Not A Kettlebell Fan

This morning Drew and I went to meet with his personal trainer, Billy. We were supposed to meet him at 7:00 and in typical fashion, we got there early ... at 6:30. The only trouble with that? The gym doesn't open until 7. So, we spent 30 minutes walking around the drug store nearby killing time. And we didn't even buy anything!

We ended up meeting Billy a few minutes after 7 after getting to the gym and stowing our stuff. He didn't waste any time with pleasantries and had us get started right away. We started out with push-ups, my favorite (not!). Although I've come a long long way from when I couldn't even do one push-up. I think I probably did about 50 in total today, so that's a big difference.

To be perfectly honest, I can't remember everything that Billy made us do, but the better part of the workout was spent in the regular weight room. We did a circuit with push-ups and bench presses. We did some jump squats and lunges. Then we did a circuit with one-arm rows, lat pull downs, barbell shoulder presses and front dumbbell swings. We did that circuit twice with 15 reps for each exercise.

We also had to do this thing where he put a weight plate on the floor and we had to push it from one end of the room to the other. So, yeah, that was hard. I did that back and forth twice while Drew was doing jump squats and he had a fairly smug look on his face every time that I complained that it was hard. And then he did it (at a higher weight, to be fair) and he struggled just as much as I did, which made me feel better.

After spending a good amount of time in the weight room, Billy had us go to a special Personal Trainer loft area that I'd never been to before. Apparently that's where they keep the kettlebells. I've never done anything with kettlebells before, other than look at them at the gym or listen to Drew tell me about his use of them, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Turns out I'm not a fan. I think it was really a factor of two things: (1) I don't think I'm coordinated enough for all this swapping hand stuff and (2) I couldn't really find the right weight to use - it was either too heavy or too light. I'd definitely be willing to give them another shot, but it wasn't my favorite thing to do.

At the very end, Billy had us hold plank position while he went to check on his next client. I totally cheated and put my knees down a little bit (he had us do it for about 2 minutes, I think), but Drew was a real trooper and stayed up the whole time. Very impressive. Then, to finish things off, Drew and Billy looped two towels together and did some macho pulling thing around the gym. From what I could tell, they mostly succeeded in ripping the towel. Maybe there is some pride thing there too. I don't really understand all that stuff, but Drew seems to like it.

After we were done training with Billy, Drew went to hit the showers and head to work for a bit. I really wanted to do some running, although I wasn't sure how well I would do after that workout, but it seemed really important to get some running in. I also thought it would be really good for me to run after doing another workout while I was tired as I imagine that at some point during my race, I'll be quite tired and it'll just all be good experience toward the end goal.

I needed to make-up Wednesday's planned run, which was 4 miles, including 4 x 1:00 AI + 5-6 GP, but of course I didn't do that. I ended up doing 3 miles with the intervals and then 4 pick-ups. I would have done more pick-ups, but I really thought I only had to do 4.

I did the intervals at 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5, each for 1 minute. The pickups I did for 30 seconds each at 9.0, 9.5, 10.0 and 10.5. Holy cow on the 10.5! It is definitely getting easier to do these intervals and pickups, which is a good feeling. Of course, I'm still not sure it's my first choice to do them, but I don't mind overall.

Of course, I messed up a little bit today and didn't quite get all the miles in, but I'm not going to feel bad about it and just keep moving forward. I'm hoping that the cross-training with Billy makes up for that a little bit.

Training with Billy
Time: 54:12
Calories: 525
Maximum HR: 173
Average HR: 149

Run (with Intervals)
Time: 31:14
Distance: 3.00 miles
Pace: 10:24/mile
Calories: 383
Maximum HR: 187
Average HR: 171

Gentle Pickups
Time: 6:37
Distance: 0.75 miles
Pace: 8:49/mile
Calories: 72
Maximum HR: 182
Average HR: 162