<p>Quick trip to the gym today for 15 minutes on the elliptical machine, planks, and leg weights. H and I will walk tonight. </p>
<p>Big success and fail of the day…almond butter/chocolate chip cookies I made on a cooking spree this chilly morning. At least I balanced it out with a veggie, bean, and barley soup. It’s cold, even here. That was my excuse.</p>
<p>I hope your knee feels better with the TLC, NMinn.</p>
<p>On the run/walk thing – I use an iPod, and have playlists for this. I started by running for one song and then walking for two songs. My running songs are about 160 beats per minute and the walking songs about 135 beats per minute. Another playlist has two running songs for every one walking song. Works for me.</p>
<p>I should investigate that timer, though. I need to do 30-second stretching exercises for my back, and I just started doing tabata planks, and there’s no clock in my gym (for some bizarre reason – this gym is an odd mixture of wonderful new equipment but lacks some basics like ubiquitous wall clocks).</p>
teriwitt:
That NuStep looks like great machine. Kind of like a recumbent Airdyne – upper and lower body. That might be what NMINN needs for her balky knee!
<p>That’s a terrific idea, fireandrain.</p>
<p>Niquii77, I know what you mean about having a training partner to encourage to push. I love to ride outdoors with members of the Sturdy Girls Race Team, (hey if IDad can have Svetlana, I can have Sturdy Girls) most of whom can seriously kick my butt, because of the friendly competitive camaraderie and encouragement they provide. In the absence of a training partner, one of the things that can help push your intensity is to have specific targeted objectives during a workout and a means to measure whether you are hitting them. Some people use a heart rate monitor and calculated target zones and duration, some use bikes with wattage read outs. (Then there are those, like my daughter, who I think have voices in their heads egging them on. One day she was over at my house spinning in the basement and all I could hear was loud music and her yelling “C’mon, keep pushing, faster, turn up the resistance, don’t give up etc.” An hour later, when she resurfaced, she gave me a big grin and announced “I really kicked my own butt.”)</p>
<p>One of my favorite spin class challenges is what I call the Match My Leg Speed Game. Riders alternate setting a quick cadence at between 90-110 rpms and everyone must match the cadence. Everyone sets their resistance at an initial level that they can feel and requires some effort but that they can maintain for at least 5 minutes. The leader then starts turning the resistance up in quarter turn increments every 30 seconds and everyone follows suit over the course of 5 minutes. You can vary positions in the saddle, standing. You can vary the cadence. Everyone must keep matching the leg speed but because the resistance baseline is individualized, everyone gets a workout individualized for their level of ability. It’s a lot of fun to play and suffer together!</p>
<p>Perhaps your coach can put together for you a progressive interval based set of cycling workouts based on either heart rate target zones or wattage or both. Targeted intervals will greatly assist you in developing the strength and endurance to break through that level 3 barrier. If you have questions about how to do that, send me a PM and I’ll also be glad to share my experience.</p>
<p>Great idea on the playlists Fireandrain! </p>
<p>Another day stuck in the house due to the deep freeze - literally our town as been closed for 3 days! No driving legally allowed. Did 40 mins of Zumba. Should be back to work tomorrow and gym should reopen.</p>
<p>Dreaded Airdyne intervals. Got a bit of a break. Thought I was doing 1 mile intervals, but I had reprogrammed the Garmin and the 1 mile intervals were set to last only a half mile. So, it was half mile intervals. I’m not complaining… I realized the mistake after the first one and kicked the pace up, so I still got a nice heart rate going: 94% of my max.</p>
<p>Ooh, that sounds like fun. I might suggest that game to my instructor! She does something sort of-not really like that on hills…now that I think about it…not the same! lol</p>
<p>I’ll look into a heart rate monitor. I think I’d prefer that than basing off of watts. I need to also check if I’m allowed access to the smaller gym on campus. A smaller environment makes me feel less self-conscious. I think it’d make me cycle more knowing it’s only two minute walk versus a fifteen minute one. </p>
<p>Major kudos to your daughter! I can’t kick my butt in cardio!</p>
<p>Tough workout today with my trainer. Did TRX moves (lunges, squats, rows)–between these TRX sets I went up/down 2 flights of stairs 3x.(Started out sprinting up–by the end I was just walking up.) That really got my HR up. After TRX, I worked on cable machine for arms and between these exercises I did 50 kettle bell swings with 35 lb kettle bells. Finished up with plank on TRX (held it for 60 seconds). Then did a plank variation where I brought my knees up/down (60 seconds) and did another set where I rotated one arm up and then the other. Afterwards, I did 2 miles on the thread mill (walking–32 minutes). </p>
