What ever it takes!

40 minutes on the elliptical, my legs were a little sore today from Saturday and I have to go sit on a plane for 20 hours today so I wanted to give my legs a break.  I miss an entire day flying to China so I'll actually mis 3 full days of running, which is probably fine.

They were doing bone density tests at the gym today, mine came back at 1.41, have no idea 1.41 what but they said that was really good for an old guy like me.  A healthy 25 year old should be a 0.0.

2 weeks to Boston.  Who is ready???  Hope the weather can hold out, I'll take rain, wind, and cold over hot any day of the week.

Got into China last night at 11:30, to the hotel by 1:00am.  I slept OK but woke up at 6:00 am anyway so I decided to go run.  I was going to take the day off but thought running would be better for jetlag than laying wide awake in bed.  

I seriously used to  hate coming to China just because there was no place to run but last year I found Forest Park just 1 mile from the hotel and now this is one of my favorite places to run.  It's an extremely well marked, 3K, 5K, or 10 K loop all on red rubbery track service around a, well foresty park.  The terrain reminds me of Central Park, maybe a few less hills but pretty rolly, and truthfully it's prettier than Central Park and way less people.  I can't believe it took me 4 years to find it.  Anyway, ran to the park, ran the 10K loop The full loop actually ends up being 6.5 and then back.  We are now planning a site seeing day since our shipment wont arrive until tomorrow.  We are going to the Great Wall, and Forbidden city.  I'm here with 3 people that have never been here before so it should be fun.

Yesterday I did a good 3 hours worth of Xtraining on the worlds first stair stepper (The Great Wall of China) that thing will give even the most in shape person a run for their money.  I would really like to go there with someone in really good shape one day though, I'm always there with my out of shape co-workers who complain the whole time, it would be really fun to just go for an entire day and see how far you could go.

So today I felt really good, I think the stair stepping really stretched out my hamstring nicely.  I had to get an early start at work so I started at 5:30, just ran around the Olympic venue until the Forest Park opened at 6:00, then I ran the 5K loop and back to the hotel.

Planned elliptical trainer workout in the hotel gym this morning, I pushed really hard to keep my HR at slow marathon pace the entire hour it was very uncomfortable and I was very sweaty but it felt good, and I feel like I got a good workout without aggravating any of my injuries.

I'm never quite sure if I totally get ripped off on my birthday each year, or if I get a 38 hour birthday.  When I woke up this morning my phone said April 6th, which is my birthday, but my wife and family refuse to acknowledge it's my birthday cause it's still the 5th at home, and by the time it's the 6th at home I'm already asleep and somehow missed the whole thing, and then about 4:00am my phone starts ringing off the hook with people calling me to wish me happy birthday, plus I just have to work all day anyway.  So I'm going with ripped off.

Years ago when Walter ran 40 miles on his 40th birthday I said that's what I was going to do it too.  Well, obviously that would be stupid since Boston is a week away, and I had to work anyway.  So another goal blown.  Anyway, beautiful day today, a wind storm blew all the smog out of Beijing last night and this morning was the clearest day I have ever seen here.  Cool temps, I could see the moon, and the sunrise was amazing.  So a really nice birthday run anyway.