About a month ago I wrote a mid-year review of my 2021 intentions. In that time I have made some changes to my workouts and running goals. As I said in that post, I have a strategy for improving my daily run distance to 6 miles a day. I am officially running that distance. Granted it’s not quite 6.2 (i.e. a 10k), however adding two-tenths of a mile is a very minor adjustment.
I have not run 9 miles on my push day, yet. I am still calculating how I can achieve that distance given the geography of my location. My hope is to try to hit that goal by mid-to-late August.
Beast Mode Engaged
So this brings me to the pre-workout. There are two areas I focus on as part of my pre-workout; core and strength training. Three days a week my pre-workout focuses on strengthening my core. I tried a few exercises while attempting to keep the reps and sets within 15-30 minutes.
Core Strengthening Exercises
This is the pre-workout Core exercise routine that is working well for me:
- 30 sec planks x 3
- 10 squats x 3
- 10 doorway rows x 3
- 1 minute farmer’s carry x 2
- 10 kettle bell swings (with a dumb bell) x 2
Strength Training Exercises
Then, two days a week, I focus on strength training. This is where I get a little intense. I initially started with doing push-ups, which I hate doing. Then I saw my sister and her husband doing burpees and I thought, well if they can do burpees then so can I. So I changed my push-ups to burpees.
Burpees suck as much as everyone says they do. They. Are. Hard. I changed my push-ups to burpees and I was doing that for about a week. Then someone told me about a similar exercise called the devils press, which is aptly named. It’s basically a burpee with dumbbells. Watch this short video to see how to do this exercise.
I changed my burpee to this exercise starting at 15 lb. dumbbells because my upper body is still a little weak. So this is my strength training routine:
- 6 Devils Press (burpee) x 3
- 10 Dumbbell Dead Lift x 3
- 10 Dumbbell Row x 3
- 8 Dumbbell Standing Curls x 2
- 8 Seated Dumbbell Tricep Extensions x 2
By the end of the week, assuming I complete all of these routines and my 6 miles each day, I feel pretty good. My body feels like I’ve had a decent workout and I’m not too sore or too tired. My goal is to stick to this routine for a couple months and see how I’m feeling by the fall.
/cheers
I could accomplish so much more if I only had minions!
I’ve been lazy. Actually I’ve been busy with a few real life things and I’ve been learning a new programming language. When I start something new like that, I get a little obsessed and I lose track of my other hobbies and activities. I’ve also been rebuilding my NAS server. I will write more about that stuff at a later time. My birthday was a month ago and I’ll be honest, I haven’t completed a Bad Idea Birthday Challenge this year and I don’t know if I will do one.
Completing any race has been extremely challenging this year, for obvious reasons. All the usual races I run were postponed and ultimately cancelled (i.e. Red Legs and The Flying Pig). I have always wanted to run the Race to Wrigley Charity Race but I could never arrange to make the drive to Chicago. So I was very excited when I found out I could complete the race, virtually, this year. While I won’t be finishing inside the 
It’s been a while since I regaled you with my fitness efforts so it’s time for a fitness update. I believe the last time I wrote about it was my “
Addiction, 
The things that go through my mind when I’m alone with nothing but my thoughts for entertainment is dangerous. Some might even say eccentric. Consider this your warning about today’s Random Thought of the Day