It's TV Heaven (with a weight workout to boot)

For TV, the past few weeks have been simply wonderful. Some of my favorite shows have returned with a bang.



The ragtag fleet found Earth, only to discover it was lay waste by some sort of nuclear destruction. Weirdness abounded. The 13th tribe were Cylons, we now know that the last Cylon model was... Ellen Tigh? Starbuck really did die on Earth, yet she lives and breathes? The people who we discovered were Cylons are having memories of 2000 years in the past?

Most importantly about Galatica, Ronald D. Moore and Co. have been making it up as they go along.



After a 2-year absence, Jack Bauer's back! After questioning by Senator Clarence Boddicker, he's now working for the FBI. No wait, he's working for the immortal Methos. No, he's working with his former CTU cohort and current zombie, Soul Patch Tony Almeida. And to complicate matters, according to the episode description, next week, "Jack Bauer takes matters into his own hands."

You don't say?



Finally, the long-anticipated return of one of my favorite TV series of all time was tonight. Any series that's been around a while has its ups and downs, and Lost has certainly had its share of them. But tonight? Tonight, Lost regained all the excitement it had in the first episode and then some.

One thing I've complained about with a lot of shows, including Lost, is that at times they look down on the audience. You really can't blame the producers, it's one of those facts of life. How do you serialize something when people don't pay close enough attention to remember something that happened three years ago?

So they created "Previously on..." segments, but I've always viewed those as saying, "Look, we don't think you're intelligent enough to remember this, so here's a clip of it again." Unfortunately, in the process, they ruin the surprise that's coming up in the episode. The same thing happens with credit sequences, if you see certain actors or actresses in the opening credits, you know certain things will happen.

Tonight there was no "Previously on..." segment. I suppose you could argue that the repeat of the 3-hour finale last week, combined with the 1-hour special before the season premiere, was just an extended version. That may be true, but what happens if you watched just the premiere?

There were serious payoffs for longtime viewers. I didn't spend the time writing all of them down, but they were there. We didn't have to see a Previously on... segment to know the significance of the plane. The moment we saw it crash, we knew "when" Locke was. The compass that Richard gave to Locke, the same compass he was waiting for the child-Locke to pick so many years before. Hurley's father sitting down to watch Expose (somebody buy Cheech a Tivo). And let us not forget the dramatic return of Mrs. Hawking!

In the end, it was two extremely riveting hours. I'm seriously looking forward to the rest of the season.

Did I Mention My Workout?

Went to the gym today...

Warmup, 3 circuits, 30 seconds each exercise
* Jumping Jacks
* Split jacks
* Squats
* Lunges
* Mountain Climbers

Workout
* Elevated-heels High Bar Squat, 3x12x135lbs
* Weighted Back Extension, 3x12x25lbs
* Wide Grip Barbell Curl, 3x12x50lbs
* Incline Dumbell Triceps Extension, 2x12x(2x20lbs)

41 minutes, 265 calories burned

Then tonight after my extended 3-hour TV session:

100 Pushups, Week 3, Day 2(repeat): 20, 25, 15, 15, 30

Now I can happily go to bed. Tempo run tomorrow, and it's supposed to rain. Yippee! We need it, actually.

Weight Workout + A Hundred Pushups?

Hey guys, today was yet another gym workout. After 3 weeks of basically the same thing, it's changed up a bit. Warmups are the same.

Warmup, w/45lb bar, 3 circuits
* Overhead Squat
* Squat
* Good Morning
* Barbell Lunge
* Romanian Deadlift
* Bent-over Row

Workout
* Bench Press, 3x7x115lbs
* Single-Arm Dumbbell Row, 4x7x45lbs
* External Rotation, 3x7x20lbs
* Swiss-Ball Crunch, 10x8 (80 total)

34 minutes, 164 calories burned

After work I picked up my son and was going to take him to Cub Scouts, but come to find out the meeting wasn't tonight. He begged to spend the night with my wife's mother, and she said yes, so that's what he got to do. That gave me the chance to get my mom's DSL connection going.

But it wasn't to be, at 9pm, after well over an hour on the phone with AT&T, I had to give up and come home. I had to watch 24, after all!

2 more hours of Jack Bauer, and I gotta say, two years was way too long to wait. I'm glad to have 24 back, I've missed it altogether too much. I will say this though, the long wait made me enjoy it more.

After 24 was over, I strapped the HRM back on to start the One Hundred Pushups plan. It's a simple 6-week (or more) plan created by my good friend Steve Spiers as a fun way to get stronger. You basically do progressive sets of pushups over the course of six weeks with the goal of completing 100 pushups in a row. As you get stronger, you test yourself, and if you're not quite there, you repeat as necessary. Simple intellectually, sure, but physically? That's another story.

There was a time when I could do 45 pushups without too much strain, but in the initial test last week I was only able to do 30. According to the plan, I was to actually start at Week 3 of the plan, at level 3. It was to be:

Set 1: 14 pushups
Set 2: 18 pushups
Set 3: 14 pushups
Set 4: 14 pushups
Set 5: max (minimum 20)

Rest between sets was 60 seconds. I had no problem with the first two sets, but fatigue started setting in on the 3rd. The 4th was a real struggle, and the 5th ended up being split in half, two sets of 10 with 20 seconds rest in between.

