I haven’t posted anything since the I finished the Chicago Marathon in October of 2010.  Unfortunately, after running the race with a seriously messed up foot, I’ve had nothing but problems since then.  I took a few weeks off to heal, and then proceeded to mess up my foot even more in the Hot Chocolate 15K.  After an x-ray confirming a break, I was relegated to a walking boot from November through late December.

At the turn of the year, I did my third round of x-ray’s to confirm a non-union fracture in my fifth metatarsal. I spend a month or so just trying to figure out what was going on, and finally went in to see a really great Orthopedic Surgeon.  We discussed what has happening and all of the problems I was having.  He sent me for an MRI and an Ultrasound, then last week he removed a big piece of scar tissue from underneath my fifth metatarsal head that had been causing a lot of pain and frustration.

It seems that the bone is just going to be broken, and it is what it is.  That doesn’t really cause any pain; however, it’s pretty clear that I had been nursing a nasty injury for a long time and my body responded with a nice build up of scar tissue under the forefoot.

Anyhow, it’s gone now!

Over the next few weeks, I’m back to the walking boot and then (fingers crossed) I’ll be able to get back out on the road and bike.

My current plan is to undo the damage I’ve done since the Marathon – sitting on the couch isn’t my friend – and work up to running two 1/2′s in October.  This is all of course subject to my Doctor approving that idea.  No marathon this year, I’m going to need to let this foot heal up and work back into serious distance over a pretty good amount of time.

This is a bit of a turning point for me as my general approach to training is going to change pretty dramatically.  I’m going to be focusing a lot more on the bike and kettlebells – I will of course sprinkle in a good deal of running as I just flat out enjoy it.  Anyhow, here’s to a fast recovery and a few great races later this year!

It’s funny to me how things never go as planned.  For the last 11 months or so, I’ve been training for the Chicago marathon.  I’ve completed well over 800 miles of running and a few hundred more on a bike.  I’ve cross trained with kettlebells and ropes, and lost 90 pounds in the process.  On the Thursday before the race, my sister asked me if I was nervous,  I just laughed a little and said “nope”;  I was ready.  Then I broke my right pinky toe.

This is the second time I’ve had a stupid little pinky toe break this year.  The first time was on the way to the warrior dash, which I didn’t have the chance to compete in as the break was pretty nasty and I couldn’t even take a few steps.  The good news was that this break was a lot less severe, but still a painful one!  On Friday morning, I woke up with a horribly swollen, very black and blue toe/foot.  I wasn’t sure how to do it, but I knew that I was going to finish the marathon.

Over the next couple of days, I iced my foot as much as possible, and purchased three brand new pairs of running shoes to help minimize the impact of running on my forefoot/toe.  For a guy that has run 26.2 miles in a pair of VFFs, and pretty much hates cushy supportive shoes, it’s funny how quickly I turned to take advantage of the cushion with my injury.  I picked up a pair of Nike LunarGlide 2′s, some Newton Racers and a pair of New Balance something or others that are going to be returned (I just couldn’t handle the heel lift…)

On Saturday, my family and I headed downtown to our hotel as a heat wave settled over Chicago.  We checked into the W, I slipped on my Newtons and we walked around the loop for a while to find a quick dinner.  I was trying out the shoes to see how they would perform, and if my toe/forefoot could handle them.  I was fairly impressed with them, but still concerned about the “lugs” under the forefoot considering that I had never run a single mile in a pair of Newtons. We grabbed dinner at Subway (the loop is dead on Saturday night), and headed back to turn in early in prep for the race.

On Sunday morning, I woke up a little later than planned, but with plenty of time to get to the race.  After quickly getting ready and taking care of a few things for my wife and son, it was time to try the shoes and make a final determination.  I slipped on the Newtons and ran around the room.  They felt good, they definitely transfered the force away from my toe area and into the rear of the forefoot.  Those lugs were still concerning to me, so I transfered into the Nike LunarGlides and did a quick back and forth jog.  These things are like running on a sponge, they are ridiculously cushy, and quite similar in form to the Zoom Streak XCs that trained in midweek.  While these didn’t pull all of the force away from my toe, they distributed the force along the midfoot/forefoot a little more evenly.  I switched back and forth a a few more times, finally deciding on the Nikes.

