We received 3 1/2 inches of rain last night in less than an hour.  Woke up to find my exercise room under water this morning.  I pulled up all the new flooring I put in last week (after the last flood) and am trying to dry everything out.  I had a party at my house last night and drank too much and woke up too late to work out so I'm hoping to get some shoulders in when I get home from work then I'm heading to the pool.  This weekend I will work on some sort of solution to keep the rain from entering my basement.  Pain in the ass.  On a happy note, a 19 year old at my party last night told me I was hot.  YES.  I'm almost twice her age!  Not sure if I should be flattered or disgusted!  Ha!

I'm not sure what's going on but I've been losing weight the last couple of weeks.  I'm hoping it is just because I'm so busy in the summer or maybe it's dehydration in the morning.  Not sure, but my bulking up is not working very well.  I'm not too upset about it though as I'm continuing to increase the weights I lift.

I've modified my workout slightly to compensate for my sore arm.  Yeah, it's been almost three months since I hurt it, and it's still not back 100%.  The massage therapist has been working on it and she thinks that my bicep has attached itself to a muscle in my forearm.  I think that's what she was trying to tell me.  All I know is that she grabs onto the muscles in my arm and pulls and twists and I stop breathing for a while because it hurts so bad and then after an hour of that I'm done.  I've been going once a week and my arm is substantially better.  In fact, it was so good after a recent visit, that I went straight home and did bicep curls for the first time in three months.  She told me I was supposed to wait 3 days after my massage before using my arm, but I was so excited that my arm was working and feeling so good that I couldn't wait.  So, after 3 months, I'm finally doing curls.  I'm hoping that I will be able to do bench press soon as it has been 3 months since I have done that as well.  I tried yesterday and it didn't work, so I used dumbbells instead.
My basement carpet was destroyed by the flood while I was in the Bahamas.  That's OK because this weekend, I filled the entire room with wall to wall exercise mats.  It looks really nice and it's nice not having to worry about sweating on the carpet or getting things dirty.  Tonight we are in a flood watch again, so if the basement floods, I can just pull up the flooring and put it back down again once everything is dry.

****ght.  Better pretend I'm working for the last 45 mins of the day.

Just got back from a very relaxing vacation in The Bahamas.  I brought my workout clothes but didn't lift a weight or run or anything.  I drank so much that I don't think I will ever be able to donate my liver if I wanted to.  I mostly stayed on Great Exuma island, but spent three days on my friends boat touring the other islands and keys.  We visited Little Exuma and Long Island by boat.  We did lots of snorkeling and diving and body surfing too.  I should post a picture of me on an island all by myself.  I just about drowned while trying to to get the boat anchored to shore.  I jumped into the water while carrying the anchor and was thinking it was only 3 feet deep.  Well, it wasn't and I sunk.  Oh well, it was an incredible trip and one that I would like to do again.

I returned from The Bahamas to find my basement had flooded.  I've worked out the last two days in my soggy basement.  It's a pain because everything is still wet.  The carpet is surely ruined as the basement already smells of mold and mildew.  My arm is still bothering me and I NEED to go to the doctor.  I don't get paid vacation or sick time as I am self employed, so taking time off is more painful than my arm.  I have discovered that I can work chest and shoulders now if I use dumbbells and not the bar.  For some reason doing bench or shoulder presses with the bar turns my right arm in a way that really hurts my forearm where it connects to my elbow.  Using dumbbells rotated 90 degrees from the normal pressing position seems to do the trick though.  I will get to the doctor some day soon.  The massage therapist seems to think she can fix it, so I will let her have a whack at it first.

So, it's been something like four weeks since I injured my arm and it isn't getting better.  I guess it doesn't help that I haven't really rested it long enough.  I gave it a week and then started lifting again.  After a week, it hurt so bad that I gave it another week.  Well, I'm back to lifting again and it is debilitating.  For example, I did chest this morning but am not able to do any sort of bench press or incline press, just did flyes instead.  As for arm exercises, curls hurt too much and so do skull crushers, but I can do dips just fine.  The problem seems to be in my forearm and my elbow.  Maybe I tore the muscle in that area?

