Audience

A huge part of being an athlete is performing in front of an audience. I am not stranger to this. Having played football and ran track in high school as well as hockey in my early 20's, I have played in front of an audience many times. That has never been an issue for me before. I have discovered, however, that working out at home does have an unexpected audience problem.

My wife and I have a lot of pets. Four cats and two dogs to be exact. They are all rescues and we have not had a day in our married life when we didn't have a pet. Our older cats do there own thing when I am doing a workout at home The same cannot be said for the dogs or our youngest cat. The dogs are a couple of Jack Russell Terrier mixes, so they are about the same size as the cats. Their names are Max and Eddie. The kitten is a fearless eight month old named Indy. She likes to pounce on the dogs for sport and I have come home to find her up on top of the curtain rod.

The dogs and the cat have an unnatural fascination with our treadmill. When I was doing my workout late last week, I had a really hard time concentrating on what I was doing. The cat looked like she was trying to figure out how to hop on the treadmill, or she was trying to play with the string on the emergency stop. The dogs did try to get on the machine while I was on it. They also ran all through the house, chasing after the other cats and barking. This didn't make for a very good workout.

Based on this, I have decided that the best place for the dogs to be when I am working out at home is for them to be outside. Doesn't matter if it is raining, snowing, hailing fire and brimstone. I don't plan to workout at home everyday. I know that for me to meet my goals, both for weight loss and other things that I have not stated yet.

My workout yesterday went a lot better. The cat was happy to be in our room, someplace she is not allowed to go to of her own free will. I got the whole workout in and all I heard was my iPod and rhythm of my feet.

New Shoes

I have never thought of this as being a forum for suggestions to give to the rest of the world about what to use for workouts, or anything else in life. I actually want to encourage others to give me ideas since I am learning this as I go along.

Up until recently, I have been using a pair of cross trainers to do my workouts in. I fairly comfortable pair of Nikes that I have had for a couple of years, but, I have only used in a gym or on our treadmill at home.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to an outlet store about an hour from our home and I went into a Nike store to find a new pair of shoes for just living in. I am a fairly tall person (about 6'4") and I have big, wide feet. A consequence of this is that finding shoes that fit is a major challenge. I looked at and tried on 5 or 6 pairs of shoes, ranging from basketball shoes all the way to walking shoes. I even tried on a pair of Air Jordans. Hey, at an outlet store, why not? I couldn't find anything that I was happy with, or wasn't expensive, even for an outlet. I had just about given up one of the employees suggested that I try on a pair of shoes that he wears almost on a daily basis and is the most comfortable for him.

He brought out a pair of running shoes. That really wasn't what I was looking for to wear while hanging out with friends and such, but, I decided to try them on anyway. It felt like I was just wearing socks, they were so light and comfortable. For those who might be interested, they are Zoom Vomero+4's and I am excited to be using them. My cross trainers, great shoes in and of themselves will be my hangout shoes and I will be using the running shoes during my workouts. I may even get an second pair when the weather is better for running outside. They have the space in the sole for the Nike iPod sensor. I don't have that yet, but I am considering that for tracking my distances when I start working out outside.

As of yesterday's weigh in, I am 256.4 lbs. We have gone out to eat way too much and I have worked out way too little. This is no way to prepare for a 10k or anything bigger.