Thanksgiving

An Awesome View From Our Hike

Even though it's the groggy day after Thanksgiving, I hope everyone had a great day, and continue on the greatness through the weekend and on.  My Thanksgiving was a good one, spending it with Lindsey;s family in Norwich, NY, we feasted, watched football and had a relaxing, fun time.  I allowed myself to consume a bit of food I generally don't like to have (mostly because of its usual negative side effects to how I feel) and I think because of my conscious decision to take in those foods, my body was forgiving.  While I felt a bit over-full, and feel a little stuffed today, I never felt bad, and that's a great thing coming out of a holiday known for indulgence.

We had a huge turkey, sausage stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, salad, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, corn, squash, broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, and a couple other odds and ends, and it was glorious.  And of course, we all saved room for the birthday cake.  You see, while everyone else was feasting for the well-known holiday, we were feasting for Lindsey's 28th birthday (and a little of the holiday).  It was a great day all around.

Earlier in the day I took it upon myself to run my own little turkey trot.  This ended up being a whole lot tougher than planned because of the freezing cold, windy weather.  I charted off a 1.58-mile course out, giving me almost exactly a 5k in total (out and back), and took off.  Right off the bat I knew it would be hard, I was so cold from head to toe!  A massive hill around the half-mile mark helped warm me up a little. but the wind coming off the mountains did not help at all.  I ended up finished in just under 24 minutes which would have put me at just under a 8-minute mile.  No where near as fast as I would like to be running.  The part that made this crappy was the couple hours post run.  I could net get a full breath of air, it was like my lunges were frozen a bit, crazy.  I was happy to be able to get that work in tough, and I have a lot of work to do to get where I want to be with my fitness!

Me Shoveling Cake Into My Mouth!!

My trip back to CA today will see a ton of program designing, and some more planning to get this business up and running like mad!  Also, I have Courageous meals installment 7 almost completed, and an article on a topic that I think is so important to talk about, especially around this time of the year.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

Squats and a Hike (and some Ribs!)

 Up in Norwich, NY, Lindsey, her brother Patrick and myself drove down to the local YMCA to get a lift in.  They went after power cleans and front squats while I went ahead and did a handful of sets of squats.  Now I have been feeling really good with this move as of the past few months, and I have written myself a goal of 435# by the March of 2011.  Today I made a pretty decent step in getting to that goal.  Today, after a few sets of 3 at 225#, 295# and 315#, I threw on 365# for an easy rep.  Then I did the same with 385#, 395# and then 405#.  I felt solid the entire time and even though I moved very slowly from the sticking point on up, I felt as though (especially after so much volume) I would be able to move up in weight very fast with this over the next few weeks.  Who knows, perhaps I'll surpass my goals!

Later on in the day, Lindsey's dad got back from work and we all drove through the beautiful country side to a trail head leading up Jones Hill, a peak they hike almost every year around this time.  It was not super long, but it was a real steep climb for most of the way,  At the top, besides being insanely cold, we had such a great view of the New York country.  We sat there for a good long while just soaking it all in and chatting before heading back down and back to the house to prepare dinner.

Yeah, so I've been craving ribs lately, have no idea as to why, but I really want them.  Back in the day I was a bit of a BBQ nut.  I even traveled around the US south for a couple weeks trying out as much top-notch BBQ as I possibly could.  I had some great stuff, and, some pretty crap stuff, but had a great time!  Recently, at a brewery in Burlingame, CA, I found a rack of ribs I would put in the top three I have ever had, unreal.  So, I want more!  Lindsey and I went over to the store and stocked up on a huge, meaty rack of ribs, some asparagus and zucchini and went back to fire it up!  This is not a Courageous Meals post, but I had a pretty interesting time cooking up the ribs in such a short time.  Besides a few of the middle cuts, they turned pretty good.  Now, with a perfectly full stomach, I am about to head to bed, and wake up tomorrow ready to feast away, workout like crazy, and celebrate Lindsey's birthday!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

Getting Work In

[Sorry, no pictures or videos are uploading.  I'll get some out tomorrow!]

Early Monday morning, Lindsey and I were up and off to pick up our rental car and get on the road.  Luckily however, Kenny had a some mail to get to Lindsey, so we ended up stopping over at Siena College again, and we were able to get a nice workout in.  We needed it!  Now folks, I know I am a promoter of all things healthy, but I must admit, I have a sweet tooth that I sometimes lose control over.  This would probably explain my "fat kid" days as a younger dude (although, looking back at pictures, I was not as fat as I thought I was, which is a little bit of a relief).  So, Sunday I had a little "opening-of-the-flood-gates" as it were, and consumed a relatively larger portion of sugar-filled wonderfulness.  Now before all you nutritional die-hards have your way with me, know that I have long ago parted ways with the mentality that I need to feel ashamed or frustrated with myself for indulging in things every now and again.  I am also honest with myself in knowing that if I truly want to look and perform at 100% potential, I can not in any way have days like this.  But, given my training schedule as of now, I have now problem cutting lose here and there.  Yeah, this is a topic I could talk about for hours, but I'll just stop it right there as this post is supposed to be focused elsewhere!

Moving on to the workout, both Lindsey and I were moving a slight bit slower than expected thanks to the day before, but this did not hold us back.  I know I put forth my 100% for the day.  The workout:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 of:
Deadlifts 225/155
Box Jumps 24"/20"
Push Press 115/45
Double unders (I did 25 each round, Lindsey did 10 each)

We sort of gauged the time off a wall clock and I finished in the 12 minute range, with Lindsey coming in about a minute behind me.  I would say that on a good day I should be getting a workout like this one in in about 8 minutes or so, but I was sucking wind like crazy by round 7.  I ended up focusing on getting things completely unbroken, and that became the big challenge of the day for me.  Besides a few missed double unders, I was able to succeed in my mid-workout goal!

We parted ways with NY and drove over to Northampton, MA to visit my sister and her two cute as hell kids.  I went to a yoga class with Deb (my sister), and then we made such a great meal.  Deb is a vegan (except for some occasional fish) and an extremely focused natural food consumer, and this leads to some pretty great ideas in the kitchen.  I'll save the details of the evenings meal for the next Courageous Meals installment, but our lunch today was a wonderful mixture of a tofu scramble with cilantro, two types of sweet potato fries, a grand mixed salad, and home-made sushi rolls.  It was nice to hang with the family for a little bit, and for an early dinner we all headed out to a great Irish restaurant before Lindsey and I hit the road again for NY and her family.

Up tomorrow morning for a workout at the local YMCA in Norwich, NY, then a big hike planned in the afternoon before we whip out the grill for a feast.  I'll be posting up once or twice before the weekend so stay tuned for those, and expect a bit of a break-down of a few cool topics for posts next week.  I have a handful of things to plan out for the coming new year and I want to share it all with you!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage