Headed to the gym this morning to make up for skipping yesterday and heading out for breakfast.  I did manage to get in a 3 miler when I got home from work so any  guilt I have for bailing on the gym is gone.

I decided to start doing a food journal.  Mind you I am not trying to loose weight, I’m just trying to be mindful of what I am putting in my body. I recently got an iPhone and in the Apple app store they have a program just for this.  Down side is its $14.99.  I have have only been using it for 3 days now but I it seem really nice.  If you are interested the app is called “Absolute fitness”

I got up early this morning to meet my brother at the gym, but both of us were WAY tired.  We were shoveling gravel in the heat this past weekend so I don’t feel too guilty that we bailed on they gym and went and grabbed a bite to eat and some coffee.  Plus we are going to the gym tomorrow to make up for it.

I am still running tonight.

January 18th is the day.  I will be running in Arizona Rock-N-Roll Marathon and 1/2 Marathon.  Being that today is August 17th I have basically 5 months to get marathon ready.  From the articles, websites, and books that I have read, most say you need to run about 4 days a week.  The remaining 3 days you need to rest and/or do some cross training.  This presents me with a problem. I already go to the gym 3 days a week. If I maintain doing that it would leave no days for rest.  Not sure how I am going to work this but I know there is a solution.  Most likely I will have to just run on gym days also.  In the early weeks when the training runs are short it should be fine.  But when the runs get up to 10 miles plus this could cause problems.

Today I committed to run in the Arizona Rock-n-Roll Marathon on January 18th.  Let the training begin

Was back at the gym this morning and decided to try the hand out a bit and do more of the stronglifts routine.  After adding 20 lbs and doing squats I moved over to Bench.  Starting out with 135 lbs I pressed only 3 before I had to rack it.  The Pain was way too great and I was all I could to to maintain a grip on the bar.  The last physical therapy appointment I had for my hand included a strength test.  Turns out I have lost over 50% in that hand. I moved on to Bent over Rows.  My grip was still an issue but I had far less pain than what I had on the bench.  I completed 5×5 with 115 lbs.  Afterwards I stepped up the jogging to 20min  and bookended it with a 5 min warmup and cooldown.

Since January I had been doing the Stronglifts 5×5 program and I feel was making major progress in my general health and in building strength and muscle.  I was up to 295 for squats, 140 for overhead press, 220 for dead-lifts, 205 for bench, and 165 for bent-over rows.  I say “was” due to I’ve been off the program for over 7 weeks now.  I took a week break from the program to go to Outdoor School with my Kids 5th grade classes and ended up on the night of the last day getting my hand munged up so bad that it required surgury and 4 pins to fix the damage.

After 4 weeks with a cast, it was removed and the pins were taken out.  And with 2 physical therapy appointments so far,  I have almost full movement back in my fingers but with a SERIOUS lack of strength in the hand.  I headed back to the gym last week but for just cardio only.  Today I decided to step back into the weights and at least do squats.  Starting slow I did 5×5 with 135 lbs.  Wednesday I will bump it up a 10 lbs plate on both sides and keep doing that until I am back up to par and then from there shoot for that 300 mark once again.  The rest of the stronglifts program I will start next Monday if my grip strength will allow it.  Wish me luck

Garlic has some obvious cooking benefits and quite a few health benefits but sad to say has one major drawback. The Breath. Diethack posted 5 health benefits of garlic that I suggest reading. Make note of the last point in the post about what type of garlic is needed. Fresh chopped . Bring on the bad breath.

Over at CNN.com they have a section called Fit Nation. There is quite a few interesting articles, but the one thing I would like to pass on is the Fit Nation Checklist. Its a list they came up with of 10 general things you can do to be fit.

1.) Learn your family health history
2.) Make fitness fun
3.) Get at least 30-minutes of exercise daily
4.) Drink water
5.) Be a role model for children
6.) Take the stairs
7.) Be consistent
8.) Do the math
9.) Eat a healthy breakfast
10) Involve the whole family

If you have been reading this site you know that I recently ran in the Arizona Rock-N-Roll Marathon and Half Marathon. That was back in January and to be perfectly honest I have only ran once since then. My motivation is non-existent to say the least. Surfing the net while NOT running I ran across this article with tips to change yourself from a couch potato to a Gym enthusiast. Now I have been hitting the gym doing stronglifts 5×5 so going to the gym is not really the issue but I feel most of the tips still apply to my running issue.

http://blog.liferemix.net/10-tips-change-yourself-dedicated-couch-potato-gym-enthusiast

I was on a long road trip today for work, a total of 7+ hours.  One can get quite board of your typical music radio.  At some point I found a station that was taking about a new (at least to me) supplement called HA or Hyaluronic Acid.  From what I gather, one of its benefits is similar to Glucosamine but better.  If you are not familiar with Glucosamine it is suppose to help with your joints.  Below is a list of its major benefits.

Treatment for both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.

Keep joints lubricated

Hydrates the skin

Helps wounds heal more quickly

Promotes a youthful appearance

At a brief look it seems the price for this particular supplement can range from cheap to expensive.  One place I found is even giving a free 30 sample if you pay for shipping. Please note that I know nothing about HA except from what I heard about it on the radio and from what I have read online tonight so do some research if you are interested in trying it out.