Bearlee is ...

[Bearlee]

On 3/24/2018 at 8:34 AM, Sloth the Enduring said:

Nice one Papa Bear.

The trailer for the movie looked good. I guess I wouldn’t expect much of a story out of it anyway.

 

Thank you.

You shouldn’t be disappointed then. Just know John Boyega is no Indris Elba.

 

On 3/24/2018 at 8:43 AM, WhiteGhost said:

Woohoo! Congrats!!!

 

Thank you. Now to work on lowering time.

 

On 3/24/2018 at 7:43 PM, The Most Loathed said:

Congrats on your first mile!

I had no idea that the new PR was in theaters already

 

 

Thank you.

It’s been a strange Spring. I don’t remember so many big movies coming out around this time of year. Black Panther was the biggest surprise in it’s time slot. And this week has Ready Player One. You better get your butt hustling to the movie theaters.

[Bearlee]

So I don’t know what happened after my run on Saturday but ever since then I’ve been in a funk. Saturday I ended up with 5.6k steps and that’s after doing over 4k during my run in the morning. Sunday I got a measly 2k and I barely squeaked that out at the last minute. Monday finally got back up to 10k but with some effort. Tuesday I was glad to get in 5k. So now I’m trying to figure out what the down turn in attitude is. Lack of sleep (Sunday I didn’t want to get out of bed and slept in), weather (glummy and rainy all week), hit a goal and feel satisfied, or did I catch a case of the Sloths? Probably a combination of all the above. Just know I want to pull myself out of this funk.

 

Bearlee is ... a Yogi!

Despite the funk I’ve been in I’ve at least kept up with my yoga. Monday did Fat Burner and RHC back to back. Wednesday I did Below the Belt and RHC back to back. One final workout to complete my thirteen week program. Thought it was going to be a throw away workout because I read it as Diamond Dozen which is the intro video and not really a workout, but upon closer inspection I see it’s the Diamond Cutter 2.0 a more ramped up workout from what I’ve been doing. So will be interesting to see how that goes Thursday.

 

Bearlee is ... a Reader!

So after I finished The Three Body Problem I thought I would focus on finishing up some of my backlog of magazines I’ve been collecting.  But no, I’ve picked up three new books from the library. Two are books I saw in the store and instead of buying them I figured I check them out from the library to see what they are about. The third is a book that Kevin Smith (the director/Silent Bob) mentioned he is reading after his heart attack called Presto by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) talking about his weight loss journey. So far I’m blowing through Presto because most of it is just BS ramblings and really has nothing to do with the topic he’s suppose to be talking about, but that’s what Penn does.

 

Bearlee is ... a Runner?!

Missed my running session on Tuesday. Don’t think I’ll do it Wednesday since I’ve already done an hour of yoga. I’ll try to get back on track Thursday. Or should I say do or do not, there is no try.

[The Most Loathed]

2 hours ago, Bearlee said:

So I don’t know what happened after my run on Saturday but ever since then I’ve been in a funk.

These are so frustrating. I don't know a secret to get out of them but know that we all feel you. Looking at the rest of your log, it seems like you're doing a good job persevering regardless and I think that's all you can do.

 

2 hours ago, Bearlee said:

Presto by Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) talking about his weight loss journey.

I saw a very short snippet of an interview and he was saying that his "secret" was to eat only potatoes. He would eat one only when he was really truly hungry which meant a lot of skipped meals and thus low calories. He talked about resting rather than exercising. That was about all that was in the snippet I saw. I'll be curious to know if you got more. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

I like how you named your funk after me. Good job embracing the grind and getting the work done anyway. (I’m not very good at that.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bearlee]

So you both will be using it to prepare for the fall race?
You guys heard that right [mention=3909]Sloth the Enduring[/mention], [mention=4954]Rooks[/mention], [mention=29538]EricMN[/mention]?

Finally got around to taking this picture. I would love to do this race. I might need a miracle and some help to do it. And there is no way I could do it now. However I have 28 weeks to train and I’m going to train like I’m going to do this race. Let’s see what I can do in half a year.

Now that being said any training suggestions?

