Officially a Tough Mudder!

You may notice that I've removed the words "In training" from my blog title.  I never wanted to misrepresent myself.  So until now, I've been a Tough Mudder in Training.  Today, I am officially a Tough Mudder.  And I have the headband to prove it:

But you didn't just come for the finish, you want to know the pain and torment I went through don't you?  Well, here goes.  So, a little background. I've been training for this for about four months.  My friend Allen Benningfield decided to do this event and wanted someone to do it with him.  Allen and I served together in Iraq back in 2005.  I wanted to do something for my 30th year alive and really wanted to push the limits.  So I found Tough  Mudder and thought it fit the bill.  Extreme, unique, fun, and fulfilling.  So Tough Mudder, VA was what we did.  This is the map of Tough Mudder, VA, thanks to McAlister Drive, via Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150884339965416.750042.500040415&type=3#!/photo.php?fbid=10150361015709361&set=o.121520047789&type=1&theater

So, I'll start from the beginning.  The guy DJing the start was awesome.  He was funny, encouraging, and serious all at the same time. He told us what we needed to know, but still took time to have a little fun.  Here's a video of me and Allen Benningfield at the start.  I'm right behind the first row, on the left side of the announcer, wearing a red shirt, with a white circle on the back.  You'll see me jumping up and down just before we start. 

I'll go through each obstacle one at a time:

1. Braveheart Charge- This is pretty straightforward, you run down a slight slope and start the race.  But it couldn't be that easy.  They had those snow-making machines spraying water on the course and as I turned to go up the hill, I slipped, a mere 100 yards into the course.  I recovered really quickly, which was good, because there were 500 people running behind me. 

2. Berlin Walls- Funny thing about these walls, they were at the top of a very large hill.  This was our first wake-up call.  Everyone went charging out of the gate.  We weren't more than a quarter of a mile down the course and we hit this hill.  Everyone started running up it, and everyone- I mean everyone ended up walking by the time we hit the Berlin Walls.  Allen and I quickly got over them- they were 10 feet high, but we were already sucking wind as we ran down the other side of the hill.

3. At the bottom of the hill/mountain was The Gauntlet.  Again, they had a snow-making machine spraying water and several rows of baled hay we had to climb over.  But we quickly climbed over them to find ourselves climbing back up the mountain!

4. At the top of this hill/mountain was the Devil's Beard.  This was a cargo net laying on the ground, so after taking our turn holding up the opening, Allen and I crawled the 40 or so feet under the net to hold up the exit. 

5. After the Devil's Beard, we ran up to the top of the hill and started back down it, into a section where, if it hadn't been so congested, we might have been able to run a little.  Then it was more downhill to Hold Your Wood.  Here, we grabbed a log and climbed what looked like the Bunny slopes, carrying our logs.  This was the first time we saw Julie and Job, who had come for moral support.  Once up the hill, we went back down it to drop off our logs.

6. After grabbing water and some energy chews that were offered to us, we headed to Funky Monkey.  Believe it or not, this was the one obstacle I wasn't sure I was going to make it across without falling into the water.  But I made it and so did Allen. 

7. We then ran through the woods and the Log Bog Jog.  It's pretty self-explanatory.

8. Then there was Twinkle Toes.  This is the kind of obstacle that is just sort of pure chance.  Sometimes you'll do fine, other times, you just eat it.  I went across first, and got to the middle and the whole thing started shaking.  I wobbled back and forth and finally just gritted my teeth and started moving again.  Once I got away from the center, I was good, and made it across without getting wet. 



Me watching Allen cross Twinkle Toes



Me, blissfully unaware that this is the last moment I'll be dry on the whole course.

