It Feels So Good to Be Able to Workout!

So for the first time in over two weeks, I was able to head to the gym and get a workout in and man it felt good!  I still can't do any running right now as my big toes are still healing from the in-office surgery, but I was able to get a cardio workout in on the elliptical machine.  I did 30 minutes at a 30% resistance and had an incline of 5 out of 10.  The total for that workout? 544 calories burned with a distance of 1.25 miles.  Did I mention that I really miss my road work?

After that I moved on to my resistance circuit training.  I wanted to concentrate on my upper body this session and I could tell that after two weeks of not being able to work on resistance training, I was not at my best.

Overall I did shoulders including shrugs, front and lateral raises and shoulder press.  For arms I did bicep curls and the triceps machine.  For the chest I did sets on the incline bench press, and chest flys.  The last sets I did was for the back.  This consisted of sets of seated rows on the rowing machine, rear delt flys and lat pull downs.  The last thing I did was work on the abs.

It is a short summary of a 55 minutes resistance workout and I will, in a later post this week, post my full resistance workout, but tonight is short and the morning comes fast!

For now I am happy I can work out again and will be even more happy when I can start running.

Thanks for reading and have a great rest of the day!

An Update From The Bench

The last couple of weeks have been tough on me.  First the pulled muscle in my Rhomboid muscle area of my back had me out of my lifting routine for a couple of weeks.  That was okay as I could still run.

Then I went to the podiatrist a week ago tomorrow and had both of my big toenails partially removed due to chronic ingrown toenails.  I was told I could start running as soon as I felt like it.  That was before they appeared to become infected.

So I go back to the podiatrist tomorrow and hopefully in the next few days I'll be back to what I was getting good at: becoming healthy.  I miss running and I miss my resistance circuit training.  I'll be back to it soon enough, but soon enough simply can't come quick enough.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great rest of the day.

Prepping for the Dallas Turkey Trot

One of the races I have been looking forward to since I started running this year has been the Dallas Turkey Trot.  Seriously, who wouldn't look forward to running with close to 40,000 plus people?  To me this may be the closest I get to running a race like the Boston Marathon in prestige and size for some time to come and I am really looking forward to this.

Here is a little history, directly from the Dallas Turkey Trot website:

The original Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot was held at the Old Fairgrounds back in the early 1940s, but the long string of consecutive years began with the eight mile race back in 1968.
The unique eight mile distance was created when the one hundred and seven participants were instructed to run along the shores of White Rock Lake “to the big oak tree and back”. By 1979, the race had become so popular that it was moved to the downtown area to accommodate more runners and to showcase “Big D”.
The 3 mile Fun Run/Walk was added in 1984 to accommodate the increased participation of individuals and families. In 2009 the distance was changed to 5K and the course was certified.

 Here is a picture of what I am expecting to find this Thursday morning:

Who would NOT want to run in something like this?

To prepare for this race, I actually started Saturday with a 7.68 mile run, just to see how far I could push myself.  I feel like I could do the 8 mile race, but I want to be competitive doing it.  For this year I will be doing the 5K race instead.  Here is the route I will be taking in the 5K race:

The red line designates the 5K distance

I will be honest here; I am not sure what to expect as far as trying to accomplish my current goal of running a 5K in under 30 minutes, especially with as many participants as they are expecting, but I am going to do my best, that is for sure!  I plan on doing two more runs this week: a speed run tonight and a distance run tomorrow night.  I will be taking Wednesday night off to make sure I am rested for the race Thursday morning.

I urge you to come out and see the race if you are not going to be running in it.  Cheer us on as we run this race!  If you don't want to run, there will be other family friendly things to do here.  From the Turkey Trot website, there will be clowns, pony rides, bounce houses, live music, and many other things to do!  I hope to see you there!

It's a new Thanksgiving tradition for me and my family, and I am really going to enjoy this.  If you would like to register then click here and you will be taken to the Turkey Trot's registration page.

Have a great rest of the day and as always, thanks for reading!

Downfalls of Pushing Resistance Training Too Hard -- Possible Injury

I think I have suffered my first injury from training, though I am not quite sure yet.

I had a really good weight lifting session yesterday after church and everything felt good to me.  A tired good but good nonetheless.  Nothing hurt, nothing ached, nothing popped.  I had done a 100 minute resistance circuit training routine, only adding a couple of new exercises to my routine; barbell bent over rows and quadriceps extensions.  Then last night I was stretching and I felt like the right side of my upper back near the shoulder blade had simply caught on fire.  It was very centralized to a small area, but it was one of the sharpest pains I have ever felt.

The black circle is where I feel the pain when it happens.

I believe that I may have partially torn, or pulled my major Rhomboid muscle in that area.  I'm am not going to do any resistance training over the next couple of weeks, which will bug me to no end, but I'm hoping that be resting my body from that exercising, this will give that area time to heal.  I will still run, but weight training is out for at least two weeks, maybe more.