Of course, once I got to the gym, the world began to conspire against me. 

1. Gym opens at 6:00 AM, but I and a few others arrive at the door a few minutes early.  We proceed to stand outside the door looking in until the clock hits 6 and the staff decide to let us in.  Nothing like standing in the cold to get you ready to workout. 
2. I stash my gym bag and coat in the locker room, and I proceed to grab a treadmill I like for my morning climb as I call it.  I step away for a quick drink of water and to grab a magazine, and I see an older woman approaching and starting to get ready on the treadmill.  Her friend—probably her equal in age—proceeds to ask if I can move to another treadmill.  Nevermind that I had effectively claimed said treadmill by putting my iPod and towel on the treadmill.  As I am a hopeless sap, I give in and give the treadmill to the old buzzard woman. 
3. I move to working out on an elliptical in the hopes that the old buzzards women finish their workout before, allowing me to reclaim my treadmill.  Naturally, that does not happen and I go the full 30 minutes on the elliptical. 
4. As I end my workout on the elliptical—nearing the end of my 5 minute cooldown—my elliptical machine suddenly loses all power.  I am left their sputtering a series of curse words, wondering what in the bloody hell happened.  The power comes back on, but my workout is now done.  As I get off the elliptical, I see one of the trainers who earlier watched me for a few minutes in the cold.  I also see the power outlet nearby the weight stack of the machine his client was using.  Some deductive reasoning leads me to believe that he nudged the power to my elliptical while throwing some plates on his client’s weight machine.  I continue muttering to myself a series of unspeakable words.  I can also tell that the trainer knows he caused my “outage,” as he does not make any eye contact with me as I leave the machine and walk right behind him. 
5. The old buzzard woman has still not cleared off my treadmill, so I decide to go for a shorter 20 minute run.  The treadmill I am on does not seem to have any flex in the deck, and I move to an adjacent treadmill after 8 minutes.  The new treadmill is 100 times better, and I finish my run there. 

So, after all of this, I then run home to get ready for work and some early morning meetings—the first of which was at 9 AM.  Heckuva way to start the day. 

Don’t expect me to start busting out half-marathons, but I think the occasional 5K could become a staple of sorts.  I just need to get some good music on the iPod to make it immensely enjoyable.

So, feel free to find and mock me on October 11th!

• I am so happy to finally not have to worry about work this weekend.  The BlackBerry is peacefully quiet, and there is nothing occurring that requires my attention.  It is actually quite nice.  Although next week should be quiet based on a change blackout that begins on Wednesday, I have a feeling it will be a bit busier than I expect on account of colleagues being on vacation. 
• In a rare moment between meetings and phone calls yesterday, one of my good colleagues and I had a chance to discuss some home theatre options for my house in the next year.  I do not expect to pull the trigger soon, but it was good to just bounce some ideas off of someone who knows a lot more than I do.  I will probably be taking him up on his offer of assistance when I start pulling the trigger on some of those things. 
• Speaking of vacations, I am looking forward to being in St. Louis this time next week.  I leave on Friday morning, and I do not return until Monday afternoon.  It will be a well-deserved break, and it will be fun to catch up with one of my best friends. 
• In advance of said vacation, I finally stopped procrastinating and purchased a camera to replace the faithful Canon PowerShot that was purloined from my home last year.  Before I leave, I should receive my new Canon PowerShot A650 IS.  Much like my old PowerShot, the LCD panel swings out from the body.  I am pretty happy about that.  The purchase may be frivolous, but I miss having a camera to occasionally photograph some things from time to time.
• Thanks to Carol for accepting my package, but my new grill cover has arrived.  All the better to protect the awesome Weber! 
• Speaking of grilling, I have been considering an “End of Summer” celebration at the house.  I am shooting for the end of August or the weekend after Labor Day.  Who doesn’t like grilled food, adult libations, and a good time?  Thoughts from the local blogerrati? 
• Yesterday was my last Boot Camp session.  I had a great time, even though I missed a few sessions on account of one thing or another.  It was a good change and alteration to my workout routine, and it was a good way to get me kick-started back into the running thing again.  As a result, I have been giving some consideration to throwing myself into the Baltimore Running Festival and doing a 5K.  Nothing like some motivation to get myself training. 
• Speaking of running, I am looking to replace my now dead Sony headphones that I use when working out.  I am thinking about getting some good noise-cancelling earbuds.  The standard iPod earbuds suck and never stay in my ear.  I keep thinking about Shure, but I am open to suggestion. 

When I first got into the running thing a couple of years ago, it would occasionally bother me.  I did some research, and some of the techniques I learned to get rid of it worked.  I am having a harder time stopping it now, and I do not remember it bothering me as much as it is now.

Time for some more research into getting rid of it.

I believe part of the reason for this is that I have been trying to return to a normal workout routine. Admittedly, other events have conspired against my attempts at maintaining that routine–late nights at work, early morning meetings and conference calls, and the occasional late night out. I have also discovered that as I have gotten older my body needs, nay, demands something close to 8 hours of sleep. I was remarking to someone else how it used to be that I could easily get by on 6 hours of sleep, but now that I am older I cannot get by on that small amount of sleep. Nonetheless, all of these have conspired against me into letting me get a bit out of shape.

