Last week I got in 5 days of running for a total of 25 miles. I did a spinning class at the gym too. I have a new found respect for those workouts. The instructor varied the pace and even provided intervals. This went on for an hour. I also had an open water swim for 2200 meters.
The knee is holding up on the runs. The dull pain still exists, but I have learned to live with it. I will continue training at my slow pace until the knee gets stronger. If my knee holds out, I would like to do some full-on sprint intervals at the end of next month. For now, however, I need to keep strengthening the knee.
So last week I didn’t commute to work on my bike. We are having a typical weather pattern for this time of year. It rains in the wee morning hours like around 3:30am until around the time the we get daylight. It has to do with the way the island land mass cools faster than the ocean in the evening. During the evening hours, the clouds move over the islands as the land mass cools faster than the ocean. When the sun comes up the land mass heats and the clouds move out to sea and we get sunny hot days. When I commute on the bike I usually leave the house before daylight so I can get to work by 6am. Every day last week it was raining in the morning. Most of the time it was light rain and while the rain itself does not bother me much, its the traffic environment that concerns me. I mean it is slippery out there and its dark. Cars are on the road and it just adds another unsafe layer to the commute.
Ok, since I didn’t get any cycling done I attempted to pick up my running volume. I was able to run 5 days last week. All the runs were only 5k, but as some of you know, I am somewhat limited by my knee injury. So for me, it was a big deal. I mean, I am not doing 10+ mile runs like I did during marathon training, but this is the highest weekly volume that I have done since my injury last November. I would be happy to just remain at 5k for a while as long as my knee holds up. Ice is my friend. The knee hurt a bit so I made sure to take a couple of days rest. Hey, who knows, maybe I will do a 5k event after football season.
I only got a couple days of swimming totaling 4000 yards and strength trained 3 days. Oh, btw, I completed my 4th round of P90X. I don’t think I will do another round for a very long time. I want to continue with Tabata workouts and some traditional lifts. Most importantly I want to continue running.
I am sure many of you folks have seen the movie “A Few Good Men”. Well, check out this re-enactment of infamous court seen. This guy is awesome.
Wow, I know it I have been falling behind on my blogging. My life is not that exciting so there isn’t too much to report.
Well, this week I was able to log about 60 miles on the bike, about 5000 yards swimming and a couple of 5k runs. My left knee gave me a bit of a problem on the runs, but I am sort of used to it. The dull pain is tolerable. It is when I get the real sharp pain that kind of creeps me out. When I come off the curbs I try to come down straight and stable, however, if there is any torquing motion I am reminded that my knee injury is permanent. One thing about having this on-going injury is that I have to really focus on how I run. It sort of takes some of the fun out of just getting out for a pleasant run. I am like that 56 Chevy with all the original parts. The car runs, but the parts are old and can go out at any time 
!
I also got a couple of strength training sessions done last week. Since I completed a 4th round of P90X, I did Tabata sessions with weights..
I have been getting the itch to begin triathlon training. I miss having a “race” for which to train. If I can get my knee to consistently hold up for 5k runs then I can, at least, do sprint triathlons. The danger, of course, is that I will be tempted to buy a new bike! However, I may have to put off training until January since I have committed to coaching Pop Warner football. That is a 6 day a week commitment! I have been trying to run scenarios in my head as to how I could still train. If its not possible to do I will just wait until January and just do some sort of fitness maintenance until then.
Boy, this has been a busy summer for me. My grandchildren and my parents have been coming to O’ahu (from the island of Molokai) every other weekend. I have to admit that I really enjoy having the grandkids at the house. Those times are precious. They were here this weekend and I will be seeing them again in a couple weeks.
Where does it say in the P90X manual anything about running and swimming. Quite frankly, it doesn’t say anything about those activities. However, anyone who has done P90X knows that there are cardio components to the program. There is also a variation in the book called “doubles” where you add extra cardio (of your choice) to the program. Ok, that said, I ran 5k yesterday. Although I have a knee injury, I just don’t want to completely cut running from my fitness lifestyle. So instead, I have been slowly trying to bring running back into my regiment. The runs are short and slow, but for now, that is what my knee can tolerate. Who knows, maybe I can strengthen the muscles around my knee to hold the knee cap on track long enough to get 10k someday.
This morning I did legs, back and ARX. I substituted some of the P90X leg routines with those that my physical therapist had me do while rehabbing my knee. The PT exercises are actually pretty intense. For abs, I did a plain vanilla ARX (Ab Ripper X) workout. I didn’t sub out any of those exercises this time around.
After work I headed to a beach near my home that is located just east of Diamond Head. It’s a good place to do training swims because there is a good amount of chop. It defines a “rough water swim”. I am considering doing the Waikiki Rough Water Swim this September so I may as well train in similar conditions.
