Optimum Anabolics - Day 41/Mosquit-Oh! No!

This morning was a bit rough.

The pooch began barking a little after 4:00 a.m. as if the house had been surrounded by outlaws. I figured there was no point in going back to bed for just a few minutes so I headed downstairs, drove off the villains, and got ready for my workout.

I stepped out the back door and noticed a vehicle with all kinds of flashing lights making a loud noise as it worked it's way around the condo complex behind us. I figured it was one of their maintenance vehicles and didn't think too much more about it as I headed around the front to get cranking on some cardio intervals.

About 30 seconds into my first bike interval, I heard the noise (now louder) and saw the lights heading toward me in our neighborhood. I wanted no part of that so I did a quick u-turn and headed the other way, still not knowing what the heck it was.

After doing my jumping jacks, I headed out on my running interval. Roughly half way through, I turned the corner and BAM! There it was again! It was hunting me down! :)

You're dieing to know what it was, right? It was a City maintenance truck fogging the area for mosquitoes. Yep. I ran through a cloud of insecticide. COUGH! COUGH! Perfect timing, too...lungs and heart working nice and hard to get oxygen to my cells for performance during my intervals. Ahh...force that poison nice and deep into my tissues. And for what? Read on...

Once at my computer, I hopped on the net and pulled up the City's website. Turns out they're spraying predominantly to control the West Nile virus. That's still around?? With another click, a map came up showing the number of reported cases in the state last year. Wanna venture a guess? 15. In the *entire* state. That's not a typo.

How many thousands of people are being exposed to toxic chemicals in an attempt to reduce the risk of 15 people getting this illness? This, to me, seems ridiculous and totally unnecessary. It was just a few years ago that residents were having to petition the City just to get our streets plowed. But yet, they have no problem spending our tax dollars to poison us.

I may not live a toxin free life as of yet, but my wife and I are getting there. As a consumer, I get to choose whether I buy a toxic product or not. That's my biggest complaint here, I did not get to choose whether or not my part of the City got gassed.

Rant for the day is now over. :)

WORKOUT - CARDIO (HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING)

My lungs and breathing were quite good today again so I jogged and rode the bike even faster today than yesterday.

I should mention that I've been walking at a good pace for 5 minutes or so prior to hopping on the bike for the first interval.

Here are today's intervals:

• Bike, Intensity 1 (warm up), 6:15 (went over the scheduled 5:00 to avoid insecticide. BAH!)
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (160 jumps)
• Jog, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 45 seconds (15 each leg)
  
• Jog, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Bike, Intensity 2, 4:00 ±
  
• Jumping Jacks, Intensity 2, 3:00 ± (about 170 jumps)
• Flying Romans, Intensity 3, 45 seconds (15 each leg)
  
• Jog/Walk (cool down), Intensity 1, 5:45 (jogged 3:40, walked 1:45)
  

Total Time => 31:30

Comments:

Abs STILL feeling those reverse ball crunches!

Left heel was good today while I was working out. I wasn't really favoring it at all this morning. It was sore off and on later in the day, however...not exactly happy about that.

Calves and feet got stretched for 2 minutes per side today rather than the usual 1 minute per side.

DIET - HIGH PROTEIN

For breakfast I had another quarter of this recipe leftover from last week. Along with the crustless quiche, I also had two pieces of grilled eggplant (see photo below), a fresh Roma tomato, half of a green and half of a red bell pepper, and 2 stalks of celery. Hey, that was a nice nutritious breakfast, huh?

In an attempt to suck out some of the poison gas I inhaled this morning, I took some Sonne No. 7. Check it out here for the scoop on this natural remedy.

Everything all together...

Mid-morning, I had a snack of raw nuts that included almonds, cashews, walnuts and Brazils. No need for anything more than that today since I had plans to meet a friend for lunch.

I met my buddy at Easy Street Cafe for a Greek lunch. This place never disappoints. I had the Greek salad with a perfect amount of gyro meat. The salad itself had iceberg (blah) and romaine lettuces, fresh tomatoes, pepperoncinis, red onion and several kalmata olives. The homemade Greek dressing was top shelf and totally makes the salad.

I traded snack places today and had my yogurt, ground flax seeds, and whey protein isolate powder around 3:30 today instead of the usual mid-morning time.

Leftovers were on the menu for dinner so I threw together a chicken fajita-style meal of grilled chicken (from the farmer's market), cut up red peppers and tomatoes, and homemade guacamole.

Dinner (blurry but still good!)...