Training

1000 Pushups in a Week

/ bperica / Leave a comment

Advice, strategies, and thoughts on 1000 pushups in a week:

Anytime you think of them, drop and do 10. Do you know that 1000 pushups a week is only 142.86 pushups a day? Most of us are up for well over 12 hours a day. That’s only 11.9 pushups per hour! Totally possible!

My pushup numbers were recently questioned when competing in a pushup challenge. All contestants were supposed to complete 400 pushups a week. My lowest number of pushups in a week for the last five weeks was 700.

In the last five weeks, I have completed 4,036 pushups. An average of 807.2, although that’s a little bloated by this last week of 1000.

Moving back to strategies, anywhere is a good place for a pushup, even in the shower if it is big enough. I am 6’9″, a shower big enough for me to do pushups in is not in my house, nor have I seen one, but I have seen plenty of showers in which an average height male could drop and get 20 ups in.

Keep a note in your phone titled Pushups Completed Today. Every time you knock out a set, no matter how large or small, instantly record those numbers in that note. It’s great to look back through the day and see that number grow and grow, bringing a great sense of accomplishment to the day. Also, at the end of the day, when it’s time to enter your numbers you have a handy note on your phone to tell you exactly how much ups you pushed.

There aren’t many rules to a pushup challenge, other than you have to do a proper pushup. No wide placement of the hands, but your elbows don’t have to stay in contact with your side through the movement. No incline pushups either. Those are too easy. But yes, decline pushups would count. Decline meaning with your feet on a chair or up a couple steps while your hands are on the ground.

Pushups don’t require special athletic clothing. They can be done in a suit. They can be done in your birthday suit, although that does mean some parts of your anatomy may be touching the floor during every rep. This can be uncomfortable and certainly a bit awkward if someone else is in the room.

This last week I did 150 pushups a day for the first five days. I did 170 on day 6 and only 80 today (that felt nice). The upper body definitely needs some rest now, but I never did more than 40 pushups straight. I often did sets of 25, but more common were sets of 20, 15, and 10, making that 1000 in a week completely manageable.

And if thinking about doing 1000 in a week is too overwhelming, set a timer to go off every 30 minutes or 1 hour for a reminder to do 10 or 15 pushups.

After building up to 1000 pushups in a week you will definitely be able to do things with your pecs that you have never been able to do, or haven’t been able to do in a long time. If you squeeze your pecs together and flex, BOOM, pencil holding cleavage. Make your kids aware that you can “dance your pecs.” They will delight in that oddity and it’s even something that you can keep your shirt on for.

Get your kids involved. On my last set of 20 today, my son was motivated to do pushups with me so he dropped to the ground and did sit-ups, telling me he can only do ten at a time. That’s okay. If you are walking around the house and randomly doing sets of 20 pushups your kids are going to get the message, pushups are important, fun, a great workout, and you can do them anywhere! Okay, maybe not in the shower.

Keep pushing up!

I’ll Be Back

/ bperica / 2 Comments

Since I threw it out there that I was going for a sub-40 10k time in this year’s IMG_9019BolderBoulder, it is with some disappointment and a lot of frustration that I now have to report there was no sub-40 time from me on Monday.

I am still thinking about all that went wrong early Monday morning and I have come up with a number of reasons (or excuses, if you like) that could have negatively effected my performance.

1. I had too much to drink before the race. I had to get up at 4:45 to make it to the start of the race that morning. I think all that time tricked me into thinking I could have a large coffee, 2 bananas, a big spoon of peanut butter, and a little water before my race. Although I was done eating and drinking by 6:10, 45 minutes before my wave started, this was way too much to consume before a race. I haven’t normally had that much to eat and drink before a race so I don’t know why I did something different on the day of the BolderBoulder. It’s a rookie mistake and I’m embarrassed by it. In previous running races–all 4 of them–I’ve had at most one banana, a little peanut butter, and maybe 10-12 ounces of water.

