then, hopefully there’s some decent improvements.

Today was my last Plyo day of the initial P90X program. While I may still do it again in the future, it’s certainly a milestone signaling the end of this round. Since there’s nothing I can really compare like reps or weight from the other workouts, I do feel like I have gotten better at Plyo. I’m still dead tired after each set, but I think I’m able to do it with much more intensity, so I’m looking forward to see how it’s affected my vertical leap when I retake the Fit Test.

Tomorrow will be my last Back and Biceps, then Yoga, the last Legs and Back, and I’m done with active weeks. Saturday will start my final Recovery Week, and then I’ll be all done. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were taking the Fit Test in the Burr Ridge Warehouse, and now it’s basically over.

This week is a bit off, since I was running late Saturday morning and had to push off Chest and Back until Sunday evening (we were away from home the rest of the time). So everything will be a day off this week, and I’ll forgo the rest day to get back on track for week 12.

Week 12 ends on Thanksgiving, and since I usually run in place of Kenpo on Thursdays, I’m looking at running the Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot in Elmhurst. It’s a 5K, and I’ve heard good things about it. Plus it raises money for PADS and the Chicago Anti-Hunger Association – something good for Thanksgiving. The only thing I’m worried about is being able to give it my all in the race if I go all-out with legs and Back the day before. My legs are usually pretty sore the morning after that, so I guess I’ll just have to Suck It Up and Bring IT!