I have started to take steps to ameliorate this condition, though. I have been going to the gym more frequently, and I have been getting back into my running program that I had used to get ready for my 5K a little more than a year ago. Additionally, I am actually doing a Boot Camp starting in June. If ever there was a kick start, that will most certainly do the trick. I am still debating about returning to an evening workout routine. I used to do that when I worked out at College Park, and I think that is the best time for me to work out. I can get in an hour of cardio easily, and I can fit in at least 30 minutes of weight room work. I think I need to set aside a week where I work out in the evening as opposed to the mornings, and maybe this week will be the test.

There are some other things I have been pondering lately, too. I have fallen badly out of touch with some very old friends. I feel terrible about it, but then I feel even worse when I contemplate what to do about it. By old friends, I mean those who grew up with me and went to the same schools I did. They are married, with kids–sometimes many–and enjoying suburban living. Still, though, I need to get together with them every once in a while. I think I will make a call this week and try to arrange something.

I have been quite the procrastinator of late, and I have really procrastinated on things to get done around the house. There are some small repair things that need to get done, and I think I have procrastinated on them mainly because I am being a bit cheap. I think the bigger reason I have avoided them is simply trying to find someone reputable to do the work well and inexpensively. Nonetheless, I need to get them done. I think my approach here is going to be the same with what I do at work–To-Do lists!

Finally, I really think a getaway to see some friends is in order. I really have not done any traveling–it is far easier to find an excuse to not travel. I am definitely planning on a trip to visit Chris in LA, but I am also considering a couple of smaller trips. I need to get out to St. Louis and see Paul, and I think a long weekend in New York is beckoning. The sum of this, though, is that these trips will do me good on a variety of different levels. I haven’t taken a trip like this in quite a while, and I think I need it.

Enough of my writing my ponderings, though. They will remain just that if I do nothing with them. Time to turn words into actions.

There is one disadvantage to my termination at Merritt, as I have to pay for another month.  Even though I am no longer in a contract, I still had to provide 30 days notice to terminate my membership.  Even in the end, Merritt still swiped at my pockets with their money-grubbing paws.  Presumably, if I had been aware of that, I would have given my notice earlier this year.   A bit of poor planning on my part, I suppose,

I am happy I made this change.  The gym has not been crowded when I have been there, so I no longer have to deal with the unwashed masses at Merritt.  I like the smaller physical size and proximity of FHF.  Finally, I like the staff at FHF, as they are just not as annoying as the staff at Merritt.

I have put on a few extra pounds, and I think a large contributor to that is my workouts take place in the morning as opposed to the evening.  In the morning, I am a bit pressed to get my workout in, get home and shower, then get to work.  As a result, I am not getting the amount of cardio and weight work I used to get.  The other problem I have had with the morning workout is that I find it easier to skip–hitting the snooze button makes it easier to skip the morning workout.

I also know that my eating habits are playing a role here.  Without my evening workout, I tended to head home after work.  I also tend to eat more as a result.  Add that to a reduced workout routine, and I have the beginnings of Fatty-Fatty-Fatty-Fat-Fat.

I am going to make an attempt to return to the routine I had when I was in my best shape.  My workout is moving back to the evenings.  I figure by doing so, I get a better workout, and I cut down on eating bad things in the evening.

For further encouragement, I will be signing up for the Kelly St. Patrick’s Day 5K again this year.

• On Saturday afternoon, I heard from my nephew.  He was telling me that he received an invitation to participate in the National Young Leaders Conference this summer, and he was pretty proud of himself.  He flattered me by thanking me for inspiring him to do work and want to participate in the conference.  I told him I was proud of him, as I participated in the conference back in 1991.  I am pretty proud of him, and that buoyed my spirits a bit.
• Surprisingly, I did not embarrass myself during the 5K yesterday.  The official results are here, but I will save you the hard work.
  
  My time was not quite what I wanted it to be, but I am pretty proud that I ran the whole damn thing.  I think I might just have to do it next year and improve my time.
  
• I began the work with my insurance company to begin the claims process.  I will have to pay about $500 to get my items back.
  

More things are afoot on the professional front, but that’s for a separate post.

Wish me luck, or mock me somewhere along the race route. 

In my case, I am not coming directly from the couch. Instead, I am coming to running as someone whose cardio workouts have always been a fast and high-pitched walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes and some additional time on a cross-trainer. I actually moved myself up a week in the program above this morning, mainly since I kind of got the times incorrect for Week 1 while working out last night.

Here are some of the observations I have already made thus far into my training regimen:

• I am currently gauging my running by time, not distance, since I am running on a treadmill. I have already seen how in 10 minutes less time I am equaling the distance I normally end with during my normal cardio workout.
• I started to observe some “shin fatigue.” In other words, the front of my shins started to feel tired, and I immediately had images of the shin splints I used to get when I went off to college. One of the best pieces of advice I received was from someone who ran women’s track at BU. Most shin splints–especially mine–are caused by an over-development of the calf muscle. To remedy the problem, I did toe raises while seated. To this day, I have yet to have shin splints again. Nonetheless, I have added toe raises back to my routine just to make sure I don’t get shin splints.
• I am going to time my training such that I get out and do a couple of 3 mile runs in advance of the race so that I am ready for road conditions.
• I need to get a smaller MP3 player to jam out to since my Dell DJ is a bit bulky to wear on my arm.