Back to FIRST

As I prepare for the Bolder Boulder 10k on Memorial Day I am finally getting back on an official training plan. I’m going to be using the FIRST plan and will be doing some of the P90X workouts on my cross training days. You may remember that I had been doing P90X as part of my off season regimen. Or maybe you don’t remember since I notice that none of you have even bothered to ask how it went. Maybe that’s because you can tell how ripped I am just by reading the words that I type onto this blog, you can tell how quick and strong my fingers were when they typed these sentences and realized that obviously P90X had worked and obviously there was no need to ask how it was going because I’m so obviously ripped. Obviously. Or maybe it doesn’t seem like it’s been 90 days yet, but that’s only because the post where I originally mentioned P90X is still on the front page of this blog. Go ahead and look, I’ll wait while you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page (no, I won’t actually wait, that would be silly not to mention a logistical nightmare). Or maybe you haven’t asked because you just don’t care about me like I care about you - by the way I care about you based on your worth to me, which Google AdSense tells me is roughly $0.06 per page view, which is why I haven’t asked YOU how YOUR training has been going.

Regardless of the fact that you haven’t asked I’m going to give you my thoughts on P90X (although you kind of tacitly asked by coming here unsolicited). P90X is a tough and challenging workout and you definitely see results with this program, but I prefer to focus on the negatives (it’s what makes me who I am) so here are some of the problems with the P90X program:

I am a free man.
It doesn’t make you do the workouts. I still have to choose to work out, which is kind of a problem for me because it turns out that I’m not very good at choosing to spend an hour sweating to a home workout DVD. What I really need is for someone to take me captive and actually force me to work out on a daily basis.

I figured out what the 90 means.
I started out doing pretty well. You may remember that I had intended to mix running in with the P90X workouts and initially I was successful with this. If you don’t remember that then you can scroll all the way back down and read the post again while I pretend that I’m waiting for you. So I was adding two runs a week to the six P90X workouts which was a shock to the system for someone who was used to running three or four times a week and doing little else. Eight workouts a week means no rest days even if you subscribe to Paul McCartney math. Anyway, there was no way I was going to survive eight workouts a week for 90 days. 90 days? This program is three full months? What kind of sick masochist came up with this?

I outsmart P90X.
I pretty quickly figured out which workouts were considered ‘strength training’ and which ones were ‘cardio.’ (Note to anyone considering the P90X program: the CardioX DVD is cardio.) This created a situation where I was able to rationalize (because I’m so smart) which workouts could be replaced by running which also happens to be a form of cardio. Pretty soon I had the P90X schedule down to three or four workouts a week because I was also running, only I wasn’t running. You see, I kind of stopped running on account of all the time I was putting in on the six P90X workouts, but I had (cleverly) pared down the P90X schedule to make room for the running which then turned out to be superfluous. I don’t expect you all to understand this because it takes a special kind of circular logic that only I possess, but just trust me when I tell you that it’s brilliant, bordering on genius.

I disagree with the nutrition plan.
A nutrition plan? Are you kidding me? I have to be careful about what I eat too? I thought that this workout was X-treme? If it’s so extreme why do I have to watch what I eat? Why can’t someone come up with a workout so extreme that I don’t have to watch what I eat? If the fire is hot enough anything will burn, even Big Macs.*

For the most part I liked the P90X program, which is why I’m incorporating some of the workouts into my training. Time (i.e. race results) will tell whether it has helped me or not. For a better review of P90X you can visit The Great Fitness Experiment because Charlotte is not smart enough to realize that you don’t have to do all of the workouts every week and so she did them all and in a completely unrelated turn of fortune managed to achieve better results than I did. Plus Charlotte always manages to get fantastic images for her posts and her P90X review is no different, I don’t want to ruin it for you but it does feature MacGyver.

*Quote stolen from that one famous book about a runner.

Off Season Regimen

It’s the offseason. Not just for running but apparently for posting too. This is the time of year when my running usually takes a backseat to indulging my offseason hobbies of cookie eating and eggnog spiking. Last year I was unable to fully enjoy those hobbies because I was in the middle of training for a marathon but this year my plan to get back on the cookie wagon is in full swing.

In order to impede my poor eating habits I’ve also been doing a lot of cross training this winter in the form of P90X. You’ve probably seen the ads for it all over the place and now that I’ve mentioned it in a post it will probably show up in the ads here too. I’ve never been good at cross training because I’ve never really enjoyed it all that much, and therefore I’ve never stuck to it for more than a few weeks. To be honest I’d rather just go run than spend my time lifting weights or doing yoga or whatever else it is that you do for cross training, but P90X has been different. I actually enjoy doing it.

One of the reasons for doing P90X is so that I can start to look more like the cover models on Runner’s World magazine. I’ve often made mention on this blog of my chiseled Pecs and my rippling abs and it would be kind of cool if one of those things were actually true. Maybe then I could get on the cover of RW, I’d even be willing to wax my chest to help make it happen. Ironically, my quest to look more like a RW runner has led to me running less frequently (as little as twice a week) and doing more cross training, but it’s the offseason so I’m OK with that.

Site Note
Sorry about the lack of posting lately. I’ve been struggling to find the motivation to write something on a regular basis, but I’d like to get back to it because it’s a cathartic exercise for me. I’ll have a year in review post coming up next week that you don’t want to miss. If you’ve been following my race results this year then you know that there are going to be a lot of excuses. A. LOT.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukah or whatever it is that you celebrate in the winter season that allows you to eat stupid amounts of fatty foods. The winter solstice has passed and that means that Spring (and racing season) is practically here!