<p>I always feel awful while I’m running the first mile, too. Of course, I’ve never actually run a whole mile… :)</p>
<p>It’s true for everything. Airdyne intervals, hiking, etc. The first bit is always the toughest. I do a intervals to 90% of my max heart rate and I’ve just about decided that the first one needs to be to 85% and then the rest to 90%.</p>
<p>On hiking, I’ve learned to just treat the first half mile as a warmup. Go easy. Stop. Go some more. On the Airdyne, I’ve learned to pedal hard for just a few seconds a couple of times during the slow 3 minute warmup, just to get the heart rate up a little bit.</p>
<p>I don’t know if anyone is looking for power stretch fleece, but Backcountry is running a Marmot sale, with some stuff at 50% off (women’s power stretch hoodie for $63, bootcut power stretch pants for $63).</p>
<p>Here’s the link to the power stretch items (mens and womens):</p>
<p>Whew…glad to know I’m in good company. I was beating myself up everytime I checked my new pink Garmin and saw that first sluggo mile…not that the rest are super speedy but they are speedy-er:)<br>
Just started running about a year ago so I’m a novice in every sense of the word.</p>
<p>Easy day today with one two mile walk in for the morning and one more to come this afternoon. But…I’m counting my other task of the past few hours as part of a hard workout: cleaning S2’s bedroom and doing his laundry. I figure that all of the scrambling around I did under the bed, in the corners, and behind the dressers; sorting and carrying at least 20 pounds of clothing up and down the stairs; squatting to retrieve the cleaned garments from the dryer; vacuuming and dusting the dungeon–they add up to something :-o</p>
<p>PackMom- My first mile last night was 11:30! Seriously. Part of it was because I had some giant puddles that I was trying to get around in the grass and the grass turned out to be so saturated that I sank and had to walk, but still… I am trying to run slowly (even for me) the whole month, but my last mile was 10:10. My legs feel like boards starting out, especially if I’ve been sitting all day at work.</p>
<p>I did the Rachel Cosgrove Workouts for the last two days and 17 pushups (I can do a set of 15 now - woohoo!), kettleballs and goblet squats in addition. I even tried doing inverted rows using the dining room table, which I have to say does not work very well! It’s a huge Victorian monstrosity and has gigantic feet which I had a hard time avoiding. I really need to clean out some space in the basement and get some TRX thingies.</p>
<p>2 mile sabadog walk this am, 50 minutes on the elliptical at the gym again, 2 mile sabadog walk this afternoon, all in all a good day. Trip to Costo, jumbo bag of broccoli,didn’t buy any bread. Not a single piece. If it’s not here, I can’t eat it. </p>
<p>MOWC- You are an inspiration! First mile yesterday 10:14 / Last mile 9:53<br>
I don’t run every day…give the knees every other day off.</p>
<p>Sabaray…supposed to get snow here tonight. We southerners get all excited about snow…esp. the TV weather guys!
So far just torrential cold rain.</p>
<p>That’s awesome. I’m guessing that being able to do 15 pushups puts you in the 99th percentile for moms of college kids, when it comes to fitness! Dads, too, for the that matter.</p>
<p>Those Rachel Cosgrove YouTube videos are a tremendous workout resource. I think she hits just the right amount of detail in explaining each exercise. And, I love that she gives easy, medium, and hard versions of each one so that people can start where they can.</p>
<p>I tried inverted rows on the dining room table and didn’t have much more success than you did. I had better luck with a closet rod across two kitchen counter stools, but I couldn’t really get the bar up high enough. TRX or Jungle Gym really is the best practical solution, even if you have to just anchor it on the top of a door. In nice weather, the neighborhood kids playground monkey bars would be a great place for inverted rows, too.</p>
<p>Dreaded Airdyne intervals again today. Four 1/2 mile intervals. I tried to suck it up and push a little harder. Ended up doing my second fastest 1/2 mile ever and the fastest in about a year. Well, actually, my third fastest, but I’m not counting the time I did a 1/2 mile at a 1/4 mile pace and staggered off the bike after one interval! Peak heart rate of 96% of my max on the final interval today, which is about as hard as I care to push these days.</p>
<p>Hopped off the bike, and marched down the stairs for the daily dose of the HOPS challenge. Two rounds. 10 reps of each: squats, push ups, and kettlebell swings.</p>
<p>Now, I’m off to cook my diet “dinner”: buffalo chicken wings and veggies dipped in homemade blue cheese dressing. A big day for the ol’ (formerly) fat guy. First time ever frying in lard. Always makes me think of the cooking show I saw once. Some lady showing how to make a pie crust. Yankee born with the kind of heavy not-quite-right acquired southern accent that only a Yankee transplant can get. She was saying “Put the lard in your pie crust”, but it came out, “Put, the lord in your pie crust”, which I’ve thought ever since would make for a divine apple pie!</p>
<p>I started on Jan 1 doing just 1 pushup, then adding one each day. I can hardly believe that I did 17 pushups today! I am doing the “girl’s style” pushups, but would like to try to switch that to the regular ones. But I’m happy!</p>
<p>Packer, try doing just 1 regular pushup - that’s how I started years ago. Then I just stuck with a dozen and figured that was enough. But if I really get to 31 regular ones by the end of the month - who knows maybe I’ll start doing some of the really fancy ones!</p>
<p>I’ve still got a bunch of lard in my freezer from when my younger son was trying to replicate Scottish meat pies. I really prefer my pie crust with a mix of butter and crisco.</p>
<p>9.22 miles, 1 cup of oatmeal and 15 tater tots. Dinner is more tater tots, hot dogs, and vegetables. I have to go out and run an errand first though.</p>
<p>Got in some pushups early this morning. My abs weren’t sore from the pushups so the abs work that I did yesterday or the day before are holding.</p>
<p>I started with push ups from my knees. I was happy to be able to do them. I think once I was doing sets of 10 or 12, I switched to regular push ups, even though I could only do a couple.</p>
<p>I wish I had seen this better way to progress push ups. Rather than do them from the knees, do them from the feet, but with the hands elevated on a box:</p>
<p>You could even start with the kitchen counter. Or the sofa. Or, stairs, working slowly down from the third step to the second step to the first step to the floor. The great thing about this approach is that you can increase the difficulty in small, incremental steps.</p>
<p>Crisco is the product that killed off lard because everyone knew it was “healthier”. Turns out that the partially hydrogenated cottonseed or soybean oil trans fats were one of the most toxic foods every introduced to the American diet. Lard was, by far, the “healthier” product. Crisco has been reformulated to reduce the trans fats, but I’m not seeing a lot of love for various seed oil products.</p>