Butter’s Blog

Today I volunteered at the 2008 Oregon Summer Olympics.  I had a very long night at a house boat party and was kind of dreading getting up early for the event.  I knew I had to go, and wanted too, but my body was tired!  After me and my girlfriend got up and going I really started to perk up.  By the time I was at the event, held in Hillsboro, OR, I was rip roarin’ and ready!

If you’ve never been to a Special Olympics I highly recommend it.  These athletes are amazing, I could not believe some of their abilities!  Don’t get me wrong, not all are gonna win an event, but you can learn something from each and every one!  They don’t care if they win, they are just glad to compete!  I’ve never seen so many smiles on faces and it was such a utopia.  The day was about them, not who won or who lost, but just about them.  A day for them to compete and hang out, and I’m so glad that I was a part of it.

I leave the event inspired, I saw people with major disabilities busting their ass on the track, and some putting up better times than me.  Whenever I feel lazy or down, I’m going to think about these athletes and remember what they overcame.  Truly unbelievable.  Of course this is the same weekend of the US Olympic Trials in my hometown of Eugene, OR.  If I could go to either event for free….I choose this one again.  AWESOME, I highly recommend you get involved if this type of event is held in your area.

Take care and remember that we are ALL athletes!

It’s 97 here today in Vancouver/Portland…its ridiculous!  I had a police test 90 mins away this morning at 8:30 but managed to still get to the gym here at 1:30pm.  Had an intense upper body workout then headed home.  

Now I’m off to a boat house party in the ‘poose!  Woohoo!

It’s 97 here today in Vancouver/Portland…its ridiculous!  I had a police test 90 mins away this morning at 8:30 but managed to still get to the gym here at 1:30pm.  Had an intense upper body workout then headed home.  

Now I’m off to a boat house party in the ‘poose!  Woohoo!

So today I went to the gym and did legs…pretty solid workout but I did have a horrible head ache.  Not sure if it was due to giving blood yesterday or the 95 degree heat.  Either way I pushed through and gave my legs all they could take.  I entered my workout into the tracker and posted 56,110 lbs lifted.  My personal best was just over 48,000.  I’m pretty pleased with that considering the headache!

I planned on doing cardio but my head was killing.  I bounced and headed home.  Tomorrow I have to be up at 5:45 am to head out of town for a police test.  Not looking forward to getting up early but definitely looking forward to the test!

So today I started my new workout and it went well.  I can tell that I haven’t benched in a few weeks but I still had a decent chest workout.  It’s only gonna get better.  The next two police tests I have do not include the physical fitness portion so I don’t have to lay off the weights for a while…so that’s nice.

Anyways, thursday is day 2 and I’m looking forward to it!

On a personal note…surpassed the 1 million lbs mark in total lbs since using the workout tracker 35 workouts ago!  WOOHOO!

So tomorrow I start a new lifting program and I’m very excited!  I took the straight powerlifting workout off of bb.com and tweaked it slightly.  It’s a 4 day split with 2 days primarily upper body and the other 2 lower.  As always I am following each lifting session with 30-45 mins minimum of cardio and every now and then I’ll bust over 45.  Really excited about the workout.

Please check out my progress on my workout tracker!  Goals remain to increase strength while trimming the weight!

Phew, so we just had another indoor soccer game and finally got the W!  We were 0-3 this session and lost all very close games…we won 5-4 tonite so we are finally off the skid!  Just happy to win one again.

Before the game I hit the gym and just kind of toyed around…basically focused on triceps and calves with a tiny bit of shoulder thrown in the mix.  It was a great workout and felt great.  I need to tweak my current workout a tiny bit tonite….been on it for about 4 weeks and it’s time for a change!

I love the workout logs you can print off of bb.com!

So today I had to drive an hour south to take the Salem PD test.  It was an unusual test as the  physical abilities test was BEFORE the written exam.  I must say that I like this system though!  You must pass the agility portion to move onto the written part.  There were about 100 people that showed up and out of my group of 5 only 2 of us passed!  I was shocked but people were dropping like flies…I must say I was shocked and I felt bad for them.  I was the biggest guy in my group, the 3 that failed looked to be in good shape…

After they failed they were given the option to continue with the process to see where they need to improve for next time, which I thought was a great idea.  One of the fellas just stormed off and left, the other two hung out and continued with the testing…I respected them for that big time.  

So here are my results (I haven’t been training as much as I would like, but I passed):

300m Run:  61 secs  (71 sec max to pass)
Sit - Ups:  29 (met requirement, you do not get pts for extra)
Push Ups:  25 (met requirement, you do not get pts for extra)
Vertical Leap:  19 inches  (14 in minimum to pass, you get 3 attempts, that was my only one)
1.5 Mile Run:  15:12 (16:28 max to pass)

So my run really needs to improve and I will work on it.  I did buy my running gear so it’s time to continue to beat the pavement.  I do so much gym cardio that I need to get out and just run more often…I passed but I want my time to be around 12-13 mins…which is VERY doable.

After the agility test I headed to the written exam and that was another 3 hrs!  

Then I headed home, grabbed my workout log and headed to the gym….did light legs and 20 mins very intense cardio on the eliptical.

WHAT A DAY!

Tomorrow I will be testing with another department here in the Portland area.

Just a short 1.5 mile run but it was in the upper 70s so I was struggling a little bit.  The new Nike Running Shades were amazing though as was the Nike Running Watch.  I recommend both if you do a lot of running…or any at all for that matter!

Anyone taking this stuff?  Thoughts or comments?