Lungs Full - Belly Not So Much

Well I continue training in Afghana-land where the weather is hot and the food is not.




I will start by letting you all in the secret of why we could possibly be losing this war...the food. The food we are fed is crap. Plain and simple crap. Every meal is some new concoction our East Indian friends in the kitchen dream up. They call it something almost familiar or with a familiar sound or word in it. For example the always wonderful 'Chinese Chilli Dong'. Now I am pretty certain that the Chinese don't do a whole lot of chilli eating. I am even more certain that hot dogs do not belong in chilli. Maybe that's where the dong comes from. I may have gone too far in calling these things hot dogs, as they are Euro style wieners. Not glorious brats or sausage but wieners. Not Oskar Meyers. These things are about a foot long and have a casing with the consistency of plastic wrap. Disgusting.



So now that the food is out of the way lets move on to the atmosphere. Yes it is hot. Like 40 degrees Celsius by 8am kind of hot; but that is not so bad as you get accustomed to it.



Not sure how many have been to the Sand Box over here but there is very little here. A generally receptive if not reclusive peoples is often smiling at us...although sometimes that smile is the harbinger of death. But that's another tale. There is no industry here. No factories burning through the night. No water being pumped through a steel mill and back into the world. Mostly it is just people and livestock - and not much of that. With all this caveman style living you would think air quality would not be an issue. But it is. It is terrible. I breathe in dust, sand, bugs and literally crap. Their feces are often in the open and so are the soldiers that reside here temporarily. Sure we kid ourselves with some indoor plumbing depending where you are stationed, but even that is then pumped into a giant 'pond of poo' at the airbase. Running past it is like running through a sulphur mine.



When not in the gym riding the spin bike or lifting weights to offset the loss the swimming fitness (not to mention age), I will run around the airfield. A distance of anywhere from 5-15km. Jets screech by, helos blow even more dust in the air and the vehicles along the same dirt 'roads' I run along are kicking up even more dirt and crap for me to heave into my lungs.



It is tough, but I digress. I relatively healthy and getting my fitness back to where I can race again. I am here on two missions - Canada's and mine.



Cheers.



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Still Trying to Train With No Water, No Real Bike and a Treadmill....

Here I am still in Afghanistan with about one and half months to go. My running once again took a step back with a little patellfemoral tendonitis issues followed after recovery by a calf heart attack...I just cannot win, but I shall persevere.

An example of a workout for me over here is a decent spin bike workout on my own for about an hour. I usually do a warm up and follow with some tempo or intervals. Sometimes I will jack up the resistence so much I have to put all of my weight on the pedals just to move. it is a good sweat though. I follow the ride with some dynamic stretching and then it is off to the treadmill for a 5min walk at about 7km/hr and an incline at level 10. I then take off the incline to 1-1.5 and increase the speed to 10.5km/hr. It is a nice light pace to prevent further injury and setbacks. After a 30min run I streatch some more and head to the dumbells. Today was a shoulder day (hopefully keeping my swimming muscles working). Do lateral dumbell raises, front raises and another dumbell exercise that focuses on the stabilizers in the shoulder...don't know the name of it though. I go on to do shoulder presses and straight arm cable presses. It is a tough workout and the shoulders hurt (in that good way) for a day or so. I generally will work legs, back, bi/tri and chest on a day with at least an hour of cardio.

In all I am not displeased with my progress as I have almost fallen below the 200lb mark for the first time in a long time. Even when I did my last half iron I was still around 200 so this is good.

So I am certain to write that I will be posting more often, but we all know that is a probable lie.

Oh yeah. I am now in the process of trying to pick out two ro three races for the year. At the least an Olympic and a sprint, but I am hoping to get to the point where I can do a sprint, oly and a half. I was looking at the REV 3 half at Cedar Point and it looks pretty cool. I also plan on doing about three OWS races starting with the 'Bring on the Bay' 3k OWS to support Easter Seals. I will see how I feel and maybe do the two Meech Lake OWS put on by Technosport. Who knows how it goes.

Til next time.