I finished packing up my bag, and headed out for a mile or so walk/jog to the starting area of the race.  It was a nice way to warm up a touch and get used to the screaming pain from my foot.

After checking my bag at the Balbo Hospitality tent, I worked my way up through the crowd as the race was starting.  My initial plan was to head out with the 4:30 pace team, then ditch them at the half way point for a 4:25 or so finish.  I wasn’t able to make it up to the 4:30 pace team, and that turned out to be just fine.

The race started out nicely, at a very easy 11:00 or so pace for the first mile, to mile and a half as things spread out a bit.  I didn’t have any problem with that pace, as my heart rate was already hammering near 170 bpm and figured that it wouldn’t be a problem at all to just “settle in”.  I don’t know what caused my HR to be as high as it was, I expected the adrenaline rush of the big race to cause a spike, but this was just insane.  I was basically 5-8 beats per minute away from my lactic threshold and I hadn’t done anything yet!  I’m pretty sure that the ibuprofen I had been taking over the past few days to aid in the minimization of swelling played a big part… but this just seemed excessive.

Anyhow, after turning north on LaSalle, I stopped for a moment to say hi to my lovely wife and little boy who were cheering me on during the race.  I let them know that things were working well with the Nike’s and that I would see them in a while at the 1/2 way point of the marathon.  After a few seconds chatting, I was off again and feeling pretty good.

I noticed that my form was a little different, but I figured with some solid mental focus, I could overcome any issues that would create and get this done. My pace continued to lag, but I wasn’t too worried about it yet as I figured I could make it up later in the race.

Somewhere around mile 5 to 6 or so, my right groin and hamstring started to bother me.

My little guy, cheering on Daddy

The nagging pain in my leg continued for a while, and I was starting to play mental games with myself.  Thankfully, my wife came through again with a picture message of our little guy holding a sign saying “Go Ryan Go.”  That pretty much solidified my commitment to finish this thing, even if it takes forever.  Around mile 8, I sent my wife a text letting her know that any time goals were off; I was going to finish, that was the only goal now.  I had to slow down a walk a little bit, my leg was really starting to hurt and I didn’t want to pull a muscle.  I guess the good news was that my foot didn’t hurt anymore.

For the next few miles, I did a run/walk combo with the run really just being a slow jog.  Ever the optimist, I met with my wife a bit before the 1/2 mark and said that I was going to try to come in sub 5, but that I wasn’t sure how likely that would be given the fact that my groin and hamstring were really bothering me and I had already broken down into a jog/walk.  I wasn’t tired at all, but I was going to protect my body to ensure that I could run another race.  We switched out my fuel bottle, and I said goodbye to the family.

For the next 13.1 miles, I averaged around 14:40 or so per mile.  It took forever to finish the back half of this race.  I could really only muster a 5 minute or so jog, then I had to walk for a while as the pain in my leg subsided.  The good news was that my heart rate was coming down, the bad news is that at this point in the race I was supposed to be going hard and pushing my heart rate up!  As I continued to push my way through the race, the walking became more of a fast hobble as I was beginning to develop a fairly pronounced limp due to the ever increasing muscle pain/fatigue in my right leg.

We travelled through the Chicago neighborhoods and the amazing folks of the Windy City were out in force to cheer us on.  The crowds are just fantastic, and they make the race a joy to participate in.  With temps pushing 85 and the humidity lifting the event alert level to Red, I cannot say enough about the wonderful people who turned on the water hose and created a mini rainstorm just for the runners.  The folks who volunteered at the aid stations were great, and provided plenty of liquids for the participants.  Given the heat, hydration was a critical factor.  I consumed quite a bit more water than expected, the good news was that I had plenty of fuel and plenty of electrolytes to ensure that everything was as safe as possible.