9. Up to this point, Allen and I have both made it along the course without getting too wet.  A little spray from the snow-makers, but we've managed to not get submerged.  Then came Chernobyl Jacuzzi.  These were those 30 ft long commercial dumpsters, filled with dyed water and tons (literally tons) of ice.  There was a beam going across the middle of the dumpster that forced you to submerge into the icy bath.  I can say with all honesty that this was the single most uniquely painful and weird feeling I've ever experience.  As soon as my body hit the water/ice, shock waves just overcame me.  I jumped in and immediately submerged, moved forward underwater enough to know I was clear of the beam and popped up out of the ice.  The blood vessels in my head and my entire body immediately yanked blood away into my core and it felt like the worst brain-freeze imaginable.  It was all I could do to run to the end of the dumpster.  I was sucking in air like I was on the moon.  And I felt like I couldn't move.  At the time, I thought I only made it out because I was pulled out, but seeing the video, I actually jumped out of the ice pretty high.  But I know people grabbed me and pulled me out.  And the water was so cold that once I was fully out, I felt incredibly warm in the 50 degree air outside.  I stayed and helped about three guys get out and then Allen and I moved on.

This is video of Allen and I jumping into Chernobyl Jacuzzi

10. So now were were wet.  As long as we kept moving, we didn't feel cold, but once we got to the Spiders Web, we had to wait for people to climb over before we could keep moving and it got rather chilly.  We climbed over quickly, took our turn holding the net taut for others and then moved on. 

I'm the one in the red shirt with the white circle, Allen is to my right.

11. We ran down hill and came across my favorite obstacle: Greased Lightning.  Allen and I decided to go down this head first, and it was worth it.  At first, it looks like they just put down regular black plastic, but as you slide down, you realize it's really thick and I didn't feel any rocks or anything going down it.  It was a really long slide and honestly, provided a nice bit of relief and fun.  It was still extreme, which makes it fit into Tough Mudder perfectly.

12. Further down the hill, we hit the Boa Constrictor.  These were two pipes sloped into a pit of water.  Cold water.  They lined them with the same smooth plastic, so it wasn't as hard on my knees as I worried it would be. 

13. We continued even further down the hill until we reached the Underwater Tunnels.  I think these would have been more intimidating if it hadn't been for the Chernobyl Jacuzzi.  After Chernobyl, the other water obstacles were mere shadows of water obstacles.  I liked that.  I think mentally, getting that out of the way early made the other obstacles easier to overcome.  That being said, having to traverse 30 feet of freezing water and ducking under four different beams, submerging yourself again and again, was difficult enough.  I'm just saying, it was no Chernobyl.

14. And then it appeared.  Like a hurricane waiting to devour everything in it's path.  There was no way around it, no one would evade it.  The Death March.  This was the single most difficult obstacle on the course.  The beauty and brutality of this obstacle is this: it didn't matter how many marathons, burpees, squat lifts, or sprints you'd done, no one- absolutely no one ran up this mountain.  And it was a mountain.  I don't know the incline, but I measured the distance on Google Earth and it was over .6 miles.  Straight up a mountain!  

15. According to the map, Cliff Hanger was supposed to be somewhere along the Death March, but they may have removed it from the course. 

16. At the top of the Mountain, the Kiss of Mud was between the Death March and an aid station.  Here, you had to crawl underneath barbed wire and through mud.  But it was a relief after having just climbed up the mountain.

17. We did some push ups with the guy at the aid station, grabbed some water and a banana and finally got to really run for the first time on the course.  And run we did- right by our condo.  Right by our trucks parked in the parking lot.  This section of the course was the flattest we had experienced, and it was five miles into the course!  The next obstacle was Tired Yet.  It was simply a bunch of tires you had to run through.

18. We ran some more and hit Logjammin'.  These were a series of logs that you had to alternatively climb over or under.  Here is where we saw our first casualty.  A girl must of slipped on the log and twisted her leg pretty bad.  Her teammates were carrying her off to the side.  I couldn't help but feel really bad for her since she had made it through the toughest of the course and over half the course only to get hurt on something relatively easy.

19. The next obstacle was really close- Bale Bonds.  This was just a big stack of hay bales we had to climb over.

20. Then it was a lot of running through the golf course to the last set of Berlin Walls.  These were 12 feet tall and not easy to get over.  You definitely needed a boost to get over them, but we both got over them quickly.

