Epic Fail and a PB in one day.

So yesterday was kind of tough - Beth and I woke at 5:40 am to get our first P90x workout in.  Day 1 calls for 58 mins of Chest and Back work plus 16 mins of ab work.  "Hmmm, I can do this - it's like doing a 7-8 miler.  Shouldn't be too hard."  Well about 20 mins into the workout I was dripping sweat.  And mind you just not dripping, but pouring sweat and I wasn't even doing the moves all out or even that many reps.  Mostly due to the fact I have no upper body strength and any flexibility.  Needless to say, I was struggling big time by the 30 min mark.  After doing some seated flys, I stood up and get very dizzy and sick to my stomach - I excused myself to Beth and barely made my way upstairs to our bathroom when I stripped down and just lay down on our tiled bathroom floor.  In about 5 mins I was cooled down enough to get back down stairs but we didn't finish the workout until that evening.  I'm really not sure what prompted me to overheat like that, and in fact that's really only happened to me about 3-4 times in my whole life so I guess I just didn't pace myself correctly.

The limited visibility I've seen of this program though is great.  Changing up the workouts, moves and intensity are going to pay off big time later on down the line.  Some of the moves are easier but they then range to extremly difficult.  And you really can't cheat anywhere in the few workouts I've done so far.  (But even if you could, I'm not built like that....)  This changing around is not only found in the workouts, but also in the day-to-day planning.  It's like puting an easy day after speedwork, and then throwing in strides and tempo runs during the week.  The program has an edge to others out there because of this.  It reminds me of old soccer two-a-days back in the day......

The ab workout is really going to help me - I can't do all of the moves yet, but they are within reach and I expect within a few weeks I'll be doing at least a few reps of each one.  Once you get there, it's really just working form and reps.  But I have a feeling once I'm beginning to master the current moves, we'll be changing things up a little.....  (I think there's 10-15 different CD's.....)

So after that epic failure in even finishing my first workout, Alex and I went out for an easy recovery run after our quick 5 miler we did the night before (he had an off day from school - Finals were last week).  I decided I didn't want to do any hills so I took him to RSM lake and the one mile loop I've talked about before.  This course is the site of many PB's in the past, but today I just wanted to take it easy.



Alex and  went out pretty easy (for him) and we clocked a 9:24 first mile.  Funny I felt pretty good doing that, but I knew right then I'll be taking the rest of the runs this week at a much slower pace. More along the lines of a 9:50 mile.  Mile two was just as fast,  actually just a little faster - 9:01.  That put us at 18:25, and I still felt good even if my breathing was starting to come a little rougher.  My conversation with Alex pretty much dropped to nil at this point and I just let him chat away.  Every once in a while I'd answer a question with a yes, or no so he knew I wasn't going to drop dead on him (he knew about my failure that morning.)  Mile 3 we finished off  with a 8:56  for a three mile total of 27:11.  That was a PB and right at my 9:04 pace that I have for my 5k PB.  I felt pretty good and I wasn't really pressing to go any faster.  I think if I really wanted to I could shave about :30 seconds off this time without too much difficulty right now.  My 10k schedule does have a 5k practice race in two weeks so I'll try for a PB there.  It should be interesting and I'm starting to get anxious for a race now.

I'm off to clean the house, to bad I can't raise my arms above my shoulders........ At least from the waist down the house will get clean. :)

Keep Steppin'
Bob