I continued to text my wife providing optimistic updates of my finish, while letting her know that I was actually slowing down, but hoping to speed up!  She found a spot for lunch and to sit for a while. At 28 weeks pregnant, I cannot say enough about how she was a wonderful mother and wife taking care of not only her marathoning husband, but a 2 year old bundle of energy all day, in the city (not her favorite place to be alone) and in the ever increasing heat.

Around mile 21 or so as we turned from Halstead to Cermak, the gentleman in front of me slowed down dramatically, I side stepped to pass… about 5 seconds later I heard the crowd swell with questions of “are you okay?”  The gentleman had passed out, thankfully the medical aid team was there very quickly to help him out.  A marathon is no joke, and hydration in any endurance event is critical.  When it heats up, hydration is even more critical.  I relied on water, Perpetuem, Endurolytes and Hammer Gel to stay ahead of the fatigue.  Thankfully, these products served me very well during a very long Chicago Marathon.

Finally, after 5 hours and 48 minutes, I crossed the finish line.  The race took MUCH longer than I was hoping, but I finished; broken toe and all.

Here are my splits:

After the race, I headed back to the hospitality tent, changed out of my racing gear and had a nice massage.  It’s funny, the injury slowed me down so much that I wasn’t really all that tired.  After going 26.2 miles, I expected to just be spent.  I burned a ton of calories and definitely needed to recharge, but my training had provided such great cardio conditioning, that the run wasn’t really a big deal.  I met up with my family shortly after the massage was done, we stopped for an ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins and then packed up the car and headed home.

Finished!

I was scheduled to travel to California on Monday morning, so I jumped in an ice bath to make sure that my muscles had the best chance of recovery as quickly as possible, then ate 1/2 a large pizza and some wings.  The evening was fairly uneventful as my wife and I just relaxed after putting the little guy down for the night.

I awoke early the next morning to meet some co-workers at 5:00am in Naperville… my foot was very unhappy with me, and I could definitely tell that I ran/hobbled my way through a marathon the day before.  Over the course of the week, my toe has started to heal up nicely, and the pain in my leg has pretty much gone away. I’m still limping around as the toe and muscle/ligament structure of my forefoot still hurt quite a bit.  I expect that everything will heal up shortly and that I’ll drop a major PR on the Chicago marathon the next time I race this one.

I can proudly say that with more that 45,000 participants, I was one of the 36,159 finishers on 10/10/2010.

This morning I ran the North Shore Half Marathon put on by RAM Racing in Highland Park IL.  It was a great race, and quite fun!  My overall time was 2:16:35, 10:26 min/mile.  I’m really happy with my performance.

The race itself was great.  It started in downtown Highland Park and wound through a few neighborhoods, a park area, a few more neighborhoods then into Fort Sheridan towards the end of the race.  The weather for the day was much better than expected.  The temps started in the 70′s, and climbed to the mid 80′s; however, the humidity was well above 80%.  When we started, there was a mist in the air, almost like a drizzle, just not falling on you.  I was expecting it to be a touch warmer, so I was very well prepared to handle the weather.

For this race I used my Bikila’s and they performed wonderfully!  I’m still really loving the this shoe.  No hotspots, blisters or anything; just a wonderfully designed VFF.

My initial plan was to use my normal long run setup with one handheld and a 3L Nathan pack.  I prefer to not use the pack in a race, but with the expected heat I was ready to do that.  Due to more favorable conditions I switched it up and went with two handhelds.  One containing my fuel fo choice for long runs  Hammer Perpetuem, and one loaded with water.  This worked out great!  Until I lose a little more weight and feel more comfortable with were a water belt sits, I think I’ll continue with the two handheld setup.