[Bearlee]

Alright. So last week was the worst week I’ve had in a long time. I averaged about 3-4 hours of sleep each day last week due to either Cub1 being home from sickness or holiday, or me being a dumb-ass. Thursday I probably could have gotten some sleep but I couldn’t fall asleep so I decided to go watch Ready Player One in theaters. And to continue the bad decision making on Thursday, after the movie I went and bought a video game that I know I will probably never finish called Ni No Kuni II (the first game was one of my favorite video games of all time, this one pales considerably to the first). So with lack of sleep comes the inevitable bad food decisions also. Sugar and fat galore. And I’ve been paying for it all week. This is the first time I’m feeling the effects of my gallbladder surgery because my bowels have not been happy this past week. So that is bad news good news in that if this is the first time I’ve felt like this since the surgery I must have been eating right before and just need to get back to that.

 

Bearlee is ... a Yogi!

So I finished my 13 week course, but I finished it on a whimper. Did every session except for the very last one on Friday which was suppose to be the Diamond Cutter 2.0 which I put on but didn’t do. So I’ve been sulking about that all weekend.

 

Sunday I started my next phase the 13 week Intermediate 2.0 (there is no Intermediate 1.0 so bumped it up to the next one). So far it doesn’t look too bad. The first month is actually all the workouts that I’m comfortable with like Energy, Fat Burner, and Below the Belt 2.0. The main difference seems to be that about midway through the course it changes from 3 days per week to 4 days per week and Red Hot Core is added a little earlier than the Beginner course.

 

Monday was my first session and it was only the Diamond Dozen which is just the intro session, so I decided to finally do the Diamond Cutter 2.0 that I missed last Friday. Turned out to be a 56 minute session with a few new moves I’ve never done before and when I got down to the last 20 minutes or so I was sucking fumes. I didn’t do great (or even good) but I’m glad I got it in so I can get that off my conscience.

 

Bearlee is ... a Walker!

Nope. Not last week. I had two days where I got up to 5-6k but the rest of the week I was more around the 2k area. And Monday at the moment doesn’t look much better since Cub1 is home for holiday still. Actually the whole week doesn’t look good since I’m going to be going to a day time schedule for three days this week to go to school for work. The trade off though is that I should get some good sleep Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday since I got to get the Cubs to bed by 9PM and I’ll wake up around 6AM to get myself and Cub1 ready for school.

 

Bearlee is ... a Runner?!

Really nope on this one. Not a single run attempted last week and probably not this week either.

 

I did get to meet Sloth and his family this week as they ran through KC on their way to Texas. It was great seeing him and good motivation at the right time to knock me back on track. There will still be struggles this week but I’m confident I’ll get back on track soon. The food I can do immediately and work on the others. Wake up early Wednesday and get yoga done before school and will be back at work Friday to get that session in. Then I will just need to get working on the walking/running aspects. And my step count will have to be up this week due to the fact that I’ll be walking around to get to my class and walking to lunch, so may not get 10k in but will definitely get more than 2k in.

[The Most Loathed]

15 hours ago, Bearlee said:

 

Finally got around to taking this picture. I would love to do this race. I might need a miracle and some help to do it. And there is no way I could do it now. However I have 28 weeks to train and I’m going to train like I’m going to do this race. Let’s see what I can do in half a year.

Now that being said any training suggestions?

 

I actually LOLed at this. I love this picture and wish I were as photogenic. I hope you make good on this. @Sloth the Enduring has been trying to get a NF team to happen for a while now. 

 

If I were going at this from scratch I would say train up to and complete a 10K first using a couch to  5k type program. This is a 10K but it's a trail 10K. That means that if you have done 6 miles before, you can do it again but the ground will be more uneven and there will be more hills. If this is the first time you do the distance, you will be miserable.

I was psyched out by the hammer aspect the first time. The hammer was nothing. The hills and the winding miles through the campground were my obstacles. 

Once you can do the10K it's most a matter of committing to it. Most people complete the race in about twice their usual 10K time so you can't worry about being fast.  At least for me, It is an exercise in one foot in front of the other, whatever that means for you. That means finding and easy pace and just keeping it. I can't give in to the desire to slow down or I'll stop. Other people do fine with the walk/run combo. Just whatever it takes for you to be successful.

[WhiteGhost]

19 hours ago, Bearlee said:

Finally got around to taking this picture.

Great picture!  You are looking mighty ferocious there  

[Emma]

Impressive and Intimidating beard there.

