We got up at 6am to get ready for the Neways Maui Paradise 5K race. While I was taking a shower Liliya noticed a lightning. At about 6:30am a mighty tropical rain started pouring. We swallowed all the Neways nutritionals and went to the shuttle with a bunch of other 5K runners. When we came to the park there was already almost 1 foot of water on the road in some places. While we were warming up and stretching the news came that the 5K is cancelled by the local police department. So as sponsors of the marathon we stayed to meet people and help out. Few hours later we ran back to the hotel with some corporate guys from Neways. The distance was about 5.5K  
I will post more pictures and videos later. Aloha.

Today we left for our vacation home in McCall, Idaho. The roads were amazingly good after the snow storm we had in the last few days. When we got there we had a light dinner and then we went to pick up our skies from Gravity Sports. Even though it was very dark when we got to the Ponderosa State Park we were excited about getting on the trail. One of them had lit torches, the rest of the park was as black as the crow's wing. It left us only one choice: to follow the trail with the torches. It was very special to ski under the moonlight. The trees, covered with fresh snow, towered around us like ancient giants. Some of them with very weird, even frightening forms.
It took us about an hour to get back to the car.
I was so surprised that I was not tired. Looks like all the training I did lately is paying off.



I am looking forward to skiing more in the next two days.



When we got back we jumped straight into the hot tub with Neways Lavender oil. I jumped into the snow and back 3 times. Kids and Liliya did it two or three times too. Such an inexplicable feeling to go from hot to freezing in a matter of seconds.

Have you ever jumped into the snow out of a hot tub? How did you feel? Did you like it?

Today I am sore after yesterdays 5k run. It feel more like my tendons and ligaments are taking a beating. So I just did about 2 miles of jogging around neigborhood with my son. It was hard to do even that. Soon I will find out if I even go to Hawaii.
But if not I promised my coach that I will run the YMCA 5k on January 1st 2009.

From the results of the last year I know that I will not be last, but it does not look like I'll be first neither :)

To get inspired I watched 5k World Record videos with Haile Gebreselassie:

Haile Gebrselassie 1998 Helsinki 5000m WR 12:39.36 Part 1

Haile Gebrselassie 1998 Helsinki 5000m WR 12:39.36 Part 2

Today was the biggest day of my life concerning running! When I woke up in the morning the soreness was gone. Thank you so much to the friend who left a useful advice. In the morning I took care of business calls and worked on my laptop to follow up with my business partners.

Here is how the rest of my day developed:

In the afternoon I went to the gym and did 3.5 miles on elliptical in less than an hour. This was the longest time I was on the apparatus in one time. I felt great, but also tired. My weight today is 204.8 lbs. In the evening when my coach showed up he said it's time to run 5k. I told him about what I did already. He congratulated me, but said I need to run to get ready.
So off we went back to the gym (it's too cold outside, it will be -1F tomorrow night). He helped me to set up treadmill for 5k, which is a little bit more than 3 miles and I took of running. I did not push myself too hard and set the speed at 6, after the first mile I set the speed at 7, but after about half a mile, went back to 6. I finished 5k after 29 minutes and 10 seconds.

Last time I ran so long was in the Red Army, I think. Or very long ago, anyway.

Any comments?

Woke up sore in my leg muscles. Payback from my last experiment. Usually second day is the worst! And so it is... In the evening went to sauna and swam a little. Feel a tiny bit better.

I hope it's over by tomorrow morning.

Too sore to write more : )

Do you know any remedies for sore muscles? Please share them with me. Please...

Today we went for a walk with Liliya. It was freezing outside. Very beautiful though. Snow, cold, windy...I felt like I am back in Siberia.
The rest of the day was busy with phone calls. Business is growing like crazy, thanks to the ailing economy.
So it is a recession proof business like I was talking to people about it. In fact,...well, it's a different story.

In the evening I finally made it to the gym and did 1.5 miles on elliptical in 19.28 minutes. Not bad, I think. Scales showed me 205.2 on the digital dial. Looks bad to me. I want to get under 200 lbs. By the end of the year! By now I think they mess with scales in the local Y just to make me mad.

Today was another very busy day. I am still trying to get my Russian passport renewed. It is even harder than getting a US "Green Card", and that took me 10 years to get it : )

So in the evening there was no time, or maybe no desire to run anywhere anymore. I decided to compensate it with squats and set a target to do 300 of them non-stop in one set. After 100 reps my legs were burning and I actually asked Katya to count the rest of them, because I could not concentrate on anything else but squatting. When I got to 200 I was breathing heavily and sweating profusely. I was exhausted and the goal was dropped.

I gave up because I did not calculated my strength correctly. Which means that I have to train more to reach it next time. I wonder if anyone of you ever misjudged your abilities and set a wrong goal from the start. Maybe you have some wisdom to share about it. Please feel free to leave your advise in the comments.

Can you do 200 squats non-stop in one set? How many did you do?

After getting up I  wished everyone  "good morning"; I drank 2 glasses of water, then my coach and I took of running. It was cold and windy. Snow fell on the mountains during the night.
It became our custom by now to warm up by going to our rental and feeding the steers. Then we stretched and decided to find out how long it will take me to get through with 2 miles.

