Well, I finally got out for a short run. It felt, well, weird. I felt slow. I felt out of breath. But the significance in what I didn’t feel - pain! On the one hand I am pretty excited. On the other I am discouraged. I felt like I had just started making some big strides (no pun intended) in my running - knocking over two minutes off my 10K PR, running more efficiently, going longer each week, etc. Yesterday I felt as though I was laboring to get my four miles done.

With the New Year around the corner, I took time this past weekend to reflect back on 2008 and evaluate my achievements in regards to my fitness goals.

My journey started on 12/31/2007 at which time I weighed 138.5 lbs and was at 32% body fat. As of this morning my weight is 122.5 lbs and my body fat is down to ~ 23%. More important than my weight loss however is the sense of empowerment I have gained over the past 12-months.

I have learned that actions speak louder than words and by setting specific goals and an action plan around those goals, I was empowered to take control of my body.

Well, it is finally here. My web site is up and I am now taking subscriptions to my monthly coaching newsletter. My site is www.askcoachb.com.

This newsletter will guide you through to living a healthier lifestyle. it is not another diet or exercise program. I do not believe in diets and do not train anyone to diet. I teach people how to change thier lives a little at a time so there is very little effort. It becomes second nature after awhile.

The exercises are set up to be completed in 10 to 20 minutes.

I had hoped to get out for a run yesterday to get things back on track. Because of my tooth pain on Friday, I had revisited my dentist, received some more work on the affected tooth, and actually had a decent night’s sleep. I woke up somewhat refreshed, relieved that I didn’t need to resort to vicodin. I sat down with my cup of coffee, took a huge swig, and spit it out in agony! Something that I had never even thought of was the effect the heat would have on everything else going on. I spent the rest of my day in absolute torture.

Catapult Fitness Blog readers have spoken and one of your requests for 2009 were for fitness related product reviews.

Product reviews is something I’ve tippy-toed around as I often cringe when visiting certain sites only to find a review for a product that I know Marketers are paying for. Yep, believe it or not, there are plenty of Marketers who offer bloggers cash for a positive review of their product/service.

Phooey to those Marketers and a stern “shame on you!” to those bloggers (you know who you are).

Yes, it would be nice to earn some extra cash, but not at the cost of my credibility.

My promise to the readers of Catapult Fitness Blog is that I will never positively promote a product that I personally don’t use (or have used) and believe is a quality offering. This goes for books as well as products such as Precision Nutrition and Turbulence Training.

While I will accept select products for review from manufacturer’s, this will only be done if I truly feel the product has potential interest to my audience and manufacturer’s must allow me to publish an un-edited opinion. These opinions will not always be positive.

Products that I recommend will receive the Catapult Fitness Blog NO BULL Seal of Approval. Rest assured that this Seal can never be bought by the Marketer!

Current recipients of the NO BULL Seal of Approval include:

• Turbulence Training*
• Precision Nutrition*
• Iron Gym

* Because I feel strongly about the value these products offer, Catapult Fitness Blog is an affiliate for these companies.

Okay - I am itching to get back out. I want to test out the groin pull to see how it will react after a couple of days off. The issue right now are my teeth. (See my blog entry from a couple days ago: http://therunningfatguy.blogspot.com/2008/12/unscheduled-rest.html) I have been in absolute agony since Wednesday night. I had to resort to vicodin for the pain yesterday.

Hopefully things might be changing though. The pain subsided in the evening, and I actually got a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. This morning though the pain is back.

Yesterday was interesting. I was planning on a four mile run to see how my hip adbuctors were going to react to two days in a row. But, I didn’t sleep particularly well Monday night because of a persistent toothache. Throughout the day the pain became worse. At times it became absolutely unbearable. I finally threw in the towel and decided to call a dentist. I found one that could see me at 7:30 PM (he is my brother-in-law’s wife’s ex-husband). I got there and xrays were taken. The xrays were quite an eye opener! Remember that bike crash back in June? (http://therunningfatguy.blogspot.com/2008/06/down-for-while.html).

Catapult Fitness Blog newsletter subscribers were treated last week to a special free 10-Minute Workout last week courtesy of my friend and mentor, Craig Ballantyne, founder of Turbulence Training.

I want to kick off this week off by sharing with you one of Craig’s newest YouTube videos – The Evolution Of Pull Ups:

This video couldn’t be timelier for me. The pull-up is an exercise that I have struggled with and one I very much want to tackle in 2009. I recently purchased an IRON GYM XTREME EDITION - TOTAL BODY WORKOUT BAR, with the goal of being able to complete 3 consecutive pull-ups by March 31, 2009.

Craig recommends working your way up to a full, un-assisted pull-up by utilizing a 3-step approach:

1. Inverted rows
2. Assisted pull-ups
3. Negatives

So that I can train at home, in addition the Iron Gym, I purchased the Lebert Equalizer which enables me to execute 13 different inverted row exercises. This is truly an awesome piece of equipment for working the latissimus dorsi, the primary muscles engaged in a pronated grip pull-up.