[Bearlee]

Slacking again. Change of schedule for the past week. Was sent to school for three days and really messed up my routine. Not much got done. I did get my yoga in for the week. Woke up early Wednesday before school (5AM) and early before picking up Cub1 from school (1:30PM). Didn’t get much walking in, but when there was a break in class I walked around campus. Was thinking about waking up early Saturday to go for a walk but it’s dang cold out. Looking forward to getting back to my normal schedule this week.

[Sloth the Enduring]

On 4/2/2018 at 3:34 AM, Bearlee said:

 

Finally got around to taking this picture. I would love to do this race. I might need a miracle and some help to do it. And there is no way I could do it now. However I have 28 weeks to train and I’m going to train like I’m going to do this race. Let’s see what I can do in half a year.

Now that being said any training suggestions?

 

 

Oh ho!  You did post a pic.  It’s great.  I can’t convey how much I love the beard on you. 

 

Oh crap, I’m being called away. I’ll finish posting tomorrow.

[Bearlee]

New week! Officially 26 weeks to goal of being able to do a hammer race. Slothed away the first two weeks of when the idea popped into my head. But half a year instead of half a year and two weeks sounds better. Got a book from library called Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman which advocates a mostly vegetable eating style. This is part of the program that Penn Jillette used in his book Presto. Nutrition is one of the main things I need to work on.

[Shello]

On 4/2/2018 at 3:34 AM, Bearlee said:

 

Finally got around to taking this picture. I would love to do this race. I might need a miracle and some help to do it. And there is no way I could do it now. However I have 28 weeks to train and I’m going to train like I’m going to do this race. Let’s see what I can do in half a year.

Now that being said any training suggestions?

 

Love this!  

[Sloth the Enduring]

Alright, were did I leave off...

 

Hammer race training: I'm excited to have another competitor.  It's a bunch of fun.

 

The race has changed course a few times, but it has always started with about a half mille run with a hill.  You'll need to have enough running practice to be able to pace yourself through that without gassing out.  If you gas out at the start of a race it's really hard to recover and the whole race sucks after that.  The rest of the race is more of a hiking challenge.  If you can do a rugged 2 hour hike you can do the race.  I'm not sure how to speciifcally train for that without actually hiking, but I'd have down some tire pulling if my I wasn't being a dumbass all winter.  Heavy rucking might work too.

 

There are a bunch of wall climbs.  You could practice climbing fences if you want specificity, otherwise general strength will get you through that.  There are also some heavy carries - not heavy if you're strong like @Rooks - I'm guessing you're fairly strong too, but doing farmer carries or being budget and loading up a 5 gal. bucket with wet sand or gravel would train that.  There are also one or two drags/ pulls.  People seem to have had trouble with that.  It combines strength and cardio in an ugly way.

 

The hammering isn't a big deal at all, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a big tire and practice smacking it.

 

Do you visit @EricMN's thread?  He's the master OCR trainer and he'd have some good ideas for you.

 

Bad sleep -> bad food for me too.  

 

Nice job with the yoga.  some of the more advanced workouts are pretty tough.

 

It was good seeing you too.  I was seriously sleep deprived.  I hope I didn't sound too insane.

[Shello]

48 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

 You'll need to have enough running practice to be able to pace yourself through that without gassing out.  If you gas out at the start of a race it's really hard to recover and the whole race sucks after that.  

Can confirm. Definitely sucks.

[Rooks]

13 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Heavy rucking might work too.

 

I did 80% of my training for last fall's race with a 50lb Weighted Vest and I was surprised how well I kept up with you gents in the latter half of the race. Not sure if you were just being nice or if it actually worked. 

 

13 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

not heavy if you're strong like @Rooks -

 

While I appreciate the compliment, and I will admit that I am stronger than a large percentage of the populace, @The Most Loathed is stronger than I am. He'd be a better choice.

 

The other important part to remember is that you can skip obstacles if you aren't going for the title. There's no shame in that. Get a cardio base like Sloth said, be able to swing a hammer a few times, jog a 5k on flat ground without too much trouble, hike trails for 2-3 hours even with breaks, and then go have fun with the Hammer Race (or really any of the low key OCRs). The biggest strength related activity would probably be the tires flips and if you can deadlift 100lbs, you are probably good there. If you can find a tire to practice on that'd be good as it is a bit awkward the first time you try it.

