ksylvan's Journal

P90X Round 5 Day 1: Chest and Back + Ab Ripper X
Aug 03 2009 11:40

Got up at 5:45 AM. By 6, I was doing my P90X workout. Done by 7:15. Felt great!

Ate a little food, then drove my son to his schedule-pickup session at school.

I got home, talked to Garmin support, then went to the post office to ship my non-functional Garmin Forerunner 405CX for repairs. It should be back in my hands by sometime next week.

Carpooled to work with my buddy David, and now I am at work, taking a two minute journal break. :-)

Hope you are all having a fantastic Monday and a great week.

Early 5 mile run completed
Aug 02 2009 09:33

I did my 5 mile run in something like 10:50 minute/mile time.

Then made breakfast (egg wihte omelet with cheese and turkey filling and some strawberries on the side).

Next, I'll take a shower and relax till Church later this evening.

Hope you are all having a fantastic Sunday.

Damn you, Garmin!
Aug 01 2009 21:49

My Garmin Forerunner 405 CX froze today. I did the "reset" button presses, which caused the screen to blank out and NOT COME BACK!!!!

I guess I'll be doing tomorrow's run using my iPhone, then on the phone to Garmin first thing on Monday morning.

My cute little GPS watch is broken

Next steps: Fitness Test: Start over with P90X
Aug 01 2009 10:49

It's been a while since I've posted.

I'm still training for my half marathon (October 4) and marthon (October 25), and learning the POSE method of running.

Over the last few weeks, I've not been as hard-core with my own training as I was, and as a result, I've lost a little bit of muscle and tone. No biggie, I decided to abort my 4th round of P90X and start anew on August 3rd with round 5, with increased commitment.

So, I did my Fitness test to start and will take new pictures and start again as if I am a beginner.

Fitness test results:

Resting heart rate: 50
Pull-ups (overhand, straighten your arms and no bouncing): 5.5
Vertical leap: 3 inches
Toe touch: 4 (distance from toe, sitting down, knees unbent, trying to touch toes)
In-and-outs: 53
Seated Wall Squat: 1 min 10 sec
Arm Curls to Failure: 12 curls @ 25 pounds
Heart Rate maximizer (2 minutes of jumping jacks hard and fast):
  Immediately after: 166
  After 1 minute: 122
  After 2 minute: 94
  After 3 minute: 78
  After 4 minute: 72

So, that's all for now. I have a 5 mile run tomorrow and I re-start P90X on Monday at 6AM.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

4 mile run using the POSE method completed
Jul 05 2009 22:05

Here's a 4.0 mile run I just did with no walk breaks, using the POSE method:

4.0 mile training run (using POSE concepts)

Interestingly, I felt like I used less energy throughout the run, it felt more springy (using a lot more muscle elasticity), a lot less involvement from the quadriceps, much less strain on joints (knees, ankles) and a lot more fluidity and continuous movement. I'm just a beginner, and I think my form can still improve a lot.

Overall, my pace was 9:36 min/mile. Faster than some of my other short runs, and I felt like I could keep this up for a long time.

Very very interesting. I'll continue to play with this and report back.

12 mile run completed
Jun 28 2009 10:11

I did my planned run. Here is the link to my data.

Going to go shopping at Trader Joe's next. Jeff Galloway's run-walk method rocks! Average pace on my run overall was 12:18 min/mile and I have no soreness at all.

Have a great Sunday, everybody!

Tomorrow, a 12 mile run planned
Jun 27 2009 22:30

I'm planning a 12 mile run tomorrow.

I'm incorporating elements of total heart rate training and Jeff Galloway's Run-Walk method.

My run will consist of:

2 times { Run 0.93 miles in heart zone 1, walk for 0.07 miles }

3 times { Run 0.93 miles in heart zone 2, walk for 0.07 miles }

3 times { Run for 0.93 miles in heart zone 3, walk for 0.07 miles }

3 times { Run for 0.93 miles in heart zone 4, walk for 0.07 miles }

Run the last mile in heart zone 5 (sprint as fast as I can).

The 0.07 mile distance is chosen because at a normal walking pace, it takes about a minute to complete.

If this works as well as I think it will, given my experience with the 10.5 mile run in San Francisco two weeks ago, this sort of plan will most likely work very very well for my half marathon and marathon runs.

I hope you are all having a great weekend.

I'll report my experience after the run tomorrow.

P90X round 4 week 8 continues, and I finally joined the twitterati
Jun 25 2009 15:51

I've joined the ranks of the twitterati:

http://www.twitter.com/ksylvan

Have a great week everyone, and relish your life!

P90X Round 4 Day 50: Yoga-X
Jun 22 2009 15:55

Today was Yoga-X.

Yesterday, I did a nice 4 mile run (overall pace was 9:37 min/mile).

Work was boring. I'm distracted by the Iran situation.

P90X Round 4 Day 44: Plyometrics
Jun 16 2009 13:44

On Sunday morning, I ran in San Francisco. Started in downtown, near Howard and 2nd street, ran towards the Embarcadero, then ran along the Piers to the Golden Gate Bridge and back. A total of 10.5 miles as planned. This was a fun run, orchestrated via heart rate (3 miles in zone 1, 2.25 miles in zone 2, 2.25 miles in zone 3, 2.5 miles in zone 4 and 0.5 miles in a sprint in zone 5).

This was on top of entering in a weekend Chess tournament. If any of you know chess, you may enjoy taking a peek at my games here. I lost 2 games, won 3 games, and drew one, ending up with a slightly higher rating than I had before.

Yesterday's workout was Chest, Shoulders and Triceps + the ab sequence.

Today was my Plyometrics. I worked harder than the last time I did the same workout, based on my heartrate data.

Hope you are all having a great week!