Heavy Activity in Weeks 6 & 7

All, week 6 & 7 saw me very busy and posting time at a minimal as I was on the road for a good deal of the time. I will need to check the scale tomorrow for a complete update and will post further later this week as I have something very important to include on this blog. In June I will be a team member on a Relay for Life team in Columbia, Missouri. The Relay for Life is an extremely important cause, this is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Cancer has touched all of our lives in some way. I will post a link to the team I am on and hope that followers will read the special stories of my team captain Dana O'Loughlin, and then read other team members stories. If you are inspired by the stories, I recommend either donating or finding a local team to join and help fight the cause.

In week 6 I saw some of my best workouts done, I had to opportunity to work out twice a day in that time frame as I was able to run 4-5 miles everyday before work then I was able to attend my standard classes at night.

Valentine's Day saw me compete with my girlfriend in a four mile race here in KC at the downtown airport. The race was a success, I completed my run in 41 minutes roughly. Dana completed hers in a great time of 49 minutes, this was her first competitive race so congrats go out to her on the incredible effort. Races are very important for people as this gives you an opportunity put your training efforts to the test. Races are often a good motivating tool to push yourselft to new extremes.

Week 7 saw me push hard again early on. On Monday I cranked out three workouts as it was a holiday and I knew later in the week my efforts would not be as good. Tuesday I got in a nice 5 mile run before work, then did some heavy lifting post work that night. Thanks to Dana I was even pretty good on vacation as instead of doing nothing and just watching TV and enjoying adult beverages we walked around the campus at Mizzou and some neighborhoods so I walked roughly four miles each day which was nice.

This is something I always try to share with people, even though you are on vacation that is not an excuse to do nothing, as long as you have a pair of tennis shoes you should be able to get some sort of workout in. This is a real key in anyone's quest to lose weight, do not take your vacation or travel time off, find something active to do. That will help you make up for the eating and drinking you will probably over indulge in while on vacation.

Week 4&5 Combined

First of all sorry to those who follow, I have been swamped the last couple of weeks so I am combining week 4 and 5. I want to throw out a plug for the Greater Kansas City YMCA and my Vivion Road Branch of the YMCA who have added my blog to their websites so that more people will have the opportunity to follow.

Week 4 and 5 saw positive results for me, I lost a combined 4 pounds which I am very happy with, the effort was very intense. I put in a couple of hard workouts every weekday during this stretch. Right now I am concentrating on picking up my running intensity, I want to start building miles in anticipation of competing in a half marathon here very soon. In this stretch I did have a night in Columbia where I was overserved by some local establishments but this did not deter from my efforts.

I am looking forward to week six as next Sunday is my first run of the new year. I will be competing in the Valentine's Love to Run run at the downtown airport. This is a four mile run which is about my favorite distance to run as you will see with my workouts. I need to throw my shout out to Dana as well who is joining me on this run! Keep up your great work Dana!

Here is a list of this weeks workouts to try and motivate others:

Monday: Used the stair stepper for 1 hour and 10 minutes followed by Crystal's boot camp. Crystal was in a very fiesty mood this week and really picked up the intensity. Followed by the sauna.

Tuesday: I was only able to get one workout in that night as I had a late meeting. I ran 4 miles and lifted weights.

Wednesday: Again I only had one workout, it was intense as there was a going away happy hour for my friend Jay from US Central. I ran 6 miles after work.

Thursday: Heavy effort day, I put in 1 hour and 10 minutes on the stair stepper again as cross training then did Crystal's bosu boot camp which was heavy on legs. We did more squats and squat kicks than I would prefer to ever do, but her classes are so effective. For new people to the site if you belong to Vivion "Y" take any Crystal class you have the opportunity to.

Friday: Today is a 6 mile run after work.