Daylight Savings Yeah! More running hours

Running....... A pretty good running week; I'll give it a 7 out of 10

• Tuesday: 1.45 @ 11: 35. I didn't have much time to run so I did a "mini" interval session behind the karate dojo. I kind of skipped the warm up and started with a 1/2 mile @ 4:30, then another 1/2 mile @ 4:01. Then I wanted to do 1/4 mile sprints, but I wasn't exactly sure where the 1/4 mile ended and I didn't want to check the Garmin because I would have had to slow down to read it. Anyways, I did 0.28 @ 2:00 then 0.19@ 1:04.


• Wednesday: This was supposed to be a "strength" night. During the run, a fire truck and a rescue truck came to a house on the back of the island and every time I ran by, the diesel fumes about gagged me. So, I only did 3 miles and I'm estimating the time @ 28:00 since my Garmin battery died (again) during the run! One of these days I'll figure the darn watch thing out !?@?#!


• Saturday: This run was just to get in some mileage since I didn't do much on Tuesday or Wednesday. The weather was nice; upper 70's and a bit breezy when running east/west. I had planned on running 5 miles, but since Tuesday's run was 1.45, I decided to run an extra 0.55 to bring the total to an "even" 10 miles. So I ended up doing 5.55 in 52:58.


• Sunday: Long run day! Did the beach run again (Las Olas to Commercial and back). It was very breezy (NE @ 15mph). And, my knees and calves were sore, probably from running 5.55 on the previous day. Needless to say, I ran slowwwwwwww. I wanted to do 10 miles, but settled for 8 @ 1:28:15. I "semi-sprinted" the last 1/4 mile @ a 7:45 pace; my overall pace was 11:01. That kinda stinks because my "paces/averages" have been steadily improving. Until today.
• So, for the week, I got in 4 days of running and ran a total of 18 miles. That's the most mileage I have ever run in one week!! But, the marathon is in 12 weeks and I have to get the mileage up to around 35 miles/week. So I still have quite a bit of work ahead of me.........

Karate......spotlight week (means no Bugo!!!) YEAH!!!!

• Monday: Good cardio class!!


• Tuesday: Demo practice!! I'm in the group doing nunchucks (a variation of Chuck Form I). We're also doing self defense holds and grabs where the guys "attack" the women. Each group will first do the same 2 holds and grabs (front choke and something else, I don't remember). Then each group will do 3 of their own choice. I think I'll have my "attacker" do the double lapel (finishing it with the guillitine), rear arms pinned (finish with the throw down), and rear choke (finish with the "schlock"). After class, I stayed and did my "extras" with Sherry (100 pus-ups, 100 sit-ups and 50 round kicks off each leg).


• Thursday: Since it is spotlight week, there was no Bugo this week (yeah! yeah!). Instead, we had another good cardio class and worked on self-defense. This was a warrior's weekend so there were lot's of sensei's from other dojos and other systems of martial arts. 5 of them took class Thursday night. After the whole class did holds and grabs, the April candidates "spotlighted". I was an ouki for Dawn and gave her 8 random holds and grabs. She did awesome. Then, the guest senseis demonstrated the holds and grabs using their system's defenses. It was awesome! It's always great to see new methods and different styles.
• "Extras": Got in my 3 "extras" workouts of 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 round kicks (50 off each leg) on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday. I think this week they added 50 lunges to the "extras", but I "purposely" forgot them!! LOL!!

Looking for new podcasts!!

• This week, I went searching for some new podcasts to subscribe to. My sister told me about NPR's "Wait, Wait" podcast and it is absolutely hysterical. I listened to a couple of episodes this past week at work and everyone must have thought I was nuts (oh wait, they already do!) since it seemed like I was "laughing to myself" at inappropriate times.
• SQPN has a number of podcasts; so far my favorite is the Saintcast. Growing up catholic, I am familiar with many saints, but really don't "know" much about them, so the website has been very educational. Case in point, the patron saint of athletes is Saint Sebastian.
• Last month when I was "browsing" through the itunes podcast directory, I saw "languages" as a category. I thought, "wow, what a great way to learn a language". I went ahead and subscribed to Coffee Break Spanish with the intent of "relearning" Spanish (for like the 6th time). I listened to the first 5 episodes (most of which I already know) but wasn't really motivated or excited by the podcast.
• This past week, on a fluke, I searched for Hungarian language and found "Lets Learn Hungarian". When I lived in Hungary (many moons ago!), I became semi-fluent in the language. But you know the saying, if you don't use it, you lose it. Well, since I didn't have anyone to speak Hungarian with, I lost it! Anyways, I went ahead and listened to the first 3 episodes. It was great to hear the language again and surprisingly, I remembered a lot more than I thought I would. Plus, theres a girl at work who's Hungarian, so I can practice on her (she'll probably get tired of me real soon!!!)

Quit Report: 1 month and 3 days of No Smoking!!!!!

That's about all for now. Until next week.......

Viszontlátásra. (Good-bye)