<p>Happy to report long plateau is finally over. We’ll see how we get through the holidays. </p>
<p>I eat very little in the way of grains. Maybe one serving a day during the week. More on weekends.</p>
<p>Good walkin’ day here in New England. Sunny. 45 degrees. So I saddled up after lunch and headed out for a quick 5k hillly state park walk. Felt rarin’ to go out of the gate, so I did the whole arms pumping quick pace thing from start to finish. The nice lady who lives in my iPod (I found out her name - Sanja Richards) says, “I know fast when I see it, congratulations on your fastest mile ever…” I cranked out the first mile in 15:40 and set a new fastest ever for this walk, averaging 16:09 per mile.</p>
<p>My fitness is obviously improving. My average heart rate was only 64% of max, despite pushing hard up the hills and hitting a max of 93%.</p>
<p>Felt good to get outside for some fresh air. With little breeze, it really wasn’t very cold. I wore full geek gear: the Polartec base layer (pants and t-shirt) under running pants and my neon yellow geek Brooks half-zip shirt. Lightweight fleece gloves and a neon yellow Brooks beanie. I was never cold and worked up a little sweat on the hills.</p>
<p>I noticed that the metatarsal foot pain (numb middle toe) seems to have completely cleared up, maybe because I haven’t been walking as much.</p>
<p>MOWC:</p>
<p>So you are looking to stay under 75% of your max heart rate on these runs? That’s pretty impressive if you can do it. I only have think about running and my heart rate goes up higher than that!</p>
<p>Yeah, I can’t bring myself to wear the heart monitor while I sleep, but just sitting at my desk or checking my blood pressure at rest, I typically see 55 beats per minute. One thing that is very encouraging is that I have seen signficant improvement in my recovery rate after hard exercise (after 60 seconds) and much lower heart rates in general during easy exercise.</p>
<p>How is your hip holding up to all the running you’ve been doing?</p>
<p>To stay at that level you have to do some walking. It is very strict- you aren’t supposed to go even one beat over (which you do, of course). It is barely a shuffle at that heart rate. I’ve done the program before, and, miraculously, you CAN still run fast when you need to. Runners tend to train at too fast of a pace. This is painfully slow, but it is nice to finish runs feeling like you can do the whole thing again instead of not being sure whether you can get up your driveway. My hip/hamstring may allow this if I stay slow and flat. Of course, hills would mean walking anyway to keep the HR down. My PT beat me up yesterday with Active Release. I yelled a couple of times and even have a few bruises, but I left there feeling great. I think it might be starting to heal. The half marathon didn’t seem to do any damage. I will not run everyday, even with the low HR stuff. I think that would be too much on the hamstring.
What will happen if I can stick to the low HR without wavering is that my mile pace will drop rapidly at the heart rate. My cardio fitness isn’t bad, but the soreness from the half marathon tells me my legs have forgotten how to run long distances.</p>
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<p>Dang. 30 pushups. I better get cranking. I haven’t done straight pushups in my workouts for a little while – all t-pushups and burpees and pushups on the stability ball. I’ll have to crank out a set and see if I can do 30. I think that will be a stretch. I did 20 a couple weeks ago and that was all I had, but who knows? The t-pushups and pushup rows and mountain climbers are definitely increasing my upper body strength. I can’t believe that six months ago I couldn’t do one “big boy” pushup. You know, they say when you get up around 30, you’ve got to start doing them with weight vests or barbell weights on your back!</p>
<p>I haven’t played tennis for about 25 years, so that was a long time ago (and, unfortunately, probably close to 200,000 cigarettes ago). Still, I’m more fit than I can remember being. I’m **very **thankful for the aerobic capacity that I’ve been able to build over the past nine months. I know people who smoked as long as I did and quit at the same time who are now on oxygen waiting for lung transplants. So, when I get winded during the second set of Spartacus, I try to keep it in perspective. I’m lucky as hell.</p>
<p>I notice the fitness every day just in daily activities. Going up and down stairs. Carrying groceries to the car. Taking the garbage out. The weightlifting and the pushups and the squats really do pay off.</p>
<p>There’s some sort of poster in my gym that says something to the effect of, Work out so you can enjoy the activities you enjoy.</p>
<p>Today was my first ever run 5 miles in a torrential downpour day. It sucked.</p>
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<p>I’m not that hard-core! I figure that days like today are why God made the Schwinn Airdyne, but Sunday is my exercise day off anyway. I’m going to hang some XMAS tree ornaments, eat some chili, and watch some football. Hopefully, I get to do some reps of that Patriots “touchdown” exercise.</p>
<p>It’s snowing here in Dixie! I MUST go out and “play” in the snow. I’m going to the flat, sheltered trail to try to avoid some wind and do a shorter low heart rate “run”. Got the winter stuff on, including the hat which has a cut out for a ponytail. I guess that would be useful if my hair wasn’t an inch long!</p>
<p>I broke through a plateau this week too–think it’s stepped up training that did the trick. I’m doing weight training and core 2x a week, 1 spin class, 1 long walk (with speed walk intervals), and then a kettlebell class, which is really tough, as well as a bosu class (another one that’s tough for me because my balance sucks). Also–went back to Weight Watchers; the new points program really puts an emphasis on protein/fruits/veggies. Lost 5 pounds this week. Mostly because I was really careful–paying attention to what I ate and tracking it. Goal for next year is to get to a healthy BMI, which means I’ve got 20 pounds to go. Also found out from the instructor in my kettlebell class that one can compete in kettlebells. I do pretty well (compared to the other women in my class) because I’m strong and don’t have problems with the lowest weight bells (15 and 25 pounds). Wonder if there’s a competition category for me–a middle-aged, 50-something woman, slightly overweight.</p>
<p>Good for you Bromfield! Kettle balls scare me. That’s awesome that you are doing so well in your class.</p>
<p>Lots of snow out there now. My 3 mile low HR run went pretty well. I dressed warmly and enjoyed the snow falling down. Protected from the wind, fortunately. It’s 24 degrees outside, which for us is cold.</p>
<p>I have not done much exercise this week. 
