Workout:

• Type: Flexibility
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Time: 18:46:05
• Total Time: 00:30:00.00

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Time: 18:43:38
• Total Time: 00:30:00.00
• Distance: 2 miles

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Time: 16:29:49
• Total Time: 00:37:00.00
• Calories: 500
• Distance: 4.8 miles
• Average Pace: 7:42.72/mile

Now that December has just started it’s time for another round of Brooks Run Happy Prize Challenges! Log your workouts in December, and you’re eligible to win prizes like free Brooks running shoes, NightLife gear, and more! Prizes go to the most miles run, the most calories burned, the most hours exercised…. plus random weekly prizes to anybody who logs a workout.

Run Happy!

My favorite sports include: running cycling swimming triathlon hiking team

My goals are: run a sub 18 minute 5k in a triathlon and sub 37 min 20k on the bike and sub 18 min 1000yd swim

This is my training blog which I am using to keep track of my fitness progress.

Please come by and read my blog. It will help me stay motivated and keep me on track as I achieve my fitness goals!

Okay, I know it’s not really hard. But, two days in a row now I have woken up to an alarm, gotten OUT of the bed, and decided to climb back into the bed.

I have not been to the Y yet. Ugh.

In an effort to not ditch the blog even though I have so far ditched any fitness efforts, I thought I would share my next goal.

Ultimately I want to improve my time from last year’s Smithfield Sprint. My plan to do that is to up my running training and switch to clip pedals on my bike (and soon, so that I can begin to train with them). I think those two things alone should help my time tremendously.

So, to keep my running goal in focus, I am going to register for the Shamrock 8k Run on March 21, 2009. (I heard about it from Sarah.)

My husband, who has become quite the runner this past year, wants to run in his first marathon that weekend. So, I thought it would be fun to be included as well. An 8k is nothing compared to a marathon, I know that. But it is a good goal for me considering my triathlon is 3 weeks after and will only have a 5k run.

I still have not ever run more than a 5k at one time.

Anyway, so that’t that. I hope to be back tomorrow to post a workout.

I won’t be reaching any goals anytime soon if I’m not actually working out. I know that.

I would make a very bad writer, as a career choice, because I would never be motivated.  How do they do it?

I guess I’m going to try and write SOMETHING.  That’s better than nothing.

It certainly doesn’t help that my coffee shop is playing the wackiest music choices today.  First it was really crappy Christmas music.  Then it was really bad late 80s rock/hair metal ballads.  Now it’s weird early 90s mainstream rock stuff.  Sometimes, no music is okay.  Really.

Workout:

• Type: Strength Training
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Time: 15:00:00
• Total Time: 00:10:00.00

I decided to teach the class how to bake the best bread they’ll ever taste. But to make sure that everyone thought my presentation was the best (competitive, me?), I also bribed them at the end, with a home-baked cinnamon & sultana bagel each.

Bagels are just great food for anyone who’s active (and not gluten intolerant - I’m looking up an alternative recipe for you), and pretty easy to bake at home. Here’s how to bake a bunch of bagels that’ll keep you fuelled for winter cycling:

Ingredients:

• 1kg (2.2 US lbs) strong white flour
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp quick yeast (the almost powdery kind)
• (as an alternative, use ~15g or 1/2 oz live yeast)
• 2 tbsp oil - I use olive oil
• Optional: 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• Optional: good handful of sultanas
• 1 (568ml) pint of hand-hot water (see instruction below)

Equipment:

• Large mixing bowl
• Metal spoon to mix
• Measuring spoons
• Jug for the water
• Kitchen scales that are accurate. Most dial scales are only accurate to ~15g, and you want better than that - digital scales are best
• Clean, dry work surface
• Large saucepan
• Non-stick baking sheets, or ordinary sheets + baking paper to line them with
• Clingfilm
• Slotted spoon

Method

Put all the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl, and mix them together with the spoon. If you’re using live yeast, rub it in to the flower with your fingertips and make sure it is well dispersed.

