Justin Ward's Fitness Jam

This was our last Live Music Blog.com podcast.  I've been meaning to do another one.

This shouldn't work right.

Lazy Sunday with Lucas, originally uploaded by Justin Ward.

Sent from my iPhone

It's been quite a while since Vox was launched and I've been giving it a shot here and there over the past couple months.  Much more recently, the folks at Six Apart announced that Movable Type 4 beta is now out.  I went ahead and installed it on my server -- and I've upgraded my crappy personal blog, Ward-o-blog, so that it's now running MT4.  I love it; it takes a lot of the nicer features in Vox and it brings them a little more professional looking environment.  And considering the fact that I hardly have any time to devote to bloggin' in general, I'm going to take any updates to my fitness and running routines over to Ward-o-blog where it'll pick up a bit more traction.

So bye bye, Vox.  You've been good to me.

I got in a run this morning at about 5:45am, which is definitely a great time to be at one with the road and the outdoors in general.  The rest of the world is usually still sleeping, so crossing streets at stoplights tends to be a little bit easier all around.  It allows me to focus on the run and not just the act of "working out," which tends to be a negative mind trigger for me.

When I run, I try to find a perfect mix of music that I'm hugely familiar with.  I don't want to be listening to new stuff when I'm running because I tend to think that it distracts me more than listening to an old fav'.  I was in a good zone today and I hope to continue a good run after that great bike ride yesterday.

I went for a fantastic bike ride this afternoon and it was a pretty far distance for me.  I'm making some good progress there, mostly because I'm having a lot of fun riding a bike.  I never really got into it but now I can see why it's so fun.  And I feel that I'm helping the environment because I'm not adding carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Riding a bike is fun.  'Nuff said.

Bros

Last night after work was a nice leisurely bike ride on my new Trek 7.2 FX.  I went back and forth from our Metra stop and was there and back in about twenty-five minutes.  It was fun.  A lot of fun, to be exact.  My butt muscles a hurting pretty good right now, too -- man, it's been forever since I've been on a bike.

I was always a skateboarder in my younger years, and I've even thought about re-incorporating that into some of my day-to-day.  As I see it, I'd probably need to lose about 20 pounds to make that even close to a reality.

This morning at 6am was the start of a nice leisurely jog along my 5K training route, and I'm feeling much better progress-wise.  I think the music helped me out -- this new Panda Bear album is unbelievably good, and it was a nice start to the day for me.

Training-wise, I'll be increasing distance each day this week to try and be back at two miles of unstopped running at a good pace.  Looking ahead at the calendar, I'm going to try and convince a few friends that we need to run a 5K in the next month or so.