Paco!

for those of you that have never been formally introduced to paco, the paconation mascot...

-drum roll-

... here he is:

charming/happy little guy... everything i'm not! hahaha. KIDDING!!!

lots more paco in the future!!!

oh... and by the way:

yep! thats what i said at first... you learn to live with it though...

ripper workout week 2

first week of the ripper workout is in the books! i successfully completed 3 days of working out, 2 days of interval training, and NO bitching or moaning about having to workout (which, is a BIG step for me!)...

my observation on the first week. each set seemed to take just under 2 minutes consistently. ranking the exercises from hardest to easiest for this week was:
squats
calf raises
curls
crunchesrows
shoulder press
dumbbell press

this program does a really good job of spacing out the different exercises so that you're not too overwhelmed. the main reason the squats are SO hard is that you "roll" down a wall with the use a resistance ball... so that isolates your quads and will make those puppies cry for days!!! the big surprise was the more you focus on just moving your arms during the resistance band curls, the harder/better it gets! and it always seems funny that you're ONLY working with 20lbs of resistance. i think the key is to only move the body part you're working out... which at first read sounds really stupid, but think of what pilates teaches you about focusing on a certain muscle and breathing.

but it's a good pain! so how am i feeling after week 1 of the 12 week ripper workout? great, and STILL looking forward to working out!

week 2 preview:

looks like this week will incorporate a little more yoga/pilates with a combination push-up/side staff pose... lets see what i mean... we'll ask paco for help on this one:

(look it up people!)

...a little more isolation on the abs with a resistance ball crunch! and a little lat and a lot of shoulder action finally rounding off the workout with some leg work!

the exercises include: crunches, lat pull down, squat press, hamstring lift, shoulder press, yoga-type push-up...

next workout will be thursday evening (8/21). next update MAY be a quickie this weekend (lets hope it's not the ONLY "quickie this weekend" hahaha. OH, such a sad, sad life!), but definitely will be at the end of the second week (thursday 8/28. last workout being tuesday 8/26).tonight, it's off to CMU's stadium to do some running!overall status: enjoying the workout... running is a little rough, but i have some ideas to make it better! my diet needs a kick in the ass though!!!
have a great week everyone!

mail pouch barn #2 (murrysville)

i started the painting stage of my next "mail pouch" project... i stenciled it out a few months ago but got backed up with life-type stuff and couldn't find a few hours to continue it. so this past saturday, i cruised out to my friend's property in murrysville with paint and brush in hand! so far i got the word "CHEW" and the word "MAIL" and the letters "P" and "H" painted in... hopefully i can continue this week sometime in the evening. i measured the "I" wrong in the word "MAIL", but that's an easy fix! so far so good. also, i'm going to try out a new technique for stenciling the word "tobacco"... since it has now worn off. but, like i said, so far so good.

should have pictures to post soon... until then, here is a picture of the first barn (shed), i did for my family... half way through (it has since been finished):

work out: day 1

from now on, i'm gonna call this the "ripper workout"! mainly because my friend at work calls me "ripper" and i don't want to refer to it as something as generic as "my workout" or something like that...

the first day only lasted about a half hour and consisted of: rows, calf raises, dumbbell press, shoulder press, squats, crunches, & curls.

how am i feeling? after a, what seemed easy, 30 minutes or so of weight training in sequence??? SORE MUSCLES! legs, tris, chest, & back mostly.

it feels great though, being this sore with that quick of a workout. i'm most amazed at my legs because, as i've said, i bike almost every day. and i didn't lift a pound over 20!

next workout will be saturday morning. next update will be at the end of the first week (thursday 8/21. last workout being tuesday 8/19).

tonight, it's off to CMU's stadium to do some running!

overall status: so far, so great! all the exercises were do-able! looking forward to saturday morning!

have a great weekend everyone!

p.s.
the last post was post #40... we all know how i feel about the #40! wooo hooo!

awwwwwww work out!

after all these weeks of scraping together a blog, i finally found something to write about... or to be more accurate... i finally found something (worth while) to document... i think... but it will keep me busy, and keep my blog updated. win-win!

i've been riding my bike into work 2-3 times a week for the past month and a half or so. that's about 6.5 miles/35-40 minutes (both ways almost). in the mornings, i have a .8 to .9 of a mile climb through frick park from commercial street up to beechwood blvd. in the evenings, i have 3 climbs with an average of about .8 of a mile per each climb (greenfield ave., monitor st., commercial st.). my diet has been pretty good... very low fat, lots of water. not too, too many veggies but i'll change that. i have been slowly losing weight. i think i am losing body fat, but gaining muscle in my legs. i want to go the extra step and shed off as much body fat as i can, but cant do that successfully until i start lifting weights. i'm always ass-backwards when it comes to working out. i'll lift weights... but then i'll eat bad or just wont do any cardio. or i'll eat good one day... and not do anything else. you get the idea. well now that i ride my bike into work and get two decent cardio workouts per day, the rest is coming pretty easily... "the rest" being eating right and lifting...

lifting weights... lifting has always been sort of a problem for me because i'm not the most motivated person in the world. so to solve this problem i was looking into joining a gym. the first time i stepped back into a gym last week, i immediately remembered how much i HATE gyms! seriously! i settled on one i liked with the thought that, it's on the way home and if i'm paying THAT much money per month my ass will definitely be in the gym. so JUST as i was about to sign up... the day i was going to bike over and hate gyms for the next 3 months (with an initiation fee)... i jumped on google and randomly searched "ab workouts". i wanted to get a list of different exercises that i can do for 2 weeks at a time and blah, blah, blah. i wanted to start with abs because that's the body part i wanted to build the most. then i would have worked arms and chest. so as i was searching, i found this goofy titled workout (which, if i see results, i will post after week 6). and, to wrap up my thoughts, i had all the equipment at home (dumbbells, resistance ball, resistance band). so hear i go... 10+ weeks/3x a week of training, eating pretty good, and riding my bike! i'll document my progress here... so stay tuned. target date is 11/4