Great new feature in the iTunes App Store, which allows you to “gift” iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps to other users. To gift an app, simply click on the triangle next to any app’s price and select “Gift This App”. This will bring up a form where you enter the Sender’s Name (that’s you), Recipient’s Name, Recipient’s Email and Personal Message (500 character limit). I believe you can send to multiple people by separating recipient email addresses with a comma.

You can choose to send the gift via email, or print off a purchase certificate for inclusion in a card of letter. With Father’s Day just around the corner, the Hundred Push-Ups app could be the perfect gift for the dad in your life!

Don’t forget! Also available are the just-as-challenging Two Hundred Sit-Ups and Two Hundred Squats apps, both of which are suitable for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Note: Gifts can only be redeemed in the store country from which they were originated.

Struggling for that last minute Holiday gift for the fitness junkie in your life? No problem — it’s not too late to order the “7 Weeks To 100 Push-Ups” book from Amazon.com. Amazon still have it priced competitively at $10.17 (correct as of 12/16 and subject to change), and if you spend more than $25.00 you’ll qualify for FREE Super Saver Shipping.

Here’s what fitness coach and Ironman triathlete Brett Stewart thinks about the book:

I recommend this book to ANYONE who wants to get in the best shape of their lives. The book is so fundamentally sound that it puts any other bodyweight workout book to shame. The plan is brilliant: Take a “test” to see how many pushups you can do with proper form and then use that number to find the PERFECT workout to get you to 100! The workouts are very well balanced and don’t feel like a chore to do.

I read the book and took the challenge seriously and was able to crank out 100 consecutive pushups just when the book said I should! On my 48th day of the program I was able to do 101 pushups and was so pleased to nail my goal.

I still follow the program even AFTER completing the “magic number” because pushups are such a great exercise for your core, arms & chest! There are so many variations that you can learn to keep your workouts interesting & fun.

Challenge yourself & get this book!

Happy Holidays!

Just a quick post to let you know about the current $0.99 sale price for each of the 100 Push-Ups, 200 Sit-Ups and 200 Squats iPhone Apps. The App developer, SoftwareX, will shortly be releasing new versions of the popular applications and thought it would be a good idea to have a “Pre-Release Sale”.

No idea when the sale will end, so make sure you take advantage of the half-price offer soon!

Last week I worked my way through Week 3 and I’m looking forward to the challenge of the tougher Week 4 starting tomorrow.

Wednesday: 14 18 14 14 max of 20 [total = 80]

Friday: 20 25 15 15 max of 25 [total = 100]

Sunday: 22 30 20 20 max of 40 [total = 132]

One-legged push-ups are easy to perform. Just follow the steps below to get a great upper body workout that also challenges your core too:

Starting position: assume the standard push-up position, but place one foot on top of the other so only the lower foot is in contact with the ground (see above).

Step 1: breathe in as you lower your torso to the ground, stopping when your elbows form a 90-degree angle and your chest is an inch or two from your hands. Keep your elbows close to your body.

Step 2: breathe out as you push yourself up using your arms. Think of raising yourself by attempting to push the ground away from you. The power for the push will predominantly come from your shoulders and chest.

One-Legged Push-Ups are actually one of the dozen or so “advanced push-ups” featured in my book. If you’re looking to purchase your own copy you can get a good deal at any of the following online merchants. List price is $14.95 by the way….

• Buy.com: $9.30
• Amazon.com: $10.17
• Barnes & Noble: $11.96

Thursday (Day 11): Yesterday, on Day 10, I ran “too-fast-for-an-easy run” and predicted I’d regret it the next day. How right I was. Today was easily the toughest of the marathon training so far, but I survived…..just.

Plan: 60 to 70 minute run with 30 to 40 minutes at “Steady State Pace” – 6:14 to 6:25 per mile

Actual: The 2 warm up miles were fine (7:50 and 7:23), but I really struggled with the steady-state pace that followed. The next five splits were 6:21 6:18 6:13 6:14 and 6:14, but I really had to fight for every one of them – it was almost like race pace effort.

The humidity was unbelievable tonight and I was so glad to get back to the car after the 2 cool down miles (8:15 and 7:48). Luckily I was prepared and had 24oz of icy water and a couple of scoops of Recoverite waiting in the trunk – I needed it so badly….

Moral of the story: run easy on your recovery days, even if you are feeling invincible.

Also did W4D3 of the Hundred Push-Ups plan – 29 33 29 29 and maxed out 60 [total = 180]. Definitely needed the 120 seconds recovery period today, but surprised myself with the 60 consecutives at the end.

Friday (Day 12): Rare rest day. Still feeling the effects of yesterday’s “Steady State Pace” run.

Saturday (Day 13): Ran the Allen Stone Memorial 5k down at the boardwalk. Pretty happy with the race and despite fairly heavy legs, managed to work my way through the field from about 12th place in the first 1/4 mile to 6th at the finish. The 3 x 180 degree turns weren’t conducive to a fast time, but overall I’m pleased with the 17:35 finish.

Splits: 5:31 5:41 5:46 0:34

Nice little bonus to finishing 1st in the 40-44 age group was picking up a cool beer mug trophy.

Later in the day…..

Not used to doing the push-ups later in the day, but didn’t want to do them before the race in the morning either. Also snuck in the “end of week 4 test” before starting the workout….which in hindsight probably wasn’t a smart thing to do.

End of Week 4 test: cheated and stopped at 40 to keep me in Column 2.

W5D1: 28 35 25 22 35 (just!) [total = 145]

Made the targets, but hope to be stronger next time around…

Sunday (Day 14): Have to be honest, wasn’t totally up for the run, but once out the door I was fine. Learned my lesson from Thursday’s run and made sure I stuck to the required “long-run pace” (7:05 to 8:05). Yesterday’s 5k on the concrete boardwalk left both feet a little tender, but no real issues and the Newtons served me well.

Won’t bore you with the splits, but all the first half were in the 7:30s and all the second half in the 7:20s. Thankfully it wasn’t too humid today which made for a very pleasant run.

16 miles – 2:00:00 = 7:30/mile pace

Monday (Day 15): Another Hundred Push-Ups workout – this time W5D2:

18 18 20 20 14 14 16 40 [total = 160]

Like the lower reps/more sets of Week 5…

Also, marathon plan called for 35 to 50 minutes at 7:05 to 7:35 pace. As this week is a recovery week, I took the easy way out and did the bare minimum.

Left foot felt quite tender, probably due to the concrete boardwalk/Brooks T5 combo in Saturday’s 5k and overall I felt quite flat today. Hopefully everything will be better for tomorrow’s “Predict Your Time 4 Miler” at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

Tuesday (Day 16): Easy 4:30pm warm up in the Newtons at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. The forefoot cushioning of the Gravitas made for a fairly pain-free run.

In the Summer Series “Predict Your Time 4 Miler” I predicted 24:59, but actually ran a 24:32 – 17 seconds too fast despite easing off in the final mile. Wore my Nike Zoom Marathoners (for a change) which was probably a mistake – not very comfortable at all especially with my left foot still sore from Saturday’s race.

Cooled down for a mile and a half with Ally. First time we’d run together for a while and it was nice to chat as we jogged around the beautiful Botanical Garden.

Wednesday (Day 17): More Push-Ups! This time W5D3 – 18 18 20 20 17 17 20 45 [total = 175]

Quite challenging today for some reason, probably due to the miserly 45 seconds rest interval. Who built this push-ups plan anyway?! Also, I figured out it’s really important to keep breathing when doing the push-ups – I still have a tendency to hold my breath when I get fatigued.

The left foot was quite sore walking around today, but oddly enough it was fine during the grassy soccer field run tonight. Not quite sure why it’s more sore when I walk, which seems a bit strange to be honest. Any ideas?

Anyway, didn’t want to take too many chances, so cut the run short to 4 progressive miles.

Thursday (Day 18): Rest day. Pigged out at the Sandbridge Island Restaurant and went for a short barefoot stroll on the beach. Enjoyable!

Friday (Day 19): End of Week 5 Push-Ups Test. Managed 65. Could have done more, but no real point – 65 was enough to put me in the 3rd column for Week 6. Actually, it probably would have been smarter to stop in the 50s which would have put me in Column 2 next week. Oh well, onwards and upwards. I should be able to knock out the hundred again by the end of July.

Finished off the test with 5 x 20 push-ups and 3 x 1 minute planks. The planks hurt and were a great reminder that i need to get my core back in shape!