I lined up at the 11:00 min/mile marker thinking that this would be a good starting pace and that I would just pass folks later in the race when it thinned out a bit.  Somehow I don’t think that the folks in this section read the signs, you’ll see from my splits below that I did not once run an 11:00 min/mile, and I was being passed for the first 4 miles or so.  It didn’t bother me at all, I was going to run my own race and make sure that i felt good and managed my heart rate per my plan, start it up easy, take a mile or two to settle in and let it ride up to about 175 at the end.  You can see from the graph below, it turned out quite nicely!  Most of the little drop offs in HR occur at the mile marker, or at an aid station.  I find that as I hit the lap button and double check calibration of my s3 sensor, I tend to slow down a bit  I did open up a bit “harder” than planned, on a longer race this may cause some problems.

Splits and Commentary

1. 10:11 – I opened up a touch fast again.  My HR was well within the range I was looking for, but I think I need to work on starting out a bit slower to keep the rest of the run nice and strong.
2. 10:19 – Yeah, another fast opening mile.  Not really the 11:00 pace I was planning now was it?
3. 10:26 – At this point I was settling into the run, but my HR is about 5 beats per minute faster than I’d like.  I was at 160, I’d like to be at 155 here.
4. 10:28 – We started to climb some hills at this point, the race opened with a few downhill spurts that contributed to the opening speed.
5. 10:46 – A few more hills to climb, and I was having a nice chat about the Bikila’s on my feet  Hopefully we have another convert to minimal running on the way!
6. 10:18 – A bunch of up and down, up and down, and then a big ole’ downhill to the lake, getting ready for a the “big hill” at the start of mile seven.  This is the drop in my HR in between 1:02 and 1:23
7. 10:17 – I slowed down quite a bit at the start of this mile to climb up the hill, but it wasn’t to bad.  My HR got up to 170, so I backed off a touch and slowed down a bit more.  With 5 miles left, I wasn’t ready to break into the 170′s yet – it was just too early! This one ended with another nice move down a hill, providing speed and a somewhat lowering HR.
8. 10:42 – What goes up, must come down… I spent this mile taking it a bit easier, climbing up and down a bit while allowing my HR to regulate back down, average 164.
9. 10:31 – I really wanted to hold off the “push” until the last three miles. So I stopped to refill my water at the aid station here and enjoyed the run towards For Sheridan.
10. 10:24 – Finally, I was able to get things back under control a bit at averaged out at 161.  It helped that this was mostly flat or downhill.  A nice break, but just a teaser as we prep to climb for the last 5K of the race!
11. 10:10  - I turned it up here, and sure enough I was met with another bloody hill!  Little did I know that we’d be climbing until the end at this point. These aren’t huge hills by any stretch of the imagination, but for a guy that runs in the IL plains all the time, anything with 50 feet of vertical seems huge!
12. 10:32 – Grinding, up and down, up and down.  I held a fairly constant pace here.  I was really starting to feel the run in my hamstrings and glutes now… Ouch.
13. 9:47 – Hammer down and get this thing finished!  The last mile was up hill pretty much the whole way, and my legs were starting to feel it.  I had run hard enough that I couldn’t do my customary sprint into the finish.  I was able to pick up some speed and pace a few folks, it was a blast!

Well, there you go!  I don’t know what else I can say about this race.  It was great overall, and I’d love to do it again.

Well, I did it.  This morning I pulled off 40 minutes of Kenneth Jay’s VO2 Max 15:15 Snatch protocol with a 20kg bell.  My plan is to knock that down one more time, retest and move up to the 36:36 protocol.

The phases of a workout like this are pretty funny to me.  After getting nice and warm, I started up the timer and started snatching.  The first few minutes seem like they take forever as I begin to get into a rhythm.  Shortly thereafter, the next 10 or so minutes fly by and then it’s time to grind.  It’s somewhere around the 20 minute mark that my body starts feel tired, and my mind starts to play tricks on me.

