Yup, we did a few miles jogging, and the last time my family visited about a month and a half ago, we did a 7 mile hike with her in 90+ degree heat through the mountains in Charlottesville. She’s about to be 70. She’s a badass. She was getting a bit cranky towards the end of the hike though, haha - I had to keep running up ahead to give her milestones, but I can’t blame her, it ended up being 2 miles longer than we had thought.
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Another great upper body workout.
Superset of lat pulldowns and pushups, 4 rounds
Superset of BB rows and dips, 4 sets
Superset of rope pullovers and cable flys, 4 sets
Giant set of ez bar curls, reverse grip ez bar curls with a motorcycle curl at the top, and overhead tri rope extensions, 3 sets
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, my leg work is 100% running and biking at the moment. Don’t seem to have lost any size on my legs - my glutes are a bit smaller, though, and I’m sure they’re much weaker. It just doesn’t pay to be carrying around extra weight on my lower half for a long distance race, and I’m not eating enough to be growing my upper body, just maintaining it while I drop a bit more fat. My conditioning is spot on, though. I don’t get tired easily at this point, and I can eat intuitively.
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yer we get it bro. 
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Wife was feeling pretty nervous about her biathlon (swim-bike) that she was doing on the same day as my triathlon, so I switched my category to hers so we could start together, and then signed up for another, longer triathlon 3 weeks later. Got in a 40 mile ride, a 1.25 mile swim, and two upper body workouts this week, capped off with a 4 mile run at a good pace yesterday. Ankles still need to be a bit stronger.
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What’s up man!
Are you still keeping up with your Knees Over Toes Tibialus stuff? I just started some stuff on the slant board.
Are you like, Gardening now?
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Hey bud! Glad to see you pop in. Since my leg work has been all biking and running I don’t think my knees are getting the same type of deep flexion work, but just yesterday I did a lot of high rep supersets with calves and the tibialis machine. I’ve switched my running from heel-to-toe style to mostly on the balls of my feet, and I immediately noticed tibialis and ankle weakness, so I got after it. My feet are clipped to my pedals, so my hip flexors are still getting a ton of work when I bike and everything feels pretty great.
School is finally giving me just a week or two break, so I’m real relaxed, and training has really just been mostly getting back up to speed for my triathlon. The nice thing is, my gas tank feels like I can just go forever. The con of that is, if I go too far I end up straining something, but I’ve been able to keep myself from injuring anything.
Also, nope, my wife tries her hand at gardening from time to time and it usually doesn’t go well, haha. I have friends at work who garden and I’ve been getting what seems like an endless supply of fresh tomatoes, which I’ve been using to make chili, indian curries, and good ol’ tomato sandwiches though. Seriously - a tomato on some toast, with a little mayo, salt, and pepper?
How are things going for you?
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Whoa! Summer school! I forgot how busy you stayed. Good luck with your races, and keeping a lid on your training. It’s hard not to push it when you feel that increased capacity. I’m glad to hear about the abundant veggie situation.
Things are great with me. My family is doing well, training is moving along. I did some hip flexions the other day and used the cables instead of a kettlebell and thought of you.
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The way nursing school works is, once you start it, you have to take all the classes required for that semester, in that semester, and you can’t delay or take anything in advance. So, every semester is a chance to knock a couple things off of future semesters that have 4-5 classes running simultaneously. Might as well get after it! Sorry I didn’t reply to this earlier, I typed up a different reply and then never sent it. Glad to hear you’re doing well, and I hope the hip flexor work is paying off.
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Today featured a mile swim, and then a 4 mile run a couple hours later in 95 degree heat. I’m transitioning to forefoot running so my ankles are getting a beating but my knees and hips feel great.
Yesterday was an interesting day - on my way to the gym, I turned a corner in my car and nearly hit what turned out to be 3 full packages of pet supplies from chewy.com, which we’ve ordered from in the past, just sitting in the middle of the road. I recognized the packages, and I probably wouldn’t have had any qualms about taking packages if they’d fallen off of a supply truck on the way to any one of 20 pet supply stores around me and were just nameless pet supplies or food or something, but these turned out to be delivery packages, with people’s personal information on them.
Way back in the day, I was walking in the city with my dad, and we found an envelope filled with a couple thousand bucks. My dad didn’t hesitate for a second, and located the nearest police station, and turned it in. The officer said they’d be able to track the guy by his address and return his money. My kids asked me what i was going to do with the packages as I piled them into the car, and I told them the story about my dad and said that we were going to do the right thing. I went to the gym, then looked up all the addresses on the packages and went around and delivered them to people. Only 1/3 of the people were home, and they were super grateful, and another person gave me a text afterwards thanking me (I left a note with the packages explaining what happened in case a door cam were to see me dropping off a package that they were supposed to have delivered that day), and the people will likely be able to get free packages from chewy since their packages weren’t technically delivered.
Anyways, doing the right thing is cool, kids. I’m not superstitious in the least, and not religious whatsoever, but I have a strange, deeply ingrained belief in karma - maybe not immediate karma, but eventual, life-long karma, so hopefully that’s a thing.
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You are what you do when nobody is looking.
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You continue to be an inspiration.
Unrelated, can you elaborate a bit on forefoot running? What pushed you to make this change, and how long will/did it take to regain distance ability using the technique?
In 2010ish one of my navy buddies was into it, he even had the 5fingers shoes. I tried to stay on forefeet for a 1- or 2-mile run, I remember brutal calf soreness! And never really played with it again.
Your Dad must be proud. Very good lesson to pass on. The Golden Rule is the one to learn early and often. Great way to teach your young ones.
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He’s not around, and he passed when I was still struggling with some addiction issues and making some poor choices, so it weighs heavy on me that he didn’t get to see who I’ve become and my children, but when I’m not moping about that it’s easy to see that he’d have been proud. Thanks for the solidarity (and @jdm135 and @OTHSteve).
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Yeah - I kept getting shin splints and knee pain while running. There was a movement demonizing heel strikes, but I don’t think it’s accurate to do that, and different people have different running form, so “all heel to toe running is bad” is wrong IMO, but what isn’t up for debate is that having a different foot strike shifts the stress to other parts of your body.
Firefly running is very tough on the calves and ankles for sure - but I’m hoping to build them up and that it’ll help over time to strengthen them. I already noticed zero knee discomfort from my last two runs - and with my knees over toes fixes, I didn’t want to start feeling knee pain again.
Anyways, this is all a word salad to say, I’m trying something new, in keeping with the trend that behind every lagging or chronic pain there is a weakness that can be addressed. Knees and hips still hurting a bit → maybe I’m more naturally a forefoot runner → ankles feel incredibly weak and are the limiting factor during these runs → strengthen my ankles instead of running away from this form → maybe better longevity in running. That’s my strange thought process.
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Couldn’t pass this up…
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Have you ever had a serious ankle injury?
Anecdotal evidence, but I have a family friend who’s an avid runner. He fractured his ankle pretty badly a couple years ago in an accident and said that his ankles still feel weak when running
This is something I “struggle” with off and on after having a kid. Wishing certain loved ones, who died way too early or are just not present for various reasons, were around to have the relationships with my kid that I had with them.
Only thing to do is to make the best of what we’ve been given and not let it go to waste!
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are you calling me a wanker ?
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Well, then we’re all wankers here, no?
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Nope. Couple sprains - same as anyone else.
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