Seize the Day!!

Today I woke up with new motivation. I don't know where it came from. I guess this injury gave me new purpose to attack every day with conviction. It might have helped that I had an interview today with Massage Envy in Western Springs. It went really well, I feel confident with our back and forth, but I know not to count my chickens too soon. It will work out really well with my injury, because I'll be sitting for most of my shift. It going to take awhile before I can be fully functional for Eddie Bauer.

Well, I woke up and looked at my workout board and wanted to have weekly highs in each category today and then I went out and did it. I ended the day doing 125 Pushups, 40 Pullups, 85 Situps, 50 Curls, 30 Flys. I feel like I set the bar fairly high, for the upcoming days. I hope I put in the effort, because I know in the long run it going to all pay off. I can already see some changes in the mirror, for the better. I know my body will grow by doing the exercises that I always neglected. I just need to find a close gym for the free weights, once I'm healthy. The weight are the only thing I'm missing with my exercise room and all my stuff. I almost went for a swim as well today, but I knew that our pool isn't the warmest and a evening dip would be really cold.

The thing today that maybe the most exciting to me is that I finally decided to weigh myself. I hadn't done that since well before my accident. I weighed in at 169.5 lbs, which for me is pretty good. My weight before my injury was around 175. So, seeing the change in the mirror and on the scale, tells me I'm doing the right thing. I just need to maintain this discipline over the next few months while I begin to walk again, and also keep doing the neglected exercises once I'm back running the trails again.

Here's what I ate

Weekend Slacker...

Monday was a lot more productive then the weekend was. For the whole weekend I only managed to do 40 pushups & 52 pullups. My sleep has been off the last few days because of my boot. It's really hard to get comfortable with it. It kept waking me up last night, which has given me a headache at the moment, hopefully it will pass soon. Also, my body won't let me get relaxed at night so I end up staying up too late, which then turns into sleeping later then I want to. It's all very annoying, but I'll get over it.

My eating habits haven't been the greatest either, one day I won't be very hungry and have to force myself to eat and others I eat way too much. I really need to sit down and make a quality grocery list along with planning out my meals for each day. I'm sure it will help keeping my weight from fluctuating and it will give some variety to my diet so I'm not eating the same bad thing day after day at Subway or Panera (both are healthy versions of fast foods, but still homemade is better). Doing all this will benefit my waistline as well as my bank account.

Monday was fairly productive compared to the last few days. I was able to do 20 push ups, 10 pull ups, 50 sit ups and I went to the pool with Vanessa. Being in the pool has helped me practice standing on my right foot in an environment with much less gravity. The best part of going to the pool, my smart brain realized that there was still a way for me to get my cardio work in. Swimming, I wish I would have thought of it earlier. the only thing was I don't think I was allowed to go into the pool, because my incision was too new. At least now I have a way to burn off some energy and get a good workout in. I just did laps around the pool for about 20-25 mins. It's not a big pool but that's okay, it still managed to get my heart pumping. Next time I need to remember to bring my watch and time how long I swim for and also to practice holding my breath underwater, I've heard that helps maximize your lung capacity. The only other thing I would need is a pair of goggles, the chlorine has always stung my eyes.

Today I need to try to bump my workout numbers up and go through all my workout stuff and see if there are any other activities I can do around the house that I can do on my own. Good luck to everyone on reaching for your goals. If you have any feedback, leave a comment or post on my Facebook wall here.

Forced Motivation!

It was so much easier in my brain to just laced up my UA Running Shoes, grab a water bottle and head for the trails. I could run for hours and lose myself in it. I would use it as therapy to help reduce my stress level. It was so simple to me. But doing a pushup or a sit-ups to me sounds like so much work. I need to teach my brain again how much I enjoyed building my muscle strength, I'm sure the guy in the mirror would be happy.

Now, over the last few years I have seriously slacked off in my strength training. I peaked a few times, once in high school, after basic training and the summer of my 23rd birthday. Being 29, it seems, I need to get back into it. The trouble is that it so hard to make myself do anything, especially when you already have an injury. I'm asking myself, "Should I even be doing exercises?" "How hard can I go if I do?". I know I can't do any squats or lunges since I can't even stand to put weight on my right foot. I also don't have a membership to a health club. All I have is what's in my apartment; swiss ball, Irongym pull-up bar, resistance band, jump rope and a couple of yoga DVDs. I also have a fitness room in my apartment complex which has a sauna, indoor pool, jacuzzi, treadmills, bikes, rowing machine and a few weights.

So for now, I'm left some old classic workouts, because I can't do any aerobic workouts. Push-ups on swiss ball, pull-ups, sit-ups, resistance band curls, and resistance band flys, which I call Iron Crosses are what I'm going to start doing. I'm going to start keeping track of how many of each I do everyday. Hopefully by the time my foot heals up, I'll be a cut up as I can be. As for what I did today. I did a bunch of foot flexes to increase mobility, there are also some flat footed streches that you can do to help bring your foot to a 90 degree angle. For the day I did 65 push, 35 pull, 30 sit, 20 curls, and 15 flys.

My hope is that with recording these couple of exercises, it will make me compete with myself and try to do more each day. I would do that with running, for every run. I really started breaking it down, right after I purchased my heart rate watch. You want to go out there and run everyday just to try to get better, let's pray it does it again and tricks my brain into a little Forced Motivation!

