No, I’m not traveling back in time.  I debated just picking back up with my current workouts, but I decided to go ahead and back post the good, the bad and the ugly so that on the off chance that someone other than me comes to look at this there is a complete – if eclectic – record of what I did.

This series of posts won’t be scintillating in terms of content, in fact they’ll probably be really short and boring, but for the important bits (good workouts, missed workouts, alien invasions, etc.) I’ll try to muster some commentary.

I also did a PU/SU workout today, but I didn’t write it down and have no idea what I did. But I did it.  I know that much.

Pretty well satisfied with this effort.  First time doing three-quarter mile intervals.  I’ll let the data tell the story.

Short fast push-up/sit-up workout tonight.  And while I absolutely promise that I really did write down the numbers for my push-up and sit-up sets – because you can’t control what you don’t measure – I lost the data between last night and tonight.  So I gotta work on that.

Moving on …

Last night was long workout push-up/sit-up night.  Nothing special to report.  Workout completed as planned.  I gotta say though that I feel really weak on push-ups.  Sit-ups don’t seem too bad but push-ups?  Yikes.  Trust the process, trust the process, trust the process …

Short hard run tonight to keep getting back on track with running.  Six short 100m hill repeats.  I chose a somewhat too easy hill just because it was close to home and it was already late when I started.  Next time I have the hill workout I have a b**** of a hill picked out.  Should be a good one.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 4-mile easy run, but in order to head off an ankle re-injury at the pass I’m going to switch it to a 40-minute bike ride. 

Sunday late afternoon/early evening I laced up my supportive Brooks running shoes and went down to the gym.  I did the elliptical trainer for a few minutes until my body felt loosened up.  Then I went through my traditional rotational warm-up exercises to send some blood to my joints.  Then I got on the treadmill.

I left the incline flat and started out slowly – 6 kph – until I got warmed up and started bumping into the front of the machine.  I slowly – very, very slowly – increased the pace until I was going about 7.5 kph.  And my foot/ankle felt good.

So I went outside and did this:

It was longer than it looks on that map.

Two workouts last night.  My “wildcard” night for push-up and sit-up workouts and a substitution cardio workout for what should have been a planned 5-mile easy run.

For the push-up and sit-up workout I did ring push-ups.  I hung my gymnastics rings about 3 inches above the ground from the frame of the Smith rack in the fitness center and did ten sets of ten reps of push-ups.  For sit-ups I did three sets of weighted stability ball crunches and three sets of weighted leg raises.  

After that I did three sets of ten rows.  I raised the rings up so that when I grabbed them and put my feet up on a bench (facing the ceiling) I was about 6-inches off the ground.

I enjoyed mixing up the PU/SU workout.  I’m going to take advantage of my wildcard workouts to do a lot of assistance exercises, strength work and other things to mix it up and keep it fresh.

For cardio I spun at an easy cardio rate for 40 minutes on my bike on the trainer.  For those of you who have never ridden your bike on the trainer 40-minutes FEELS like 120-minutes.  I must have looked at my Garmin every 90-seconds.

Tomorrow is the one-week point of my no running requirement.  I’m going to jump on the treadmill after a deliberate and thorough warmup and see how my foot/ankle feels. If it is good to hook, then I’ll go out on my scheduled long, easy run from LAST Sunday. If all that goes to plan then I’ll pick up my run plan with the schedule that I had before.

Here’s hoping.

Tonight’s workout was a “run substituted” swim interval.  I did a 10 x 50m hard effort workout.  I did 300m to warm up and 200m to cool down.  Overall a shorter workout than Tuesday and with more rest intervals, but hard sustained efforts and more total time and distance at a hard pace.

I like the workout and it felt good.  I coulda-woulda-shoulda incorporated some technique and skill drills before and/or after the main workout sets but I didn’t.  No equipment, not training for a triathlon or swim race, no observer to provide technique feedback.  Take your pick.  I did.

The data above is a little messed up because I screwed up one of my lap button – start button combos around lap 9.  I have no idea what happened but there’s a 50/50 chance I only did 9 work intervals.  Oh well.  I’m using a Garmin 310XT which is Garmin’s premier triathlon watch, but it is terrible at lap swimming.  