No running today. Don’t want to aggravate the foot any more than necessary. Tomorrow, I’m running 2 x 5k’s in the morning as part of the Kale Running East Beach Run~Swim~Run Relay, where wife Ally will be the swimmer doing her best to dodge the jellyfish in the Chesapeake Bay.

In the evening, assuming I can still put weight on my foot, I’ll be running the Crystal City Twilighter 5k in Arlington, VA, which looks to be a great event and is billed as “the area’s premier twilight event with a flat course, great runner premiums and perks, and a fabulous after party.” I signed up earlier in the week and so far there are over 2000 entrants (not including elites). Looks like a ton of fun – I just hope I’ll be able to enjoy it and race well.

Last week I did the following:

W3D1: 14 18 14 14 and maxed out at 50 [total = 110] – first couple of sets were the toughest, but finished very strong!

W3D2: 20 25 15 15 finished with 50 [total = 125] – another excellent 50 to finish!

W3D3: 22 30 20 20 and 30 [total = 122] – only managed 30 at the end. Not sure if it was fatigue or laziness…

W4D1: 21 25 21 21 35 [123 total] – again, disappointing last set. Must try harder tomorrow.

Speaking of push-ups, sales of my 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups book still appear to be going well although it’s a little frustrating that I’ll only receive accurate sales figures from the publisher, Ulysses Press, twice a year. Meanwhile, I’m left trawling the online book stores, looking at sales ranks and any other figures I can get my hands on.

One the most respected online statistics is the Amazon Sales Rank, and it’s reassuring to note that 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups is consistently in the top 20,000 – not a best seller by any means, but not bad for a first time author with little to no experience in the publishing game. It’s also cool to see the sales rank dip into the lower numbers (the lower the number, the more book sales) – over the weekend for example, the Amazon Sales Rank was just over 6,000, which basically means at that particular moment in time, there were only just over 6,000 books which were more popular than mine.

Amazon.com is still selling the book at the discounted price of $10.17, so if you’ve been on the fence about making the purchase, now would be a good time to shell out the cash and take the plunge!

One other thing to note is a great review from a reader in Cape Town, South Africa:

Steve Speirs did an EXCELLENT job in compiling a systematic, progressive bodyweight training program. I decided to buy this book after browsing through his following 3 websites….

I’ve read the book through the very first evening after I’ve received it. I always wanted to do a hundred pushups, but I never knew HOW to reach that magical figure. In this book, Steve Speirs shows you exactly how. Step-by-step (or should I say push-up by push-up!). All I can say is: Check out his 3 websites and if you like what you see … buy this book!

I’m hoping that more people who purchased the book will take a few minutes to leave similar feedback on Amazon.com, which in turn should help increase sales. Just think, all I need is one great day where a couple of hundred people buy the book, the sales rank will rocket and I have a best seller on my hands. Keep dreaming eh?

Happy Push-Ups!

Friday 29th
Thoroughly enjoyable four miler in my Newtons, which incidentally have already covered over 100 miles! Really great to stretch out the legs at lunch time…

Splits: 7:58 7:34 7:19 7:18
(Loving the humidity by the way!)

Late afternoon swim at the rec center. Decided to make this my one and only swim time trial in the Breezy Point Triathlon build up. For the past couple of months I’ve just been logging the laps and not focusing on time at all. I was pleasantly surprised to break 20 minutes for the 1000m, which for me is actually pretty quick. I probably need to factor in an extra 3 or 4 minutes for Sunday’s open water swim over the same distance, but barring a disaster, I shouldn’t be last out of the water in my age-group.

Saturday 30th
Yet another 5k, which I believe is my 24th race of the year so far. The Lee’s Friends Run on the Wild Side 5k was a cool little event in support of a great cause and held at a neat venue – the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk.

I decided to try a new warm up routine which included lunges, stretches, easy running, skipping and several fast paced efforts. Despite taking about 50 minutes to perform the warm up, I felt good and will definitely incorporate it into future races/track workouts.

The race itself went well, although it was another one of those solo time trial efforts. Race winner Ryan Carroll (pictured above) was over two minutes clear in front which left me free in second place about a minute ahead of third spot. One of these days I’ll get to race a bunch of runners rather than battle against the clock. Anyway, I finished in 17:38 which was a pretty solid effort.

