Last week, I finally got back to a 4 workout week! Let me tell you, it was a lot of hard work. Having a little at home means that you take the workouts when you can get them. You can’t be stuck on getting the workout at a specific time. Things won’t always workout that way. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get the workout in. It just means you have to be willing to go when you can find the time.

My week started off with a very good gym workout on Tuesday. I ran the 4 x 400’s on the treadmill. I know that my time might look slow. I can typically get 2.25 miles faster on the road. I’m building something on the treadmill currently. I run at 6.0mph and walk at 3.7mph. This coming week, I’m going to walk at 4.0mph But, for the past few weeks, It’s been this and has worked out for me. I also started feeling confident with the weights I’m using. I ended with 27 minutes on the elliptical machine. All was good with this workout. I finally felt like I was able to break through the merely surviving the workout. I was starting to master the stuff I was doing and it felt amazing!

Thursday night, I got out for 3 miles on the road. I really wanted this one. I felt pretty good going into the run and hoped I’d finally get under the 36 minute mark for three miles. Mile 1 got off to a pretty good start. I felt really good running outside! It felt so good, I was a little surprised that I wasn’t going to finish the mile in under 12 minutes. I finished 2 seconds over 12 minutes. Ugh! I knew mile 2 wouldn’t help me out. So, the question for the entire mile 2 was how much over 24 minutes I would be. I was 19 seconds over. By the end of mile 2, I was feeling alright and ready to see if I could take 19 seconds my last mile. Guess what??? I did! By 2.5 mile mark, I felt like I could get this under 36 minutes. So, I put the peddle to the mettle and kept grinding it out. By the end, I needed to cut my walk break short to get in under 36 minutes. The cool thing is that I felt strong enough to do it and I did! This was turning out to be a pretty good week!

On Saturday, I took my run back to the Rose Bowl loop. I love running here! I got out the door late because Colton woke up for a feeding a little late. Oh well. The temps were going to be great all day long. So, it didn’t really matter. One fun thing about this run is that I got to see a friend of mine (also named Greg) right before I started running. It’s always fun to see friends when you’re out running.

The goal for this run was to merely finish all 6 miles. Run 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds and let the final time be what is going to be. On the loop (if you remember), miles 1 and 4 were going to be tough. I knew this. Mile 1 felt really good. There was a cool breeze and there were a lot of people out running. So, it all felt good. I was a little on the slow side for me (12 minutes, 18 seconds). But, at least it felt good. Mile 2 ended up being my fastest of the day at 12 minutes 8 seconds. For some reason I’m not sure of, mile 3 was the slowest of that first lap (12 minutes, 31 seconds). So, I guess it was a strange first lap from what I’m used to.

Lap 2 was slower….and I knew it would be. I haven’t run more than 4 miles since Colton came into our home. Mile 4 was brutal. I knew it would be. However, that didn’t make it feel any less burdensome. What got me through the mile was telling myself that it gets better. Mile 4 was the slowest of the day at 13 minutes, 18 seconds. Mile 5 felt worse than it ended up being. I wasn’t too worried about my time by this point. The whole mile, I was thinking I’d finish at 1 hour, 4 minutes. So, when I crossed the end of the mile at 1 hour, 3 minutes, 10 seconds, I was thrilled. I think that gave me tons of confidence for the last mile. At 12:38 for the last mile, I wasn’t blazingly fast. However, the last lap of the Rose Bowl loop turned out pretty typical…1st mile slow, 2nd mile faster, 3rd mile the fastest one of the bunch. At 1 hour, 15 minutes, 49 seconds, this was  a pretty good result for me. I’ve been slower and I’ve been faster. Considering that I am working on less sleep, I’ll take it for now.

On Saturday afternoon, Brooke and I got to take Colton to a baby sprinkle (pretty much a low key baby shower) for one of our couple friends. Colton and I were both wearing some Mickey Mouse gear. In this pic, he’s pretty much ready for a nap. It was fun to be out as a family of 3 and hang with our friends.

On Sunday, we took the boy on his first retail adventure. We went to Babies R Us to see how we might spend some gift cards we received at the baby showers for Colton. When we first got in the store, he was interested in these new sights. But, then, he decided it wasn’t interesting enough and decided to sleep.

Remember that flexibility factor I was talking about? Well, I was a few minutes away from being ready to go to the gym on Sunday morning when the boy woke up ready for food. He also wanted to play. Our latest thing involves Colton climbing up his daddy. This boy is moving! It’s been absolutely inspirational to watch him work his way towards the goal of crawling. While he’s not crawling yet, he has found a way to move himself. By the time he was good, it was nearly noon. So, my plan to go to the gym in the morning got scrapped. Instead, I headed to the gym around 5:30pm. Hey, it worked out alright…

So, I started off with my 4 x 400’s on the treadmill. After the 3rd 400 running, I accidentally hit the stop button. So, this is what the treadmill said…

I still had one more 400 to run. So, I just had to start over again. But, I got it in!

Once again, my time on the machines felt really good. It’s time to increase the weight! The elliptical machine went well, too! I was a little slow on it. But, I finished all 27 minutes again! I won’t be increasing anything on the elliptical machine next week because I’ve only completed all 27 minutes for the past 3 workouts. I’d like to add another couple workouts before making a change.

Overall, this was an amazing week! I worked hard for it. The takeaway from the week is to remember that it takes a lot more work to get the workouts in with a newborn. However, it CAN be done. This week proves it! Also, I’m noticing that the feel of the workouts is pretty much “on par” with how things felt before the boy arrived. This training cycle I’m on is more like doing some base building and mental work than getting ready for any particular race. It’s kind of fun!