Mike's Marathon Blog

Jacky got me 4 sessions with a personal trainer for Christmas. My aunt and uncle go to a personal trainer twice a week and rave about him. My first session was this past Tuesday. We started by talking about my current exercise schedule, gym workouts and my fitness goals. After a quick warmup on the elliptical, we jumped right into his exercise circuits. Each circuit consists of three sets of three different exercises. Like most other trainers, he focuses on the core and full-body workouts. The exercises are very basic and don’t include any fancy gym equipment. Most include just a fitness ball and lightweight dumbbells. The session was tough. I couldn’t believe how difficult some of the exercises were. I had done many of them in the past, but he adds a whole other factor to them. Instead of sitting on an upright bench doing military presses, he has you sit on a fitness ball, with your feet on a bosu doing military presses. Adding the fitness ball and the bosu to the simple exercise makes it about 10 times harder. Having someone yelling in your face to do another 5 reps doesn’t hurt either.

I had quite an interesting weekend. It started yesterday at 6 am. Got the dog situated, ate a small breakfast, packed my bags and I was off to Wellesley. Last week was 13 miles, this week was 14. The fun (and not so fun) part about this run was that my turnaround point was halfway up Heartbreak Hill. This was my first time ever seeing it. I wish I could say that I will never see it again, but unfortunately that is not the case. Next week, my turnaround spot will be the top of it, so I am very excited/nervous for next Saturday. I ran much slower this week. My knee is still bothering me and I didn’t want to push it. I also knew I had a very long night ahead of me and couldn’t afford to crash early. The coaches always tell us to rest for the remainder of the day after such a long run……….I went to Foxwoods.

I believe the original reason behind the Foxwoods trip was to (hopefully) watch the Patriots game. This trip was obviously planned before last weekend. Even though the Pats weren’t playing, we went anyway. Why not? My friends picked me up in Wellesley, after my run, and we got to Foxwoods around 2. As soon as we got there, we did what all four guys do when they get to Foxwoods……….we went to the spa. The coaches told me to rest, so I rested! I rested in the jacuzzi, the steam room and the sauna. It was great. Extremely relaxing!

After a few hours at the spa, we checked into our room, got ready and met the rest of our crew at a sports bar in the hotel. We ate, drank, watched football, ate and drank some more. The rest of the night consisted of more drinks, an amazing booth at the MGM Grand, partying with the Harlem Globetrotters and many, many hands of blackjack. We got back to our room at 5 am, 23 hours after getting up to drive to Wellesley the day before. I was exhausted to say the least! We didn’t have a baby or a tiger in our room the next morning or anything like that, but it was still a great night. Small speed-bump in the marathon training, but it was worth it.