I did a bit of subtropical storm racing this past Friday, May the 25th, 2018. An 800M to be exact. Windy as heck, hit me like a ton of bricks as I entered the backstretch. Pushed on through and finished with a terrible time. LOL

Live to fight another day, eh?!  🙂

Raced my second 800m this past Friday. Decided upon racing for the win of my heat rather than an all out for time. With this in mind, made the event much more enjoyable and allowed me to relax into the process. Didn’t win, such is the way at times, but fought an impeccable battle coming in second place of my heat.

I’m looking at a string of races to compete in around Florida and maybe a little farther. I want to get race sharp by working on my placement in the pack and my timing for driving home.

I’m going to say this right here, my focus is to go sub 1:55 and I feel this season it can be done. But I also recognise the outcome isn’t in my hands, all I can do is fight an impeccable battle, enjoy the process and follow my heart. If the time is within my grasp I’ll run it one way or another. 🙂

Time to make haste slowly. 😉

Yesterday I opened up my season running the 800m at the Ryan Mccall invite which was hosted at the University of Tampa. It was a fun race!

I decided to temper myself off the gun as I usually go out hard and hold on for dear life. LOL But the 800m is a new beast for me at the level I am searching, so a prudent approach is warranted to gather what will work best for me in respects to race strategy. As you can see from the video I sat in the back cruising until about 500m where I had to run around two stragglers and then make a move inside as a hole opened up. From there my pace quickened and figured might as well start my kick with 250 to go. Ran out of real estate in the end running a personal record of 1:59.98. About time I got under 2 minutes!

Lots to improve upon. Time to get back to business, attain more fitness and prepare for the next race on the schedule. Faster times on the way!!

This is a very late post. Life has a way of moving very fast leaving things undone if not done early enough. This is especially the case if you’re a entrepreneur working on many different tasks on the edge pioneering ways without any guidelines to assist the process. Oh well! This is what makes life fun if you’re following your passion. Anyways, my first ever indoor race was at the Armory taking part with Team Arete. I competed in the 800m off of very little training – with a road mile race on Turkey day a few weeks prior.  I posted the race video on my youtube channel:

I came in second in the heat and ninth over all with a time of 2:03.10. I have built much since then and now looking forward to my next race. Many adventures and experiences in the city of NY.  Like running to Rockefeller center at 2am in the morning the night after the race to see the Christmas tree lights only to find out they have hours of operation. LOL Fun times indeed!

I’ll let some pictures I took during this trip do the rest of the talking:

Until next time….

I had a quick start to the track season, 2017, running a 60m and 300m last Saturday the 18th of February.  Here are my races below:

I don’t work blocks at all. The last time I came out of the blocks was last year’s Moore Park Relays (now known as the Jesse Holt Invitational – RIP Coach Holt, your impact on the Miami community, and beyond, will be felt for ages).  And before that was a year prior messing around during practice with some friends. Truthfully, my main experience with blocks occurred between the ages of 11-14 as a youth sprinter growing up in Miami.  This being said, I am content with my 60m 7.40 time and know there is plenty of room for improvement.

The 300m is another story.  I should have ran a lot better than 37.05 as I run this in practice easily.  Unfortunately, as I entered the bend and attempted a higher gear, my right hamstring knotted up causing me to tone the speed down and hold on to pace.  Even so, I completely tied up on the home stretch losing my balance with 40m or so to go.  At first I was upset with the way all of it went down, but after the race the fire in my hammy led me to believe part of my breakdown was due to the hamstrings dysfunction (i.e. a grade 1 strain). That night I couldn’t even use my right leg properly!  As soon as I got home I proceeded to do coMra treatments every 2 hours to hasten the healing process. Took Sunday off, easy run Monday, easy run and 10 strides Tuesday, Wednesday a couple of 500s to test – hammy was still speaking to me even at 1:26 500 pace – Thursday off and Friday 6 300s with not a whisper from my hammy as I started with a 48 pace and worked down to 44. Very happy with my healing time and further testament to coMra’s efficacy. I visited the gym Monday, Tuesday and Friday, upper body, leg work and Olympic lifts/hip mobility, respectively.

Yesterday, Saturday, and today are both recovery days.  Of course Chen Family Taijiquan barefoot on grass everyday, usually twice per day or more. 😉

Until next race report. TTFN! Ta ta for now!!!!

Yesterday I decided upon doing a 400M time trial on a recovery week. I don’t think this is the proper way to approach training but I really wanted to see where I was at after my first training micro-cycle of the season. I managed a 49.8! This is my first time under 50 in the 26 on and off years I’ve been running track – I turn 36 in May.  Got to admit that the body didn’t feel 100% recovered from the last 3 weeks of training (e.g. 3 days a week I doubled at the gym).  So, feeling hopeful for the season.

