Marathon Me

Just curious, what is your motivation for doing P90X? Does it save you time, since you do it at home? Are you enjoying it? Is it doing for you what you had hoped? I have a few friends doing this now and I am starting to get tempted to try it out.Rick - Austin,TX

Rick, that’s a good question. I’m not 100% sure what my motivation was for trying it. But now, I am hoping to get several things out of it: better flexibility, stronger core, overall strength, and if I can lose a little fat and convert it to muscle, then that’s a bonus.

I’ve always been into fitness, but in the High School / College years I used to lift a lot more weights, and I found I missed the soreness that comes after a challenging workout. Once I got out of college I stopped working out as much and started doing startups. Then in 2000 my wife and I got pregnant with our son and I decided to try and get back into shape. I started running again and then ran my first marathon in 2002. Once I got hooked on marathoning, I rarely lifted weights anymore. I would occasionally get into a gym and lift some weights and I always liked it, but the time commitment became to much once you factored in travel time to/from the gym and shower time.

So with P90X I can do everything in my house, which removes all commute time, and I do it before I take my son to school, followed by my morning run, so I am adding no additional showering time either.

One of the biggest benefits that I wasn’t expecting is that I sleep a lot better. I used to have hard time falling asleep at night and would get stuck thinking about all the things I needed to do the following day or upcoming week. I would spend anywhere between 30-90 minutes trying to fall asleep. Now that I am getting up at 5:45am to workout, I actually have found that I have more energy during the day (which was expected), but the big payoff is that I fall asleep a lot easier. Probably in the 10-15 minute range. So I am now spending less time in bed, but paradoxically more time sleeping.

Flexibility

I have terrible flexibility and I really don’t enjoy stretching. I’ve tried yoga few times but it never really took. I needed to be in a class in order to actually do it, and this goes back to the timing and travel problems of needing to go to a gym. I also didn’t want to pay per class. But now that light stretching is part of every day’s workout and there is a yoga day and a stretching day each week I am slowly, slowly getting a little more flexibility. I am hoping that this will make my recoveries easier and help avoid injuries.

Stronger Core

I think a stronger core will help me in the last 10k of my marathons. I do really well for the first 90-120 minutes in a marathon and then start to slow down and the last 10k are typically the hardest (as it probably is for everyone). I am theorizing that by having a stronger core, I will be able to run more upright at the end of the races, conserving energy that was trying to get me straight and hopefully make me stronger those last few miles. My first race was about 3-4 weeks into P90X and was a half marathon, I was able to run 6:00/M for the last three miles.  So far,so good.

Overall Strength

I used to be fairly strong in College and I do miss that a little. Also my son is getting a lot bigger and I still want to be able to pick him up and rough house with him for a few years to come, so I need to strengthen my upper body. This will hopefully enable me to keep the upper hand at least through elementary school. My wife used to check out my arms when we first met, so I think it would be cool to get a little of that back for her and for me.

And lifting weights is something that I actually really enjoy. The soreness after a good workout makes me feel better about being a human being after sitting in front of a computer for 10 hours a day.

Fat to Muscle

I’m not getting any younger and I eat terribly most of the time, so jump-starting my metabolism through P90X should help me get a little leaner. Also the rule of thumb is 2/sec per mile per pound of extra body weight. I figure I have at least an extra 5 pounds lying round I don’t need and would love to have those 4 minutes in a marathon.

Diet

One thing I am not doing is following the P90X diet as it is too restrictive on carbs for me with all the running that I still do. But I am getting leaner and my stomach is starting to show that there are actually muscles somewhere under there. I think this is mainly because I am doing 7.5 hours of workouts a week just for P90X in addition to the 20-30 miles a week I am running.

I have tried to cut out some of the candy and massive amount of breads that I eat, but with only moderate success.

Conclusions

I am only about 1/3 of the way done with the first 90 days. My next marathon will happen 1/2 way through it and so I am hopeful I will see a benefit then. I really enjoy doing the workouts and knowing that by the time I go to work, I have worked out twice. I have a lot more energy and physically I look better. Now if that also translates into improved performance in my marathons that I will consider the experiment a complete success.

I don’t know that P90X is for everybody, because it is pretty difficult on some things. I was in reasonable shape when I started (20 marathons last year), but there are still sequences I struggle with. But my overall fitness level has improved.

I’m still trying to figure out what do to after 90 days are up, but I think that will depend on how much improvement I see. It possible this will be a complete lifestyle change for me. I may relax on some of the workouts when traveling, but I will for sure be keeping the Plyometrics and some of the stretching workouts.

Anyone else doing P90X?

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