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So this past weekend I was up in Harrisburg PA for a baseball tournament.  For those of you who do not know Harrisburg, it is about as Blue Collar as you can get.  An awesome downtown along a great river, and it is completely surrounded by industrial everything!  Beyond that is a mix of of totally rural and some smaller suburbs, but for the most part, I would say that while it's a pretty decently sized city, the majority of the area is very rural.  The other coach I was with is an extremely insightful guy, very in touch with the goings-on of the world and so on, and one thing he is always very intrigued by is food and how he, and we as people eat.  Having not really spent all that much time outside of the city, he made a quick and very poignant observation upon walking into a local Target in an industrial suburb of Harrisburg.  They had awesome food choices.

Not only did they have impressive selections of eggs, fruits, veggies, meats and nits, but the more noticeable point to be made was that the "good for you foods" were all at eye level.  For those of you aware in the typical grocery store (even Whole Foods does this too) you will find the more processed "sugary" foods always the most easy to grab, while the healthier options are just a hair out of reach.  It was actually pretty interesting to see, the natural, no-sugar-added peanut butters and such were right there in front of you, while the Jiffs and other crazy inventions (combined peanut butter and jelly in a jar...), well, you actually had to search a little to get to those.

From a completely simplistic standpoint, I understand that if a community has no good food options, it's probably pretty safe to say that the people in that community will tend to be a little more unhealthy.  But even if there are decent options, if they are not easily accessible it will still be difficult for people to make the proper choices when shopping.  But, when you can walk into a discount superstore like Target or Walmart and have legitimately good options staring you directly in the face, well, I have way less sympathy for unhealthy people in that situation.

So, that's just a little rant for you all, I'm sure I could go into much more detail on this if anyone wants to!  On to the workout for today!  I hit week three strong, still slightly annoyed that my 5x5 back squat was only at 305#, but it was a great workout that left me feeling like I got stronger!  But it was the evening meet up with Big Dan that realy topped the day off.  We headed down to the woods and got this little burner:

100 meters out and back KB throw 35#
10 brings climb-overs
50 axe chops
1 250 meter down and up hill run

This was just about the perfect end of the day.  The weather had cooled off a bit, the woods and field were completely abandoned (all the regular dog walkers were back at home eating their dinners!) and as always, Dan pushed me to go that much harder!  I was able to pant in at 11:10 and felt very good with the time overall.  Really looking forward to tomorrow's adventures!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage
 
 
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Early this morning I headed out with one of my athletes who also coaches with me to Harrisburg, PA for a baseball tournament.  The team did very well with a 15-0 win and a close-game loss at 8-5, but we are in good standings going into the second day.  Fred and I went searching for a couple workout locations afterwards and found exactly what we needed.  First was one the largest Gold’s Gyms I have ever seen in my life.  The main weight room floor was easily 12k square feet, and there was a 3k sq. ft. cardio room, a women’s only training room, and massive cycle room (with a projector TV…?), an aerobics room and a huge kids area.  INSANE!  Still, in all the space there was only 1 cage.  Oh well, we were able to do exactly what we needed, and in fact, todays workout for me included bi’s and tri’s so it was the proper setting for my vanity muscle workout!

After we picked up some water at the local Target (a trip that inspired a quick but VERY intriguing conversation, that has inspired a working blog post…), we began driving around looking for a space to get a good MetCon in.  We found a spot around the back of a huge public radio building, a shoulder-height stone wall, a ton of different sized stones and a steep hill.  Here’s what we did:

3 separate rounds (about 2 minutes rest) of:
5 wall climb overs
2 stone squat clean and throws 20#
2 stone squat clean and throws 35#
2 stone squat clean and throws 60#
1 hill sprint
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This was a total gasser!  I got mine in 1:46, 1:31 and 1:25 respectively and was wonderfully at my peak threshold, so much fun!  It was shot enough to go at 100% intensity, but with enough awkward movement, and enough incline on the hill to make it more exhausting then one would have thought.  But being outdoors just makes the pain so enjoyable.  And with an outdoor BBQ going on down the street playing music, and an awesome training partner, this was up there with one of those workouts that I’ll remember for a long time!

Now it’s chill out time, focus in on getting the proper nutrition in and also planned for tomorrow, and probably closing the eyes around 10:30ish!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage
 

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