The Season is Shaping up

It has been a long, hard road, but I am almost back to the mileage of a few years ago.

I finally got in a 50k at Afton last weekend, and managed to keep a "decent" pace for the entire 2 loops.

When talking with the "boys", I realized I have not put in a 2 looper out there in almost 3 years. 3 Years!! It is not from a lack of trying. It is a result of letting myself slide.

So my goal was get in 2 loops, then decide on a race.

So I signed up for the Zumbro Midnight 50. This is a slight rebirth of the Zumbro 100k from 3 years ago which also started at midnight. I am one of the proud 5 to have ever finished that race (okay...... it was only 1 year and I think only 9 started it). I have a great piece of hardware in my basement showing I won my age group. I was the only one in my age group who not only started, but also finished.

But now we have about 50 signed up. I get race against my nemesis, Zach Pierce. None of the faster Matt's are signed up, but that doesn't mean I won't be the slowest Matt.

Bottom line, I feel good. I have confidence. I actually have a decent amount of training (3 runs of 20 miles or more since Feb). This is a far cry from my 2 long runs going into Ice Age last year.

So if this goes well, and Ice Age goes well, I may consider more. Not sure I want to go back to 100s, though.

Thinking of doing a speed loop tomorrow evening at Afton if anybody is up for it.

Meatheads

Since my last post, I was lucky enough to take my awesome wife on a 7 night cruise to the Caribbean. What a blast. If I decide to put the effort behind it, I might even post some pictures.

Perhaps the second funniest thing I saw on the trip was a preponderance of "Meatheads".

I have a customer who is a pretty good athlete, and he calls a certain type of "gym dude" a "meathead".

Definition -
Meathead - One who lacks fitness, has tons of body fat, and still thinks he is in high school. He shows his manliness by how much he can lift on a machine......... a couple of times.

.....So... the "fitness center" on the Celebrity Eclipse, while pretty good, was comical. It had many meatheads.

The treadmills had a 20 minute limit on them..... okay..... what is the point.... got it..

So I was on the treadmill, violating the rules, on my second 20 minute workout. To get in a decent workout, I decided to run "fast". By the way, 9-10 minute miles on a treadmill on a boat with serious pitching and rolling is not easy.

In comes meathead A. He starts running, and is done after 5 minutes. I had the feeling he was trying to run my speed, and decided not to quickly. Maybe not.

Anyway, after 5 minutes he was done on the "mill". I saw he shortly after.... correction... I HEARD him shortly after doing something with a huge barbell. He would do a couple of reps with some big yells and then walk around flexing. I almost asked him, "hey, where's the beach?" but thought he might figure out I was mocking him.

I actually heard him say "this boat needs a bench press". This guy had a huge gut. I thought of saying, "you know, pushups are like upside-down presses, but better", but I don't think he had the IQ to process such a complicated statement.

I got me thinking {yes, I know my grammar is horrible today... bear with me}.. thinking "what a perfect display of raw power vs. fitness".

I could take this guy in push ups, sit ups, body weight squats, any aerobic or metabolic workout. But he could press a larger amount of weight than I could.

All I could think of was "what a meathead"

Sad part about the whole scene, if it came down to a challenge, I bet you anything that this guy puts more value into power press weight than how many push ups he could do.

Hows that for a post... FINALLY!