Ha! Well, that’s all I could work in when I was working. But 7 am feels still doable and yet early enough that when I’m finished with him at 8 am, I still have the day in front of me to take other classes and do other things!
Tried on quite a few shoes today and came home with the new Brooks Adrenalines. I also got some “UltraSoles” to replace the sock liner. They didn’t have the Kayanos in my size; tried on the Saucony Omni and a smaller size of the Asics 2000, but the Brooks were ultimately the best pair. They seem to fit much better in the heel, so that’s a win.
Supposed to get some weather here (snow flurries), so when we stopped at Whole Paycheck everyone and their brother was there. High is only supposed to be 20 on Monday. That might be a treadmill day.
Oohhh… What color did you get?! 
LOL, BB - we know what’s important! 
Silver/Bluebird/Bluetint. They are pretty!
Thanks, Michael about the leg presses. to be honest, I loved doing them when I was in P.T. following my knee replacement and got fond of them because of that as I really felt like I was “getting somewhere” post-op. But I can certainly do squats and lunges just as well. See, this is one reason I asked about machines. 
And oh my gosh, I know so many people with back problems and that is the LAST thing I want to bring on!
Go Brooks! I think you will like them. I hope so!
@VaBluebird, leg presses do have their purpose and value; in my view, there are just many better exercises that can be done to hit the same muscle groups for purposes of developing functional strength without the potential risks that occur when you start pushing heavy weights.
Sabaray, great shoe choice!
A 15 min intense circuit of free weights, lunges, and squats. I was hot and sweaty at the end (and thought of idad’s saying - “sweating like a pig, panting like a dog”; sigh).
Today - Demi Bar Pilates (really barre class) then yoga afterwards. Mostly for the warmth of the studio as it is -20 with wind chill!
In a few of my recent posts I’ve suggested that leg presses may not be the most suitable exercise for some to do and that in some cases there is a potential for back injury that can be avoided by substituting other exercises. I wanted to embellish on this a little.
Leg presses are great if you are body building and are looking for hypertrophy. They can be very good in a managed rehab setting to strengthen your legs using lighter weights and a controlled range of motion. For “normal” exercises, the problem comes in when you start to use heavier weights and a deeper range of motion so that you cause a pelvic tilt that places significant stress on your lower back. At that point, you need to make sure that someone is watching your form or otherwise be very aware of what’s going on with your pelvic positioning. At that point, you should also be asking yourself what your objective is I doing the exercise and are there other e revises that can be done to achieve the same results within your objectives. In addition, if your purpose in exercising is to develop functional strength for daily life activities and sports, leg presses have limited relevance to the movement patterns you will be concerned with.
That’s not to say that you don’t need to be concerned with form to avoid injuries with other exercises that can be done instead of leg presses. Bad form with any of them can lead to injury. But many of these exercises, like squats and lunges, can be progressively programmed to build leg and core strength without greatly increasing compressive loads on your lower back or putting your lower back in a posture that has potential disk issues. It’s complicated and each person’s particulars of what works and what doesn’t may be different. For me, it’s not by happenstance that my leg press machine has been gathering dust as I do other exercises that challenge my legs in a more functional manner that assists my ability to move fluidly and with strength.
It’s been an interesting training week. Am at the point in the parallettes program where there is a real fusion of strength with skill and technique. On Wednesday I did the first routine that has me doing 5 sets of 5-8 tuck swings to shoulder stands. Very, very tough because you mount the bars with your arms fully extended, swing forward in a tuck and then back and on the backswing, use your core to pivot up so that you are essentially upside down, with your arms bent at 90 degrees supporting your entire body weight on your bent arms and holding that for 1-2 seconds. I struggled through it and managed to do 5 sets of 5 repetitions before my shoulders were just exhausted. It’s really a process of figuring out how to mesh momentum, balance,core activation and arm strength in a proscribed movement pattern and form. Right after the shoulder stands, the next movement was to do a straddle L-Sit where you swing into an L-Sit with your legs straddling your left arm, then tuck up and swing back and out into a straddle sit straddling your right arm and that constitutes one repetition. Well, in the aftermath of the shoulder stands, I was able to do 1/2 a repetition,lol. I could do the initial swing out into the left side straddle, but for the life of me, did not have the core strength or technique to swing back, clear my left arm with my knees , shift to the right side and extend my legs into another straddle. Each and every time I just collapsed. Gonna take a lot of methodical work to get this going.
Managed to get in a 25 mile off road ride today on my cyclocross bike before the snow started. It was good to be outside but a tad cold with the wind chill of being on a bike in 31 degree temperatures. Unfortunately, I think the snow will just be a dusting so no cross country skiing for me yet :(.
