DAY 26 is a different day. Is a day somewhat awaited since the start of this whole shabang... It's a day that I had been cautious about since it was going to change my whole way of approaching cardio, running and subsequently my workout as a whole.
After I kicked out an hour of walking with Mr.K specifically on as many flat roads I could find so I wouldn't force anything on my legs, I kicked off my ADIprene INDOOR running shoes. Yes! It turned out they were for TREADMILL RUNNING ONLY! And I just wanna say, YOU BETTER RESEARCH WHAT RUNNING SHOES YOU'RE BUYING CAUSE THEY MIGHT FUCK UP YOUR LEGS. So visit the shoes' websites, check out forums where people might give you advice out of experience. That's what I did this time around. I even went to the Nike store and tried on the different shoes that were suggested and RAN in the store to get a feel of them on my legs. My choice was the Nike Lunarglides and I can tell you they were worth every penny. My legs are much more relaxed. I feel much less tension on my calves, Achilles and knees. Actually I just took them out for a real 1hour test drive (not sprinting but jogging and walking) today on day 27 and I can tell you that I'm sure i made the right choice.
| Voila! They already look old! That's what I do with shoes... |
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| After I bought the shoes, I discovered this on the Nike plus site. Turns out I was right! |
Anyways back at the ranch, I wanted to tell you about Nike+. I don't know if everybody has heard of this, but you can add a chip to any Nike+ shoes that links to your ipod and track your running progress... which allows you to check your calories, distance, speed and even set goals and enter challenges online where other members post their results. I directly created an a account on Nikeplus.com and uploaded my first mini one K walk and was classified as a YELLOW runner – so super beginner from 1 to 50K. It's pretty interesting how people have gotten up to 9000Km! I wonder if the whole Nike+ experience helped with that. To be honest with you I really feel like kicking every Lebanese's butt now! ARGHHH!!! See?! I told you I was gonna get competitve! It's ridiculous how this Drive to compete automatically kicks in. I can't say "oh! that's wonderful, now I can have buddies to motivate me and share the experience with", it HAS to be "ooh! now I can have stats I can compare with so i can surpass people". My friends who are reading this would either be shaking their heads with a smirk, or laughing their asses off. I don't like it one bit anymore to be honest, I'd rather calm down and just compete with myself.
Oh by the way, I found the coolest thing on the site: a section called Coach, that has various training programs that prepare you to cross barriers and work on challenges: from walking to running, to training for a 28K marathon, and even train you for specific sports. The thing with marathon running that panics me a bit is that it shapes down your muscle mass and chops all the fat. Have you noticed how marathon runners are usually very skinny whereas sprinters are all chiseled? It's because marathon running trains different muscle fibers (red small ones) for endurance whereas sprinters train the thick fast twitch white fibers for strength which causes their bodies to shape up. Extrapolating that onto my training, I guess I better include more interval running (sprinting and high intensity with rest in between) than distance running. I don't want to melt by the end of the 65 days but just shed off the excess fat.
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| Hmm... So what do you think? Maybe the whole training for distance is a more than a tiny mistake? |
"... Marathon runners don't reach as low body fat as sprinters do, and marathon runners actually lose muscle unless they train a specific way, which most don't. The adaptation for endurance running is to increase myoglobin and mitochondria in the muscle at the expense of increasing cross-sectional diameter, so basically they are on average 8 - 12 percent body fat with less muscle than the average individual, while sprinters are 6 - 10 percent body fat with slightly more muscle than the average individual."
Maybe I should check out my track and field sports teacher Alice Keyrouz, maybe she might help in giving me some input on the strength training used for sprinters. Better yet, I could either ask her about how she trains her sprinters in general, maybe even check out the training, maybe even train with them once a week? That'd be amazing! I should contact her soon. In the mean time I'm going to cruise the site to find some strength running training I could do; maybe in the "running for specific sport" section. Anywho, I'll let you know about that when I know... But as it figures, building up to walk up to Faraya... Is it a good idea afterall? Anis should be laughing his ass off by now...
Just to tell you about the P90x workout of the day: It was Legs/Back. It was hard, it was grueling, it was A BLAST! Milos joined for the training. I was surprised of the number of pull ups I can do now without a chair: 5! (hahahah). Well yeah at least I'm improving. I used to do much more during bodybuilding days but it's all coming back slowly, no worries. I even pulled off a nice Ab Ripper X right after too. Things are looking up. As long as my legs heal correctly all is GRAND!
And by the way, I've been substituting the NOXPLODE with a couple of spoonfuls of Honey. It actually does the trick because of the sugar spike it causes. If Yunis says that's what I should do, he should be right. Cut down my protein shake intake in more than half, didn't eliminate it though. I will all of next week which is only core work so I wouldn't need it to recover I guess... Next week is all Yoga, stretching and something called Core Synergetics (which is supposed to be a killer); a recovery week to jump to phase 2 in the training which is a step higher in intensity and a completely different training so that the body doesn't adapt and keeps on growing and improving.
Well here's to intensity!!
HAOUUUU!!
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