21. Then we had the longest stretch without an obstacle.  It was probably close to a full mile without one.  Most of it was through the golf course, which allowed us to make up valuable time.  Finally, we hit the "Mystery Obstacle", which was the Smoke Tunnel.  This was my least favorite obstacle.  Basically, you climbed up about 12 to 15 feet, and dropped into a smoke-filled slide.  The problem I had with this was that it was completely vertical until the last 4 or 5 feet.  It wasn't "Tough" or fun, it was just painful.  I got banged and scrapped up on the stupid thing.  I just found it obnoxious.  It was the one obstacle I suggested Tough Mudder never use again.

22. We then ran about halfway back down the mountain, through some woods and came across the Kinky Tunnels.  I'm a bit claustrophobic, but throughout the course, Tough Mudder always left enough room to crawl through on your hands and knees.  The Kiss of Mud might be the exception.  But if you've ever been in the military, you know a low crawl when you see one, and never once did we have to do a true low crawl.  Which honestly, was nice.  Kinky Tunnels was an obstacle that you had to crawl through where you couldn't see the daylight ahead of you because of the bends in the tunnels.  But even I didn't get too claustrophobic from it, so it wasn't too bad.

23. From here, we ran part of the way back down the mountain alongside the people doing the Death March.  It was hard on the knees to run back down that mountain, but you were just thankful you weren't on the other side going up the damn thing again.  We ran through some woods and came out to a ton of spectators cheering us on.  But there it was- another damn hill.  We climbed the hill and hit Shake and Bake.  Basically, exactly like Kiss of Mud, but sand instead of mud. 

24. Then we hit Turds Nest.  This was a suspended cargo net that you had to traverse while someone was spraying you with a fire hose.  It was different, but not difficult.

25. Then came Everest.  This is a quarter pipe about 12 or 15 feet high.  When Allen and I got there, there were about 300 people standing at the bottom of the damn thing standing around looking at it.  I had seen photos from previous events where people made human ladders to get over the obstacle.  So I told Allen about it, and we walked up to the bottom of the thing, sat down and formed a ladder.  We tried to convince other people to add on, and got on guy to join.  But then people started trying to run up and then push off of our three-person ladder and it didn't work.  So the three photos that were taken of both Allen and I on Everest is just us basically setting up the ladder.  Instead of running and summiting it.  Thanks a lot.  Needless to say, we gave up the whole teamwork thing and Allen ran up the quarter pipe and was over it on his first try.  Then I tried and fell the first time.  The second time, I grabbed two guys at the top and they pulled me over.  I stayed at the top and helped two guys over.  Then a huge guy who was about 6'4, 280 lbs came barrelling up the pipe. I grabbed his hand and arm and started to pull, but the guy who had grabbed his left hand let go.  Thankfully the Hulk let go of me, or he would have easily pulled me back down the pipe.  I helped one more guy up and then he took my place at the top.

26. We ran a short distance and hit the Firewalker.  This was tough because you're catching your breath from sprinting up Everest and all you're doing is sucking in smoke.  But you know the end is so close, you just don't care.

27. And then you hit another freaking ski slope!  But you can see the start and hear the after party.  Just when you think you're at the end, they run you back down the slope, away from euphoria and back up the slope again. The whole time, spectators are riding the damn ski lift above you.  Finally, we came to Electroshock Therapy.  This was the obstacle that held the most anxiety for me.  It was the most unknown factor.  There was a fountain of water just before it that you had to run through.  If the finish line had not been right there, and tons of people standing around looking at us, I might have stood there for a minute to psych myself up.  But it was the end, and there were a ton of people.  So we just ran through it.  Allen ran in front of me.  I saw him react slightly to a jolt, but as I ran through, I felt....nothing.  It was somewhat of a disappointment, but I didn't have the energy or the inclination for disappointment because the finish line was right in front of me. 

Allen and I ran across the finish line together and were greeted by women with the coveted orange Tough Mudder sweatband.  Then there was a smorgasbord of goodies.  Dos Equis beer, Myoplex recovery drink, water, Clif bars, and our Tough Mudder t-shirts!

Julie and Job met us at the end, we drank our beers, took in a few minutes of the glory and headed up to the condo for a nice hot shower.  I didn't realize just how cold I was until after I had taken a shower.  I came out, shivering like crazy.  I put tons of clothes on and it took me about 5 minutes to finally stop shivering. 

Stay tuned, I hope to have some more photos once Tough Mudder posts their official photos of the event.  And I'm going to try to put together a video montage of the whole event. 

