• Exercise

    One-Leg Partial Squat to Bench

    I do like to work my legs. They’re one of my favorite bodyparts to train, respond well, and recover quickly. Perhaps that’s because I do a lot of “pre-hab” work. This is a variation of a one-leg squat that’s fairly simple for most people to do. I’m using an adjustable box squat bench, but just about anything you have, like a chair, box, bench, toybox, entertainment center or whatever, can be made to work. Stand beside the box with your weighted food parallel to the side of the box or bench, lift your unweighted leg to bend the knee, and very slowly and carefully lower your knee to the bench,…

  • Exercise

    Band Sissy Squats

    In my previous Blast Strap Sissy Squat article I showed a variation of the Sissy Squat supported by straps hung from a power rack. Today I’ll show a variation using a large rubber band. You can get these online from a variety of places, my personal favorite being EliteFTS. In this variation you’re much less stable, and don’t break (fold) at the hips. This puts more of the force directly on the quads, but for some people the stress on the knee might not be acceptable, so be cautious – go slow till you know. I had previously experimented with a few sizes of bands, to roughly negate my weight…

  • Training

    Training Hike – Half Dome via Cables Route

    Sometimes a really good long (16 mile) hike in mountainous terrain with some good elevation gain and loss (5,600′) is excellent training for mountaineering. I wore my Polar RS800CX and got the data transferred to Google Earth, and generated this Elevation Profile: I had a friend from California with to help me with logistics (permits, lodging, and transportation) and we hiked together. I’m normally alone in my pursuits, so it was a welcome change. We talked about maybe doing Rainier together sometime. It took 4:15 up, and we hung out on top for a while to enjoy the views, then 3:15 down, actually running off and on about half of…

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  • Race

    Steamboat Half Marathon Follow-up

    Well, I did it. I lived through the Steamboat Half Marathon. First of all, here’s how I did by the clock: Gun Time: 2:19:03 – Chip Time: 2:18:31 – Pace: 10:37 Overall Place: 564 – Gender Place: 197th Age Group: 50 to 59 Male Division Place: 28th Out of: 826 overall, 245 in gender, 37 in division I took off reasonably slow and built up speed gently to a little faster than 10:00 pace. After about 3 miles I realized it wasn’t working well, and I was off my anticipated pace of 9:20. I thought the race was supposed to be mostly downhill, and the elevation profile published on the…

  • Race

    Steamboat Springs Half Marathon Before the Race

    In the past I’ve run two road half marathons, both downhill. One was the AF Canyon Half and the other was the Provo Halloween Half. My times were 2:08 and 2:25 respectively. Neither were really “awesome”, but the first one I’d never run 13 miles before, though I had done 10 mile long runs as part of 20 mile weeks for the previous 5 weeks. For the Provo run I was doing 6 mile long runs in 15 mile weeks, due to some injuries. Also for the Provo run I was in recovery mode from the Aspen Backcountry Marathon in late August 2011 (with a 7:30 finish), after which I…

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