Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Day 70 P90X - X Stretch - Today is my wife's birthday.  I made her pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast in bed.  I had some pancakes myself, too.  And I've been eating a lot of junk food today.  Cupcakes, pie, ice cream, cake, nutter butters.  What does this have to do with my workout?  I don't know.  It must be getting late again.

Day 71 P90X - Chest and Back/Ab Ripper X - With less than three weeks to go, this is the last time I get to do this workout.  I'm a little sad.  I did 100 push-ups and 108 assisted pull-ups.  I was only able to do 3 decline push-ups on my second set.  41 Mason Twists were all I could eke out today.  Good enough for me.

After P90X I ran around the block twice.

 Time - 8:46 (avg. pace 7:42)

I'm feeling pretty good about my 5k this Thursday.  We'll see how Mother Nature treats me.

This morning I took my son to school because he wants to apply for a job at the cafeteria.  On the way home I started to run out of gas.  I might have been able to make it home, but I didn't want to risk it.  So I pulled off in a church parking lot and ran the rest of the way.  I was wearing my sexy bicycle shorts and my swimming shoes.  So it was like barefoot running.  Sexy barefoot running.

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Day 72 P90X - Plyometrics X - Four fans going.  Still sweating like Adam Lambert at a Chuck Norris convention.

Three miles this morning or there abouts.  I took MichelleL's advice and left the Garmin at home.  Okay, the battery was dead.  But I wanted to go on a nice easy run anyway so who cares?  I took Ginger with me.  She defecated.

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Day 73 P90X - Arms and Shoulders/Ab Ripper X - I had to referree for the young men again.  If that's not enough of a workout, my buddy Brad and I played some hoops afterwards.  It's probably been two years since I've done that.  In the second game I tried to poke the ball away from someone.  That was stupid.  I jammed my right index finger real good.  It started swelling up immediately.  I literally saw it puffing up like a balloon.  Of course I had to keep playing because there was only 8 of us.  Then I went home and threw in the P90X.  Thank goodness this is my favorite workout.  Why?  Because it's not hard to me.  The only thing I couldn't do was lock my fingers together.  You only do that at the beginning when you stretch out and at the end when you do Mason Twists.  Even typing this hurts.  Hopefully it feels better in the morning.

Ha, there's a new blogger called burp.  I just blogged right after him so it said Burt and burp on the Most Recent Entries Board.  Well, I thought it was cool.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty good and thought it might be a good time to push for a PR.  Then I played basketball.  All that jumping around tightened up my lower back.  Plus my finger got jammed and is all bruised and swollen still.  Around 5am this morning I had one of those killer calf cramps/charlie horses that almost had me crying like a baby.  So I was kind of limping around today.  Then at 2pm I was driving down the freeway and saw the Gateway Hospital sign flash that it was 107.  Holy smokes!  How in the world am I going to PR now?

When I walked out the door to the race my thermometer showed 100.  So maybe it was 99 by the time the race started at 6pm.  My teammate Shannon from Ragnar last year showed up.  It was great to see her.  She's still doing all sorts of triathlons. 

I was the first one to get there and sign in.  I filled out my raffle slip and thought, "There's no way I'm going to win anything if my slip is all the way at the bottom."  There were probably 30 people that showed up and they raffled off four prizes.  My chances weren't that good, but I won a $40 dollar running shirt!  Shannon helped me pick it out.

The 'race' was the same course as last time.  We run on the sidewalk down McClintock, turn right on 8th, turn right again on Rural, turn right on Playa del Norte for a short bit, then turn around.  It seemed like everyone lined up in a single file behind me when we started.  I took off a little too fast.  Everytime I looked at my Garmin it was showing me being in the low 6's.  It felt okay, but I didn't think I could sustain it.  I was in the lead by virtue of my strategic start position for the first half mile.  Then this dude passed right by me and told me I was doing great.  He didn't look like he was running fast, but he zipped right by. 

I finished the first mile in 6:47.  I have to believe it's a slight downhill because we run in the direction that the Salt River flows.  When I reached Rural I looked behind me and saw another guy hot on my tail.  He ran right behind me until the turn around.  Then he dropped me like I was hot.  It seemed like a had a pretty good handle on third place, but I hoped I could hang on to the guy that passed me and maybe he'd slow down.  He didn't.  He finished about 40 seconds ahead of me.  My second mile was 7:18 and third was 7:16.  That's encouraging having the third mile be faster thant the second because it means I didn't totally kill myself starting out too fast.  The last 0.1 was 41 seconds (6:54 pace.) 

After I caught my breath I walked back until I reached Shannon.  Then we ran in together.  She was a little disappointed because she had to walk a tiny bit.  But that's because it was so hot.  She came in third for females.  Go Shannon!

So I guess that makes it a PR.  I'm going to count it because I think I can beat it pretty soon once I start running more miles again.  Somebody was giving away free acai berry juices at the finish line.  Mine was partially frozen, so it tasted like a yummy slushy.  Then I talked to the store owner to see if she thinks I could do a P90X presentation some time at her store.  She was all for it.  I love these races!

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Congratulations to Leandra for having her baby!

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Day 74 P90X - Yoga X - Nearing the end.  When I started my workout, still sore from the race, I didn't think I would be feeling this good afterwards.  Acai juice?

Here's a picture of my bruised index finger.  Pretty?  Also notice the scab on my pinky knuckle from finishing concrete.

Here's my $40 Tempe Road Runner shirt and my Blue Steel pose.

And here's the view from behind with my stretch pants that look espenseeb.

Day 75 P90X - Legs and Back/Ab Ripper X - I took a little nap before this workout.  If I wasn't such a dedicated guy, I might have skipped this one.  But then I just wouldn't be able to live with myself.  Good luck everyone doing TOU!

Day 76 P90X - Kenpo X - I finally got some work done in my garage.  We sold one of our refrigerators on Craig's List.  One to go.  I wanted to get a run in today in honor of all those doing TOU, but it didn't happen.  Maybe that's why Kenpo X seemed so easy tonight.