As an aside: the only equipment I purchased for the event were my New Balance Minimus shoes.  This event was truly the Gauntlet and these shoes performed above and beyond my expectations.  They gave me traction when I needed it, protected my feet, and self-drained water each time they were submerged.  I never sloshed around.  I had absolutely no hot spots.  I never had to re tighten or retie them.  They were absolutely superb.  And despite having run the furthest ever on them- 9 miles, I didn't have nearly the joint pain I had experienced on shorter 6- mile runs.  So I think the issue with my knees was from training on concrete and asphalt less than the shoes themselves. 



Cramming for Tough Mudder

With Tough Mudder just four days away, I'm down to my last couple of workouts.  On Friday and Saturday, I'm not going to do anything strenuous.  I might go for a jog on Friday, but Saturday is going to be spent getting to the event and checking into our apartment at Wintergreen.

Here's what I've done over the past few days:

I missed logging a day from last week:
10/10:  I went into the gym that night to do a basic workout.  I focused on lifting weights.  I don't remember everything I did, but I do remember doing M100s, barbell complexes, and working on my back and chest.

10/14: I worked out at the gym.  I changed things up a bit and did several Near Muscle Fatigue exercises.  I used a barbell with 20 lbs on it.  I did bicep curls, flat bench press, and shoulder press.  I also worked on my core with crunches, planks, leg lifts, etc. 

10/15: I did the 5-mile loop around Lake Habeeb.  I started to go around a second time, for a full ten miles, but just couldn't see my knees making the trip.  I did the first 5 miles in about 54 minutes.  I'm really hoping that the obstacles throughout Tough Mudder will allow me opportunities to give my knees a break.  Based on the course they have up on the website, I might just get lucky.

10/18:  I really don't think I took two days off, but I can't remember what I did either Sunday or Monday, so all I've got is Tuesday.  I worked out at the gym.

1. Dumbbell Curls, 30 lbs each, 10 reps, 3 sets.
2. Dumbbell shoulder press, 15 lbs each, 10 reps, 3 sets.
3. Dumbbell tricep extensions, 15 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
4. Dumbbell shoulder raises, 15 lbs each, 10 reps, 3 sets.
5. Dumbbell flat bench, 45 lbs each, 10 reps, 3 sets.
6. Dumbbell row, 80 lb dumbbell, 10 reps, 3 sets.
7. Core: crunches, leg raises.

10/19: Last run.  3.64 miles in 34 minutes.  I ran with my Minimus shoes, and spent about a third of the run on the front of my feet.  My calves are killing me, but my knees aren't.  I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.  Again, hoping that obstacles allow me to use different muscles and give some things, particularly my knees, breaks (albeit brief).

Catching up

So it has been too long since I wrote my last blog.  I'll summarize what I've done over the last couple of weeks:

8/23: Gym workout.  I've started doing the Tough Mudder workout at the beginning of my gym workouts. That can be found at: http://toughmudder.com/training-prep/.  I've been doing just one set to warm up, and it's been going pretty well.  I found a Fat-loss workout from my Men's Health Big Book of Exercises.  So here's what it was:
   Dumbbell Bench press: 45 lbs, 2 sets, 15 reps.
   Dumbbell row: 30 lbs, 2 sets, 15 reps.
   Scaption: 10 lbs, 2 sets, 15 reps. - This is a weird word for a shoulder exercise where you simply raise the weights out in front of you.  Maybe they should have tried something like: "Forward shoulder raise". 
   Seated dumbbell rotation: 10 lbs, 2 sets, 15 reps. - This is a really annoying excercise that is supposed to help counteract the caveman effect of doing too many arm exercises.  It's a decent exercise, but just annoying to actually do.
   Plank: 2 sets, 8 reps. I've started heeding the book's suggestion to do these as reps- you hold the position for 5-10 second, relax- and that's a rep.  It seems to be much more effective than simply holding the position for say, 30 seconds straight. 

8/24: Bicycle day. I towed the little monkey behind me for 15 miles.  It took me about an hour and ten minutes.  I rode on the C&O Canal path, from mile 184.5 to mile 177.  You can check out the entire trail here: http://bikewashington.org/canal/.  As an aside, I'm hoping to ride the entire trail from September 16-18th.  I'll let you know how that goes!