[The Most Loathed]

1 hour ago, Rooks said:

The biggest strength related activity would probably be the tires flips and if you can deadlift 100lbs, you are probably good there. If you can find a tire to practice on that'd be good as it is a bit awkward the first time you try it.

I forgot about the tire flips. There is a skill to this. It's not quite a clean from a deficit but it's really close. If you can find a bootcamp to sign up for that includes "functional fitness" and specfically tire flipping, it can only help. I've seen some people struggle with the tire not because the can't but just because they don't know how. 

[Bearlee]

On 4/9/2018 at 8:50 AM, LadyShello said:

Love this!  

 

Thank you. Took Cub1 several tries to get a good picture. Felt odd holding a big hammer in my local park, but I didn’t get arrested so was worth it.

 

On 4/9/2018 at 6:44 PM, Sloth the Enduring said:

Alright, were did I leave off...

 

Hammer race training: I'm excited to have another competitor.  It's a bunch of fun.

 

The race has changed course a few times, but it has always started with about a half mille run with a hill.  You'll need to have enough running practice to be able to pace yourself through that without gassing out.  If you gas out at the start of a race it's really hard to recover and the whole race sucks after that.  The rest of the race is more of a hiking challenge.  If you can do a rugged 2 hour hike you can do the race.  I'm not sure how to speciifcally train for that without actually hiking, but I'd have down some tire pulling if my I wasn't being a dumbass all winter.  Heavy rucking might work too.

 

There are a bunch of wall climbs.  You could practice climbing fences if you want specificity, otherwise general strength will get you through that.  There are also some heavy carries - not heavy if you're strong like @Rooks - I'm guessing you're fairly strong too, but doing farmer carries or being budget and loading up a 5 gal. bucket with wet sand or gravel would train that.  There are also one or two drags/ pulls.  People seem to have had trouble with that.  It combines strength and cardio in an ugly way.

 

The hammering isn't a big deal at all, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a big tire and practice smacking it.

 

Do you visit @EricMN's thread?  He's the master OCR trainer and he'd have some good ideas for you.

 

Bad sleep -> bad food for me too.  

 

Nice job with the yoga.  some of the more advanced workouts are pretty tough.

 

It was good seeing you too.  I was seriously sleep deprived.  I hope I didn't sound too insane.

 

Thanks for the advice. So people do this for fun? Looks like I have my work cut out for me. I have visited ErciMN’s thread a few times but seems to be more race updates than training tips that I can steal from him. Plus he’s in the advanced category, I need more of a training for dummies intro.

 

You did seem a bit more talkative. And no talking of Zubaz or Hammer pants, so not too insane.

 

On 4/9/2018 at 7:32 PM, LadyShello said:

Can confirm. Definitely sucks.

 

Hmmm, now where to find hills in Kansas. Any other advice you’d like to throw in I’d appreciate since I’m trying to work up to your level.

 

16 hours ago, Rooks said:

 

I did 80% of my training for last fall's race with a 50lb Weighted Vest and I was surprised how well I kept up with you gents in the latter half of the race. Not sure if you were just being nice or if it actually worked. 

 

 

While I appreciate the compliment, and I will admit that I am stronger than a large percentage of the populace, @The Most Loathed is stronger than I am. He'd be a better choice.

 

The other important part to remember is that you can skip obstacles if you aren't going for the title. There's no shame in that. Get a cardio base like Sloth said, be able to swing a hammer a few times, jog a 5k on flat ground without too much trouble, hike trails for 2-3 hours even with breaks, and then go have fun with the Hammer Race (or really any of the low key OCRs). The biggest strength related activity would probably be the tires flips and if you can deadlift 100lbs, you are probably good there. If you can find a tire to practice on that'd be good as it is a bit awkward the first time you try it.

 

Does being really overweight count as a weighted vest? That is a good idea though. Might look less conspicuous than dragging a tire behind me. And thanks for the range of where I need to be at for cardio, gives me something to train for.

 

15 hours ago, The Most Loathed said:

I forgot about the tire flips. There is a skill to this. It's not quite a clean from a deficit but it's really close. If you can find a bootcamp to sign up for that includes "functional fitness" and specfically tire flipping, it can only help. I've seen some people struggle with the tire not because the can't but just because they don't know how. 

