Fitness Safari

Here she is. Sandbag #2...weighing in at 30lbs on the dot, she nearly killed me Friday night. My deep sand run was more of a walk, jog, gasp, walk, struggle, jog than anything else, but I completed the entire mile without dropping the weight once. I guess that's a start. I have two more weeks to train, so at least I can give it a few more tries at this weight before going up to 35 and beyond...40 is going to be a bitch, but I will make it. Two days later and my legs are still heavy. My shoulders and back are also sore, but I did surf hard for an hour or so yesterday, so that's probably has more to do with my upper body stiffness than anything else. I've decided that Sunday will be my eat-whatever-I-want day as I have a BBQ to got to and I need to calories to recover. Next run with this bitch will be Monday, July 4th, at about 7 a.m. Not looking forward to it, but I will get it done. Wish me luck that I can speed up my time a bit. Did the last 30 lber in deep sand the whole ...

Since I'm STILL waiting for my polypropylene sandbags from Patriot Surplus, I took a friend's advice and called an audible. I cut the legs off a pair of baggy bluejeans, grabbed two zipties and some duct tape and BAM! Meet the Jean Bag (Name courtesy of Tanis from FFF). I know the jean bag doesn't look like much, but this little bastard was a PITA on the beach last night. Weighing in at 25.4 lbs of packed sand, the Jean Bag accompanied me on my first 1-mile deep sand training run. I have to admit that, while the run itself was probably the hardest mile I've ever undertaken to date, the worn denim was pleasantly soft and allowed the sand to mold itself around my shoulder, eliminating the jabbing pain I experienced running with the dumbbell a few days ago. It was also much easier to switch shoulders while running since I could just throw it onto my shoulder mid-stride. The poly bags will be more of a bitch as they'll get slick, but at least I was able to get in my...

I'm still awaiting my sandbags which, for reasons beyond comprehension, were on back order. But, Warrior Training couldn't wait any longer, so...I hit the gym last night for my first official training workout. What did I do? I'm glad you asked. I was warming up on the treadmill when it occurred to me that I could very easily just grab a dumbbell and jog with it right there. I picked up a 30-lber, wrapped my hand towel around the handle, propped it on my shoulder and started walking. Holding the weight was a bit awkward since my shoulder is so narrow the weight saddled it, therefore the weighted ends pressed against my collarbone and traps - not exactly a pleasant sensation. But, I figured, Warriors don't train in comfort and I pressed on. I increased the elevation to 3.5 and the speed to 4.5 and started a light jog. I must have looked a bit odd, because of the way people were staring at me, but who cares. Either they think I'm some sort of nut (which is partly true)...