8/26: Gym workout.  Again, started with the Tough Mudder workout.  Another Fat-loss workout:
   Pushup: 2 sets, 12 reps.
   Inverted row: 2 sets, 12 reps.  This is another awkward exercise.  Not a big fan.
   Combo shoulder raise: 10 lbs, 2 sets, 12 reps.
   Lying external rotation: 10 lbs, 2 sets, 12 reps. This is similar to the Seated Dumbbell rotation, only you have to balance yourself on a rickety incline bench and do it.  Luckily the exercise requires only about a 10-15 lbs weight.  Otherwise, there's just no chance of doing it without looking like a Stooge. 
   Side plank: 2 sets, 8 reps.  Again, breaking these into reps worked great!

8/27: Running day.  I've been trying to seriously increase my cardio, so I've been trying to run/bike for at least an hour each time.  This day, I ran 7.03 miles in about an hour and 10 minutes.  This was one of those runs where everything felt great.  I made good time, didn't get winded, and my legs felt good.  I did about four miles on the nice, flat C&O canal path, so that helped me add the distance I needed.   It did rain for the last 1.5 miles, so I got a little bit of a Tough Mudder factor added in.  The last half mile or so was kind of rough on my knees. 

8/29: Bicycle day.  I rode 11.88 miles towing my son behind me in the trailer.  This trip, I took the Greater Alleghany Path (GAP).  For half of the ride, it was uphill and downhill for the last half.  I kept a 10mph+ pace up, which is always my goal. 

8/30: Gym workout.  Tough Mudder workout warmup.  Then chest and back workout of my own.
   Incline bench press: 45 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.  Starting out on this exercise always allows me to complete it and still be able to continue working my chest. 
   Seated machine row: 200 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.  My gym has a machine for this and the lat bar, but the seat is up off the floor and I never seem to do very well with it.  It never seems to actually work out my back.  So I decided to use another machine, but sit on the floor.  It allowed me to focus on using my back and lift more weight. 
   Flat bench press: 45 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
   Seated lat bar pulldown: 180 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.  Again, I sat on the floor and was able to really focus on using my back muscles. 
   Kneeling ab machine pulldown: 200 lbs, 10 reps, 2 sets.
   Some sort of lower back machine workout where you sit on a bench and lean back against the weight of the machine.  200 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.

8/31: Run day.  I ran 6.1 miles in an hour.  This doesn't seem like as tough of a run as on the 27th, but in fact it was tougher.  There is this one road about 1 mile long that I sometimes run downhill on.  It drops quite a bit in that 1 mile.  And every now and then, I try to run up it.  And I did that this day.  I usually do it within the first few miles of my run, so I can keep going.  It mixes things up and I feel like it helps me prepare for the big uphill in Tough Mudder.  I'll let you know if that's true after the event. 

9/1- 9/4: I took a few days break from "workouts".  Over the long weekend on 9/2-9/5, I built a bed for my wife an I.  It was a bit of work, so I took a few days off from working out or running.

9/5: Run day.  Today I ran the farthest I've ever run with my New Balance Minimus: 3.64 miles.  And it was raining the entire time.  A Tough Mudder run.  All in all, the shoes held up spectacularly.  No sloshing around, even though I ran through my share of puddles.  They drained well and kept snug through the whole run.  And it seems like my legs and feet are starting to get used to them as well.

So that's what I've been up to.

Army Physical Fitness Test Results

I've been promising to do this for some time now, and I finally just went out and did it.  So my last AFPT results were:

Age: 25
Weight: 176
Pushups: 65  Score: 89
Situps: 72   Score: 89
2-mile run: 14:26  Score: 84
Total score: 262

Today's results:
Age: 30
Weight: 194
Pushups: 50  Score: 72
Situps: 54  Score: 70
2-mile run: 16:06  Score: 70
Total score: 212

So I'm 5 years older, nearly 20 lbs heavier and a minute and a half slower in my run time.  Some of the results are to be expected.  212 is a respectable score, but Tough Mudders aren't aiming for respectable.  They're aiming for superb.  For a perfect score, I would need:

Pushups: 72
Situps: 82
2-mile run: 13:18

It's interesting that in the categories of pushups and situps, the standards increase as you get older until you hit 32.  So apparently my age and weight should speed me up.  So goal is above.  Honestly, if I could get sub-14-minutes on my two miles and get into the 60s on pushups and situps, I think I'd be happy.  I'm sure I can do better on the situps and pushups.  But hitting that sub-14 minutes is going to be tough.  Stay tuned, though because that's what's going to happen! 