Cool down was okay, although my hips felt a little stiff and sore – probably caused by wearing my Brooks T5 instead of current favorite Newton Racer. I remembered this particular 5k course to be lots of twists and turns, and decided against the Newtons for this very reason. Due to the four “lugs” on the bottom of the Newton shoe, I’m not totally comfortable taking corners at speed and figured the T5 would be the better option. If only I’d known about the changed course

Sunday 31st
Here we go – Breezy Point Triathlon. Usually when I wake up on a race morning, I say to my wife Ally: “Could be worse, could be a triathlon”. Today, however, was a triathlon day and all I could think of was: “Could be worse, could be an Ironman”. I get very nervous before an open water swim and with this one being the first for almost five years, I was especially concerned.

Anyway, we (my wife and I) arrived at the race site with plenty of time to spare. I managed to snag a good transition spot and laid out all my gear. Good preparation is always key to shaving a few seconds off transition times, and with my swim as slow as it is, I’ll take every second I can get! Before long, the race director opened up the swim course for practice and, wetsuited up, in I went. The water was surprisingly perfect for open water swimming and I managed to swim out about 50m before treading water and surveying the scene. Damn, 1000m seems a long way in the open water! I gingerly paddled back to dry land and resigned myself to the fact it was going to be a rough 25 minutes to kick off the triathlon. No backing out though – I’d entered, I would definitely start and definitely make it to the finish.

Fast forward about an hour and here I am treading water with the rest of the 40-44 year old guys. Thankfully it turns out I’m not the only H2O-challenged athlete and I find myself in the middle of a bunch of guys all nervously waiting for the horn to send us on our way. We crack a few jokes, I hurriedly adjust my goggles and then we’re off.

Amazingly I find myself in a fair amount of clear space (probably because I’m already 100m behind the stronger swimmers), and it makes a pleasant change from some of the washing-machine-like swim starts I’ve experienced. Almost immediately I get into a groove and focus on the task ahead. I count down the orange buoys to the first turn and think to myself “Hey, this isn’t too bad”. My navigation was good, my progress was steady and I actually felt quite relaxed. The long, long back stretch of the swim course took forever, but I kept close to the course marker buoys and finally made the turn for home. Yes! Of course, all the faster swimmers from the wave 4 minutes behind ours had caught up to me by now and any doubt I had about where the exit swim ramp was located, quickly exited my mind. All I had to do was follow the mass of yellow caps to the finish. They were everywhere!

With about 150m to go I mentally rehearsed my swim~bike transition and celebratory punch-the-air-with-my-fist. I laughed underwater to myself that I was actually going to make it — not a good idea by the way, as laughing or smiling underwater causes your goggles to fill up with water — and within a minute or so my hand touched concrete and I was done! Swim time just over 22 minutes and time to take off the swim cap, goggles, wetsuit and get ready to bike.

The ride was quite uneventful, but enjoyable none the less. I’m definitely not a two wheel powerhouse but held my own and made up about a dozen spots in my age group. I averaged just over 19mph (very weak!) and almost as quick as it started, the 20k bike leg was over and I found myself back in transition putting on my Brooks Racer ST3s and trying to keep a left quad cramp at bay.

Now for the fun part – the 5k run. I exited the transition area (talking nicely to my legs all the time), grabbed a cup of water and focused on shaking out the burn from the bike ride. It took about a quarter mile for me to find my feet and then the only goal was to run as fast as I could and catch as many runners as possible. If the runner was male and had a 40, 41, 42, 43 or 44 sharpied on his right calf, it gave me extra incentive to catch and pass. I don’t recall being overtaken on the run and in the home stretch managed to pass another 4 or 5 guys – one right on the line who happened to be in my age group. Sorry whoever you were…

My run split was 19:05 — fastest in the 40-44 age group — and gave me an overall finish time of 1 hour 22 minutes and change; my fastest Breezy Point Triathlon by a couple of minutes. Not bad considering it was my first tri for 5 years and definitely an excuse for a celebratory Samichlaus!

Monday June 1st
Amazingly, there was no soreness after Sunday’s triathlon (apart from a stiff neck from looking up to sight the orange buoys), so I started the day with a nice progressive four miler. The weather was cool and breezy but deceptively humid! I guess I should also mention that it was nice to be back in my Newtons after a weekend on the Brooks side of the fence.

