Run, run, as fast as you can PUMP LEAD!

Next year...AJ's gettin' knocked off that podium. I now have the secret formula:

PUMP SOME LEAD~!

I actually managed to drag myself to do THREE forbidden activities:

1) Take a "Jog"

2) Lift some weights

3) Grunt as LOUD as possible while benching just the bar, twenty times

Amazingly I put these two activites into the same workout. It was quite dangerous--I actually enjoyed jogging for 30min! Watch out, soon I'll be joining the XC running team and pounding out the marathons day after day...

Thank some aching kees and back for rescuing me from that fate!

I jogged down to Picninc Point and back along the Lackshore path. Which, if you've never been to Madison, is a quaint, slightly secluded dirt and gravel pedestrian path along the shores of Lake Mendota. I would say it was about a 3 mile jog in all--just enough to cause my leg muscles to scream out in agony. That transfered perfectly into the weight room--I was sore as hell before even starting the usual squats and leg presses.

So here I am next to all of these football playes, wrestlers, and body builders at the Nat, wondering what my purpose is in such a place. I continue lifting 20 reps of low weights (with good form, I may add), while the entire gym around me is straining, back arching, hip throwing, and leg swaying just trying to pound out one more rep of a super heavy weight.

I guess that's why I can ride for hours on end, and they can lift....a piece of lead. Alright, alright--they can lift an overly elaborate, bacteria-infested chunck of percisely massed alloy metal. That's much more accurate.

Either way, I am sore today, and likely will be for the next two weeks as I continue this weight routine. Monday, Wednesday, Friday weights--Tuesday, Thursday moderate intensity aerobics--Saturday, Sunday endurance road or mtb ride. Hopefully this adds up to around 12 hours per week until base training starts around Christmas time.

Get out there and train! Don't let the "off-season" trick you--this is when you make or break your season next year.