This weekend I was scheduled to do P90X Kenpo X. Kenpo X is basically a P90X cardio workout. As far as cardio goes, it isn’t as intense as plyometrics. The core does get some benefit with the kicking drills. Anyway, I decided to substitute an open water swim for Kenpo X. The weather this weekend has been absolutely beautiful, especially for an ocean swim. I did the swim in Waikiki just outside the reef. This is the same coarse where the Waikiki Rough Water Swim is held. I did about 2/3 of the course.
We had a nice little south shore swell with an off-shore breeze. It made for pretty good surf. Since I was outside the reef, past the surfers, I encountered some chop, but nothing for which I am not accustomed. If you swim much in the islands, you get pretty used to the chop. I practiced my sighting, trying to make it part of my stroke. After a few strokes I lifted my head just enough to site on a predetermined landmark. I also intended to work on bilateral breathing, but after about 300 meters, I ended up doing right side breathing. It is taking me way too long to make bilateral breathing a natural part of my stroke.
To determine the distance, I used www.mapmyrun.com by drawing distance lines out into the ocean and using a landmark as my 1000 meter marker so I knew when to turn back.
In all, I had a great training swim.
It was nice to have a day off from work. I usually wake up at 4:30 am to get my workout done, but today I woke up 7:30 am. I really didn’t feel like working out this morning. I actually had to give myself a mental “pep talk”. Good thing I have a lot of experience coaching football. LOL!
So I headed to the YMCA to swim a few laps. It was nice to swim during daylight hours. I did 3 x 500. Nothing too strenuous. It was more or less a recovery swim. I decided to work on bilateral breathing. At first I did 3 per side. During the last 500 yards I decided to alternate breathing on the left for 25 yards then breathing on the right for 25 yards. Bilateral breathing is still uncomfortable for me. I wonder if I will ever get used to it.
You know, I have been doing way too many indoor cycling sessions. While you can get a pretty good workout on an indoor trainer, it can never replace the experience of riding outdoors. Here is a video of a guy who has spent way too much time on an indoor trainer.
I went to the pool early this morning and did 2000 yards. My breakdown was as follows…
- Warm up – 300 yards
- Main Swim – 1500 yards
- Cool Down and Bilateral Breathing Drills – 200 yards
I wore my ear plugs again. I must say that I am now a firm believer in the plugs. They totally keep the water out of my ears. Since the bout with the ear infection and the vertigo, I just don’t want to go through it again. My right ear still gets a very sharp pain when I yawn, burp or do something the affects the pressure in the ears. I hope I did not do permanent damage.
When I got home I headed to the man-cave to do a week 4 workout for the 100 pushup challenge. The swim this morning along with the 79 max reps I did this week took its toll on me. My sets went as follows…
- 21
- 25
- 21
- 21
- 57 max
My triceps were screaming. While my chest gets some benefit, but my triceps and core take the biggest hit. I am pretty strong in the chest so I just don’t get as much of a pump from pushups as I would like, but the triceps (which is are smaller muscles than the pecs) takes a beating.
So I have been considering whether I should continue this blog. Like many others, I started the blog to motivate me through P90X. Well, after multiple rounds of P90X and a round of Insanity I feel that the blog may have lived past its useful life. If I was competitive triathlete or, say, a competitive weight lifter, I could use the blog as a tool to log and interact with other like minded athletes. However, I am just a fitness enthusiast and simply just doing my daily workouts. How boring is that! Well, anyway, just thinking out loud.
Let’s get to today’s video. Ok, so I was thinking about doing the Waikiki Rough Water Swim this September. It is a 2.4 mile swim in rough water. Sighting is an important element of open water swimming. After all, zigging and zagging just makes the swim much longer. Here is a video explaining the art of sighting…
I got to try out my new ear plugs this morning. I am happy to report that they provided a good seal. It is great coming out of the water and not having to hop around in the shower trying to get my ears cleared. Besides, no one wants to see a naked old man hopping around in the shower. Ok, sorry for the visual!
Today’s swim consisted of the following…
- 200 x 2 Warm Up
- 1200 x 1
- 100 x 4 Sprints
I was able to get 1:45 per 100 on the sprints. However, my times during the 1200 were horrible. I was actually at 2:05 to 2:15. For some reason I just couldn’t get in a good rhythm. I was reading an article by a triathlete and he says that 1:30 should be the standard.
When I got home I did week 3, Day 2…
- Set 1: 20 reps
- Set 2: 25 reps
- Set 3: 15 reps
- Set 4: 15 reps
- Set 5: max
90 seconds rest between sets.