This morning, I almost called it quits at about 23 minutes.  I was starting to drag, my brain said that it would be fine to stop… I mean why press, I have a 1/2 marathon race this weekend and there isn’t any reason to push that hard.  That’s when I remind myself that the body is stronger than the mind.  After grinding it out for another 10 minutes or so – looking at the clock every 2-3 wondering why it’s going to slow – things change dramatically.

It’s somewhere around the 30-35 minute mark that the second wind seems to kick in.  The whole workout suddenly becomes fun, and I’m looking forward to the remaining bit of punishment.

Yeah, it’s weird – I know.  But at that point, it’s just plain fun.

Anyhow, I got it done today.  I think I’ll take a short jog around the neighborhood tomorrow just to stay sane before my Sunday race.  It should be fun!

Two weeks ago I completed my first longer distance race – the Soldier Field 10 Mile.  This was an awesome race, and a great experience. I’ve participated in quite a few 5Ks, I’ve only run one – and my pace was slower than my current recovery runs

Anyhow, the racing season is kicking into high gear and I’m pretty excited about it!  This weekend I have the North Shore Half Marathon, then next weekend I’ll be doing a 5K and the Warrior Dash.  Whether or not I run the 5K depends on logistics with my wife and family; so it may be a warm-up for a longer run in the afternoon.  The Warrior Dash looks like it is going to be a blast!

After those races, I cool off for a while, and then hit the Rock and Roll Half in August and the big one, the Chicago Marathon in October!  I’m really looking forward to building up the big milage on my way to the Marathon.  I have no idea if I’ll be able to pull off my super-stretch goal of a sub 4 hour marathon as I’m still quite a way away from that pace.

My training has been going really well, and I’m quite a bit ahead of schedule.  I’m using that to my advantage by simply rotating in some longer long runs and leaving flexibility in the training if it is needed.

Anyhow, that’s all for now.  I’m hoping to keep pressing through my weight loss plateau as I think that will be the biggest key in a faster Marathon time.  The reality is that slow and steady wins the (weight loss) race.  So I’m not going to push it or try any crazy crash diet garbage.  My body is adapting and will continue to do so.  I’m just going to let it adapt, and get stronger.

The last few weeks have been somewhat frustrating for me.  I’ve hit a plateau in my weight loss, but I can’t really complain when I’m down 78 pounds in total so far.  I have done a little travel, and I’ve been switching things up as far as my eating has been concerned.

Based upon the data that I have collected (every day since Jan 1), I’m still losing weight – just very, very slowly.  I’m hoping that over the next week or two things start to pick back up.

My training program was starting to get a bit intense and I think I was suffering a bit of overtraining syndrome.  I’ve dropped a kettlebell and added another running day.  So far, it feels good.  We’ll see how this works over the next few weeks.

My kettlebell workouts have switched to be mainly hard core snatch protocol workouts.  They are brutal, but fun!  This morning I was able to complete 40 minutes with a 20kg bell.  I did take a break to change my son’s diaper, so in my mind it doesn’t count as a total completion with the 20kg.  Hopefully Friday morning will yield a successful 40 minutes hammering out snatches.  After that, I’ll kick it up into the next gear and do the 36 second protocols…

Anyhow, my journey has yielded some amazing results!  I’ve slowed down a touch, but that should hopefully change soon.  I’ll be running a half marathon this weekend, that should be fun!

Saturday morning, the alarm went off at 4:30am – it’s time to get up and get going for the Soldier Field, Memorial Day Weekend, 10 Mile race!  The race starts at 7:30am, and we planned to arrive at the field around 6:15 or so.

The morning was fairly smooth.  We ended up leaving about 15 minutes after we had hoped and needed to fuel up on the way to the field.  No worries, traffic was quite light and we arrived around 6:30 in the morning.

Prior to the race, I ate a banana and drank a bottle of water with a Nuun cap tossed in to make sure my electrolytes were nicely loaded up prior to the race.  My plan was to use a bottle of perpetuem rather than gels for the race simply because my long run training has all been longer than 10 miles, and I use perpetuem on those runs!  When we arrived to the field, I mixed up my bottle, tossed on my Bikila’s and Polar gear, then my wife, son, and I headed out to get loose and get into place.

