Fun in the Snow

Its been a little over a month since my last post--time files during the holidays. My fitness routine has progressed well although my cardio and running training has been lagging a bit. I've been focusing on gaining some upper body strength and endurance and chiseling down the old six pack.(okay, okay, four pack) Its pretty amazing to see what the body is capable of when you give it what its built for. My body is designed to be strong, and it gains strength easily and quickly. When I was starting off about a month or so ago, I could barely do 15 pull ups for one set, 12 dips or so and then fewer on each of my next 2 sets. Today I did 3 sets of 25 pull ups, 25 dips and 45 inclined push ups among other things. My upper body feels great, with a good balance of strength and endurance. By using body weight exercises, I don't feel too bulked up. I can definitely see a visual difference, but my weight is still around 177, so I must have dropped some fat while gaining a little muscle.

I haven't completely slacked on the cardio side of things--I've mostly been getting in a few three mile runs on the tread mill and I did another stair run which wasn't close to as bad as the first one. Yesterday I finally decided to do an outdoor run, since temperatures have risen from about 5 degrees to 25. (yay?) Twenty five degrees is plenty warm for outdoor running, but I was trying something new and perhaps foolish: running in my Vibram Five Finger shoes. I had taken them out when it was about 10 degrees just to go to a restaurant, and they felt insanely cold. Not because of the air temperature, but because the cold of the ground--the concrete, snow, slush and ice--really come through the thin rubber sole. After that I knew I couldn't try using them unless it warmed up considerably. At 25 degrees I was confident that at least my feet wouldn't fall off after a 3 mile run. It wouldn't be much different than sticking my feet in an icebath at the worst. The first 10 to 15 minutes of the run were fairly uncomfortable. The snow and frigid ground left the bottom of my feet, and especially my toes, feeling very cold. By about half way, I started to feel more comfortable. The cold sensation faded, and my feet just felt normal. I was a little worried that this shift was due to my feet going completely numb, but when I got back and took off my shoes, my feet where not especially cold (confirmed by forcing my gf to touch them)--only my pinky toes seemed affected by it. They looked pretty red, but no worse than after icing. My conclusion: after the body warms up and the friction builds heat, it is possible to run in the Vibrams (using toe socks) in weather at about 25 degrees, but I wouldn't want to run any further than 3 miles. 25 seems pretty close to the limit; for anything colder I will go have to go with a full shoe or boot of some kind. I have some boots with fairly flat bottoms that might work.

On Dec 31 I will be leaving for Houston again to visit family. I look forward to running around the Rice campus, and even better, my GF (now fiancee!) is coming along and we will be going on a 7 day cruise that departs from Galveston along with a friend that is in grad school at Rice. I very much look forward to testing out my Vibrams on beaches, snorkling, coral, rocks, and pretty much anything else I can put my feet on. They have a rock climbing wall on the ship, so I'm hoping to use my upper body training to pull me up it a few times. The ship stops at Grand Cayman which has a famous beach called Seven Mile Beach; apparently the length of the beach is open to the public. I am hoping to run the length of the beach in my Vibrams. I'm not sure if this will happen since others in the party will likely want to do other things and the logistics might be difficult, but running it seems like it would be a memorable experience. Why pay $100 to pet some dolphins when I can see the entire beach and get a workout for free?