Firestorm 2014 + Mixing P90X and Running

I’ve developed an addiction to the news.

If you weren’t aware, there have been up to nine fires at a time throughout San Diego burning over the past three or so days. Thank God, we’re about 30 minutes away from where all this is happening, but I know people who are right next to it all, so it has been a very nerve-wracking week. At some points you just watch neighborhoods burning on the news – it’s soooo sad and depressing. There have been an insane number of evacuations, and it has been estimated that there are $22.5 million in damage. It’s pretty crazy, people.

During my lunch break at work yesterday, a coworker and I drove up to a high vantage point nearby, and we could see a few of the fires from about 15 miles away:

Most of the fires have been suspected as arson, which is pretty disturbing to think about. The 90+ degree weather and crazy winds aren’t exactly helping though. I’ve even learned new terms, like “firenado.” Oy.

I’ll end my rant about how crazy and sad this all is. Learn how you can help Firestorm 2014 victims!

Aaaaand now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Mixing P90X and Running

I’ve always wondered how people can balance weight lifting and running. My main focus has always been on running — though weight lifting has always intrigued me. Sure, I do circuit workouts often, but a workout schedule revolving around weight lifting is new to me.

Our Growing Dumbbell Collection

As we’re well into our first week of P90X, I’ve started to realize my running is going to greatly suffer. I just find it hard to believe that you can aggressively train in weight lifting and running at the same time. It seems to me that you’d have to sacrifice focus on one to increase performance on the other. Otherwise, you might get injured or be exhausted from overtraining. That’s just my theory though. I’m sure people have done it, and I would love to hear their secrets.

Thankfully, I’m not training for a race of any sort and don’t plan to be for the next three months. However, I just ran a half marathon, and I don’t want to just let all that built-up mileage go to waste. It takes awhile to train and build up that mental strength to complete races, so I’m not ready to let it go yet. That’s why I have created a little goal/plan for myself throughout this exciting P90X adventure.

Run two to three times per week.

I figure…if I take advantage of the extra time I have on the weekends and run during the week on days that aren’t as leg-focused, I might be able to survive a few two-a-day workouts. This is a lot for me, though, as I’m already working out for at least an hour everyday. That plus a run? Crazy. Especially since I’m quite short on any free time. I will say, though, it’s weirdly exciting to think about working out for 2 hours in a day. Yay fitness!

And pretty soon, I’ll know what I’m doing during the P90X routines and won’t feel so awkward.

So that’ll be fun.

We’ll see how this running and P90X thing goes…it’ll definitely be a learning experience!

For you magical people who successfully mix running and weight lifting, what’s your strategy?