2. I took the first mile out too fast. 6:07 on my GPS watch. 6:11 on official results. Both are too fast for me, but it’s very hard at the start of a race to not let the energy get the best of you. You feel good. You are racing with the biggest group of fast runners you have seen. You stupidly think that you can maintain said pace because you still feel good. Of course I felt good. It was the first, damn mile. If I was running the race again right now I would slow down to a 6:30 for that first mile and try to maintain that through the first four miles, then try to pick it up for the last 2.2. In a 6-mile race a couple weeks ago my first mile was 6:36, then 6:37, and 6:34. I was hurting in mile 4 and 5, but still kept it under 7 minutes and then in mile 6 I had enough energy left for a 6:24. Mile 6 in Monday’s race was 8:02.67. Doh! I straight up walked 50 yards of that. It was gross.

3. I underestimated the Bolder Boulder course. There isn’t much of an incline in the first four miles, but it’s just enough to break you down if you underestimate it. I didn’t think it would prove to be that sapping to my legs, but it was. It’s certainly not an ideal course to set your PR on. That said, I haven’t been running long, so I set a PR (42:29), but was nowhere near my goal time.

4. I should have gone out for easy runs on Saturday and Sunday. This was the first time that I’ve tapered off a serious running regimen so instead of taking one day off my feet, I took two. I thought two might be necessary because I am a little more muscular than your avid runner. In hindsight, I think a 20-minute easy run on Saturday and a 10-minute easy run on Sunday would have been ideal.

5. My training program needs more interval work in it. I have already found good alternative programs to use for a sub-40 minute 10k. The regimens  are all about 10-14 weeks long and one of them has at least two, sometimes three rest or active rest days, which I certainly need.

6. Although my left foot did not bother me on Monday, something may be wrong with it. Since it was giving me substantial pain during the last two weeks of training, I did cut back on my interval training by turning fast 400s into fast sprints the length of a soccer field. That may have taken a slight edge off my fitness level, but I would not give this too much weight. That is why this is reason six, not one.

As far as the Bolder Boulder goes, I will compete next year and I have made some goals for that race. 1. Beat this year’s time. 2. Don’t vomit. 3. Don’t require medical attention. 4. Don’t take it out so fast. 5. Don’t drink a tumbler of coffee an hour before you run.

I will be happier and I will feel better after next year’s race if I obey these commands.

Drinking on Monday Starts at 8…am

/ bperica / 4 Comments

For the last ten weeks I have been training for the Bolder Boulder.

This running thing is pretty new to me. I competed in my first 10k on Thanksgiving day last year. Since then, I’ve tried two 5k races and another 10k.

Before those races, I ran in one 5k at the Milwaukee Zoo in 2008. That race doesn’t really count. Between 2008 and the turkey trot in 2015, running was not a hobby. I still hit the pavement every once in a while, but it was merely for cardio.

IMG_8998

The start of the A Wave at the Bolder Boulder. Just looking at this gets my heart racing.

Part of the reason I have kept on competing since the turkey trot is because the racing conditions were so horrible then. It was 32 and raining and the trail was 2-6 inch thick mud. My time was awful. The last three miles of the race were run in 7:50, 9:53, and 7:24. Can you tell which mile I fell twice on, nearly impaling my hand on a very narrow tree stump?

I think it was soon after that race I decided I needed another shot at a 10k and I instantly thought of the Bolder Boulder. For much of my life I’ve lived within a 45 minute drive of Boulder and have never thought about entering the race.

The race is five days out and today I realized I haven’t trained this hard for a competition since training for my last swim meet as a collegiate swimmer in 2005. I am actually tapering off of what was, for me at least, a tough training schedule. I’ve even shunned a daily beer or beers for all of May, which has been almost as hard for me to do as the running. I think I have had two drinks since the start of May. That Oskar Blues beer after I finish my race at Folsom Field is going to taste so good.

For many of my training runs I had to literally push my training partner. For London, it has been an easy training schedule. She gets a cushy ride in the Mountain Buggy, sips away at her water cup, throws it from the stroller when she decides it’s cramping her style, and kicks off her shoes whenever desired. Her stroller ain’t light and neither is she, weighing in at 35 pounds, but I was thankful to be pushing just one kid over the last ten weeks.

On Monday morning, London will just be having her breakfast when my wave (AA) goes off at 6:56. I get so anxious just thinking about it. I’m not sure what I will think of the crowd. I am hoping to just lock onto a group running my pace and zone out for four, maybe even five miles before I think about the rest of the ground to be covered.

My goal is to come home on Monday with one extra t-shirt, one that says Sub 40 Club on it. With luck, it’ll fit me.