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Since I last wrote, I've been doing a bit more of the P90X inspired workouts. I had been hesitant to start full bore into it, primarily due to my persistent knee issues, but also due to the fact that from the reviews I'm reading, I just might not quite be ready for it just yet.

And I recall with painful clarity what would likely happen if I start out with something too much too fast. Every time I take a step.

So I've been kind of noodling around, doing smaller version of the workouts, making sure I don't take off more than I can chew. Where the exercises use only bodyweight, I've been probably doing about a fourth or less of what I'm probably capable of, and very gradually working my way up. Where weights are called for, I've been taking it very light. I've also been avoiding the Plyometrics, the Cardio-X, the Yoga-X, and the Kenpo-X - all to avoid further damaging my knees.

But then I read something that made me change my mind a bit - at least with the Plyometrics, I've read that there are versions presented that have lower impact for those with bad knees.

So it sounds like I have less of an excuse to continue completely avoiding them.

I've done the shoulders and arms workout, basically doing various shoulder presses, biceps curls, and triceps work - but only one complete circuit (including the bonus round!). I've also done the Abs routine, and am slowly adding to the reps I do of each exercise. And I've done the Chest and Back routine again, but again with a very limited number of reps, and only one circuit.

I'll probably continue this approach, and try the other workouts I've been avoiding, and then probably launch into the grueling 6 day a week schedule.

It seems my hundred pushups plan as well as the couple of pyramids I did over the last few months at least has me to the point where I'm not sore after these workouts.

And the physical therapy that I've been doing seems to have adequately prepared my core muscles for the "Ab Ripper X" routine. At least the abbreviated version I'm doing.

I go back to physical therapy Monday so they can check in on the progress of the healing of my knees. They're slowly getting better - I can usually walk without limping, and I seem to be able to get up and down the stairs pretty well. But there's a few movements that seem to still jack up the pain so I'm nearly gasping with the suddenness and sharpness of the pain.

Pretty soon I'm really going to have to stop procrastinating and take some measurements so that I have more than just general "get rid of the fat" goals I can shoot for.

So it seems I'm going to wait a while before I can start running again. At least, I hope it's only a while, and not forever.

I think my biggest problem was being on pain medication for my back while I started becoming a bit of a runner. Naproxen sodium masked the pain of my back, and most likely my knees. And then the prescription ran out, and I didn't feel like being on pain medication anymore, so I stopped taking them. And then the knee pain starts. But instead of being just gradual, it hits me like a ton of bricks. And the knee "damage" probably just started because like with most things exercise related, I did too much too fast.

C'est la vie.

My physical therapist seems to be helping me work through the recovery, but it still seems slow.

But that certainly leaves my upper body free for abuse.

So I started doing a little something inspired by P90X, and a fairly decent follow on to my recent spate of push ups and chin ups. I can't really launch into the full P90X program due to my knee issues. For now.

It's been a few weeks (already?!) since I even did my pyramids, so I took it a little easy and did a few each of standard push ups, military push ups (narrower hand position with elbows tucked in next to the body), wide push ups, decline push ups, diamond push ups, and dive bomber push ups. Everything but the standard was a nice challenge, because I had never done them - and honestly I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do them, because I knew that a few of them were tougher than the standard. Yet another reason why I didn't do very many.

I also did a few each of wide grip, overhand pull ups, regular chin ups, and close grip overhand pull ups. Again a fun challenge - I had never done the overhand variety, and thought they'd be substantially harder and possibly out of my reach. But they weren't :)

I also did a few latissimus dorsi, rhomboid, and rear deltoid lifts with light dumbbells.

I'll probably be a little sore from this for the next few days. But maybe not too bad.

As far as my knees, I'll be taking it really easy, alternating compression (from cho-pat straps) and icing, and some easy stretching and very light leg extensions and leg curls.

So I ran again last night, hoping that my physical therapist was right - that I ought to be able to continue my run/walk routine without doing anything Bad to my knees.

But sadly, it seems that is not the case.

Or perhaps I'll feel better tomorrow or the day after.

Regardless, I'm having a lot of trouble walking around today, especially descending stairs.

Not good.

At any rate, I had been having fun charting new routes for running.

Here's where I ran last night:

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It's about 2.56 miles according to Google maps, but my Timex GPS says 2.698 miles. Of course, my Timex GPS suggested that I was running at 11 mph, too. So I'm still not sure how much faith to put in its measurements.

I was concentrating on widening my gait/stride/stance/whatever. So I was also jogging a little slower. All of which seemed to really fire up my tibialis anterior muscles. The ones near the front, but to the outside, of my shins. Which is fine - normally at physical therapists, if I get a really good fast pace going on the treadmill, I feel some lactic acid buildup in those. Fine, I'm probably just hitting some muscles I don't hit that often.

I got home and stretched, and then iced my knees. You know, as a preventative measure.

But then I woke up today, and I'm just having a lot of trouble moving around.

So I think I'll hold off on additional running for a little while. Because I need to be able to walk.

:(

I'm taking a break.

Yesterday I was fairly sore. A little too sore. More sore than I thought was reasonable.

In fact, I had to do a light jog to cross the road on the way to work this morning and my knees kind of hurt. So I started googling.

I thought maybe I had patellar tendonitis based on the pictures and descriptions there - the inside of my legs below my knees was hurting. Right on the big knobby part of my tibias. The tibial tuberosity? Something like that.

Maybe, maybe not.

So I made sure I talked to my physical therapist about it, and he determined that perhaps I was doing the whole running thing a little wrong. Like, here I've been running along on sidewalks and park paths, when in fact my feet are so in line that I could've been running on a balance beam or a tightrope without any changes to my gait. Which probably isn't a good thing. Which was most likely irritating my knees.

