Life + P90X After The Bet

It has been quite some time since I posted. Well, since the end of The Bet to be exact. It was a crazy time leading up to the end of the bet. I worked out harder than I had ever in my life. Most days in the last month I worked out twice or even three times. All hard workouts and the effort paid off.

Chris and I had decided that we would decide the winner based on the first 1000 votes ($1 per vote). So basically it would mean the first to 501 votes would win. It took a little over a week for me to get to 501 and only a few days more for the total votes to surpass 1000. I received about 63% of the vote to that point. Not a land slide by any means, but a definitive victory. It was really funny to see all the comments the site generated in those first couple of weeks. They were all pretty nice, so thanks to all the peeps with positive feedback. I don't have much to say to the haters; you're all entitled to your opinion and I respect that.

So after The Bet was over I had no intention of stopping. I was in the best shape of my life and felt real good about it. The reason I made The Bet was to see how far I could come and I did that and then some. I was convinced for sure that this was a lifestyle change. My sister also joined me early in my 2nd round of P90X and I had full intentions of at least finishing out her 90 days, which we did.

In October, Chris and I also competed in a Sprint distance Triathlon in Hermosa Beach. You can check out the results here. But the short of it is that he somehow beat me. He's actually quite an athlete and a real solid swimmer. Swimming is my weakest event and he had about a 5 minute lead coming out of that. I gained almost no time on the bike portion (mainly due to my slower transitions) and he beat me in the run by a solid 2 minutes. The run was the real surprise as I was pretty sure I would take him having had the Triathlon experience. He did over a month's worth of specific training which I think helped him quite a bit. I did very little Triathlon specific training but kept up with the P90X.

So that was mid October. Since then I finished my 2nd round of P90X, did another round of testing (some performance upgrades - biggest one was pull ups, up to 12 from 7 after round 1), and completed a half assed 3rd round. You might ask what's a half assed 3rd round. Well, I skipped some Ab Rippers missed a few days here and there and just in general was not quite 'bringing it' as much.

Then in January I received the news about P90X Plus and was very ready to renew my commitment to the workouts. I received my P90X Plus about mid January. I've been trying to stick to it best I can. Though I find that without the motivation I had during The Bet amongst other things (got sick, baby on the way preparation, etc.) it's not quite as easy to stick to it. I'm finishing my 4th week this week and have seen some progress already since I started the Plus. Though the verdict is still out on P90X Plus. I like it, but have some issues that I'll go into detail in later posts.

So that's basically it for now. My plan is to start posting more regularly as I see people are still checking out the site quite a bit. We're still getting about 10 votes a day to the original bet, not to mention a whole bunch of hits to the site in general. It's also amazing to me how much time people send on the site. It's been impressive.

There will also be an update coming soon to amiripped.com So check back for that.

P90X Day 56 (Day 70): Redondo Beach Triathlon

The day has come and gone. I was a little nervous at the start. Chris was not feeling too sick, but wasn't going to test it by competing today. He was there to support me along with Giannina and Una. He also compiled a pretty sweet little highlight reel of my day which you can see below. I'm pretty happy with my time, but even more so with the feeling I got when I finished. It was much more exhilarating than I ever thought it would be.

My swim was horribly slow, but that is to be expected when you're breast stroking your way through a .5 mile swim. Swimming is definitely not my strength. You can check out the results here.



Oh yeah, this was supposed to be a P90X rest day. And the workouts resume tomorrow with phase 3 starting.

P90X Day 43 (Day 57): Ocean Swim

Today is Memorial Day so no biking in to work. Chris and I don't have a day off P90X of course. It was the usual Monday Phase 2 Workout - Chest, Shoulders & Tris. We decided to follow that up with an Ocean swim to get a bit more prepared for the Redondo Tri.

We ended up swimming in the afternoon after some volleyball. Swimming in the ocean in the afternoon is not so smart. The water was pretty choppy and the waves were no fun to deal with. All in all though it was not so bad. We swam for what we estimated later to be about .7 miles. That took me about 40 minutes. Just the fact that I could swim for that long in the ocean gave me all the confidence I needed for the Triathlon which was quickly approaching. It was now less than 2 weeks away and I felt pretty ready.

P90X Day 42 (Day 56): Cardio Day

I missed the Kenpo X workout yesterday due to my Koi pond having some serious issues. In order to make up for the missed cardio workout, I decided to go on my first run. Since we had now begun to do a little swim training in preparation for the Triathlon, it seemed only fitting that I figure out if I can run for some distance.

I had been toying with the idea of running to Chris's house from mine (7.1 miles) before a P90X workout and bike to work. Before I jumped right into that I wanted to see if I could do a distance run without time pressure. So today I ran to the Torrance LA Fitness (5.5 miles), then swam for an hour, then ran back home.

6.45a -> 5.5 mile run, 61 min.
8.00a -> 1 mile swim, 52 min.
9.15a -> 5.5 mile run, 66 min.

I learned a very important lesson in doing this workout. I'm never going to run in board shorts again. I'm not sure how people do that. The chafing was quite painful and resulted in some serious cuts. That was on the run there. On the run back I was smart enough to tuck my wife beater into the trunks which limited the rubbing to the knee area. The weight of wet trunks though was no fun either. The whole experience was not so great, but oh man what a workout.

P90X Day 29 (Day 43): Phase 2

Weight: 201.5 lbs.

6.30a -> P90X Phase 2 Starts - Chest, Shoulders & Tris
8.00a -> 14.5 mile bike ride, 52 min.
6.30p -> 15 mile bike ride, 55 min.

Phase 2 of P90X isn't any easier than Phase 1. Different muscle groups on Mondays and Wednesdays is basically the only difference. The Ab Ripper X is just as tough as before, and Chris and I found out we didn't miss it at all during the Recovery Week.

Chris and I have also decided that we're going to compete in Triathlons. Really I decided that it might help me in training and am making him come along for the ride. He seems to be eager to try to beat me at something. Other then tennis, he has had some issues with me dominating sports we play.

The first triathlon we're doing is the Redondo Beach Triathlon. It's a sprint distance, but with an unusually long swim in comparison to the other events. Swimming is my biggest weakness and I'll probably lose a lot of time to Chris right off the bat. But I really just want to finish. It seems like an accomplishment all on its own. Already this bet seems to have some residual up sides other then the physical aspects.