My rotator cuffs are aching just reading that!
The parallettes thing sounds really hard to me! You are doing great with it! Today is a light day for me. I got in a couple of miles this morning on the treadmill before a drive across town to my daughter’s church for the Bishop’s visitation. Good to get the numbers up! I plan to do some more running in a little bit. It’s supposed to get really, really cold over the next few days.
Each day’s routine has 5 movements consisting of 4-6 sets of 5-8 repetitions. All of the movements involve core and shoulder work in different ways. The program designers emphasize that at this stage, this is not an exercise/conditioning program but a skills program. They instruct that once you lose the form, don’t continue with the movement for “exercise” but instead take a short break and move on to the next. Whole different mind set for me. Kind of takes me back to when I was a competitive diver in college. The strengthening and conditioning are now by products of what is a skills driven routine. Fun but a bit frustrating at times!
Yesterday morning I managed to get a 12 mile run in on a ridiculously icy trail. The training plan called for 12 miles but I was thinking of cutting it short because of the conditions - it was just a sheet of glare ice. H and I don’t usually run together because we run at different paces, but we stuck together yesterday on the ice. With him pushing me, we hung in and got all 12 miles in. I only had one near disastrous wipeout and numerous close calls. We should probably look into getting some Yak Trax or the like. I’ve always said that if it’s icy enough to need them, I just don’t need to run. But apparently I no longer act that way, even if it’s what I really think. I couldn’t put the run off until today because of the forecast. High has been single digits with winds close to 20mph so the wind chill is horrendous. Anyway, I got the run in even if the pace was much slower than usual. I’ll call it a win.
Today has been much more sedentary. I’ve gotten my 10K steps in, but won’t end up with much more than that. Heartrate was up watching the disappointing Seahawks game, but I don’t think that counts for much. And we’re going out to dinner with friends tonight. Even making healthy food choices, it always adds up to more calories than when I cook at home.
BunsenBurner-where will your daughter be doing her year-long fellowship? Anywhere fun for you to go visit? Is this the same one who brought the cats home?
Pizzagirl-trainer sessions at 7am sound perfect!
C3Baker, yes, the same nomadic kid. This is her third stint abroad - in a third country. I hope no more cats! The native-born citizen cat (not pictured in my avatar) has finally become friends with the immigrants. 
They are all balled up in one gigantic catball on the sofa… slept through the game while the humans were biting the elbows watching the carnage on the field!
Be very careful on that ice! Yikes. Some runners put screws into the soles of their shoes for better traction:
http://skyrunner.com/screwshoe.htm
I know you will miss your daughter, Bunsen! How neat that she is so adventurous, though.
C3B- My good friend in your area tried to do a group run yesterday in your area and bailed because it was too icy. She wound up running a little more south of there on some gravel paths where the footing was better. It sounds terrible. I have Yak Trax but mainly used them to run when we were in Colorado a few years ago. Around here I just do the treadmill. I’m OK running on snow (like it), but ice terrifies me. I don’t want to break anything.
2.3 more miles and then walked the dog.
After the big potluck at my daughter’s church, we didn’t want much for dinner. My husband wanted hot buttered run, so we had that and cereal. Oh well.
My daughter is doing Whole 30 with her husband and his mother and sister. She couldn’t eat much at the potluck and decided the month of the Bishop’s visitation was not a good time to do Whole 30. She is SO disciplined! She did get some raw veggies and some of the meatballs that looked like they weren’t swimming in a sugary sauce (I took those, of course). I heard her telling one of her parishoners “Those are my parents. They are endurance athletes, too!” I thought, “Hey, she’s talking about ME!”
Yes, C3 PLEASE get something to grip your feet! Ice is nothing to fool around with - one fall and you might be laid up for months! Seriously!
Most of our ice is gone but I noticed after returning from the weekend and walking the dog that some sidewalk areas still have ice - I’m too fearful of it!
Enjoyed a nice weekend in Cbus with D’s 1 and 2. No hard core exercising but some good walking to combat the hard core bakery stops! Those girls of mine LOVE bakeries! Eating quantity was ok but the quality? Good but not healthy! We split two pieces of pie (maple bourbon pecan chocolate and cranberry ginger pear) and later split an enormous lemon cupcake, carrot cupcake and some from scratch brownies. Well worth it.
I’m off tomorrow (well, sort of - work that I’ll just do at home) - the arctic cold has already arrived here - next two days has highs in the low teens. Brrrr. Need to see if our gym is open tomorrow.
Finally, a run!! I felt very rusty. 3.5 miles on my home Precor in 30 min. Glad I did something other than sitting on my butt, feeding Mr., and cleaning the house.
Still keeping up with my daily 20/20 push-up promise!