Put the jug on the scales and ‘zero’ them. Pour in 284ml of cold water and 284ml of freshly boiled water. This makes up your pint of hand hot water, and is an accurate measure of the volume you want.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, and pour in the water. Mix it all together with the spoon to make a dough, getting it to as even a consistency as you can. Add the oil, and with your hands, mix it into the dough. Finish off in the bowl by using the dough to scrape it as clean as you can before tipping out onto the work surface.

Now you kneed the dough. This is done by starting with it in a ball shape, and using the knuckles of your left hand to hold the edge nearest to you down to the work surface, and the knuckles of your right hand to stretch the rest away from you, smearing it along the counter. Roll it back to a ball and repeat. It shouldn’t stick to the worktop, but if it does, a little sprinke of flower should fixt that, as will working the dough faster.

The important thing with kneeding is that you must do it for long enough - AT LEAST TEN MINUTES. No cutting corners on this one! After this time, the dough should feel different in your hands - smoother and silkier on the surface. You should feel like you’ve had a bit of a workout too.

Divide it up into 12 (if you like big bagels) - 16 (for smaller ones), and make each into a bagel shape. Do this by rolling it in a ball, and then pressing your thumb through the middle, before stretching it out a little to make a ring. Leave these on your baking sheets, and cover with a piece of oiled clingfilm to stop them drying out.

After about 30-45 minutes, they should have risen a little. If you’ve made bread before, you might think that you want to leave them to rise to twice their original size - DON’T, as if you do, they’ll collapse at the next stage, and end up like pieces of leather. So once they’ve risen a little, fill the saucepan with water, and bring it to the boil. At the same time, turn on the oven, and set it for 200C / 400F, or about 170C / 340F for a fan oven.

Then, poach each bagel in the boiling water for two minutes, turning them half way through. If your saucepan’s big enough, you can do two at a time. After the poaching, remove the bagels, and return to the baking sheets.

Once you’ve poached them all, the oven should be hot, and you can put them all in to bake, for a 20-35 minutes. The cooking time depends on your oven - if its not a fan oven, be sure to swap the trays around (assuming that you’ve got two), after about 20 minutes. Once the bagels are golden brown on top, and the bottom no-longer looks doughy, they’re done - take them out and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Once they’re cool enough to handle without oven gloves, treat yourself to one - slice it in half, and eat it hot with lots of butter. Bagels made this way generally keep for about five days . . . but a lot less if anyone finds out you’ve been baking them!

A) get a better HRM and

B) do the test to determine Max heart rate.  I will consult with my doctor to see what he says, maybe he can reccommend a reputable trainer to get me through this plateua non-sense. .

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Time: 18:30:00
• Total Time: 00:38:07.50
• Average Heart rate: 131
• Max Heart rate: 179
• Distance: 2 miles
• Average Pace: 19:02.86/mile

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 12/02/2008
• Time: 15:20:00
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Calories: 87
• Distance: 14.56 miles
• Average Speed: 21.84 mph

Yet today I feel like I have waited too long, sat back and watched too much, and haven’t put my faith where it should have been put.  I have been hiding behind my job and my training in hopes that all the stuff that I , and many other people, am going through will just go away.  Today I realize that my greed, this countries greed and the greed of many doesn’t just go away.  Today it is becoming very clear that the house I call home, the place that I lay my head, the rooms that my children sleep in, and the safehouse of most of my training could very quickly be slipping away.  I’m not scared for me, I’m upset that I let it get this far.  I haven’t let myself down…I am letting my wife and children down.

I trust that life is bigger than all the “stuff” I have acquired over the years and months.  I trust that i will be taken care of no matter what happens to this house, these cars, and that expensive TRI bike.  I trust that the system is exactly what it is…a man-made system with flaws, but generally looks after the betterment of man.  I trust that I am not the only one going through this type of hardship, and that all of us can pull though it.  Mostly I trust that my loving God has something much bigger in store for me and mine.  And that, my friends, is good enough for me.  He was, He is, and He will always be!!!

Know this…I am not, in any way, preaching!  I’m just simply saying….

GK17….out!