So, because of this injury, I have been running more than normal.  I bought a GPS watch and that makes running outside a blast.  The watch even comes with a virtual partner, so you can race against the partner.  I might do a duathlon next Saturday.  I haven't bought my new Trek Madone yet, so I'd be on my mountain bike with racing slicks.  I feel good and healthy except for my arm.

It's been 11 days since I updated my blog.  Well, the reason being is that my plan was to focus on running and training for a duathlon on June 7th and giving up body building for the summer.  However, since running my 10K race, my ankle and my elbow have been bothering me again.  I took a week off from lifting and running and my elbow has improved enough that I can now lift everything well except curls.  Running is out of the question.  I ran across the street yesterday to escape being run over by a speeding SUV and my ankle became very angry at me.  Christ, I'm like a little old lady trying to cross the street now.  Where's my walker?!
I bought a GPS watch to help me train for running.  It's really cool and luckily it works for biking too.  So, I'm going to focus on biking and weight lifting again and forget running any more races for a while.  I turn 36 next week and I guess part of getting old is my body takes longer to repair itself.  Hey, isn't there something like Human Growth Hormone that I can use to get my body to repair itself quicker?  Is that stuff legal?   I need a magic elixir!!

I ran my first 10K this weekend.  The weather was worse than last weeks race.  45 degrees, rain and wind.  The 10K had some nice hills too.  I had no idea what to expect with this race as it only had something like 75 people running in it and my last race had 14,000.  So, at the start line, I bolted off with the other runners and then after a few minutes realized that I was out of my league and slowed the pace.  After the 1st mile I didn't get passed and I didn't pass anyone.  It was uneventful and I finished in 46:38 which I'm happy about because my goal was to finish in less than 50.  I can't find any more races to run for a couple of weeks so I'm going to just train for the next one.  I met a group of guys who want me to train with them for a triathlon.  That seems like a big leap to me.  I'd want to get a new bike before I did that, so we will see.
My right elbow is sore after I run - some sort of repetitive motion injury.  I did chest yesterday, but woke up this morning and just couldn't bring myself to work out.  So, yikes, this might be it for me doing any sort of bodybuilding for a while, might just run and bike and maybe start working towards a triathlon.

This morning I competed in the 5 mile race that I have been blabbering on about for a couple of weeks now. I finished in exactly 40:00. Weird. Even though the time isn't all that great, I completed the race faster than 78% of the runners! The thing is, the race was freaking awesome. I loved every minute of it, it's just so cool to compete. So, now that I have finished my first race, I'm hooked and I'm looking to run another one as soon as possible. Oh, and the weather sucked huge. Winds of 25 MPH with gusts of 35 MPH and the temp was 41 degrees. Have I ever mentioned that Wisconsin sucks! At the end of the race they have all you can drink beer. It sounded like such a great reward, but the thought of chugging a beer when the mornings breakfast was trying it's best to be regurgitated, just didn't sound appealing. So I passed on the beer and didn't eat any of the free bratwurst either.

I'm just itching to get back to weightlifting again. Taking two days off for the race has restoked my motivation. I was thinking about doing a bulk cycle, but I don't see how it's possible when trying to run. Kind of like whistling and chewing gum at the same time.

Man, just when I think things are going well and my body has adjusted to my new active lifestyle, I get hit by a car. I haven't even fully recovered from my bike accident last week. Yesterday at lunch I was walking past a parking garage and I noticed the arm thing that keeps the cars from crossing the sidewalk and entering the road was going up. I waited a couple of seconds to see if the car was going to go and it didn't, so I started crossing in front of it. Well, then the lady driving the car decided to finally pull out when I got in front of her. She was looking the other way for traffic and wasn't looking at me. I had a feeling this was going to happen and wanted to protect my knees from her bumper, so as she came towards me I hopped up on her hood. My butt put a nice dent in it and it made a very loud noise. You should have seen the poor ladies eyes. She kept saying sorry over and over and then she started crying. I felt really bad for her but a lot of cars were getting backed up behind her so I went on my way. I thought I was fine, but now my back hurts and I didn't bother getting her license plate number.  Oh well, another reason to see the massage therapist, I guess.

