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 is don’t mention it on a blog.  Doh.

At work a few co-workers and were talking about push-ups and we decided to hold a contest where the first person who can do 100 push-ups in a single set will win the grand prize consisting of $5 from everyone that enters (similar to Eric’s, although now that I re-read and saw his is $20 a person, I feel cheap).   We are going to start a baseline test in two weeks  where everyone will do push-ups until failure.  Every Monday we will run another test, and whoever has made the highest percentage gain over their previous max will get $1 from everyone.  This way it keeps people motivated even if there overall numbers don’t lead them to be in the running for the big prize.

I’ll consider it a personal victory if I can eventually hit 50, since the most I’ve done as an adult is 40.  I did 20 push-ups today while we were talking about the contest.  I didn’t quite go to failure, but I am pretty sure I couldn’t have gone past 25.  As a historical footnote, I did 55 push-ups once in high-school Spanish class, to avoid administrative punishment for having skipped a class.  I had trouble moving my arms for the rest of the day.

Another 24 mile week, but I definitely feel my long run (10 miles) is way too much compared to the rest of my volume.  I felt really beaten up on Sunday.  This week’s Tenesday loop 10 miler has a lot more elevation change than the City Island/Harrisburg 10 mile run that I did with Jon the week before.

Sun:  off

Mon: 5 miles around Camp Hill with Jon and James

Tues: 3 miles with Nate on Front Street in Harrisburg (and then ate at Passage to India)

Wed: off

Thu: 6 miles with Jon around Camp Hill

Fri: off

Sat: 10 mile Tenesday loop around Camp Hill, Harrisburg and Lemoyne with Jon

I subscribe to the IT conversations podcast stream and listened to an episode today about a physical therapist that uses Ninendo Wiis as part of their practice.  When I was going to physical therapy for my leg earlier this year, I mentioned the Wii Fit to my PTs, but they blew me off.  I think if they had a chance to see how good some of the feedback is, they might change their mind.  The Wii is also (relatively) cheap and fun enough that it can encourage people doing PT to continue working on their exercises at home.  The excellent feedback the Wii gave me when I was performing balance exercises was way better than anything I saw at my PT’s office.

24 miles for the week.  First time in a while that I worked out enough that it was worth recording.

Sunday: off

Mon: 6 miles with Jon, James, and Cali around Camp Hill (weather was awesome)

Tues: 3 miles with Nate in the snow along Front Street

Wed: 20 mins on elliptical at home (almost 2,000,000 strides on the equipment so far!)

Thurs:  5 miles with Jon and James around Camp Hill

Fri: off

Sat: 10 miles with Jon around City Island and Harrisburg.  It was cold and windy but the run went well.  I consider 10 miles my minimum distance for a guilt-free post-workout Neato Burrito.

I’m going to use the elliptical machine for a bit tomorrow and hope to hit a similar workout volume next week.

Exercise

Had a great run tonight with Jon, James, and Calli.  We enjoying the wonderfully freakish 60 degree weather at 5:45 and ran about 6 miles around Camp Hill.  In general my running has been more off than on lately due to various leg issues.  I’ve definitely pushed it too hard a few times when I’ve been feeling good, which caused my to wise up and put in place a ‘no miles under 8:00 until 2009′ rule.   I’ve been using an elliptical trainer at home to supplement my aerobic conditioning.  At this point I’m just aiming towards being in good enough shape to have a decent race at the Lehigh Valley Half Marathon in the beginning of May.

Ironman

No, I don’t have any intention of trying to become a triathlete, but I do enjoy reading the slowtwitch forums and the training advice of people like Gordo Byrn and Mark Allen.  I just watched a recording of  the 2008 Ironman championship.  The men’s race was interesting, but my favorite person to watch was Chrissie Wellington, who is just an incredible athlete.  She lost about 15 minutes due to equipment (and bike repair skill) issues and then came back to win by about 10 minutes. It was amazing to see her do her thing.

Computers

I spent a day at my parents this weekend hooking up their new iMac and showing them some of the newer Mac and internet features.  The equipment is definitely beautiful, but there are some trade-offs for the aesthetics.  The USB ports are only on the back of the machine and underneath the ends of the keyboard which makes it awkward if you want to plug/unplug devices like flash drives frequently.  I’ll probably add a USB hub during my next visit to make it more convient.

Nagano on the day we adopted him

My wife and I adopted a new cat named Nagano on October 14th from a shelter in Lancaster, PA.  We found out after we adopted him that he had gone from 11 lbs to 9lbs while at the shelter, not a good sign.  For the first few days he seemed okay, but then his health started to decline.  Over the last 7 weeks we’ve given him as much love as we could, taken him to the vet 7 or 8 times, gotten many tests, two fluid infusions, several  types of anti-biotics (one he was allergic to and we had to switch quickly) and a few types of food, but he kept running fevers, losing weight and almost all energy.  He was barely moving in the last few days.  After agonizing over  his deteriorating condition with my wife this morning, I made an emergency vet appointment and took Nagano in again.  We had a FIP test taken earlier in the week and unfortunately the test results had come back last night as positive, which essentially means “systemic infection” and could also be contagious to our other two cats.  The vet said we could keep him alive longer with fluid infusions, but he was not going to recover and his quality of life was rapidly declining so we made the decision to euthanize him.  I feel like it was the right decision and I’m happy Nagano isn’t suffering any more, but the whole experience just sucked.

This is crazy, a hundred million crabs meet at this inhabited island to mate, and then billions and billions of baby crabs make their way back to the sea.