A Week Of Workouts

I’ve had a week, actually two weeks, off work thanks to some saved up holidays and the new year.  I’ve used these two weeks to work out like crazy and it has been amazing! 

Mostly it has been the last week and a bit since we were out in London Ontario for a few days at the end of my first week off.  The workouts have been, in the last 9 days, two games of hockey, 6 workouts and 2 training sessions with John. 

The workouts too were like an hour and a half long too, I’m totally loving it and I’m actually quite sad that it’s going to end when I go back to work tomorrow.  The basis for these workouts has been the superman workouts that Henry Cavill was doing to beef up for The Man Of Steel movie.

I’m about a month into that set of workouts and they are yet to get boring, and they are always crushing.  For instance, today, I was doing push press and burpee pull ups for a total of 64 reps each! Then wall ball and medicine ball slams 150 times each, and then a circuit that had rowing, pull ups, more burpees and situps with a medicine ball toss.  I was so gassed at the end of the session and of course I had to do a 5k run ahead of that whole workout.

The beauty of all this hard work is that in just one short month there is an actual visual difference and I think that by the end of February it will be really noticeable!

The other thing that I am really enjoying is being a trainer!  I wrote a post quite a while ago about were I thought that I would never be a trainer. I’m really diggin’ it actually, so much so that I have enquired about what it takes to actually become a certified trainer.  I am kind of holding off on that notion for now.  What I would really like would be to be able to use money from training people to fund the project of becoming certified.  So hopefully that will happen at some time this year.

I know that a lot of my readers have made new years resolutions, how are they going?

Goals For 2014

I did alright with my goals for 2013 but now it’s time to set some new goals for the new year!  This year while of course I want to have goals that push me I want to be able to meet all of this years goals.

The first goal is an easy one to set distance.

I’m setting out to run 1000km and bike 1700km this year.  2700km in total, 500 more than I went this year.  I think that is quite doable if I can stay injury free.

Push ups and crunchies (or abdominal exercises), last year I set out to do 50,000 push ups, it didn’t get done and I think that the lack of variety is what killed it for me.  I got bored of the challenge and it dropped way off.  This year my aim is a bit more variety and therefor I hope more attainable.  15,000 push ups and another 15,000 of various forms of crunchies.

Complete a duathlon I know there are some that run around here and now that I have a bike that can be competitive it could be really fun to do something like this.

I’m not really sure what other goals to set at the moment, maybe doing 1 arm bench presses with 65-70 pounds or something (currently doing 45)

I want to be in a bunch of races again, but I don’t really think that’s a goal to set, I don’t want to be in races just to be in them, I know I don’t want to travel as far this year to race unless it’s going to be an all day event.

What are your goals for 2014?

The End Of 2013

Gah I messed up this post when putting up my 2014 goals post!

With 2013 over I wanted to look back on my goals and see how I did.

I set out to:

Travel 2000 kilometres - I went 2228.6! 700+ by running and 1500+ on bike!

Do 50,000 push ups - I only managed slightly over 25,000, I admit I got bored with challenge and it dropped off for me about half way through the year.

Attempt a Try-a-Tri - I actually did a canoe, bike, run triathlon with my dad this year, So i blew away that goal.

Bench press 230 pounds - I did mark this as completed, but it was not with a full range of motion.  I can lift that much, but I'll have to set a newer more defined goal this year.

Complete a 1/2 marathon - This I did!  I didn't do it as part of someone else's event but as part of my own WCP race weekend.  I completed my half marathon distance in less than 2 hours even!

The Christmas Eating Contest Is Over

Right this moment I'm on my way home posting this from my phone as Amber drives.  We are returning from London, Ontario to our home.

In the last seven days I've had 3 Christmas turkey dinners and way too many snacks to even think about.  The only saving grace to all this is that I played hockey last Saturday and will again tonight and I was at the gym on Christmas eve working out and running.

I love getting together work my family and Amber's family, but the week long eating contest that is the Christmas holidays is a bit of a grind food wise and I'm actually glad that this segment of the holidays is over.

Starting tonight with hockey I plan to have 9 days in a row where I am at the gym,  working hard to undo all these calories I have consumed.  I do think that for the most part I did ok though really.  I only ever had one plate of food plus some extra turkey and veggies at each meal.  The killer I am sure are the desserts! So many desserts!

But in the big picture three or four days where I eat too many desserts is the reward for a year of working like a mad man to able to really enjoy that type of thing.  I never feel guilty about food,  I just get excited about the work I'll have to do to earn it again!