Starting weight: 225.6. Today’s weight: 223.4
Calories burned: 1101 (Bootcamp workout and 3/4 of a mile run on track)
Average heart rate: 129 bpm. (a little lower for reasons you find out in a minute)
Total Time: 1:15:21
The Madison Central Football Field’s playing surface is artificial turf. It’s much different than the artificial turf of my day (AstroTurf — which was plastic carpet on concrete.) This playing surface is more cushioned and is made up of plastic fake grass and rubber black dots that look like rat turds. Today, I managed to inhale a piece of the fake grass and it went deep into my lungs. My lungs apparently don’t care for pieces of fake grass to be buried deep in them, so I started having coughing spasms. Bad coughing spasms — like “the time I had pneumonia” coughing spasms. It was a the end of my workout when it happened, so I weighed in (while gagging) and then went under the stadium to have a huge coughing fit. (I knew a friend of mine who is a doctor was on the field — if this turned into an issue, I didn’t want to be driving home when it happened) My coughing kept getting worse and worse and worse. Finally, it let go and I was able to spit it out.
Mission Accomplished. I was relieved — although I am sure everyone on the field thought I was puking. So once it came out, I came back out on the track and ran another three laps.
Today was leg day and I was nervous about my knee. (I hurt it during leg day in the fall doing squats.) My knee did fine — although I chose not to run the “gauntlet” which is running up and down the stadium. That would have been a bit much. Overall, though, I am pleased to have made it through the week with confidence in my healed knee.
This weekend is Memorial Day. I will go hang out with the family, cookout and will probably even splurge and have a beer or two. But I will also run and try not to eat too much crap. This isn’t a diet. This is a lifestyle change. Like Garfield said about Diets, it’s Die with a T. So I will live a little bit. Just not too much.
I gained a pound from yesterday (probably from all the black dots on me) but I’m not too worried — your weight will fluctuate as you replace fat with muscle. Overall, I feel much better where I am today than where I was on Tuesday. I’m running much better. I write this because when you are going through a tough moment exercising, do like Churchill said about Hell: You keep going.
It will get better — especially once you cough the damn piece of green grass out of your lungs.