I'm an idiot...

Hey everyone...I'm an idiot. I know I haven't written in two weeks so I profusely apologize. I've been traveling a lot and just generally not writing, obviously. I promise that from here on out I am fully committed to this website.

Unfortunately, exactly two weeks ago today I tweaked my hamstring running at Parisi. It had felt sore for the previous 4 days and I hurt it when we were testing my 30m time. We've known from the very start from everyone (Parisi, Kristen, myself) that I'm not an exceptionally flexible person. However, I really need to improve that so that I can push my body to the limit without injuring myself. Eric put it best when he said that athletes "are constantly on the line between injuring themselves and doing something great." It feels fine now, but I've decided to add on some yoga a couple of times a week to help my general flexibility. This should be quite interesting because I've seen the yoga classes at my gym and I will definitely be the only one in the class with testoterone in their blood. I hear great things about it though and am excited to start.

This morning I met with my dietician to go over the supplements she put me on and to review my diet. She has me on three supplements; an ActiveMan's general vitamin, a glucosamine vitamin, and flax seed oil. The general vitamin is pretty self-explanatory, but the glucosamine and flax are really the intriguing ones. Glucosamine helps lubricate joints and helps prevent injury to the joints, all great things. Flax seed oil is completely filled with Omega-3 fatty acids, which, although they sound bad, are really very good for you. It makes sure your body is getting the necessary fat to burn so that it doesn't burn muscle when you work out and it also helps glycogen replenishment which is a key to muscle recovery. Ariel gave me a 12 page article on it which I will probably read later tonight.

Last night I was perusing the official bobsled and skeleton website, www.bobsleigh.com, and found out that there actually is a limit to the sled/sledder weight. The US site really gives no information on the actual sport itself so I was quite happy with the information overdose that bobsleigh.com provides. I discovered that the sled and pusher can only weigh at most 115kg (about 253 lbs) in international competition. I came to Ariel with this information and we decided to change my diet around a little bit so that I can lost some weight in these next five weeks. I am currently at 207 pounds and our goal is to lose about 1-2 pounds per week so that I can drop below 200. We changed my diet and decided to add some extra running (about 4 hours per week) to accomplish my weight-loss goal. For fun I weighed myself about an hour after my Parisi session today and saw that I was down to 203. I don't think this weight-loss thing will be a problem.

After the meeting with the dietician I finally came back to Parisi after a two-week hiatus. I was originally only supposed to miss four training sessions but last Friday Eric had to cancel so I couldn't come back until today. Eric was very conscious of my hamstring (which feels fine) and he had Hong and I warm up extra long today. After our warm-up we had an intense session of sprinting and stadium stairs. We were working on conditioning today and since it was so nice out Eric ran us through a series of sprints out on the soccer field combined with stadiums steps up and down the bleachers. While at times I hated the workout, it really felt fantastic to get back out there. We then got to do some work balancing on a physio-ball and then we did lots and lots of crunches, as always. The physio-ball, for those that might not know, is basically a giant rubbery-type ball that people use to work on their balance. We did maybe 5-10 minutes of just trying to balance on our knees with our hands raised and I had a lot of fun with it falling down and getting back up. Eric said he filmed the training session and will sell the physio-ball footage if we ever cross him.

I plan on doing a plyometric workout later tonight with some light cardio and tomorrow more of the same. I will also be heading out to my high school's track to work on my starts and to get in some extra running. Later that night is potentially my first yoga session so it should be an interesting day. I'll keep you posted!