Feb 26

So earlier today I broke my record for distance and distance ran in a week. (I assume that kind of happens when you add distance weekly )

I love how the site not only commends you for getting up and getting on your feet, keeps track of everything you allow it but it also sends you these little "congrats" messages on your homepage (and your email too if you let it.

I woke up today and knew today was going to be a long run and I was kind of dreading it really. I knew I was crossing into distances that are full runs. 5 miles isn't something I was looking to take lightly but I definitely surprised myself.

So if you take a look at my stats I had an average of about 8:03 miles. Not terrible but not great. I was just mostly pumped that I passed my 5 mile goal and had to brag to my friends a little bit and get them motivated.

Jack responded that he was also hitting his 5 mile mark this week and came back with a little extra as well. As like before I was mostly focused on the distance and had to smirk that he had to one-up me.

After a brief text message conversation we talked about the speeds of our runs. I did feel like after my 3rd mile I was definitely feeling good - borderline runners high. I felt by my 4th mile I had a lot more in me than I thought and really turned it on and here were the time results.

If you look at the chart above you can see that I started moving pretty quick for the first mile but started to slow as the miles started to add on. At about mile 4 I turned it on and really started dropping my times. I don't know if I could have really pushed myself that hard for another mile or so but I definitely was proud of today's run but I noticed it because Jack brought it to my attention.

I'm pumped that Jack is just as dedicated to this training as I am and were kind of competing with one another to get our mileage up as much as possible by April 28th.

1st Post

Hey!

So I have just started a new blog as of 12:30 tonight.

Decided that what I was training for was worth some time to write up a little bit about whenever I do something related.

So if you are close to me or even spoke to me in the last few weeks / months you are well aware that I and a few friends are all pumped as fuck to be running the Tough Mudder at the end of this coming April.

For anyone who isn't familiar please follow the link above. This is going to be grueling. Ill summarize for those who don't feel like following the link and just want to know. Basically what this race equates to is myself and 2-3 friends who will be running with me through 11 miles of mud, 27 obstacles (2 of which we will not know what they are until we face them) including 'Berlin walls' and electric fences where I have seen videos of people collapsing from the electric shock.

I have had a few people ask me "what the hell is wrong with you - why are you doing this!?"

This is when I smile and laugh and respond "why not?"

My good friend Jack has a better response to that question. "I want to push and challenge myself - this is my next goal... and next year were doing go-ruck!"

Before we each started training for this - I wanted to start doing this blog. Andrew didn't seem all too into the blogging portion and Jack thought it was a good idea but wasn't on board to make this a group thing. Either way - I wanted to piece this together and share with anyone interested.

The three of us all come from various forms of fitness. Ill go alphabetically.

Andrew is more of a runner than the rest of us. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with runners knee recently and has been going through PT and training as best he can. Though he has mentioned that hills are what he is most concerned about going into the tough mudder - he is still optimistic and training just as hard if not harder than the rest of us. His training has been mostly running and bike cardio. He mentioned not too long ago he is testing his knee soon on some hills to try and take it to the next level.

Jack has probably the most regimented training out of the three of us. Splitting his time between circuit training and running around the streets of Philadelphia he has had some pretty speedy 2-3 mile runs in the last few weeks. I plan to start sharing some of our Runkeeper.com times / distances soon but not without their permission. Last I saw Jack was up to 4 miles in a single run.

I have probably the least structured workout routine for running out of the three of us. I sit at a desk all day at work til 5. Once out at 5 I join a friend at the gym Monday - Thursday working mostly arms and then Thursday is our legs day where we work squats (we were up to 350 this week) and dead lifts. 2x a week I will stay after my workout partner leaves and run further than the week before. When I started training I believe we had 12 weeks til the race so I planned to start with a mile and tack on an additional mile every week.

This week I have built up to 4 miles on the elliptical and running outdoors. The crappy weather in Buffalo has been forgiving enough that on most weekends I can get a good run in on Saturday mornings. This weekend I need to build up to 5.

When I am done with that run I usually head home and throw some spinach, protein powder and water into a blender and enjoy that. Its not the best tasting but I need to get some more veggies in the diet somehow. Additionally I have been taking the supplement Nitrix and Jack3d as both were referred to me.

After all of this - I usually have a skate for hockey with one of my bar league teams or pick up at the local rink. Not the hardest cardio but I still love it regardless.

My last run went pretty well if I may say so myself. I ended up running four miles in under 35 minutes which isn't anything insane but sure as hell is a confidence boost.

Its 1am now and I am running out of steam. I hope this is enough for a first post.