The weather for the race tomorrow looks horrible. 44 degrees and 25MPH winds. Need to go buy some warmer running gear after work so can't go to the chiropractor to have her look at my back.

On a positive note, I increased my shoulder press yesterday 6 lbs. YES! I think I will do a bulk cycle when I'm done with this race on Saturday. It'd be good to be fat for a while, maybe then people will think twice before running their cars into me.

So, the 5 mile race that I entered as practice for my May marathon is this Saturday. Last night I decided to run 3 miles at my expected race pace. I have determined that at that rate I will finish in 2228th place out of 9033. That's using last years race results. That seems very discouraging to me. However, I will just tell myself that it's just practice for the marathon and that I'm just running my marathon pace! Otherwise, I will just focus on finishing the race. This is Wisconsin, so there is beer at the finish line. I'm not joking. What better way to rehydrate yourself after a 5 mile race than a beer?

Other than "race" preparations, I increased my bench by 5 lbs yesterday and my arms measured 1/4" bigger this morning. Hey, here's a question. Well, actually, I realize that I'm talking to myself so I should post this some place where someone will read it, but here goes. In my body stats, I list my arms as 15". The instructions for measuring state that you should use a non-flexed arm to your side and that's what I do. However, I have had other people say they measure their flexed arm. Of course, I would rather use the larger number of my flexed arm!

Other than that, I'm planning a 4 day 300+ mile bicycle camping trip for June. I did the trip a few years ago and picked the hilliest parts of WI, MN, and IA to bike through. Great way to bulk up the legs.

It appears that I have mostly recovered from my bike accident on Monday.  I have some soreness in my neck and elbow, but my headache is gone and my hearing has returned to normal.

I've signed up to run an 8K race next Saturday.  My goal is to complete it in under 45 minutes, which should not be a problem because that is the pace I keep on my treadmill.  I figure the race should be a good test for me to see if I want to compete in the Madison Marathon next month.

Other than that, not much going on, still lifting.  I will skip my leg workout next week though so I should have fresh legs for the race next Saturday.

Last night, after work, I was riding my bike back to my car parked 3 miles away.  I was flying along at about 20 MPH and suddenly another biker came out behind a parked semi trailer.  I t-boned him and we both went flying off our bikes.  I landed on my back and head and I think he landed on his side with the bike on top of himself.  Two guys witnessed the collision and one of them told me to stay laying down because he saw me hit my head hard.  I told him it was ****ght  because I was wearing a helmet.  I stood up to take inventory of the situation and found that my helmet had cracked.  It took me about 10 minutes to get my bike in working condition and we both rode off.  The coincidental thing was that I was leaving work to go to the chiropractor.  The chiropractor was able to fix my back and my neck but couldn't do anything for the horrible headache that I had.  Last night I started losing my hearing and I felt really tired, so I crashed on the couch at 7:30 and woke up this morning at 6:45.  I was supposed to do legs this morning, but my head hurts and my hearing isn't working well - my ears are ringing really loudly so I can't hear.  Oh, and I feel like I am completely stoned, that's the only side effect of a concussion I like.  ****ght, this is all I'm going to write because of my brAIN dAMaGE.

After 2 1/2 weeks, my ankle was finally feeling better.  I had a chance to run on a high end treadmill and decided the source of my ankle and knee injuries might be from my piece of crap treadmill.  The thing sounded like it would die any day, so I took the plunge and got a great deal on the nicest treadmill that I have ever run on before.  I spent the last several days running just two miles at a 6.2 MPH pace and have had no problems so this morning I bumped it up to 6.5 MPH and ran 3 miles.  I need to get back on track to run the Madison Marathon at the end of May.