<p>Signed up for a new pilates reformer class (5 people)–starts next week. I’m looking forward to doing it again. Slow flow yoga tomorrow and spinning on Thursday. I usually walk on Friday, but given that the temperature is still in the single digest–I don’t think that’s going to happen.</p>
<p>My workout today was about 75 minutes of shoveling snow. I just got done eating a big piece of steak and a baked sweet potato for dinner. :)</p>
<p>I had a awesome dinner.</p>
<p>Made a blender vinaigrette in the style of Bobby Flay: olive oil, a clementine, dijon mustard, white balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and ground ancho chile. Nice orange sauce.</p>
<p>I used that as dressing on a spring mix salad, with a clementine slices and as a sauce drizzled on sautee’d shrimp in a ring around the plate with the salad piled in the middle. </p>
<p>Yum.</p>
<p><em>drools at the thought of having shrimp</em> I love shrimp. </p>
<p>All very yummy dinners indeed. </p>
<p>My dinner was multi colored pasta with tomate sauce and mushrooms, my regular veggie stir fry, a crunchy breaded chicken cut with a spinach salad. My tummy was very happy. (Even happier when I went back and got a cup of ice-cream! ;))</p>
<p>Today was very odd eating wise…didn’t have breakfast…or lunch…I only had pretzels at 10 in the morning and was munching on nuts between walking to classes. Hopefully, I can sort out a better way to deal with back to back classes.</p>
<p>If I wasn’t in this stupid streak (over two years and 3 months) today would have been a zero. I did NOT want to go to the gym after work, get all changed, watch boring TV and run on the dreadmill. I told myself I would do a mile. I did 4. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little warmer so I think I’ll try to run at lunch when I can at least SEE any icy spots.</p>
<p>^ Even Cal Ripken decided he’d had enough of his streak at one point, and benched himself.</p>
<p>How long do you plan to keep it going?</p>
<p>Had a great dinner of a 6 egg white omelet with low fat, low sodium, high protein ham, low fat cheddar, spinach and mushrooms. Then lifted: 5 sets benches, 3 sets pec deck flies, 3 sets lat pull downs, 3 sets shoulder presses, 4 sets seated DB curls, 3 sets seated DB concentration curls and 3 sets rope triceps extensions, ending with 4 sets of mixed abs. Then treated myself to my favorite smoothie: cup skim milk, lots of strawberries and blueberries, banana and 2 scoops Biochem Double Chocolate whey protein, mixed in the blender. Umm umm good.</p>
<p>Mmmmmm… Nice dinner! :)</p>
<p>4 miles, done. It was a very busy day at work. 2 projects, and another business trip coming up. Yikes.</p>
<p>Good morning! The trail on the hill filled in again so yesterday’s quick am hike was a half hour of trail breaking again but I’ve tromped down a mile so today should be better 
I behaved myself yesterday and managed to get in a decent plank and kettlebell session, topped with an ill-advised airdyne interval that quickly proved incompatible with the kettlebell exertion the airdyne is going to have to get its own isolated little time slot, I’m afraid.</p>
<p>Idad, was it you that recommended the book Overdosed? Captivating read. Wish I had that guy for a doc. My doc quit, so at some point I’ll have to go doc shopping and this book may be my litmus test :)</p>
<p>The book, for those interested, is a 2004 review of corrupted medical research and the commercialization of healthcare that has led to inflated costs and questionable outcomes.
Here’s a link: [Overdosed</a> America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine: John Abramson: 9780061344763: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Overdosed-America-Promise-American-Medicine/dp/0061344761]Overdosed”>http://www.amazon.com/Overdosed-America-Promise-American-Medicine/dp/0061344761)</p>
<p>notrichenough- I’ll know when to end the streak. It’s not today, though. And look what it did for me! I didn’t want to go to the gym. I went. I ran more than the mile I needed for the streak and I felt great about it afterwards! I don’t recall a time I have said to myself AFTER a workout, “I wish I had just gone home and not done this run.” </p>
<p>Good workouts and dinners, all. I’ve lost about 2 1/2 of my 5 pound fall/holiday weight. I got REALLY hungry yesterday afternoon at work, but fortunately the holiday food isn’t sitting around anymore, so I was OK.</p>
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<p>Lol, that’s how I started off with my running. I used my kitchen timer for about a year, including 2 races, and then decided I had earned me a garmin.</p>