Xmas Food Bomb

After my teenage years, I had always, always gained weight during the Christmas time. Or whatever politically discreet 'Happy Holidays' -term you like to call that two week period. Only once, about ten years ago, my whole family suffered under rather hard vomiting disease, so even I lost about 6 pounds after the Christmas Eve. There were no problem with the food, though.

Well, the last two weeks were not different at all. I like Xmas food for sure, but my severe weakness is related with chocolate with its different variations. You just can't resist the barricade made of chocolate boxes, when entering to the store.

What comes to my never ending fight against the extra calories, I just can't blame myself for not trying. I visited skating track or running route almost every day. Skating feels quite effortless at the moment and also the speed is at the same level on ice that it is with the roller blades. In previous week, I have run mostly outside except today I went to the gym and on the treadmill. My god it was hard today! My minimun is 7 kilometres and I almost halted after the first four kilometres. But I did it again. Oops!

And I thought it would be a piece of Frankfurter...

Knee rises up only for the photo.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to run a bit longer route than I usually do. My original plan was to run roughly 10 miles (16 km). Anyway, there were some minor changes and some mysterious witchcraft on my route. At first, everything went well and I travelled about 6 miles in the first 60 minutes. After that, I had to take some walking steps, because I felt some pain in my foot. Then I went to buy a bottle of beverage and a small jar of protein drink. As always, I drank them both too quickly. My stomach sloshed like crazy when I tried to run again, fortunately it passed after a mile or so.

A long needed energy boost

Amount of the energy of five donuts!

My setbacks weren't done with me yet. As expected, I got lost and found myself behind rapid waters, several kilometers from the nearest bridge. My only choice was to try to run back to my starting point, calling the cab would have been even more humiliating. Finally, feeling totally exhausted, I run into community garden and just couldn't find my way out of there. That reminded me of the village from "The Prisoner" television series. Luckily I got out. 14.5 miles (23,5 km) of running and it took over three hours. Rather easy pace, but I am happy to survive.

Moderate Exercise

On Sunday, I walked nine kilometres in total. First 5k and then home after the gym, in heavy rain, by the way. That's rather odd, because I've always hated walking, even when other people are doing it. Well then, on Sunday I did combination of my 3rd and 4th day's workouts, since I did so much other sports last week that I went to gym only once before the Sunday. Also, I did 30 minutes running on treadmill.

Walking home in the rain

Explanations, explanations. That reminds me of my brother-in-spirit, Southern Finland's silver-tongue cherub, Mr. Pete. Pete left Rautahumppa blog's Finnish representation on not-yet-so-wide shoulders of mine. At the moment, Pete does weight lifting in the high place camp and we all are waiting to see his large muscles after his trip.

Today it would been the Boot Camp day, but I just hadn't the energy for it. That's because I did 21k on the rollerblades in the morning. So I did my typical back-triceps routine and some abs after that. I did also some chin-ups with 10 kg extra weight. I managed to do 4 x 5. So, by doing simple math, if I manage to do 4 x 8 without weights, I could manage 4 x 11, if I lose 10 kg. Maybe too simple math? Well, tomorrow, if the weather is alright, I'll go rollerblading again.

Running Man

The days are passing by faster and faster as we go towards the summer. Last night I woke up and felt serious pain below my right side ribs. Perhaps too much training, I figure. This Monday I did my normal back & triceps, but since the pain I felt this morning, I decided to do just running today. Pete was already in the gym pumping his humongous leg muscles. At first, I ran 15 minutes (little over 2k) and went to tell my opinions about training and life itself to Pete. Surprisingly, Pete decided that his training was finished and I went to the treadmill again. I put 40 minutes as my goal and everything went quite ok. Even though I really like hard weight training, I must say that after running I feel so much better (or so worse that it feels good) and also it feels that my lungs and heart have done some extra work. Today's total run 8.7k (55 minutes).

Pete as a front unit of human
wheelbarrow

By the way, during my "Easy Week", I went to the gym six times, here is my summary:

Monday: back & triceps + 20 minutes run
Tuesday: 46 minutes run
Wednesday: legs, stomach & shoulders + 10 minutes run
Thursday: chest & biceps + 30 minutes run (5k)
Saturday: 10 minutes cross trainer + some dumbbell exercises + 40 minutes (6.5k) run
Sunday: some minor weight training & 20 + 20 minutes run