Other than that, not much new.  I'm enjoying the rack and it has saved my life a couple of times now.  I really like being able to push out another rep without having to worry about having the weights suffocating me!  Today was my day off, so no lifting, just running and biking.  I parked further away from work this morning than normal and biked the last leg.  Now that the weather is warmer, I can easily bike the normal 2 miles each way.  In the winter I always risked losing a finger or toe from frostbite.  What a horrible winter we had, I only missed one day of biking in the last year.

****ght, this blog is boring.  I posted a new picture, but my shoulders are too far forward, so I'll try to get a new one taken where I don't look like a moron.

If you have read my profile, I mention that I love numbers. Well, I was just looking through my lifting stats and comparing them to previous months. I’ve been lifting for 9 months now and here is where my numbers stand compared to when I started. I included February’s numbers too as a reference to show that I haven’t platteued.

Curl
7/15/2007 = 102
2/5/2008 = 123 21% improvement
4/3/2008 = 129 26% improvement

Rows
9/29/2007 = 188
2/4/2008 = 207 10% improvement
4/6/2008 = 250 33% improvement

Overhead Press
7/16/2007 = 99
2/4/2008 = 161 63% improvement
3/23/2008 = 167 69% improvement

My bench and overhead presses have been limited in the past due to the fact that I used dumbbells to perform the exercises. Now that I have a rack, I can safely perform these exercises with barbells. I haven’t performed the overhead press since I got the rack, but I’m sure I will be able to do more than 167 lbs.  Now that I have a rack, I can safely perform squats so I will include those numbers in the future.

My weight lifting rack came in last week. Yeah, I know you are disappointed, you thought I was going to talk about boobs or something. So, my rack came in and it is assembled. Yesterday I did pull ups on it and it works great, I hit my head on the ceiling if I'm not careful, but that is a minor problem. Today I got to do bench press with an actual barbell instead of dumbbells. I lifted 20 lbs more than I do with dumbbells and ended up doing 12 reps my first set. So, I obviously need to increase the weight next week. I could have lifted more, but the we had our first weekend of 60 degree weather this year, so I spent 9 hours doing yard work and trimming trees, so my body was shot. My triceps were really sore, so I think it impeded my bench press. Never-the-less, I lifted more this week than last week so I'm happy.

Yikes. I still haven't run since injuring my ankle over two weeks ago. OK. Tonight I will run. I found a new treadmill that I'm going to buy. It's a Horizon model and it matches the elliptical that I have. It's a good, high quality treadmill. I'm going to try running on my old, dying treadmill once first before laying down the money for a new model. I have to make sure my ankle is going to allow me to run again.

Can't get into the massage therapist for 2 1/2 weeks. Ugh. I think I'm going to have to start taking time off from work to try to schedule time. Or perhaps she knows I'm stalking her and she is pretending that she is busy and can't see me!

Just a quick note that things are going really well. My ankle is improving and I think I will be running again this weekend. Maybe just a mile to start with and see how it goes. I got to take a couple of days off this weekend to go to a wine tasting event in Sheboygan, WI. If you look at my pictures, I've included one of Darth Vader choking me. I was really drunk!

So, the smith rack that I ordered was delivered to my house today. Tonight I will try to get it assembled, but I did chest yesterday and legs today, so it will be a while before I get to use it. No matter, it will look really f*cking cool in my basement! I'm very excited to use it and am hoping that I won't get injured as much as a result. I'm sick of doing bench presses with 75 lb dumbells. If you look at my stats, you will see that I can row more than I can bench press - that's not right. My back is stronger than my chest? I don't think so.

Ah. The title of this Blog??? I started taking ZMA last week and I have been sleeping 8 to 9 1/2 hours each night. This is really good stuff -- at least for sleeping. It's also supposed to help boost my testosterone. I think it has because I am masturbating MUCH more than before! j/k

So, massage tomorrow night after work. I'm trying to convince my massage therapist to have my baby. She's hot and can do really good things with her hands, so I'm sure she would make a good mother too. I mean, obviously.