In spite of my new shoes, I haven’t done any running this week. Yes, I have excuses, but none of them are really good so I won’t bore you. I did walk 45 holes of golf over 4 days, though. Yesterday was the first day of real summer heat and humidity – my 4-some was dragging by about the 14th hole. And I CAN report that my golf is improving – so that’s something. Also, no running skirts, but I did have to do a little shopping for golf skirts/skorts. I mean, it was a necessity, right?
Kudos to all who have been running/racing/riding/hiking/working out. And a special shout out to those shedding pounds. I know what I need to do – actually doing it is another story.
We had some very intense storms yesterday that I was hoping would clear out some of the humidity. No such luck - 7.6 miles of hills this morning, 70 degrees at 6 am with 74% humidity. Horrible, but it’s done.
I am happy to report that I am down 5 pounds since the beginning of the month. I have been monitoring foods with added sugar. If it has added sugar of any type, I’m not eating it. Haven’t been hungry, feel pretty good overall.
Oiselle is offering 30% off this weekend on their “Runcation” styles - some nice stuff!
I’m amazed at how quickly some of you are losing weight - great job!
I am having one of those weeks - not much energy, just dragging myself through my workouts. I can’t even complain about heat here in San Diego - it’s been cool and overcast.
Gertrude, when you are having a week like that, give yourself permission to back off a bit. Don’t necessarily skip a workout but decrease the volume (i.e. intensity and duration) to give your self some active recovery. A week like that could be a sign of overtraining, not enough sleep or rest, dehydration, stress or a combination of things. Recovery weeks are a good thing :).
It’s definitely been a stressful week. Hugely so actually. Usually the exercise makes me feel better & is quite a mood lifter, but not this week. Oh well - better times ahead, hopefully.
Did better this morning and finished my 8 miles. It didn’t feel great- especially at the end- but I think I am getting the electrolytes under control. I tried to take it easy, but HR was too high by the last 3 miles or so, but that isn’t all that unusual for a hot (74-79) humid run. Blessedly, there was mostly a thin layer of clouds and I had quite a bit of shade anyway. I stayed mainly flat, too. I didn’t trust that I could do this, so I drove to a trail parking lot where I could go out 2 miles and assess how I felt before adding on in case it wasn’t going to work today.
Proud of my daughter who did a 2.4 mile river swim in Chattanooga. It was a race, and she was 9th female overall and won her age group. I am SO glad my kids had great swim coaches and swam competitively as kids. It is serving them very well. She and her two friends formed a team and had these adorable kitty cat swimsuits.
MichaelNKat, I have just started flirting with strength training. I know it’s a very important piece that I need to maximize my results. I definitely need to get on with it.
Been out of town for a couple of days - but good to come here and see that while I’ve been gone you all have been losing pounds, hydrating, running, biking, training, etc.!!!
Usually love my runs at the beach but not much opportunity this time. Storms recently have opened up the two creeks on either side of our place so while we have a GREAT beach space out front, our walking on the beach is limited right now to maybe a quarter mile on either side of us - without having to wade through a fair bit of water - and that Canadian water is truly COLD right now! That plus the deluge of rain we keep getting which had the rural road down to the beach muddy and puddled, I was not interested in destroying my shoes in the mud just for a run. So, settled for lots of cleaning up the beach, raking, helping H dig a new firepit in the sand, hauling LOTS of washed up wood on the beach, etc. The view makes it all worthwhile!
Got home late last night and told myself that I would head out after rolling out of bed. And I did. 3.5 humid but cool miles. Morning runs always a bit of a struggle but guess what? Its DONE!
First track meet of the season. 400 and 800 meter Gold medal winner 55-59 age group at Ohio Senior Olympics. Need to put in a lot more work in preparation for the National meet in St. Paul next month.
OhioP–Love the idea of Senior Olympics!! Wish I were a runner. Do they have strength competitions at the Senior Olympic venues?
Went to spinning this morning. It killed me, but I finished. Realized how much I need cardio–I do lots of strength training and hot yoga and this month long hours of weeding/digging and planting, but I rarely get my heart rate up like I did in spinning today. I’m going to make a commitment to go at least once a week.
Nrdsb: Get a trainer to help you start a strength training program. I can’t tell you how helpful it is if you’re starting from scratch, which is where I started. I was a complete couch potato, but found out that I’m really strong–in fact, I can lift heavier weights than my trainer–she’s great because she really pushes me to do what I think I couldn’t do. Others might disagree, but I think starting out in weight training, a trainer is the way to go, especially if you’re inexperienced.
Seems like this is the weekend for parties in my neighborhood–going to two graduation parties tomorrow and a 30th anniversary party tonight.
Nrdsb4, I concur that getting a trainer to help get you started on a strength training program would be of great benefit. Once you understand the basics and feel comfortable working out on your own, there’s a tremendous amount you can do at home using body weight, suspension like TRX and Dumbbells that won’t require lots of equipment and expense. When you are doing as great a job as you are doing with the weight loss, it’s important to also include resistence training to maintain lean muscle as you lose weight. When you are losing significant weight, it’s inevitable that some will come from muscle tissue but the more resistence training you do, the less this will occur.
Bromfield2 - I don’t see any weight specific events? You can go to the national senior games website at nsga.com. My guess is closest weight type event is shot put and discus.
State meets are going on now across the country. The national meet is in St. Paul in July that you had to qualify for last year. Next year is the qualifying year for the national games in Birmingham AL in 2017. You can go to any state games venue to qualify for the national. Events range from cycling, golf, swimming, archery, horse shoes, volleyball, etc.
Congratulations, ohiopublic! I thought about qualifying for the MSP meet, but I was on crutches. I’m not much on doing the 5K/10K double in the summer heat around here to qualify, either. The national meet will be fun for you.
H and I decided to take advantage of the fact that I needed to pick up my new glasses to walk the 6.5 miles roundtrip to town. Seemed like good idea at the time, but the heat. hills. and humidity made the last 1.5 torturous. Well, at least it got me my 10,000 steps…plus! I’m loving my Fitbit Charge HR. It allows me to track workouts as well as daily steps and the HR monitor (though I’m sure not as good as many) has allowed me to see what’s working from a cardio point of view.
Little 4.25 mile jaunt around the local Audubon Center trails. I discovered this spring that the place is empty on weekend afternoons. Nice flat hiking trails along the shores of a gorgeous lake. It’s not like most of my hiking because the trails are mostly smooth enough (old dirt fire roads) to book along at a pretty good clip. Would actually be an awesome place for trail running, which I occasionally see there.
I’ve got several different loops that range from about 2.75 miles to 4.25 miles. About a 20 minute drive from home. It’s nice for spur of the moment. No planning ahead, just go after lunch.
Did a 2 hour hike at Eno River state park yesterday. Not too bad in terms of elevation but so hot and humid. I felt really sore a few hours later, but feel fine today.