For set 5 I was only able to do 35 pushups. Man, I felt pretty wasted. Perhaps the swim affected it. I am curious as to how many I can do without all the preceding sets. Maybe I can do more than the 62 that I did on my fit test. I was considering staying on week 3 until everyone catches up, but now I am inclined to get it done a bit faster (if possible). The pushup challenge really takes an extreme toll, especially if you do them absolutely strict and to failure. It definitely affects all my other training. The faster I get to a hundred, the sooner I can concentrate on my training. I just don’t recover like I did when I was younger.
After I finished my pushups, I got on my indoor trainer and did 45 minutes. I had the Biggest Loser on my DVR so I watched it to pass the time. It was interesting because they were doing a cycle challenge.
After I got off the bike I did a biceps workout. With all the pushups, my triceps are so pumped that I don’t really need to work them during the hundred pushup challenge.
Ok, is this the next challenge?
Kaimana Beach, Oahu
After work I stopped at a Kaimana beach located just adjacent to the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial. This is the same area where I did the Tinman Triathlon swim last July. The Natatorium was an outdoor salt water swimming pool built in the 1920′s and it served as a memorial to the veterans of World War I. The pool was closed for swimming in 1979 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 However, the memorial hasn’t been maintain since it was closed. There has been some discussion to rebuild it, however, due to the city budget, the project has been canned. It just goes to show how we forget about the vets that served this country. As a veteran myself, I think it is a shame. If it was maintained over the years, it wouldn’t have crumbled beyond repair.
Natatorium
Anyway, I did about 1200 meters. It was a bit choppy, but not real bad. If you research breathing techniques while swimming, many “experts” say to roll to the side and only turn you head enough to get one eye clear of the water. These folks obviously haven’t spent much time in choppy conditions because if you try that in the conditions I encountered today, you would be swallowing a bunch of water. There was also a weird current that I don’t normally experience in this particular area. In some places it was almost like I wasn’t making any forward progress at all. As anyone who has grown up surfing in the island knows, sometimes you need to change direction to escape a current. So I headed farther out until I was clear of the current then headed back on course. It was good swim session. I didn’t go for speed, I just wanted to get some open water time.
Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial - 1928
I don’t know how to do flip turns in the pool, however, today’s video shows how to to do efficient open turns off the wall. This is part 1 of 4. If you want to view the other 3 videos, you can find them on YouTube.
I got in the pool at 5:40am. It has been pretty windy here for the past couple weeks and, as a consequence there was a lot of leaves in the pool. While the pool is outdoors, it is bordered by very high walls. However, the leaves still found their way into the pool. This particular YMCA maintains the pool extremely well so I was surprised to see all the debris. It wasn’t real bad, just a few leaves here and there. I am sure it will be cleaned up pretty fast. Ok, so much for my morning rant about the pool.
Today I laid down 2200 yards… 1 x 100, 2 x 1000, 1 x 100.
During the second 1000 yard interval I notice that the guy in the next lane was swimming shoulder to shoulder with me. He was one of those dudes who could do flip turns. I swear he was trying to race me. We would hit the wall at the same time and of course he would get in front of me on the flip turns. I noticed, however, that I would catch him on the way to the wall. So after a few laps I thought I would crank it up to see if I could stay far enough in front of him that I could come off the wall before he did his flip turn. When I began to go faster he went faster so I knew that it was game on. After a few hundred yards I got out way in front of him and until there was a point where I was about 2/3s of a pool length in front. At that point he backed off. I was pretty happy about that because I was getting tired trying to maintain the speed. I am slow so I feel sorry for the guy. Usually anyone who can do flip turns intimidates me a bit.
When I got out of the pool, Keiko (the lifeguard) says, “short swim today”. I almost fell over, thanks Keiko. Man, talk about deflating one’s ego.
I was taking a look at some swimming workouts on the web last night and they can get real confusing. They talk about doing kick drills, pull drills, descending laps, blah blah blah. I admit that I don’t know what the heck it all means. So I just jump in and swim. Another thing I notice is that they talk about doing 1:30 / 100s for the drills. Cough, cough…. what! When I crank it up I can only muster around 1:50 for about 300 – 500 yards (although today during my imaginary race with “dude” I managed to pull a 1:45 during one of the laps). Most competitive swimmers do sub-minute / 100. After the stupid “race” my pace fell between 1:58 – 2:05. At that point I was just working technique. A lot of competitive swimmers are doing sub one minute 100s in the pool. I wonder what a “fast” triathlete does in the open water. At any rate, I have a lot of work to do just to get at a good base level. I think I need to change my handle to “Boomer the Slug”! According to my training schedule, I am done with swimming for the week, however, I will be doing another session so I think I will do some short distance speed drills just to see if I can do something about my speed.
For some reason I have been really enjoying the swim sessions. So I’ve have been cruising around YouTube looking for ways to improve. Here is an interesting video of freestyle stroke drills.
