Last night and the night before that, our beloved Knoxville Ice Bears traveled to Pensacola, FL to take on the Pensacola Ice Flyers. Being season ticket holders, we’re not going to miss very many home games, but there’s no reason for us to not pony up a few bucks to order the away games and support our boys from afar so that’s what we did this weekend.

A while back I drafted up a blog post about Under Armour, why I hate it, why I don’t wear it, and why I’ll likely never wear it. It remained as a draft for a few weeks and then I finally just deleted it. Why? Because I didn’t think it served much of a purpose other than allowing me to be a dick about something (else). On top of that, Academy Sports has achieved a shopping level with me like Target or Old Navy so I love going and lately I’ve noticed a LOT of cool stuff being put out by Under Armour. Enough to make me want to spend $40 for a t-shirt? Nope. But I have to admit to liking some of it so suddenly my draft was void of authenticity. Lame.

What it boils down to, though, is that I associate Under Armour with either elite athletes or fat, lazy people that think that if they spend enough money they’ll appear as though they’re active (mostly this). I am neither one of those people and do not want to be confused as one of those people if I can help it. Piggybacking on this pet peeve of mine is when I go to Academy – a sports store – 90% of the shoppers are those morbidly obese Under Armour buyers. People shopping for clothing made for physical activity when the only sport they participate in is Monday/Thursday/Saturday/Sunday football on TV in their recliner.

And that’s ugly for me to think, I know, but knowing this makes me feel like a total slob if I watch a sporting event on TV and do nothing but drink beer and eat junk while doing so. So I devised a fun little game to play during hockey away games that we watch at home: For every goal WE score, I have to do 10 push-ups, 10 crunches, 1 pull-up, and give Erin a number of kisses equal to the number of points we now have. If the other team scores, I have to do 10 squats, a 30-second plank, 1 pull-up, and again give Erin a number of kisses equal to the number of points they have.

Sounds fun, yeah? On Friday night we lost to Pensacola 2-5. That equals 50 squats, 2-1/2 minutes of planks, 20 push-ups, 20 crunches, 7 pull-ups, and 18 kisses over the course of the game. Last night we pulled out a win 6-2, equalling 60 push-ups, 60 crunches, 20 squats, 1 minute of planks, 8 pull-ups, and 24 kisses. Suddenly I no longer feel like a slob while watching hockey from the comfort of my own home!

With one win and one loss over the weekend, we are currently tied for 4th in the league with Pensacola, each having records of 3-2.

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Another fun game I get to play during hockey is building my weekly workouts for Title Boxing Club. I’m on the schedule this coming week to train for Monday at noon and Wednesday morning at 5:45am. If you’re in Knoxville and want a workout like you can’t get anywhere else, come hang with me. I’ll also be there just taking class at 5:45 on Monday and Friday!

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So, again, I only ran once this week. No real excuse and if we’re being honest it was because I was lazy. I try to make Tuesdays a rest day so my only other non-Saturday run day is Thursday and with a Thursday evening class (that’s now over) in the evenings it’s either run Thursday morning or bust. This week I busted. I still knocked out a Saturday morning long-run of 7.75 miles and I was mostly happy with it – in fact, my pace is somehow getting even better though I’m not sure how that’s working, really. I had two miles that were sub-11 minutes which is weird for me but I’m complaining zero.

I mention mantras in the title because I think I found a new one. Up until now my mantra was adopted from Rocky IV. Rocky is in freezing cold Russia training as hard as he can, maybe harder than ever, with his recently deceased and very dear friend Apollo’s former trainer Duke urging him on through dragonflags and sit-up variations with the constant mantra “No pain! No pain!” I have used that mantra throughout my workouts whether they be boxing, running, spin class, or weight lifting. Any time I get tired, no pain, any time I have doubts about my ability, no pain. And it’s worked and will continue to work.

Yesterday during my run I believe I felt the affects of poor pre-run fueling. Sometimes before a long-run I become more focused on not needing to shit during my run or having my run cut short thanks to stomach cramps so I load up on coffee so I can spend some time on the throne before heading out and forget that I need to eat something of substance. Yesterday I had two cups of coffee and two “fun size” packs of Whoppers leftover from our Halloween cauldron. Whoppers are a great sugary snack but they’re not sufficient pre-run fuel and I think I was feeling that around mile 5. I was suddenly feeling like I wasn’t going to make it much longer. Miles 6 and 7 showed me that I was very tired suddenly and was even feeling like I was about to pull a muscle in my chest. I needed to walk and so I did. After a few moments I looked down at my phone and saw I was at 6.75 miles – one mile left. I had it in me, surely. No pain after all. At that moment I said aloud (nobody thought I was profane or crazy because it was raining pretty bad so I was by myself most of the morning) “Stop walking. It doesn’t matter how slow you go, just run, motherfucker!”

And so this motherfucker ran and finished strong. I was covered in sweat and rain from head to toe. My shoes were soggy, my feet were cold. But when I looked at my reflection in my car window while stretching I saw a guy that’s just THIS MUCH closer to hitting that 13.1 mark. I set out to run a 5k and so I did. I set out to run a 10k and so I did. I set out to becoming a trainer at Title and so I did. Now I’m out to run a half marathon and it’s. going. to. happen. Just run, motherfucker!

Anyway. Here’s what this week looked like:

This Week’s Mileage	7.75 Miles (12.47 km)
This Week’s Avg. Pace	11:19/mile (6:57/km)

And the YTD:

2015 Running
Time Period	Total Distance
Runtastic Runs (1/1-4/15)	56.51 Miles
5k-to-10k (4/15-6/21)	87.52 Miles
Runtastic Runs (6/23-Present)	145.87 Miles
Total Yearly Miles:	289.9
Miles Left Until 2015 Goal (350 Miles): 60.1