Not so good...

Well today hasn't been fun at all. I've had a really bad stomach ache, but its my fault. I made a huge sandwich for lunch and then ate an entire 10" pizza from Braconi's on my own. I feel that I was extra hungry because I just started working out. I tend to nitice my appetite gets bigger the more phyiscal activities I start doing. I managed to do 100 pushups and a couple pullups throughtout the day. I'm going to try to do some more today, but I don't know I'm going to feel. Bobby is coming over tonight so maybe we can do some sort of workout together. Not to much else to menton. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll have a little more to say.

Some new goals.

As I close in on four weeks post op, and my craving for going for a run is on high. My body keeps telling me that it needs to get some sort of workout in. I haven't really gained a lot of weight, from all the sitting around. The first couple weeks, I felt really lazy, but I guess I needed to be. Vanessa was having a really hard time dealing with her post-concussion sydrone, which has possibly been giving her some migraines, which all got worse when she drives. So, since I didn't want to make her drive to the grocery store, I conceded to delivery food for about a week and a half, until a friend took me to Target.



But over the last week I have been getting the itch to do something. Yesterday was my Day Zero, I forced myself to try to do something. I'm not going to try to keep track of every set, but I'm going to keep daily totals. I managed to knock out 40 pushups, 22 pullups, and 20 Curls. Each day, my number are going to go up. Hopefully, this is something I will push myself to do each day.

For those of you who are reading this, I'm glad you are. You may notice I'm not the top candiate to be an English teacher, which has always stopped me from writing in the past. This whole blog is a way for me to finally start putting into words what goes on in my head all day. Like many bloggers, I'm going to use my site as a daily journal on my rehab, recovery and all my future runs and endeavours. As you are reading this, know I'm basically writing to my future self to see if I'm staying within expectations of my goals.

As some of you may have seen on facebook, I was attempting to run for 365 miles this year. If I am able to begining running by Novemeber, I may still have a chance to reach it, but since my injury, I haven't really thought I would stay on track. Although, my mileage is at 280.8, which is only 85 miles away. So we will see how that goal ends up. I was just telling Vanessa how much I missed my trails as we drove past one of them on the way back from the grocery store.

Right now my sights are set on the 2012 New Years Day 5K. I hope to be back in the same shape I was in at the begining of this year. I ran a 21:37 in 2011 which will be my time to beat this year.

As for my long term goals:

2012-I would like to run the Chicago and the Twin Cities marathon and qualify for Boston, MS 150 and one triathalon.
2013-Boston, Chicago, Twin Cities and NYC marathons, Racine 70.3-qualify for Ironman
2014-5 marathons, 3 Triathlons, Ironman Quebec
2015-Finish the Ironman Hawaii

All before my 34th birthday. I think I can do it, I feel like I'm hitting my prime. I know what's expected of me when training. I can't focus just on running. Once I'm able, there's will be much more yoga, biking, rowing, lifting and even sprinting. I need to try to injury-proof my body as much as I can by being strong and flexible for all my joints and muscles. I know it's going to take a lot of work, but I can handle it.
Side note: I am still working on my injury video, I'll try to post that soon.

Looking for a Race...

Well since I can't get out there and run on this beautiful August afternoon, I hope that some one you are out there enjoying the trails and sidewalks. It took me finally signing up for a race to realize that I needed that sense of competetion, that I have been missing since high school. I was able to surpress it for awhile when I was coaching but now I'm hungry to win my age group or even the race itself. Unluckily, my basketball accident has left me in a walking boot for the next couple months, but my excitment to get back out on the trails has only grown.

So, I thought that if I can't run any races, maybe some of you would, but just don't know where to look. I'll post up some of my favorite running sites. Some are race links that will help you find races, the others are just good sites for quality information. If you have any questions or if you know of any other great running websites or blogs, you can post them here on my facebook wall.

Need to find a race:
Athlinks.com
Chicago Area Runner's Association
Running in the USA
The Racer's Hub
MN's Raceberry Jam

Running sites:
Runner's World
Complete Running.com
Track your run at USATF Run Mapper

Running Gear:
Under Armour
Dick's Sporting Goods
Naperville Running Company

On the Sidelines...

Well my running days have been put on hold for a little while. While playing 21 on the basketball court with my future brother-in-law, Bobby. We had just finished changing the brake pads and rotors on Vanessa's car, and we decided to go to the opening of the Nike Sports Park by our place. There were a bunch of tennis courts, volleyball courts, soccer & cricket fields.We had been playing very competeively for about 20 minutes. Then, Bobby got the ball leading 19-15, ready to finish me off and win the first of many battles we thought we would have. He pulled up just inside the 3 point line and shot. It clanked off, I jumped for the rebound and as I came down I felt my foot slip on the brand new court, I felt a pop and hit the ground.

I decided to go home and ice it and see if the pain would go away, like the million of rolled ankles I've had, but this was different, the pain didn't go away. When I woke up the pain was so intense, I just laid on the floor and tried to cried and I couldn't. I guess that's what it took to finally concede and go to the ER. They told me that it looked like a complete rupture of my achilles tendon.

Now, I have since had the surgery and I am in a soft cast, and will be at various anglesfor my foot over the next 5 weeks. I have intial appointment to see what it looks like 2 weeks after the surgery on Friday. I will report back more after the appointment.