Oh, if you want to see the APFT standards for your age, check them out here:  http://business.clemson.edu/Armyrotc/docs/apftScoreCard.pdf.

Catching up

So while I haven't posted here on the blog, I have been working out.  But as usual, life has been crazy.  Let's see, I'll start with last Thursday: I ran my 3.64 mile loop and it went alright.  I did it in my regular Asics.
Friday: I did chest and back.  As I said in my previous post, I was having issues with incline barbell presses, so I thought I'd start with them and see how it went.  And if paid off, I was able to do three sets with 40 lbs in each hand.  So here was my workout:
1. Incline dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
2. Flat dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
3. Decline dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
4. Machine row, 120 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
5. Machine Lat pull down, 100 lbs, 10 reps, sets.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday- I didn't do anything! I know, but I never claimed I was perfect.

Tuesday: I ran my 2.3 mile loop in my Asics.  I did it in about 28 minutes, and I just felt like crap.
Wednesday: I worked on shoulders:
1. Lateral raise, 15 lbs, 10 reps, 1 set; 10 lbs, 10 reps, 2 sets.   I really liked this exercise because I felt it in my lats as well when I was bring the weight slowly down.
2. Dumbbell shrug, 50 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
3. Dumbbell diagonal raise, 10 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
4. Ez-bar curl, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
5. Ez-bar preacher curl, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
6. Barbell squat, 50 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
7. Kneeling cable crunch, 200 lbs, 25 reps, 3 sets.

And today, I decided to take a break from running and give my joints a break.  So I cleaned the bike up and took the little monkey with me.  I hooked up the bike trailer, stuck the monkey in it and rode 10 miles in about 54 minutes.  Now I know what you all are thinking- but that's 5 miles less than you usually do in that time.  But then, I'm not usually towing 40 lbs worth of trailer and giggling, book reading child.  And let me tell you- it made a difference going up.  All told, I wish I could have gone faster, but I think I did pretty well.

So that's the last week.

Tough spot

The last three days have been just, Tough.  My workout has been thrown off a little by different stuff going on in life, so I've had to make due.  Monday, which is normally an upper-body weightlifting day was, instead a running night.  I am trying to work my new running shoes, the New Balance Minimus into my workouts.

http://www.newbalance.com/

New Balance recommends using them for just 10% of your running workouts and then slowly increasing that over time.  And oddly, at first, I didn't really get that.  I was really comfortable using these without noticing any real difference between them and my Asics.  But then on Monday, I ran 2.3 miles in them and came back noticing the difference.  Everyone reaches a point in their exercise regime where they seem to plateau or just run out of steam.  And I feel like I'm at the point right now.  I seem to ache constantly and my last few workouts have been lackluster.  I just don't feel energized.  My weight loss has screeched to a halt, and I even gained a few pounds over vacation. 

So Monday night's run went alright, but my muscles were so tight afterwards, especially in my lower legs.  Tuesday, is normally a running day, and I was feeling ok, so I decided to try a longer run, but in my Asics, to give my legs a little rest.  I ran my 3.64 mile loop and it went pretty well.  I did notice that some of my conditioning was paying off.  My windsprints, for instance, seemed to have improved my ability to hit a hill and actually speed up over it.  Normally, I'd shorten my stride and slow my pace to climb, but I found my self reaching my legs out and picking up my pace to climb, with little negative effect on my breathing or form once I had finished the climb.  So that was good news.  But I had hoped to maybe throw in the 2.5 mile loop at the end to make it 6.1 miles, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I felt like, while my legs were still solid, my energy level just wasn't there. 

