Fun While It Lasted

Got an e-mail Wednesday that FitBrawl, the obstacle-course race that was supposed to inspire me through the next month until I could get my training schedule back on track, has been cancelled. Seems they couldn't get enough people to sign up.

I'm really not surprised. That Brawler workout was a bear, and I'm sure that most people couldn't complete that at all and that many who could wouldn't want to. I mean, I would've jumped at the chance to compete, but I'm nuts enough to spend a year trying to get ready for Ninja Warrior. But I can understand how people would rather roll around in the mud than do 50 burpees in a row.

So now what? Now I go on vacation for about two weeks. Plenty of time to rethink the training schedule, and to rest up my achilles tendons for a fall of running. And the brief experience with FitBrawl has taught me some valuable lessons about this training I've undertaken.

First, it helps to have goals. And yes, I've always had the overall goal of getting onto Ninja Warrior. But it also helps to have short-term goals, like a month out. FitBrawl was just that for me, and it got me moving when I didn't feel motivated. So know I need to invent goals every month, even if they're arbitrary things like 20 pullups or 100 pushups. Better yet, I should find more races like FitBrawl, even if they do involve wallowing in mud, because anything I can do to make this part of my life a more social endeavor is well worth it.

Second, some parts of the Brawler probably would be good to incorporate into Ninja Warrior training. You often hear competitors at Ninja Warrior complain about the cardio demands of that two-minute course. After trying to do 50 burpees in a row, I think I know what they're talking about. It's not like a two-minute sprint, but the cardio toll that a full-body workotu takes on you. I felt the same thing at Metro Dash; about two minutes in, while flipping the tire, I hit the wall -- the metaphorical one. So it'd be good to develop that raw cardio stamina, but how? Doing 50 burpees would be a start. Maybe do 2-minute sets of burpees and see how many I can get done. Maybe adding a pullup to the burpees would better simulate the total-body demands of Ninja Warrior. Could be fun for a month or so.

And now that I've got two 30-pound dumbbells -- bought second-hand from craigslist at half-price (score!) -- which I used for the FitBrawl Thrusters, I can incorporate them into my workouts and add a little variety. For example, they might actually make pistol squats easier, having that heavier easier-to-handle weight as a counterbalance.

So now I have two weeks to maintain and plan for the next segment. We'll still do endurance training, but I'm going to devise some end-of-stage goal, either a race or a rep test of some kind. Take something from every experience and use it.

And at some point I'm going to both review this season of ANW and start a podcast. Got to get the operation simpler and easier to crank out episode and I should be all set. All I need is a little time. See you all in two weeks.

Recalled to Life

I knew it had been a long time since I'd posted, but even I was embarrassed to see that my last post had been over two weeks ago.

There are reasons for my absence, but no excuse. I spent most of that first week in August at GenCon, the nerdiest gathering on the planet. And while I did run the "Orc Stomp 5K" while out there, there was very little else that involved actual physical exertion. Unless you count the steak dinner Friday night; that was a workout.

The other hitch in my training was the family vacation coming up August 20-31. I always knew that I'd have to suspend my training for that fortnight, but I never knew how I'd negotiate that pause. Would I do some other workout, and if so, what? Hard to get motivated when you expressly disavow your fitness goal. even temporarily.

Plus, I finally admitted that I had to shut down the running until my achilles tendonitis subsided. I seem to quit running every August, though the past two years it's been especially bad. I suspect that the 19:48 I ran in a 5K on Memorial Day 2010 was the last race I ever really wanted to run, so you can imagine it's been hard to do any hard running workouts since then.

But I've figured out a way through this vacation period that recharges the batteries and deals with the suspension of running: FitBrawl.

FitBrawl is the latest of this slew of obstacle-course races that have become the latest fitness fad. These races can involve little or no running but all involve a series of obstacles kind of like Ninja Warrior. Maybe more emphasis on strength than explosive power and raw grip strength as you find in Sasuke. But still, they're a lot more fun than another 10K. I did the MetroDash this summer in New York (the Meadowlands, actually) and medaled in my age group, which was about as well as I exepcted to do. I've been looking for another to do, but wasn't really into the mud crawls that seem to dominate the obstacle-course schedule.

FitBrawl seems to fit the bill. About a thousand yards of running and a dozen obstacles or so seems right up my alley. But the real plus is that it lends itself to a training regimen that'll get me over this hump.

The race is September 17 -- the date of the annual 10K around my hometown that I really never want to do again -- so I've got a little over a month to train. And one of the obstacles, "The Brawler," is a straight-up workout set as follows:

50 Pushups
50 Thrusters, basically squats with an overhead press of 30-lb. dumbells
50 Renegade Rows, where you get into plank position with the DBs and raise each to your chest -- one at a time
50 Burpees, with a pushup at the bottom and a jump at the end
50 Situps, with NO ONE and NOTHING holding your feet down!

That last one seems like a cruel joke, but this set of 250 reps figures to be a perfect diversion in my workouts until I get back to the rope work this fall.

I tried the Brawler this past Friday, and it took me 44 minutes and change to finish. They penalize you 10 seconds for every missed rep, so I would've had a faster time if I hadn't done a rep and they'd just penalized me all 2500 seconds. But Sunday I tried it again and finished in about 24 minutes, then again yesterday I finished in 22 and change. So the time is coming down, to the point where I may do two circuits for a workout. I figure if I can do this routine I'll be in pretty good shape, and the exercises are new enough to me that I can feel the soreness that comes from a new stress. Now all I have to do is pay the hefty fee to run the race.

And I do mean to blog about the new season of ANW. Heck, I meant to do a podcast about it,
but it doesn't look like there's much point in that now. Maybe after the season's over entirely I'll get back to it, when there's no point in trying to be timely. For now, I can focus on FitBrawl and plan for the next phase of Ninja Warrior training.

Does Watching TV Count as Training?

I hope so, 'cause real training has been spotty the past couple of days.

Did my long run (10 miles) Saturday morning, and ended up walking the last 1.5. I have an arsenal of excuses -- didn't get to bed Friday night 'til one, didn't get enough sleep, by the time I started running the sun was too strong, and my tendonitis is still bothering me. Might shut it down entirely this week to recuperate. I do have a 5K fun run Saturday morning, and that might be all for the week.

But who cares about training this week? American Ninja Warrior premiered for two hours Sunday night! I have tons to say about the two episodes that aired, and right now I intend to say it all in a podcast that I hope to inaugurate tonight. If and when it goes up, I'll be sure to alert the media.

It occurs to me that now would be a good time to get onto the message boards over at G4, to see what everyone else is saying before I open my yap. Also, it can't hurt to get into a community of some sort while I'm doing this training.