Decided to log a second run of the day and ended up with a pleasant 7 mile lunch time “progressive” with an easy mile cool down at the end. The humidity had dropped from earlier in the day, but it was still warm and very summerish. Also, this was the first run in my 2009 Newton Gravitas, which are definitely going to take some breaking into. I’d forgotten how “odd” a new pair of Newtons feel and how carpet-slipper-like my original Gravitas feel now I’ve logged over 100 miles in them. Great run though….

Splits: 7:32 7:19 7:07 6:55 6:27 6:20 5:59 6:58

Tuesday June 2nd
Great start to the day – 105 consecutive push-ups! I also forgot to mention, yesterday I received the first advance copy of my 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups book. It officially launched June 1st but will probably take a week or so to filter its way through to the stores and online retailers. The book looks great and I am VERY happy with how it turned out. People also keep reminding me that it will make a perfect Father’s Day gift, so my [biased] advice is to go out and buy one for the Dad in your life! Seriously, it’s a cool book and I’m very proud to say it’s mine.

Work was busy so it was great to get out later in the day and log an enjoyable eight miler in the sun. Temperature had “dropped” to 92, but it was still a scorcher – tremendous conditions!

Splits: 7:45 7:34 7:34 7:27 7:22 7:20 7:08 6:55

Wednesday June 3rd
I hate summer storms. I had planned to run a tough 4 x 5 minutes hard on the grass (in addition to a warm up/cool down), but a heavy thunder shower put me off the idea and I ended up running a 10k Strength Builder treadmill workout instead:

10 minute warm up, followed by 5 x 6 minutes hard (90 sec recovery) and a cool down. Not the National Running Day workout I was looking forward to, but it was still a solid one. I ended up at 10mph and 10% incline – not a bad effort.

Thursday June 4th
Glutton for punishment – I just did 110 consecutive push-ups. Now that I’m off the plan, I find myself in push-ups-no-mans-land, so figured I’d have another go at the hundred. Not sure how, but I managed 5 more than a couple of days ago too.

That’s me all caught up now. Sorry for the extra long post and I’ll try not to leave it as long next time.

See you at the races!

I was half dreading Day 3 of Week 6, but it turned out to be okay. It took a couple of sets to get into it, but I got stronger as the workout went on. Now I’m not sure whether to repeat W6 (I failed D1 remember) or go for the hundred on the weekend. We’ll see. Whatever I decide, it will be AFTER the Breezy Point Triathlon on Sunday – I don’t want to make the swim any more difficult than it already is!

Required: 22 22 30 30 25 25 18 18 55

Actual: 22 22 30 30 25 25 18 18 55 [245 total]

What a lot of push-ups!

Good start to the day – a successful Week 6 Day 2 of the Hundred Push Ups challenge.

Required: 20 20 23 23 20 20 18 18, min 53

Actual: 20 20 23 23 20 20 18 18 53 (just!) for a total 215 push ups.

The 53 at the end were tough, but I managed to get through them.

Don’t forget, you can still pre-order the 7 Weeks to 100 Push-Ups book for just $10.17 at Amazon.com. Amazon.co.uk are also selling the book, but I believe the launch date is slightly behind the US market.

Of course, other major book sellers are also listing the title, so if you’re a frequent Barnes & Noble, Borders or Books-a-Million shopper, it might be worth while checking their web sites too. Buy.com appear to be the cheapest online retailer, selling the book for just $9.30!

[All prices correct 5/26/09 and subject to change at any time.]

Pre-sales still appear to be going well as shown by the following stats courtesy of Rankforest.com:

Average rank in last 2 days 13,858

Average rank in last 7 days 16,031

Average rank in last 30 days 119,486

Average rank in last 90 days 145,309

I noticed the Amazon rank was as low as 5,000 on the weekend, which basically means there were only about 5,000 books with greater sales at that particular moment in time. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself. Can’t wait to see the book in stores on June 1st!

Next up was a 1000m swim at the local rec center. I knew the pool would be closed on Memorial Day, so decided to make the most of the day and log a few laps. I managed 8x100m and finished with a swift 200m – swift is probably not the best descriptor, but I was trying hard to pick up the pace.

Back at the house it was time for Hundred Push Ups W6D1 which called for sets of 40, 50, 25, 25 and a minimum of 50. My arms were a little tired from the swim, and I could only manage 33 in the final set. Still, 173 push-ups wasn’t a bad effort.

I ended the day with an easy four miler in about 31 minutes – nothing fast, just an enjoyable run to stretch out the legs.