And then Wednesday came around.  I finally had access to my gym, so I took the opportunity.  Now, I don't know if I've talked alot about it, but up to now, I've been essentially doing split training, where I separate out muscles groups and focus on them on different days.  The Tough Mudder training system doesn't do that.  And it's a great workout, so I decided to give it a try. 
I ignored the running man, because I've been doing plenty of that. I chose about 9 of the exercises and laid out the equipment I needed in a row so I could quickly go from one exercise to the other.  So here's what I did:
1. TM Pushup- Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, my gym only has those little weights that square off- up to 12 lbs.  So that's what I used.  I did ten reps.
2. Fist and Fury - I really like the exercise for some reason. The only Kettle bell the gym has is 35 lbs, so I used that.  This exercise combines a squat and a front dumbbell raise, but you get a great cardio side benefit by doing them in rapid succession.  Check out This Article that uses a similar exercise as a great fat-burning routine that was featured on http://www.yahoo.com/.  I did 10 reps for each arm. 
3. Scissor Kick- I started this, but found myself too uncoordinated to do it- or too tired. Plus people were looking at me like I had just lit up a cigarette on an airplane.  So, like most, I just stopped.
4. Back row- I used 35 lb dumbbells for this and did 10 reps.
5. Dumbbell side lunge- This exercise is intense if you do it right.  I started out with 35 lbs in each hand and then had to drop down to 25 lbs.  And it still killed.  10 reps.
6. Push up plus row- I did this with my puny 12 lb weights for 10 reps and then decided it wasn't really do what was intended.
7. Lunge and twist.  I did this with the 35 lbs kettle bell, walking across the gym, probably 20 lunges total for 10 on each leg.
8. Shoulder press- Honestly, I think if you did this work out by curling the dumbbells up, then squatting, then pressing as you stood all for one rep and just repeating it, you could be ready for almost anything after 2 weeks of it!  It was just brutal to me.  I used 25 lbs in each hand and it was all I could do to get 10 reps out. 
9. Planks- I did the superman and drunk superman planks. 

So let's call all of that, one set- I did two and was out.  The first set was really intense, as I had energy to move from one to the other, but then I just- ran out of steam.  My second set was lackluster at best.  And it only took me about 35 minutes to do all of that.  I left the gym just disappointed at my performance.  I didn't feel like I had worked out- though my butt and thighs greatly disagreed with me and are still protesting my idea of performance today. 

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.  I know I should be eating more, so I'm going to try do that.  I guess I've just been disappointed with my weight gain, so I've been reluctant to eat more.   I know that's probably causing more problems than it's solving. 

Anyway, I'm going to post my initial review of the New Balance Minimus on Monday and then post updates as my training progresses.  Also, I'm going to try to do one of those promised PT Tests soon- though I've held off because I don't want to embarrass myself too much.  So stay tuned for that humiliation. 

Making up for a lazy vacation

Obviously a 2.3 mile run isn't going to make those 3 extra pounds go away.  It's time to get back to work.  So, Wednesday, I went into the gym for an hour an half.  Here's what I did:
1. Alternating standing dumbbell curls, 35 lbs, 10 reps, 1 set; 30 lbs, 10 reps, 2 sets.
2. Standing EZ bar curls, 60 lbs, 10 reps, 1 set; 50 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
3. Standing Barbell extensions, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 1 set; 30 lbs, 10 reps, 2 sets.
4. Dumbbell kickbacks, 20 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
5. Bar pushdown on universal machine, 100 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
6. Crunches, hanging leg lifts, plank, side planks, ab machine.

Again, if you're like me and you don't know what most of these are, check out: http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/.  It's a great resource.

Today, I ran my usual 2.3 miles, but as suggested on Tough Mudder, I threw in about 10 sprints.  It felt good at first, but it really kicked my butt on the way back.  It probably had something to do with the fact that the way back was uphill.  But ultimately, these kinds of exercises are going to prepare me for the explosive bursts of energy I'll need to complete an obstacle after running a few miles.