My wife did the 2 mile walk, so she was able to be a great supporter before and after the race. We walked around the field looking for a restroom that didn’t have a mile long line.  Luckily, we found one and took care of business before the race.  She headed off to get the camera ready, and I headed off to the 10:30 pace corral.

The race was VERY well organized.  Pace flags were set out and everyone seemed to line up in the appropriate spot.  The horn fired at 7:30 am, and of course in the 10:30 pace open corral, we didn’t move at all  The race warning system was set to Yellow prior to the start…

17 minutes later, we passed the starting line and began to run a wonderful course.  From the field, we made a quick right turn, then a left into the tunnel at McCormick place, shortly thereafter we hit mile 1.  We headed another 3.7 miles or so south on Lake Shore Drive with plenty of support (Gatorade / Water) along the way.  I stuck to my plan of sipping on the perpetuem bottle and grabbing a water cup every now and then.  We made the turn around north at approx 4.7 miles into the race.  Heading back up north, there was a nice breeze that helped to cut the humidity and rising heat.  By the time I arrived at mile 7, they were switching out the Yellow warning flags for Red as the heat and humidity started to rise.

After 5 miles or beautiful lakeshore, we approached the field, preparing to head inside for a finish on the 50 yard line!

My plan for the race was simple.  Run it like a training run, just a little harder (manage my HR, not my pace).  This was my first major race, so I didn’t want to go to hard, and I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect.  I started out at a slightly higher HR that I had hoped, although I wasn’t surprised due to the excitement of the race and the adrenaline that I’m sure was pumping through my blood.  I ended up switching out programs on my watch after about 1 mile in to simplify things, and to widen out my HR zones a bit.  From  the start, I was limiting my HR to stay in my aerobic zone, ensuring that my body warmed into the 10 miles nicely, at the turn (4.7ish miles) I opened up the gates to going full out anaerobic, and at 9 miles I was ready to go flat out.

As planned, I turned up the heat during the last mile, and continued to increase my speed as we approached the field. After making the turn into the stadium, I kicked it into high gear so that I was basically in a full sprint by the time I hit the turf!  Coming out of the tunnel, finishing on the 50 yard line with my picture up on the jumbo tron…

My overall time was 1:45:24, or a 10:33 pace.  Not to bad as I lined up in the 10:30 corral, and I’m still a whopping 250 pounds…  I ended up passing a ton of people during the race… After about mile 6, I was in constant passing mode; it was pretty fun!

Splits:

1. 10:36, surprisingly fast given that it was the first mile, I didn’t intend to keep this pace up for every mile, so I decided it was time to turn down the engine and run my race… I’ll pass everyone later
2. 11:28, ah the first aid station… I slowed down quite a bit and kept my tempo in check for this mile.  I was also messing with my watch changing programs and what not.
3. 10:54 – better, and on track
4. 11:03 – good, second aid station, I grabbed another cup of water
5. 10:51 – great, time to pick it up
6. 10:21 – I opened up my limits on my monitor and started to pass everyone
7. 10:20
8. 10:08
9. 10:14 – Last aid station, time to send some texts to Megan and hit the last mile
10. 9:05 – Yeah, cutting more than a minute means that I left a little to much on the course I think…

I was able to run Negative splits nicely, but I think I left quite a bit of time out there.  I’m fairly certain I can cut 5-10 minutes from this race without any problem if I was to do it again next week.

After the race finished we headed out to the vendor area, and left shortly thereafter. There wasn’t much that interested me there, and with a pregnant wife and a toddler, it was time to go home!

I finished the day with 18 holes of golf, just to make sure I was nice and cooled down.  That was probably not the best idea, as the warning system at the race switched to Black and they recommended everyone walk in about 10-15 minutes after I finished… then they canceled it shortly thereafter!  I walked the first 9, then grabbed a cart… I was tired.