Truthfully, it is very difficult attaining this type of conditioning with a full time job as a parent of 2 young boys and a full time job as an entrepreneur hunting for ways to build the business of holistic health and wellness. It is where I am at, so I must work with it and build the mental fortitude necessary for a successful life that requires lots of strength and resiliency.

That’s it for now. Just wanted to update everyone as I progress towards faster times. Have a wonderful 2017; by the way, this is an impeccability year.  That means to pay attention to the moment, taste your water smell the air, etc. I believe in you all as I believe in myself. 🙂

Today Diana and I ran the UPS & United Way 5K in lovely Coral Gables.  It was a fun experience.  I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about racing a 5K again.  For me, anything over 500m is quite grueling and utilizes another aspect of training discipline: mental fortitude.  Not to say that sprinters don’t have to contend with that, but something about the grit from distance, putting your head down and sucking it up, makes me highly respect distance running for competition.

The race went well! Came in 3rd overall and first in my age group at a time of 18:42. Diana dropped her time from 28 in May to 25 today.  An incredible 3 minutes off of her previous pr!!! Since now we get our naturally sourced nutrition from Isagenix, there are so many ways to utilise their products, especially the performance solutions, that will optimize our physical outputs. Key words are: adaptogens, undenatured whey protein concentrate from pasture raised ‘Happy Cows’, and cleanse days.  We’ve been feeling so lean and fit lately no wonder we can go from a sprinting base and adapt with minimal training to perform well in a 5K.  Not to mention, we had a booth there promoting Isa solutions and offering amped hydrate drinks.  A complete sports recovery drink that has nothing artificial and tastes great.  Every single person who tried it gave raving reviews! 🙂

As you can see in the picture above, we are wearing the earthrunner minimalist grounding sandals.  Had them on before warming up for the race and put them on as soon as we finished.  What a tremendous way to get antioxidants passively.

Being a holistic athlete is a lifestyle approach to search and discover new sustainable and self-sufficient ways that create a high quality life, healthy and capable.  Enjoy everyone and much love.  See you next time!! 🙂

This is a late race report from an 800m I did at the University of Miami back in the middle of March.  I would have preferred to race the 400m at this meeting but as I was coming off a small groin strain I figured it would be prudent to do an 8 instead.  To be honest, in this race I had no inner drive to excel.  This is because my focus had shifted to sprinting once I realised that my heart sings more when I engage in my fast twitch movements. Nonetheless, I wanted to share this video:

As of writing this, I am being challenged with what seems like peroneal tendonitis.  Happened two weeks ago during practice when I was running 350s at 100%.  Before doing the third 350 I felt a noticeable weakness in my left ankle.  Not heeding the physical warning, I proceeded to push past the dysfunction and further damaged the area.  Two weeks in to the injury, I am still dealing with pain and dysfunction.  Now, to be fair, I have trained throughout and even did some 350s and 100s on respective days.  Not the smartest idea, but I was successful in finishing the workouts even though I’m quite certain this has prolonged the injury.  Yesterday I was supposed to run a 400m and here I finally exercised caution and scratched.  Today it feels better! 🙂

I did my usual assortment of treatments: coMra-Therapy, grounding while doing taiji and yesterday I added ice after my strength and conditioning coach mentioned I should include this.  Great idea!!!!  My tendon feels better already with the alternating treatments from coMra to ice and taiji for the reopening of the area via silk reeling movements.

Intending for full healing this week and then a strong week of training followed by a competitive 400M race on the 2nd of May.

On Saturday I raced a couple of sprint events; the 400m and 100m.  Initially I signed up for the 400m and the 800m, but in the 8 I would have been running alone and decided on the 100 for some fun.  Here is the video of my first 100m race in over 20 years:

I didn’t want to come out of the blocks this time.  I haven’t done blocks training in a very long time and felt like a standing start to explode off the line will suit me better.  My time was 11.63.

Hours before the 100 I participated in the 400m, running a time of 51.8.  It was earlier in the morning and my legs were feeling flat no matter how much I warmed up.  Here is the race video:

Not sure if my legs feeling flat had to do with the distance training I was working on or the general load I put on my legs through over training, but either way I feel I should enlist the services of a qualified coach to help with my training program.  I have a tendency to over train and once I get to the races I am taxed out.

Apropos, after running the 100 I finally realized that if I am going to run and train as I do I might as well do exactly what I enjoy no matter what.  In this sense, I enjoy sprinting more than mid distance and distance work only doing the latter because I doubt my sprint ability.  I figured that I’d have more success in the 800m rather than the 400m with the speed I have, but through the process of training the 8 I had a grimly determined view of the world pursuing mid distance with a scowl on my face.  That’s no good and something I will presently rectify.  In other words, I am happy to say I will now focus my efforts on being the best 400m runner I can possibly be through my Run Holistic approach.  At least that is where I am at right now in this point of time.  🙂

En Joy!