Weekly Schedule & An Upcoming Savage Ride

Another late post! Sorry for the delay in getting this out, but it looks like everyone figured I would be in class as we had a great turn out at both LA Fitness & the Rivers Club today. The schedule for the week is below, and I am stocked to finally have the opportunity to get  my bike out on the road. @BRob72 & I will be heading down to Deep Creek Lake on Friday morning (after my LA Fitness Spin Class) to tackle the Savage Man Triathlon Bike Course. I've only done this ride once before and it is nothing but a brutal, punch you in the junk, kick in your face serious of climbs. 










I can still remember the last time on this route, saying to a friend about 10 miles in, "I've got to be honest, I don't think this is that savage." If only I had looked at the profile before hand I probably would have kept my mouth shut. Anyway, I just realized I'm starting to ramble so....


The Moral of the Story is...
Pull up your big boy pants, take a vacation day, and come ride this beast with us! Shoot me an email if you're interested!

RoadID
Happy Father's Day to me! Kelly & Jax decided a RoadID would be a good gift & I agreed. If you do any running or biking alone, without your phone or ID, this is a great way to let people know who you are in the event of an emergency. Order one in the next few weeks with this code and you'll get $1.00 off! Code: ThanksKen28409787


Weekly Schedule (6/23 - 6/29)

Monday 5:45am @ LA Fitness -  Standard Class w/ Ken

Monday @ Rivers Club - Standard Class w/ Ken
Tuesday @ LA Fitness - Interval Class w/ Ken

Wednesday @ Rivers Club - Sub will be in for me

Friday 5:45am @ LA Fitness -  Standard Class w/ Ken then the Savage Man Triathlon Ride in Deep Creek!

Gearing Up...

Now that the crazy Christmas eating & New Year's drinking is over, I'm pretty pumped to gear up my new training program for the next 3 1/2 months before the real Ironman training kicks in. In that time I plan to really focus on improving my core strength, flexibly and overall aerobic base (although it's pretty hard core already). I'll also be looking to get a better hold of my diet and work toward 8% body fat.


Monday
The new routine kicks off tomorrow with an hour and a half of yoga at LA Fitness (4:50AM). I know it sounds like a lot, but half the routine is flow vinyasa style yoga and the second half is focused more on flexibility and relaxation. So far a few friends have committed to showing up and doing it with me, if you're free (and let's be honest, who's not at 4 in the morning?), stop in and join us. We'll be using the P90X Yoga DVD and trust me, it's no joke. I ignored Yoga in all my training for a long time because I thought it was kind of silly, but once I added into my regular workouts I realized it had real power.

Tuesday
Tuesday is one of the tougher days in my routine, feel free to join me for any or all of my Tuesday workouts! We'll start early again (4:50am) at LA Fitness with some circuit training. Mostly body weight types of exercises (push ups, pull ups, lunges, etc). Spinning class starts at 5:45am then its off to work for the day before coming back to LA Fitness for a 6:45pm class.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
It'll be Core & Flex on Wednesday, Spartacus Circuit on Thursday, and more Flex & Core Friday. Don't forget Spinning classes are mixed in, see the schedule in my last post.

Hope you're able to make it out to a few workouts this week, let me know if you need a guest pass. I'll be updating this post as we head through the week with notes on the workouts!

Overkill is Under-Rated

"So wait, you're going to swim 2 1/2 miles, bike for 112, then finish with a marathon? Don't you think that's a bit overkill?" -Kelly, Mom, Kie, and countless other people I've told about this race

It's funny how many times I've heard some reiteration of that quote, but every time someone new says it I can't help but think they're probably right. In fact, I remember thinking the same thing when I ran my first Tri two years ago in 2009. It was an international distance race (1.5 km swim, 40 km ride, 10 km run) and probably one of the hardest things I had done up to that point. I followed it with the MS150 a week later, then another tri a few months later. Thinking "you know, this isn't so bad," I decided to shoot for a half Ironman in 2010. So 2010 came around and one thing lead to another, I was traveling for work, tight on cash, had a ton of things to do around the house, and never got around to registering for a race (even though I got my wetsuit in the Spring). I was kind of bummed out.

During that time though, anyone who knows me, knows that I didn't spend the year sitting around getting fat (well at least not too fat). I was still teaching 6 Spin classes a week, running a boot camp training program, running, lifting, and swimming at LA Fitness.

Swimming is definitely my weakness and almost everytime I got into the pull there was an old fat man swimming laps around me in the left lane, and some kid doing the same in the right lane. As it turns out, that the fast kid was a friend of a friend training for an Ironman (and not just another douche showing off for the lifeguard as I had assumed). The more he talked about his race the more I thought I needed to get in on one of these.

When he finished the Arizona Ironman a few months ago my friend Geoff decided to sign up for the 2011 Arizona Ironman. Well, I didn't think I could let myself know that two of my friends will have completed Ironmans while also knowing I have the ability to do the same. After all, I can't be the only kid on the block without an Ironman corporate branded tattooed can I?

So I've committed to the 2011 Louisville Ironman on August 28th! With this new commitment I'll be totally revamping my regular 4:45am training routine. If you train with me at that time now, or want to, I think you'll enjoy the new stuff I'm putting together. The official Ironman training will start in April, but between now and then I'll be ditching the regular heavy weight plan and moving to a program focused more on core stability, circuit training, flexibility and maintaining my already killer aerobic base!

I'll also be focusing more of my Spinning classes on target heart rate zones, so if you tend to show up to my class and don't have a monitor GO GET ONE! Polar is the best brand for most people's needs.

This is an early look at what you can expect over the next 3 months...

• Mondays 4:50am-6:30am Yoga & Swimming (Tony Horton will kick us off this Monday with some P90X Yoga!
• Tuesdays 4:50am Circuit training (Push Ups, Pull Ups, Shadow Boxing, Planks and/or Lance Armstrong Workout) & Spinning at 5:30am (Endurance Zone) and 6:45pm (Interval Zone)
• Wednesdays 4:50am Flexibility/Core training & Spinning at 5:30am (Recovery Zone)
• Wednesdays @ Rivers Club Spinning at 12:15pm (Interval Zone)
• Thursdays Circuit Training (Spartacus Workout) & Swimming
• Fridays 4:50am Flexibility/Core/Yoga & Spinning at 5:30am (Interval or Race Day Zone)
• Saturdays Active Recovery Day (easy ride, walk the dog, carb-load, etc.)
• Sundays 8-13 Mile Run

So, is this all a little "overkill" as some have suggested? The answer is obviously yes! But to quote Col. Hannibal Smith of the A-Team "Overkill is Under-Rated."