Rest isn't just for Sundays

Like I said yesterday, I felt like I had to make up for Sunday, but today demonstrated why that might not have been the best idea.  Rest, it's not just for Sundays.  Our bodies, or at least mine, need a break in order to rebuild and recuperate.  I ran 2.3 miles for time (a lousy 20 minutes) last night, so for me, that was a fast and tough run. And I felt the effects tonight when I ran my 3.64-mile loop: mostly in my knees. 
Just so everyone knows, I'm not a slouch.  For my Physical Training (PT) test in Kuwait, I ran the 2-mile test in 13:23.  I think that's pretty awesome!   On top of that, I managed to do 77 pushups and 79 situps, each in only 2 minutes.  I actually earned the Army's Physical Fitness Badge for it:

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/armymedals/a/ptbadge.htm

But then that was in '03, and I weighed in at 173 lbs, 20 lbs less than I weigh today!  (Oh, yeah, I weighed myself today and I'm down to 192.8!  So in the past month, I've lost over 7 lbs.) So, here's what I'm thinking.  While I absolutely hated PT tests, they are a clean, subjective standard on which to compare my fitness.  I have years worth of PT tests, complete with reps, scores, times and weights.  So I'm going to use them as a guide to see where I am.  Over the next three months, I'll try to do one PT Test per month and post the results.  I'm going on vacation this week, starting Wednesday, so at some point, I'll try to set up my own PT test and we'll see what happens.  Stay tuned!  

Today's workout consisted of me running my 3.64 mile loop around Cumberland.  Thankfully, we're seeing some cooler temperatures at night, so it wasn't too bad.  It took me 40 minutes to run.  That's a dismal 11-minute mile.  At that rate, it will take me about 2 hours to complete the Tough Mudder course at Wintergreen.  So that's just not acceptable.  I just don't want to be running for 2 hours.  So, I've got to pick up the pace.  My PT tests will hopefully improve that.  

Resting

With all of the training, exercise, dieting, etc, sometimes we can lose sight of something that is just as important as all of the above: rest. I personally think rest is essential to a good exercise routine.  And apparently there are others who agree.  Check out this article at Runners World.

For my money, there are different versions of rest.  My rest days are Sundays, because if it's good enough for God, it's good enough for me.  But that doesn't mean I don't do anything.  I used to do P90X, and the "rest" day often involved yoga or stretching.  If you're training for a marathon, a short, easy jog is a good way to continue your fitness routine, but still offer your body the time to rest and recuperate.  Or you can just do what I did and brave the heat to do yard work.

Me smashing hornets with a 1x2.

Filling the hornet's nest with water. 

Or you can do nothing at all.

On my rest days, my plan is to drink lots of water, rest, and allow my body to rebuild from the week's training.  I feel like my joints really benefit from the rest periods as well.  After the trail run around Lake Habeeb, my knees needed a break.  So, judge for yourself what kind of rest your body needs most.  Or be a lunatic and run for 30 years in a row, every day of the year.

Running in bath water

Today's high was 100, and as I'm writing this at midnight, it is 86 with 72% humidity, so it feels like 96.  So let's say for argument's sake that when I started running tonight at 9 p.m., it was hot.  Now, I've run a two-mile PT test in Kuwait at about 105 degrees in 13 minutes and 26 seconds, but it just didn't feel as hot as it was tonight.  It was a dry heat- you don't sweat.  I sweated tonight.

It was only my 3.64 miles circuit, but I had to stop a few times to just walk for a bit.  All told, I probably walked a quarter of a mile out of the whole run, but that's not something I normally do.  It was just really, really hot.  And the temperature isn't what really got me.  It was the humidity.  You know the indoor swimming pools that a lot of hotels have?  You walk from their nice, air conditioned lobby, with it's clean smell and quiet atmosphere, into the pool room: a sauna filled with the cacophonous sound of children playing and the overwhelming smell of  chlorine.  Well, exchange the chlorine for cigarette smoke, and the sound of children playing with couples fighting about who is going to watch the kids while one of them goes off to jail; and you have my run through Cumberland tonight. 

Honestly, with all the training I had in the military about heat injuries, I should have known better than to run on a night like tonight.  But I have worked out three days in a row, and I wanted to keep the momentum going.  So, I ran through the smoke and haze, and finished it all off with a few gallons worth of ice water, complements of my supportive wife.