No pain, no...?

So many of you know that I've hired a personal trainer to help whip my butt into shape. Believe me, I need it... My beer drinking and german sausage-eating and computer-programming lifestyle was really catching up to me (and hugging me around my middle). So we started that in April of this last year.

That first training session we did a core routine, which was pretty abridged: Plank (make your body flat and straight like walking a plank, holding yourself up by elbows and toes) and some crunches. Second we did some squats, without weight. Third, we ran 2 minutes on a treadmill. With that little bit of excersize I felt dizzy and exhausted. (Yikes!)

Its the beginning of September now: I've been working out with the trainer twice a week, except when out of town. Now I can do plank for 90+ seconds, I can do crunches until the cows come home, while holding 15lb weight. I can run an 8 minute mile (my goal is still 7), then do 45 minutes of intervals afterward. I can do squats... well, tuesday I did about 50 of them while holding a 40lb dumbell in each hand. My peak on squats is 210 lbs that I did one time about a month ago. I really didn't feel up to doing that, but my trainer, Nick, thought it would be fun to see if I could do 200lb+, well I did.

The thing that really, really hit home, though was the idea that I couldn't ever bench 100lbs. Even in highschool when I was in great shape, I just never had enough upper body strength to do it, despite having very strong arms and shoulders. So I mentioned this to Nick (the trainer) and he looked at me like I was dumb. He's like, "Dude... 100 lb benchpress is easy. We'll do it on Thursday". I had forgotten all about it, but Molly remembered yesterday during our training session. So we grabbed a 55 lb bar, and put a couple of 25lb weights on it (105lbs). I got on the bench, prepared to fail, as I always have. I did 12, without many problems. Then he said, "grab a couple of 10 pound weights" so I did, thinking that I would do 125lbs next... nope, he also grabbed 20 lbs, and I next did 7 reps at 145lbs. Then we put another 10lbs on and I did 4. So, offically, I can bench-press 155lbs. Oh, btw, Molly bench-pressed too. Her max was 105lbs :) So, my goal is to benchpress my weight by december and to be able to run a 7 minute mile and do 2 8 minute miles in a row. Btw, my weight right now is 215 lbs. I'm hoping to be at 200-205 lbs by then so I don't have to bench quite so much.

When I started this, I should mention, that my goals had absolutely nothing to do with weight training. I just wanted to be able to hike up a mountain without dying and stopping every 10 minutes. Now, benchpressing 200 lbs, that seems like a cool goal too!

BEEF CAKE!