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Busy week, busy weekend. I’ve been meaning to get this update written, but just haven’t found the time.

Hundred pushups

First and foremost, I successfully completed Week 3 of the hundred pushup challenge. I previously posted my Day 1 results. On Wednesday, I successfully completed Day 2 with the following numbers:

Required: 16-14-14-12-Max (at least 15)

Actual: 16-14-14-12-16

And then on Friday, I completed Day 3 with the following numbers:

Required: 20-15-15-12-Max (at least 16)

Actual: 20-15-15-12-18

Best of all, I did this while sticking to the prescribed breaks (60 seconds on Monday, 90 seconds on Wednesday, and 120 second on Friday). It was tough, but doable. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m still languishing back in Column 1, which means that I’ll probably end up repeating some weeks before I actually “do the hundred.” Nonetheless, things are moving along nicely.

Food and drink

While I’m not willing to tackle an entire month of drinking only water, I managed to make it through a couple of days this past week drinking nothing but water. Not a huge deal, but it cut out a good bit in the way of calories on those days. I also packed a lunch twice, which two more times than normal (pathetic, I know). Going forward, I’ll probably experiment with more “water only” days and will also work to decrease the frequency of eating out — as I noted previously, this is probably my biggest health and fitness vice.

While I made some progress with Vice #1 this week, I succumbed to Vice #2 (tequila) this weekend, as we had a few margaritas on both Saturday and Sunday evening. It’ll be interesting to see what my weight looks like at my weekly weigh-in tomorrow morning.

Other exercise

In other news, I rowed Friday night for the first time (other than some short warmup sessions earlier in the week) since I tweaked my back. I did a 1 km warmup, did some stretching, and then did a fairly easy 6 km. I can tell I’ve fallen out of the rowing groove (due to vacation and my back injury) as my heart rate was up throughout the workout, and I was a bit sore the next. Regardless, it felt good to get back on the horse.

I’ve also been using our Life Fitness X5 elliptical for some cardio work while trying to rest my back. In fact, I managed to squeeze in three or four 30 minute sessions in the past week. It gets the heart pumping, but doesn’t do much for the upper body, so I coupled it with some dumbbell work on Monday/Wedesday evening (after my pushups).

Oh, and we’ve had friends in town this weekend (which partly explains the tequila), so I spent a good bit of time playing Wii Sports today. Mostly boxing and tennis. Fun was had by all, and pretty much everyone worked up a sweat.