Brotherly Love

This will be a quick post, or at least my version of a quick post. Please to forgive any sloppy writing. My brother is in town visiting for the weekend and he's on his way over soon so I need to be snappy. The last few days have been busy. On Thursday I went to the gym after work. I had legs/shoulders/core for strength training followed by a spin class. I was careful to take it easy in spin so I didn't hurt my legs again and end up hobbling around all week. I think I did a good job. There were a few times when they were sprinting and I didn't, or they turned up the resistance and I didn't. In a group setting like that it's hard not to go along with the energy of the group but I had a fresh memory of what fried legs feel like so that was plenty of motivation to take it easy.

Friday I worked a half-day because of my brother Robert's visit. I haven't seen him in several years and even then it was a brief visit. This time he's staying for the weekend and my heart was filled with anticipation and excitement. The course of our childhood is a bit complex so he and I missed out on a lot but some of my fondest memories are of he and I playing together as kids. So a funny thing - he's a health and fitness nut! Go figure. He goes to the gym five times a week and eats clean. I mean clean.  Makes me look like an artificial, preservative, processed food junkie compared to him.

Anyway, he arrived around 1:30 and one of the things he wanted to do was go to the gym together.  But first we had to get lunch.  Lucky for me he likes Chipotle so that's where we went for lunch.  I had a salad bowl with black beans, veggies, chicken, salsa, corn and guacamole.  I skip the dressing.

Chipotle Salad Bowl

It was good, as always.  Robert couldn't believe how much I've changed since he saw me in 2009.  He must have told me 10 times, "you're SO tiny!".  After lunch he wanted to go to Vitamin World to pick up some of his protein shake stuff.  He shook his head that I'm not drinking protein shakes before or after my workouts, "You're not maximizing your workout."  Ha!  I loved listening to him.  These are the powders he got.

Raw Meal

One is a protein shake and the other is a meal replacement.  More on this in a bit.

So after that and a quick visit to the house, we hit the gym.  My poster is still up so I got to show that off before heading in to work our muscles.  He doesn't usually do much (or any) cardio because he's so focused on muscle gain.  But he agreed to run a quick mile with me on the treadmill.  I have a chest cough (darnit!) so I was happy to keep my run on the shorter side.  I ran at 6.4mph with one 2-minute 7.4 interval.  Then we went to the weights.

He's crazy strong.  I mean crazy strong.  He lifted 120 pound dumbbells (in each hand!) for chest press.  Me, I did 30 pound dumbbells, which I needed him to spot.  But he really inspired me to start lifting heavier weights.  And we did a thing where I was on the decline bench and he  tossed me the medicine ball with each decline.  He couldn't believe I could do that with a 10lb medicine ball.  He was very encouraging and I enjoyed the challenge of working out with him.

We wrapped up with some stretching, despite him saying, "I don't believe in stretching."  I got to tell him, "you're not maximizing your workout."  Hee hee.  I told him he's neglecting flexibility and balance as part of his overall fitness and suggested he do some of his standing exercises on the bosu, like bicep curls.  I don't know that I sold him on that though.  But he did stretch with me and then we headed to the grocery store.  He had some of his super-healthy meals he wanted to make for us. 

We eventually made it home but missed dinner with the kids.  He started by making us some shakes.  He used one scoop of each powder and added a small activia yogurt, bananas, strawberries, oats and a mix of almond milk and water.  I was starving and the shake was super good.  I could have had the whole pitcher myself.  But I kept it to a couple glasses while he got to cooking our dinner - an egg white scramble with deli turkey breast and veggies (cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, spinach).  He doesn't ever add salt to his food, instead he uses Mrs Dash for flavor.  I made sauteed zucchini to go along with that.  Talk about a healthy meal!

Egg white scramble

Sauteed zucchini

After dinner we got to spend some time playing with the kids and hanging out.

Not sure what's on the agenda for today, maybe a hike, maybe some sightseeing.  We're being flexible.  He's going to make us shakes for breakfast, I'll have to take some pics of that for my next post. 

I had a plan to run 5 miles tomorrow (Sunday), a leisurely training run for the Emerald 12k coming up next month.  If I run 5 miles tomorrow and add a mile each Sunday, I'll be ready for the 8 miles.  I'm sure I'll be ready for the 8 miles either way but some training would be nice even with taking a leisurely approach to this race.  Anyway, the point is that my cough is making me hesitant about running tomorrow.  We'll have to see how things develop.  Ugh, I am not getting sick.  Not. getting. sick.

Ok, gotta run.  Hope you're having a great weekend!