I had to run a bit for him, both the bad way as well as the 'right' way, and it felt OK to be running, but later in the evening I was still feeling pretty stiff.

So I figured I'd just play it safe and hold off for the night.

Tomorrow's another day.

Not much to report.

My physical therapy for Thursday was cancelled due to the therapist not feeling well.

I ran again Friday. Was pretty tired of just running circles around the park, so I mapped out a route of about 2 miles (which is the distance I should've run if I had done 10 sets of 60 seconds jogging, 90 seconds running and maintained approximately the same speeds of 6.8mph jogging, 3.5mph walking).

As it turns out, I messed up setting the intervals on my watch (BTW, it's the Timex Ironman FLIX (similar to this one) that I think my niece Ann Frances and/or Ruth bought for me a few years back for either Christmas or my Birthday). So my watch only counted out 5 sets. I got confused after my fifth set because the watch wasn't counting down any more. So I had to wing it the rest of the way (since I didn't re-start the timer/counter immediately and had no idea how long I had been walking). I maybe didn't jog the full 60 seconds for some of the later sets, but I got to about the 2 mile mark at about the appropriate time.

I also suffered from a side stitch on some of the earlier sets.

Though as a punishment to myself for the screw-up, I ran another half length of the park and walked the other half length before I slowed down for the cool-down walk home. So the total was about 2.04 miles, instead of my goal of 2.01 miles.

I'm still debating whether or not to repeat this one (maybe with 11 sets instead of 10) or just to move ahead to the next weeks plan. I'm leaning towards moving on since it's not easy to program 22 intervals (11 sets of 2) on my watch. But I guess I'll figure that out before this evening.

The route, including my usual warmup and cooldown:

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I'm a little upset with myself regarding getting out on my bike.

I didn't get a good nights rest Friday night, and Saturday morning I scheduled poorly and got all messed up with errands and such - by the time I should have been getting out the door, I wasn't feeling 100% and I was practically falling asleep. So I skipped out on Saturday. Sunday, I missed out again. I slept late (making up for the night before), and so would've gotten out late, and subsequently would've been gone too long. I also wasn't confident of my ability to ride 40-50 miles on my bike in the morning and still be able to run a few miles in the evening. And honestly, I just don't see enough of my sweet little son throughout the week to justify being gone while he's not napping.

I'l probably setup my stationary trainer downstairs and spin through a few TV shows over the next few days.

I didn't do a single solitary thing yesterday. Walking was enough.

My quadriceps and gluteals were so sore from those crazy walking lunges that I had trouble just moving around. Yesterday. Today I just felt a little stiff. I was also (a little surprisingly) sore from my last pyramid set. All considered, resting on Tuesday was probably wise.

Physical therapy today was fine - my regular sadist was out, so today I just had a physical therapist who I guess had pity on me and basically had me do a lot of stretching, and showing me a few new core exercises.

Which left me plenty of energy for running this evening!

I did the 9 intervals of 60 seconds jogging and 90 seconds brisk walking, and I kept careful count of how many times I got around the park - a little over 5. So after mapping it out, I see I travelled about 1.81 miles. In 22.5 minutes. Which is an average of 4.8 mph. Roughly.

Same boring route:

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Assuming all my jogging and walking speeds were constant with each other, and assuming I was walking about 3.5 mph, 9 sets of intervals made up 1.81 miles. Each set made up about .201 miles, or 1061 feet. Walking at 3.5mph for 90 seconds should be about 460 feet, which means I ought to have covered about 600 feet in a minute. Which is about 6.8mph.

So now I know about what speed I'm jogging. With a lot of assumptions thrown in there.

Continuing on this line of thought, at that pace I might be able to run a 5k (which is about 3.1 miles) in about 27 minutes.

August 21:

Went back to the physical therapist today, they beat up my shoulders and transverse abdominals again. But that's OK - I obviously need the work. Since, you know, they diagnosed that I needed it - what with their poking, pulling, yanking, and torturing. Hopefully my sore shoulders don't interfere too much with my...

Push ups: exhaustion test... I did 40. And a half. But no halvsies. So 40. Which means I don't get to stay in column 3 for the next week - I'm in column two. I think I'll shoot for going through week 5, column 2, and then doing another exhaustion test to make sure I can get into column 3, and then go from there. I'm almost glad I petered out after 40 - had I done that last one where my triceps gave out, I'd have to start with 40 for my first set. Uh, hello? I could just barely do 40! Then I'm supposed to rest a measly 60 seconds and turn around and do another 32? I don't think so.

For chin ups, I'm going straight into week 1, column 3, since it's the target number is the same number as the last time around - just a different amount of rest between sets. So long as by "different", I mean less. Like, half. So without further adieu...

Chin ups: 10 then 10 then 8 then 6 then maxed out at 4. I think. I know I counted to 5 on the last set, but once again I don't remember if that was the last full chin up, or the last one I was attempting (and of course, subsequently failed to achieve). I'm still on the shorter door. At least I am fully aware of and fully admit to my cheating. I'll repeat this day to have it back in sync with push ups.

I'm also strongly considering resting 3 days. For one, I'm not sure when on Saturday I'll find a little time for my workout - we've got a day commitment out in the far west/northwest suburbs, and then we're having a babysitter over to let us have a night out - which we haven't been able to do since a month or so ago, which was the night we misjudged Matthew's antigrump capacity and had to run out of a restaurant with our food in to go boxes and a screaming infant in tow.