Day 9

 Felt better gong into today's workout than yesterday.  Planned to do an easy 5 and wound up doing 7 instead.  Easy pace of 8:49 per mile (6.8 mph) but I varied the incline as I went and wound up with 800 feet of vert by the end.  Wound up running for over an hour for the 2nd day in a row.  I was planning to run harder tomorrow so we'll see how I feel.

I'm also on a 8 day streak in terms of my secondary fitness goals.  I started the year with 5 consecutive days off so I've been playing some catchup. 

Pull ups:  currently on pace for 9733.  I've mostly been doing 36 of these a day.  3 sets of 12 with pullups, chin-ups and side-grip pull ups.  I've been extra cognizant of going all the way down, moving smoothly, and using the full range of motion.  These have been slightly harder than when I just crank them out but not bad and probably more effective overall.   The goal for the year is 10000.

Pushups:  Now on pace for 11860 with a goal of 10000.  Trying to keep good form on these but nothing crazy.  

Burpees:  This is a new one.  I'm currently on pace for 3072 with a goal of ????.  I haven't done enough burpees in my life to know how many is a good number... I'm sure I did some in high-school but I don't remember doing much since then.  The few times I did try I was dropping down onto my shoulders which I used to be able to do with ease in high school but now causes trauma. After watching a few videos I realized I should be squatting down first.  This eliminated the trauma and once I got the motion, timing, and breathing coordinated they are quickly becoming easier.  My original though was to do 10 a day for a goal of 3650.  Right now I'm working off that doing at least 10 and sometimes a few more as I play catchup for my 5 days off.  Currently a set of 12 seems like the right amount of effort but considering I've only done about 100 burpees in the last 20 years I'd imagine that number could grow quite a bit.  

I still can't quite get my diet in order and my weight quite where I'd like it to be.  Part of it is just the fact that my 40+ year old man's body composition and metabolism isn't quite the same as 20 year old me... Still, with all the work I put in I'd really like to wind up ripped at least for a little while... Being ripped would be cool but isn't necessarily the goal though... my real question is how much better I could potentially perform if I got my body fat down a bit.  Also, I can "feel" the extra bulk I carry and expect that I will "feel" a lot more fit if I ever shed it.  The problem is that eating clean takes 24/7 discipline and I just don't have it... so far this year I have been better about some of the snacking on junk food and I haven't been eating ice-cream every day so at least there's that.