Do I have to repeat the day? I'm not sure, but I do know that I hurt now. It's a bit hard to type! This is just the beginning though, we'll see how far it takes me. It was only 7 minutes of effort, but maaan. At least I burned a whopping 44 more calories!

Sprint intervals tomorrow.

Friday + Weekend

Man, this is the first time I've had a chance to post all this stuff. WHEW!

OK, Friday. Did the gym, went very well, yay me. :)

Saturday morning we were supposed to be running with two other guys, but they opted out, so it was just Rob and I. Rob's been getting over a cold, so he took it easy, and Saturday's run ended up being about 10 min/mi. That run was also an "extra" for me, in that it wasn't part of my training. I just shifted the long run to today, which is where I get to the fun part.

In the FIRST training program, long runs are based on your PMP, or projected marathon pace. PMP is determined from your best 10k pace, which was 8:07 for me. Last week's pace was supposed to have been 9:22, but I did the math wrong and was shooting for 8:52. This week, I came to my senses and did the math correctly, making my goal 9:07 for 9 miles.

So I was looking closer at my running log, and sure enough, I had done the math for tempo runs wrong, too! It's supposed to be :15 to :30 slower than 8:07, but I saw it backwards and ended up trying to run FASTER than 8:07. I was aiming for 7:22 to 7:37 per mile, when I should have been trying for 8:22 to 8:37. That means that the two miles that were hard for me yet way off from my goal weren't all that far off either. As a matter of fact, I was right on goal.

Well buh-low me down!

Anyway, today's run wasn't exactly 9:07, but came close. I averaged 9:20. I could have done a lot better than that, but I walked a bit at the 4.5-mile turnaround. I also ran out of water, and with my throat being itchy the past few days, I was pretty dry.



Mile 1: 9:00.68
Mile 2: 8:56.31
Mile 3: 8:58.13
Mile 4: 9:11.25
Mile 5: 10:43.62
Mile 6: 9:49.60
Mile 7: 9:15.32
Mile 8: 9:12.15
Mile 9: 8:57.41

9 miles, 1:24:05.04, 9:20/mi average, 1125 calories burned

The weather was great, it averaged 62.7F. There was wind, but it was a warm one.

Afterwards we came home and I got to see my main man: that's right, he's back, ladies & gentlemen!


Maybe tomorrow night we'll find out why Tony Almeida's not dead, and why Jack didn't find it appropriate to say "dammit" tonight. Be sure to read my tweets, which by reading would indicate I'm a tad obsessed.

Time for bed. I'll set up the hard permiter.

The following takes place...

Today's an off day. No gym. No running. Not much of anything, really, except one important thing.



Jack's back.

Well, I was finally able to edit together some video from the Half Dome hike. My biggest regret is that I wasn't able to shoot more video, but what can you do when you're doing both still & video and are under time constraints. Not being able to switch off the video camera also meant that I have no video of myself.

For about a year now, I've joked around with my pastor about how we should do something for the church that parodies 24. One idea I had was a t-shirt with the 24 logo on the front, and a scripture reference on the back that's something with verse 24. I still haven't found a decent enough verse for that. Anyway, on the way up I told him that I finally figured out what we'd do, and this hike was it.

So here it is, 24: Half Dome. Enjoy.

I was so excited about 24 when it started up again. That excitement faded away as the season progressed and now, with the season finale coming up in 6 days, I have to wonder if it was all worth it. This season has been boring compared to previous seasons, and especially compared to some of the other shows on TV.

Anyway, hello. I'm a TV addict, but don't be worried. I get out a lot as well. I also plan on posting a bit more often. I've said it before, but this time I mean it.

Really. :)

After 2.5 hours this morning, I have June reservations for the Upper Pines campground in Yosemite!

That's one step closer to climbing Half Dome. Upper Pines is right across from the Happy Isles trailhead, which is many steps from the dome.

So now comes the long, arduous task of being sure I'm fit. Actually, I've been exercising and training for some time, getting ready. That Feather Falls trip on New Years, though, reminded me that I need some stairclimber work.

Time to get crackin'!

Oh, one more thing:


Don't ever mess with Jack Bauer. Don't make him kill his close friends, then top it off with blowing stuff up in close proximity. He's pissed now.

12 hours to go...



I don't have time for this!

Only two days to go...

People rave about Bittorrent. How wonderful it is, blah blah blah. Well, I tried to download "it", and Azureus ran. And ran. And ran, it ran for 4 days, and got 57% complete before I finally gave up on it.

No big deal. The man is back Sunday night.



Now, he may not look very happy in this photo. As a matter of fact, he looks like he's crying. He probably is: Jack Bauer can cry. He's a real man, real men cry.

The reason to watch, though, is for what happens after he cries.

Two hours Sunday. Two hours Monday. Watch, or Jack will ask for a hacksaw. And we don't need that.