Ok, So I've Been Lazy on Posting

There really hasn't been too awful much going on to write about.  I'll be doing some more Where's Potty? pictures soon, and another Masterpoo Theatre is in the wings.  And a couple weeks off (at least) there's a VERY SPECIAL Masterpoo Theatre coming, which I've been practicing for.

Mostly I've been training for this weekend's 5k at the NYS Fairgrounds.  It's the Komen Race For The Cure, and it'll the first 5k that I've done since the Great Race in the summer of 2010.

I won't get into what happened there, just know that it ended up being a horrible experience, and was one of the worst days I had ever happened before Amy left.  I'm trying not to think about it, as it's causing some anxiety for me for this weekend's race.

Now, let me get out there and say I'm not planning on being truly competitive.  I have a goal.  I want to be under 40 minutes (which is slow, sure, but my Great Race time was muuuuuch higher than that).  If I'm under 40 minutes I'll be extremely happy.  I've done two full-length 5k training runs in the last week or so, finishing one in 37:07 and the other in 37:48.  So I think being under-40 would be an attainable goal.

I do have an ambitious goal for this.  I'd like to be in the 35-36 minute range, ideally.  That's ambitious for me.  I think I could do it, but I'm not going to kill myself to make it happen, or beat myself up when it doesn't.

I have a running plan.  This has worked for me in my training runs extremely well.  I run for 10 minutes, walk for 2, run for 10, walk for 2, run for 10, walk for 1, then run to finish.  It has kept me pretty well energetic through the entire distance, which is important.  I might try to reduce those walks to 1 minute, but again, I will not push it.  I'm going to go completely by feel.  I won't go past 2 minutes, but if I'm not feeling good after 1 minute, I'll walk the full 2.

I also had the chance to play some basketball again last night.  My outside shooting was poor, at best, but I was able to get to my spots on the post and could get pretty much whatever shot I wanted inside.  My rebounding has also improved by being lighter and stronger.  I can get to many more rebounds now than I was before.  I'm also able to extend my defense out farther on the wings, as well, instead of goading guys to drive inside and put up blockable shots.

As far as the Chalean program, I haven't been doing it.  Every time I've tried to start it, the sumo squats burn up my left knee, and it's quite painful.  Once this weekend's race is done, I'm going to schedule the next race and continue the training for that.  In addition to that training, I'm going to cherry-pick some workouts to get back into the weight training.  I just can't do those sumo squats anymore, for whatever reason.

I might make a doctor's appointment, just for the heck of it, to see if there's something going on with that knee, although I'm sure it's just temporary and probably more about my form than anything else.  I'll also have the doc check out that left arm, which still gives me problems from time to time.

Anyway, until next time...