It is really hard to squeeze it in when you are surrounded by palm trees, sandy beaches, Mai Tais and relaxing music. I hope one hour of snorkeling and 50 pushups (NOT all at once) will cancel out my tropical drink. We are trying to stick to the healthy eating pattern - I grilled some ahi tuna for lunch.</p>
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<p>I did that one today, too! I also worked off some calories laughing during a Christmas pageant we attend. Not only did two of the shepherds fight with their staffs coming back up the aisle, one tried to “slay” a darling little toddler “sheep” with his sword. It seems there were some horrified parents at the birth of Christ! </p>
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<p>One of the good things about being in my 40s is that I finally know what works for me and what doesn’t. I cannot work out just to work out; I’m just not that well disciplined. I have to enjoy what I’m doing at the moment. Or it has to be contributing to a lessening of pain or discomfort. </p>
<p>Thank goodness for the pool! I absolutely love being in the pool. If I get bored with my work out, I just float around for a bit and then get back to it. When we lived in California I used to take boxing classes that I enjoyed a lot…I found out that hopping around while punching various bags plus skipping rope is an excellent work out. I love punching things! Maybe in a few months…</p>
<p>How do people feel about listening to music while working out? On one hand, music can be motivating. On the other hand, it’s taking nearly all my focus right now to maintain proper form and will music distract from that? What are your experiences?</p>
<p>I have to have music. I generally listen to the radio or Pandora (everything from Rock and Roll, to Texas country to heavy metal!) for weights, but I have a mix of fastpaced stuff for the ellipitical on my ipod.</p>
<p>Count me in for music. The only time I’ve taken off the headphones is occasionally when I am totally gassed, panting like a dog, gasping for air – usually on the Airdyne bike.</p>
<p>Lately, I’ve been using the Workout Muse interval soundtracks for the Airdyne and for my Spartacus workouts, but I did a somewhat less intense Airdyne session on Tuesday with iPod music and just watching the clock – every 3 minutes, pedal hard for 1 minute and then easy again for the next 2 minutes.</p>
<p>mathmom, thanks so much for sharing your daily menu. It’s given me some good ideas. I’m going to do the same as you for lunch. So far I’ve been eating a sandwich for lunch, but if I cut the calories for the two slices of bread and the low-fat mayo then i’ll save around 260 calories : ) I also need to cut on my snacks…i usually eat a banana (or another fruit) plus almonds…I"ll try to do half fruit and eat less almonds.</p>
<p>Nuts are terrific nutritionally, but very, very dense in terms of calorie count. I have to lay off them because I can scarf down hundreds of calories by the handful.</p>
<p>Idad, youre right…nuts are not so good when trying to cut calories… Hmmm I guess I need to stop eating every day.</p>
<p>I generally like music (country or oldies) for cardio training but not for racing. I’m “old school” and don’t like to see iPods etc in a race. I think you need to be part of the experience and aware of those around you. I can get through weights and PT exercises without music, but if I have the iPod on from cardio I’ll keep it going for weights. Sometimes I run without music- especially if I’m out of town and want to be more aware of what might be around me (danger, cars etc) or want to just enjoy the natural beauty.</p>
<p>I meant I need to stop eating almonds every day, or maybe I should just cut them out of my diet. Once I eat one, i cannot stop : ( I’ve been thinking that i need to chang my bkfast. So far, i’ve been eating a sandwich of peanut butter and honey. Once again, the peanut butter has a lot of calories…</p>