Its been a long time since I have posted about the progress of my fitness goals. Lately I have been focusing a lot training for a series of half marathons and two, maybe three marathons in the late summer or early fall. Since I started using hybrid workout programs that combine running, P90X, P90X2, Insanity, and Insanity: the Asylum I have been making some significant improvements in speed.

Before my first hybrid program, I was running a 7:40 and 8:00 min/mile paces for my 6 mile and 10+ mile runs respectively. Currently I am running at a ~7:00 and ~7:20 min/mile pace for my  6 and 10+ mile runs. In the interest of clarity, these are all on fairly flat courses, which is a rarity here in southern California. In the last two half marathons I posted a 7:20 and 7:17 min/mile overall pace in races that contained some significant hills. One of them had a ~400 foot climb in the last mile (ouch, see my post about the Hollywood Half Marathon). Before my hybrids my best race time had a 7:27 pace. This may not seem like a significant increase; but considering this was on a flat course and my two recent races contained significant hills….I consider this a big improvement. More evidence for this lies in the increase in speed that I have seen on my training runs as mentioned above.

So, this means that my hybrids are working! I also was met with a pleasant surprise when I was digging in my closet and found an old pair of jeans that feel huge on my now.

So when I started getting back into fitness and healthy eating I was wearing size 36 pants; but today I’m down between 28-31 depending on the designer. In the transition from the midwest to SoCal, I’ve had some hiccups on my diet; but no major deviations.

In the future, I’m going to stick with my latest running/P90X2/Asylum/Insanity hybrid for the next few half marathons and then I’ll be working on the new full marathon hybrid. One thing that has really helped has been foam rolling (Its helped so much, I am planning on posting a series of blogs on the effectiveness and proper use of foam/rumble rollers). Its all thanks to my good friend BriAnn Williams and the infamous Tony Horton. BriAnn has been doing marathons for a while and used to always tell me to foam roll; but being a stubborn guy I never started until I injured myself a few times. But since I have started foam rolling, I haven’t had any cramps, aches, or joint pains during my training or racing. So for those of you out there who have had constant problems with achy/sore muscles, I highly recommend foam rolling.