I ran in my Bikila’s, and they performed perfectly!  I had quite a few questions about the VFFs as usual, they are quite the conversation piece.

Overall, this was a wonderful race.  If we are still in the Chicago area this time next year, I’ll be running it again.

On Wednesday of this week I had finished reading through Kenneth Jay’s awesome book on conditioning and took the cMVO2 test, as prescribed in the book.  I found out that my first round of 15:15 was done a touch to easy  That wasn’t a huge surprise as I was able to hit 80 sets my first time through.

Well, I needed to bump my reps from 7 to 8 per set, so I did during round two of the protocol on Friday.  Holy crap! 1 Rep makes a HUGE difference.  I was smoked at 29 minutes and couldn’t knock out 8 reps in 15 seconds any longer.  I could only knock out 7 reps at that time, so I called it a day.

My heart rate spiked up past my lactic threshold, and lo and behold the program works exactly as advertised when done properly!  I’m really excited about how this will fit into my training program.  I’m still working out the exact details, but the 15:15 and 36:36 protocols are going to be key parts of my routine for a while now as I’m still building my base for the marathon on October.  These will really push my cardiovascular system to develop, strengthen my heart, increase lactic buffering, build strength and conditioning as well as help to continue to cut fat – awesome!

Once I figure out my training calendar, I’ll post it up on the site.

Today I added in a great workout to push my VO2 Max levels higher.  It’s called the 15:15 Snatch Protocol.  In a nutshell, you snatch a bell for 15 seconds, then rest for 15 seconds, repeating for 40 minutes.  By the time you are done, you’ve completed 80 sets and a ton of reps.  Today my goal was to make it through with the 16kg bell, and quite frankly I surprised myself!

Not only did I make it through, I ended up grabbing the 24kg on the last two sets and then doing 3 rounds of 25 heavy swings (32kg) to push my heart rate up past my lactic threshold.  Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t an easy workout, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as I expected it to be!  I think the next time I do this (next Monday), I’ll up the weight to 20kg and see how it all goes.  I expect that will be much more challenging and should push my heart rate much faster.

I’ve been in the process of trying to find a really solid balance between marathon training, and overall conditioning and strength.  I think this protocol will really help to build volume in training, while also pushing my cardiovascular system benefiting my running and overall goals!  I’ll be following up the 15:15 protocol with a more intense variation in the next few weeks… More to come on that later!

Here is a quick update on the weight loss and everything else.  I’m currently down about 75 pounds.  Lately I feel like I’ve been losing weight a bit slower, however looking at my tracking stats I’m still losing at a nice pace.  I’ve recently switched up my diet to be a lot more “primal” in nature by continuing my quest to remove processed garbage by ditching almost all grains and going to a very natural diet.  I eat lots of fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds and animal proteins.  I still consume a fair amount of endurance specific products on my long runs, and I don’t plan on ditching those at this time.

Anyhow, everything is going well and I’m having a blast.

This last week has been a great one.  My workouts were fantastic, and I’m getting faster and faster as the days move forward.  I ran three days during the midweek and did three rocking kettlebell workouts.

I’m planning to head to bed early tonight and getup for a solid ten miler really early tomorrow as I have a 9am commitment so I need to be done well before then.  I’m still working through my final training program for the Marathon in October.  I am so far ahead of the original plan that I’m getting ready to scrap it and create a new one.

The Art of Strength Newport workout is getting easier as I keep working through it – it is a great workout!  I’m planning to keep that in my set as a killer cardio blast.  My rough plan is that I’m going to do Newport at least once, and then possibly set in Resolution II and III or the Strength in Motion workouts for three kettlebell days a week.

I’ve also recently acquired a few more bells and some cool tools that I’ll be adding into the sets; more on this in the future.

Anyhow, great week!  Workouts are awesome, my diet is going really, really well and I’m just loving life lately.  Oh yeah, I’m down over 75 pounds now.  Things are clicking, I’ve found a grove and it’s awesome.