Winter tries to return

It's hard to believe that it was 80 degrees last week. This morning we awoke to a ground covering of snow. By the time I got out out run mid morning, most of the snow had melted and it was just a mix of rain and snow coming down. After being so tired yesterday, I decided to take it easy again today, just in case I decide to run the 8K tomorrow. Right now I'd say the probability is low since the forecast is for sleet in the morning - yuck.

I also completed the 2nd week of the push-up challenge this morning. I'm happy to say that I did 102 push-ups today, but it took me 7 sets. The program called for 5 sets of 16, 17, 14, 14, 20 with two minutes of rest between sets, and I did 16, 17, 14, 14, 21, 10, 10. Hopefully over the next 4 weeks I'll get that down to one set. This weekend I'll take the week 2 test to see how many I can crank out in a single set, then get ready for Week 3. I peeked ahead and noticed that it gets a lot tougher in week 3 - I hope I can keep pace.

In addition to running...

...I've started working on my overall fitness. In the past, I've always just let the running keep me in shape, but I'm finding lately that isn't enough.

A little over a week ago, I came across Steve Speirs' blog - Run Bulldog Run. Steve has developed a six week training program to build enough strength to do 100 consecutive push-ups. I was pretty skeptical when I first read through the plan, but as I thought about it, I figured what the heck. He claims that even if you can only do 10 push-ups, you can get there. I took the initial test and surprised myself when I did 24 push-ups. That put me solidly in group three, but I did not take his advice and skip to week three of the plan. Yesterday I completed week 1 without too much difficulty. I'm not saying it was easy, but I did it. I'll post occasional updates as I work toward 100.

In addition to the push-ups, today I found a core strength routine that only takes a few minutes to complete. I was able to do it, but I was really shaky. I'm going to try and do this several times a week and see what happens. For more info on the core routine, check out the video.



From Power Centering