 

A boot camp might be something to consider down the road. I’ll have to look up functional fitness locally to see what comes up. Perhaps @LadyShello would be nice enough for me to try her tire, though I don’t know if she has a large one or not. But I also come from generations of farmers (and Vikings) so it’s got to be in my blood somewhere.

[Bearlee]

So training so far is going okay. Focusing a lot on nutrition for this week (and weeks to come) and I’m thinking about trying vegetarianism for a month or so to see how things work out. So far I’m three days in and my bowels are really appreciating the change in diet over sugar and grease. Reading Eat to Live and Presto and some of the diet advice makes sense but some doesn’t. If nothing else this will help me to get more vegetables into my diet which have been sorely lacking.

 

Bearlee is ... a Yogi!

First session of the week done on Monday. Fairly easy week this week with only Energy and Fat Burner.

 

Bearlee is ... a Runner!?

Did my first run in almost two weeks. Took a couple of sets off my walk/run and really just did an easy run. 19 min mile pace for .77 miles. I have time to bring it back down but just really wanted to get back into the routine.

[Rooks]

8 hours ago, Bearlee said:

Does being really overweight count as a weighted vest? That is a good idea though. Might look less conspicuous than dragging a tire behind me. And thanks for the range of where I need to be at for cardio, gives me something to train for.

 

You'd be surprised. I live in what some would consider a rather sketchy part of Minneapolis, and my wife is all but convinced I'm going to get shot some day, as my weighted vest sort of looks like a bulletproof vest. See below. She's not wrong, so I tend to not use it locally, but took it out to some trails near where my work used to be. If I ever decided to run down the local trails with that thing and my hammer, I'd be surprised if police weren't called.

 

That said, there's others that are colored differently or look more natural. I just wanted a really heavy one, so it had to be a big one.

 

[Shello]

9 hours ago, Bearlee said:

 

Thank you. Took Cub1 several tries to get a good picture. Felt odd holding a big hammer in my local park, but I didn’t get arrested so was worth it.

 

 

Thanks for the advice. So people do this for fun? Looks like I have my work cut out for me. I have visited ErciMN’s thread a few times but seems to be more race updates than training tips that I can steal from him. Plus he’s in the advanced category, I need more of a training for dummies intro.

 

You did seem a bit more talkative. And no talking of Zubaz or Hammer pants, so not too insane.

 

 

Hmmm, now where to find hills in Kansas. Any other advice you’d like to throw in I’d appreciate since I’m trying to work up to your level.

 

 

Does being really overweight count as a weighted vest? That is a good idea though. Might look less conspicuous than dragging a tire behind me. And thanks for the range of where I need to be at for cardio, gives me something to train for.

 

 

A boot camp might be something to consider down the road. I’ll have to look up functional fitness locally to see what comes up. Perhaps @LadyShello would be nice enough for me to try her tire, though I don’t know if she has a large one or not. But I also come from generations of farmers (and Vikings) so it’s got to be in my blood somewhere.

I was thinking about this the other day because I absolutely do not feel I could be ready for this fall's race.  But it was the hills (and the mud) that killed me last fall so I would train by hiking more hills... and not just hiking on trails, hiking in the wild seems the most appropriate. 

 

I do have a couple tires but they are small car tires and more for pulling, carrying, or smashing.  they are not big enough for flipping but you are welcome to one of them.  I live near a high school and they had a tire near the football field that I could train on and then my gym had one outside I could use.  My new local gym actually has tire flipping machine.  It's got half of a tire attached to the base and you can set the weight resistance on it to mimic tire flipping.  I haven't tried it.  I'd rather flip a real tire. 

[The Most Loathed]

1 hour ago, LadyShello said:

It's got half of a tire attached to the base and you can set the weight resistance on it to mimic tire flipping.  I haven't tried it.  I'd rather flip a real tire. 

The world is so strange

[Shello]

8 minutes ago, The Most Loathed said:

The world is so strange

My gym also has a 'deadlift machine'.  Barbell DLs are not allowed.  I haven't used that either... 

[Rooks]

15 minutes ago, LadyShello said:

My gym also has a 'deadlift machine'.  Barbell DLs are not allowed.  I haven't used that either... 

 

[The Most Loathed]

47 minutes ago, LadyShello said:

My gym also has a 'deadlift machine'.  Barbell DLs are not allowed.  I haven't used that either...