Wednesday, May 4, 2016

NJ Beast Recap


I am probably going to go silent on the blog for a little bit since I will be tracking my workouts through some aps that I will be using. I will eventually need to get back to lifting so I will pick things up again then. In the meantime I will be in limbo and need to do simple bodyweight stuff.

Big takeaway from the NJ Beast is that I am at least 25 pounds overweight and need to make changes. My new goal is the BattleFrog in either mid October or early November when I will do the X-Treme meaning that I will run multiple laps of the course. 3 is very achievable and 4 is an accomplishment. 

To accomplish this I need to:
1 - Lose at least 25 pounds. 190 or less. I will do this by:
a) always incorporating conditioning into my workouts whether it be the entire day or finishers at the end of a strength training session
b) improve my diet by snacking less, replacing snack food with fruit, eliminating my 2nd breakfast (post workout smoothie), and limiting my carb intake.

2 - Follow a marathon training program. I will not do it perfectly since I am training for more than running but I can follow the long run schedule and run over a mile to and from my workout location.

3 - Do more circuit training and conditioning work. This will mean less strength gains but right now that is not my most pressing concern.

The NJ Beast on Sinday was brutal. 15 miles and it took me 8 hours and 15 minutes. Temps in the low 40s with rain on and off all day. Lots of hills and most of it was through very technical trails. I was miserable and it sucked. Again, had a lot of problems with upper body stuff and anything requiring technical skill. May need to look into an obstacle training class if they are convenient in Houston.

My biggest takeaway is that as miserable as I was all day that I did not quit and just muscled through it. I was terrible on obstacles but survived the hills and trails and reached down deep just to cross the finish line.