Here are the results of the experiment #2:

My weight - 202.8 lbs
2 miles - 19 minutes

It was hard and I had moderate pain in the left side of my chest after about 1 mile. I wonder if it is my heart or my lungs. If anyone has any suggestions, please voice them in the comments.

The rest of the day will be dedicated to getting ready for Katya's birthday.




Overall I am very pleased with my progress. Can you run 2 miles in 19 minutes?

Really busy day today, so never got to running. Will try to get up early morning tomorrow. I noticed that I was sore yesterday, so I was sure I'll be sore even more today. To my surprise, I did not hurt at all in the morning. By the end of the day I can feel it a little, but I know that I'll recover completely tomorrow and will be able to go hard.

I'll try to stage another experiment tomorrow and will let you know about the results.

Have you ever asked yourself why you blog? I did many times, and if you were following me you can see that at times I had no idea why and sometimes I just stopped doing it all together.

This short video helped me define my WHY...

Why are you blogging?

It's exactly a month until the Neways Maui Paradise Marathon on January 11th and we are working hard on winning a FREE trip to Hawaii paid by Neways. When I get there I should be ready to run 5000K, and that is my short term goal for this month. To get in shape so I don't faint or collapse during the race.

So with that in mind, even though we had no time for it, we went to Y to get a quick upper body  workout. We were done in less than 30 minutes. Wow! So when someone says they don't have time, or when I say I don't have time - DON'T BELIEVE IT! It's all about priorities.

In the evening I new I still have to run my 3 miles. My coach was with me today and he pushed me to run faster than ever. Result?

I ran one mile in 8 minutes!

That is 2 minutes faster than the last time, or improvement of 20%

I was ecstatic about it and had enough energy to finish the workout with 2 more miles of moderate running with short breathing brakes in between.

Then I did a conference call for our business partners in USA and Canada.

What a great day : )

How was yours?

As I expected, I am sore today after yesterday's experiment :(
Well, it's not that bad, I made a really great day out of it.

I took a very long bath. It's something I do when I want to relax. I take one to two hours long baths. Is it healthy? I don't know... If you have an opinion, please, feel free to leave it in the comments.
But I love it. I added some Epsom salt and Neways Indulge Bubble Bath . Then I poured really hot water, I like it scalding hot.

And then I just chilled for more than an hour.  Ahha...

After I got out I took a nap :) Some of you may wonder how I can do it? To see the answer, click HERE.

After an hour of peaceful nap Liliya and I went out for a walk. We strolled around the
neighborhood for about an hour.

It was great!

In the evening I played a little with my new toy, smart phone Centro that we gave each other for Christmas.

Looks like this bed is what it was promised to be :)
I feel so much better and pain that I suffered from in the last several months is gone. I hope and believe for good! So today when I got up I decided to do an experiment. Can I run outside for one hour?

After taking care of some business issues I put my running shoes on and went out to see what I have got.

After about 20 minutes I felt tired, so I did some walking and running again, and little walking and running again. To my surprise, I did it for an hour.  Not all running like I planned at first, but hey, I have not done anything like that for many years. So I feel very good about what I accomplished today.

Next time I'll try to run non-stop!

When I got into the shower I was drenched in sweat. My legs are sore already, so I know there will be no running tomorrow.

After I thought about why I could do it, I came up with a couple of answers:

I am taking Neways supplement Ming Gold that is very effective in increasing endurance while exercising. I really think it's one of the reasons I did so well. However, I am making sure I take a broad spectrum of supplements as well. So it could be a contributing factor as well.

Can you run for one hour non-stop?

Today was an interesting day! Ivan, a friend of mine, came to town and will be helping a lot of people in the next couple of days using his computer diagnostics. Also he brought with him a special bed that helps to align a messed up back. I still have left over problems from a car wreck in 1999. I hope to get better with the help of this miracle bed.






So I did no running today and no other exercise neither. I'll let you know if the bed helped me or not. Have you ever tried something like that? Did it help at all?

In the morning I was still sore in my leg muscles, but after all I have decided to  go to the gym anyway. I did 3 miles of biking, which is by the way, much easier than running : )  I finished with the upper body workout. When I weighed myself I found out I am still over 200lbs, 203.4 lbs to be exact.

The rest of the day was busy with running around the town.

I am trying to keep up with six meals a day and increase my protein intake as well.

Today I decided to run outside because Hawaii is outside as well ; )

Also I secured a running coach for myself, who will train me so I can get ready in time for the competition. I'll tell you about him later . He is really cool and he is super fast ( like number 10 in the state of Idaho or something like that )



We ran to our steers again for a warm up, and then he made me do sprints every 5 minutes.
He wanted to know how fast I can run a mile...so 10 minutes later he got the answer.
So here is the deal: 5000 meters is about 3 miles. I have not ran that much for about, well, I think, like 15 years or close to that.
When I finally got home I was soaked and wet from sweating profusely. The shirt was wet, the pants were wet, the sweater was wet, even my hat was wet :)
Can you believe that? I was so happy to climb into hot shower and to take a break on the couch right after. I can feel the pain in my legs already and I know that in about two days it will be even worse. But hey, no pain no gain, right?