So on Wednesday I did my push-up and sit-up improvement and then forced myself (against my will) to do some pull-ups.  There I sat – all smug, all night – because I had done some “extra work”.  I stepped out of the shower (late, right before bed) and got struck by a lightning bolt: I didn’t do my scheduled cardio.  Doh.  

I was supposed to do a 40-minute spin on the bike trainer yesterday as a substitute for the 4-mile easy run I couldn’t do and instead I sat around all night and didn’t do it.  Didn’t even think of it.  For Pete’s sake.  Sometimes I amaze even myself.  And not in the good way.

But at least the workout that I did remember went fairly well.  Wednesdays are currently my “speed and continuous movement” workouts.  Five sets of 30-seconds with 30-seconds of rest.  Same for both push-ups and sit-ups.  Short, fast and furious.  I’m not even going to pretend that I remember the numbers for my push-ups.  I tried (I do know I did thirty on the first set).  But there was too much heavy breathing and too little brainial oxygen.  Yes, that’s a word.  No, you shouldn’t look it up.

For the sit-ups I did 25, 25, 25, 23 and 23.  For the set sets of max pull-ups I did 10-8-6.  

My ankle seems to be getting better in that at least I haven’t thought about it or been aware of it for 12-24 hours.  Two more solid days of rest and it should be ready for a test drive.

Yesterday’s cardio workout was a swim interval in place of the scheduled (short, hard) hill workout.  I chose to do a 10 x 100m EBEH workout.  The EBEH (for those of you who are as swimming noob-ish as I am) stands for easy-build-easy-hard.  

What happens is you do a warm-up (200m for me) and then start your work sets.  Each work set consists of one LENGTH (not lap) at a nice easy pace, followed by a second length at a “building” pace.  The building pace is supposed to be faster than the easy pace but not an all out sprint or anything that leaves you gasping.  I think of it as the pace (and form) that I would use to swim a length if a couple of really attractive women were watching from poolside – fast and smooth enough to impress but not so much that I couldn’t talk to them at the end of length.  Which of course I wouldn’t do because this is a purely hypothetical scenario and I’m in a fulfilling relationship (hi honey!).

Moving on.  After your building length you do an easy recovery length and finish up the work set with a hard length.  That’s exactly what is sounds like.  You go as fast and hard as you possibly can while maintaining as much form as you can.  It’s how you’d swim a lap if you were racing someone.  I assume.  I’ve never been in a swim race.  But I’ve got a fairly good grasp on the concept.

In between EBEH’s you can either rest or not depending on: a) your fitness level b) how “hard” your “hard” is c) your training goals and d) how many EBEH’s you’re planning on doing.  Myself, I strung the first three or four together (okay, okay, the first two or three) and then started stopping in between for the highly scientific and analytic time period of 10-15 deep gasping breaths before kicking off on the next EBEH interval.

Overall, a great workout.  

I am going to take one full week off from running and lower body strength training.

It was really hard making this decision.  In fact keeping myself from working out is turning out to be harder than making myself work out.  Unfortunately my foot/ankle is still feeling strained and tender.  I’m going to commit up front to taking one full week and letting it heal so I can move forward.

Obviously this means no running (starting with what would have been my first good hill workout of the program today).  I’m going to replace any scheduled speed work with swim intervals in the pool.  I’m under no illusion that a swim interval equates to a run interval, but it’s better than nothing.

For my easy and long run workouts that I’m skipping I’ll do time-equivalent cycling workouts.  I’m not using cycling intervals (i.e. spinning) to replace the run intervals because while easy spinning is no impact to my foot, hard cycling could still retard the healing process due to the stress. 

I will continue to execute my PU/SU training as planned.  I’m also going to eliminate any strength training or other training that puts undue stress on my ankle.  I’ll have to think about it today and figure out what exactly that is going to look like.  What I’m thinking off the top of my head is to just add some pull-up work to my PU/SU sessions and call it good.  We’ll see.

I’m frustrated and disappointed but I think this is the best way.  I’ll take this week off and pick back up with this week’s workouts next week when my foot feels 100%.  I am very encouraged by HOW frustrated and disappointed I am.  I think it is a powerful indicator of how much of an ingrained habit my training is and how much I enjoy it.

Good sign for the future.