So, this is an update to my challenge (Click here to read all about it if you don’t know). So I just finished a workout and I’m feeling tired, good, but tired – worn out actually. Tonight’s workout hurt from the begining to the end and I didn’t think I would make it. But I did, and my muscles are starting to loosen up and the endorpines are being released so I’m starting to feel better by the second…

Anyway I did a measure in tonight to see what kind of progress I’ve made, because I’m to the point where I should start really seeing progress. It turns out that I’ve gained 4 inches. So I’m on my way. That by itself was enough for me to work through the pain, but man if I didn’t have everyone’s support (especially Heather’s) it would have been easy to just plop on the couch and say it was too hard. So thanks to everyone.

The end of next week marks the half way point, but next week is a recovery week, this week is kind of a work my butt off week and make up for a couple of days I got off because I get sick a couple of weeks ago. So I think I’m gonna have a lot of painful workouts this week, but then I have a recovery week to look forward to.

So everything’s progressing, and that’s a good thing.

So, I’m into my third week of working out and I can honestly say that I have begun to exercise the old man that was starting to take over my body. After the first 2 weeks I have gained 1 inch over my initial jump tests, so I’m at 27 inches now. Though the documentation on this program says that after week 3 (my current week) there will be a slight decrease as your body adjusts to everything. So I’m not expecting gain to hold through this week I guess. But the good news is that after that the increase should swing back up and there should be steady gains.

As for the old man, well I played basketball on Tuesday, like I usually do – unless some stupid pipe in the basement decides to burst and I have to spend my evening fixing it – and I felt really good. Not like my old/younger self who was always in constant motion when I played, but like I could have played much longer than I did. The feeling of being completely incapable of doing anything good on the athletic front has left and I’m excited to not only see where this takes me but to start adding other physical improvements to what I’m doing now.

On other fronts, I will be launching a new website soon I just need to finish it up. And for those who want to see some pictures of our kiddles check out myfamilyharris.com which is a domain I have had forever and was going to use as a family newsletter/networking site, but have never had the real time to develop. So for now it will be the holder of cute pictures of Aleksia, Cooper and Ella.

So, my first workout was great. I was feeling good, and I even didn’t feel quite so old when I played basketball the next day, I did have a little less energy, but it was not as bad as the week before. So I thought I would just cruise through this whole thing and emerge on the other end some kind of world-class athlete (please not sarcasm here).  Anyway, I started my second workout and the warmup didn’t seem to last for eternity like the first time and stretching and all of that went good. Then I started the actual workout, and on my first training exercise into my second set I did something, I don’t really know what it was, maybe I tweaked my neck – most likely – but halfway through the set I felt pain shoot up the back of my head and my eyes felt like they were going to pop out. Um yeah, so I had to sit down for a minute and I was a little freaked out. I knew tough times would come, but on the second workout? Wow I’m awesome. Anyway I did get through that and I didn’t have an aneurysm or anything. Then as I was resting between sets and looking over what I need to do  next I started looking at future weeks. I realized just how very easy this first week is. By the end of this whole thing I’ll be doing something like 500 sets of 1,000,000 reps of each thing. So I am just going to enjoy the feeling that I’m doing good for now because as the weeks progress my head may actually fall off if I had a problem on only my second workout…

Fun stuff, but I am still glad I’m doing this because in the morning when I have had time to rest I feel pretty dang good.

So I had my first workout last night and it wasn’t too bad. My legs got tired, which means they were working, but the first week’s worth of work is meant to ease you into the whole thing. I did come to one conclusion though. The Air Alert program says to work out 3 days a week – every other day on even odd weeks and 3 days in a row on even weeks. Well since I really think I could use as much work as possible to make sure I get the most gain out of this, there by raising the most money, I am going to do an extra day. So rather than just Monday, Wednesday and Friday on odd weeks I will do Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. On even weeks Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurday and Friday. I’m not worried about overworking my legs because basically I don’t do anything else besides sit on my butt the rest of the time, so they’ll have plenty of recovery time.

I don’t have any pictures or video to post right now. I was going to record my first jump measure-in, but it’s kinda boring, and my measuring tape broke so I need to get a new one. I am pretty sure though that my current vertical is around 25 or 26 inches, which is not great… I used to have some where around 32, so I know my body can regain at least that much. I do have my first jump marked and once I get a new measuring tape I’ll measure that and post the pictures of the measurment. The reason I know it’s around 25″ or so is because I once upon a time started this Air Alert thing – it lasted a week because I am lazy – and my initial jumps were almost the exact same as that time and that measured at 25″. I am excited though because if I can get at least the 8 inches they say you are guarenteed to gain that will put my vertical some where around 34″ and I hope to far exceed that. I guess as long as my old legs react well to it it’s all possible…