Exercise Update: 3/2/11

After eating way too much at Claim Jumper’s last night (think Ahi tuna salad with a few sips of mai tai and chocolate chip calzone for dessert) and sitting in meetings all day, I knew I needed to exercise.  DH has been nice enough to leave the treadmill set up for me, even though it’s in the way most of the time.  When we got home from dinner, I immediately went upstairs to change.

My total time on the treadmill was 30 minutes, and I went 2.05 miles.  Definitely not my best time, and more of it was walking than I wanted it to be.  But on a positive note I managed to jog for 16 minutes straight!  Go me!  We’ll see how my legs are feeling tonight to see if I can bump that initial jog up to about 20 minutes.

Once I finished with the jog, I did a little bit of stretching and started in on the weightlifting portion of my workout.  I’d signed up for SparkPeople a few days ago, and today’s weightlifting workout for that program was called “Bikini Body for Beginners”.  I modified some of the exercises with their special tool and got to working.  I have to admit that I half-assed the ab portion because I had such bad heartburn by the time I got to it.  Somehow sitting up and laying down repeatedly just didn’t sound like a good idea with that.

When I weighed myself this morning, I was down 2 pounds!  Go me!  I’m now back down to 160.  Only 27 pounds to go!

If it’s not raining today I’m planning on going for a walk around the block at work (about 15 minutes) and then doing a 15 minute walk or jog on the treadmill with yoga to finish it up.  If it is raining, I’ll do it all on the treadmill and follow with some yoga.

Workout: 2/28/11

I haven’t gotten much exercise in the past week, so I thought I should get some in while I was waiting for my husband to get home.  I set the treadmill to 1% incline, warmed up and got to jogging.

I wasn’t sure how well I’d do since I’m fighting off the beginnings of this cold that’s going around work.  You know the one – sore throat, coughing, trouble breathing.  It’s nasty and it’s taking awhile for me to actually catch it.

You don’t know how excited I was to jog over a mile without stopping!  I finally had to walk at the 15 minute mark because my legs were burning so much… but man!  That was awesome!  Usually it’s my breathing that’s the problem, but if my legs would have kept going I could have jogged for longer.  I walked the last 6 minutes or so and finally decided to stop when I realized that the burning in one leg was from my knee and the burning in the other leg was from my ankle.  Even still, I’m counting this as a total win and I plan on jogging some more on Wednesday!

Total time: 21:03, 1.5 miles

Exercise Update 2/21/11

I bit the bullet and signed up for a 5k.  It’s not like I can run the whole thing (more like half), but you don’t have to run the whole 5k to have completed it, right?  So, on March 13th I’ll be running the City of Dublin’s 13th annual 5k Shamrock Fun Run/Walk.

When I told DH that I was going to sign up for it, he said “You better get to running!”  Then he set up the treadmill for me while I changed out of jeans and a t-shirt.  I set the incline to 1% and got started.

A 5k is 3.1 miles and I wanted to see if I could complete it in under 45 minutes.  I did!  I went 3.11 miles in a little under 44 minutes.  Yay!  All I have to do is keep working on the time (and my ability to jog continuously) by training 3 or 4 times a week.   At least one of the jogs will be outside in my neighborhood, since the race will be outside in a hilly-ish locale.

So, yeah…  I jogged and walked and completed a 5k on my treadmill.  Go me!

Workout: 2/11/11 (Jogging IRL)

The weather is beautiful today – sunny, bright, not too warm and the birds are happily chirping.  There are lots of people out in my neighborhood getting their daily walk/jog in.  I know there will be even more later (just before the kids get out of school).  I know that a 5k won’t be raced on the treadmill, so I decided that today would be a great day to get outside and try to jog.

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually jogged outside.  You know… in public.  Where strangers can see me flailing about, gasping for air and sweating like a pig.  Where they can be blinded by my pasty white legs in the sun.  To tell you the truth I was a bit nervous.  After all nearly every street in my neighborhood involves going up a hill and I haven’t been doing that on my treadmill.

Basically, my route took me down the street to the park where that kid was shot last year.  It looks so innocuous with the people playing fetch with their dogs, toddlers playing on the playground and couples playing tennis.  Nobody looked thuggish and I got a few smiles and waves as I started my jog at that corner.

Up the hill I went.  Dude, that was hard.  About a minute of jogging up a small-ish hill and I had to stop.  I finished walking up that hill, then jogged my way back down and around the corner.  Then I walked halfway up the next hill, jogged the rest of the way up and back down.  Walked some more… and so on.

I’m sad to say that I was too intimidated to try jogging up the biggest hill in my neighborhood – Garin.  That one I skipped completely.

OK, so bottom line: I need to do this more.  Jogging on the treadmill just isn’t the same as doing it “in real life.”  The neighborhood and other places don’t have perfectly flat ground.  The ground also doesn’t move for you to keep you going at a steady pace.

I think my Fridays will be spent jogging outside.  Maybe a Sunday or a Saturday too.  The rest of the time I can do it inside on the treadmill, but it’s important to do it for reals too.

Today’s run: 1.7 miles in 22:35.

Exercise Update 1/28/11

My second jog of this week felt better than the first, but in some ways it was more challenging.  That might have something to do with the 3 days I spent shifting the children’s collection and all the sore muscles that went along with it.  My legs were already tired from the crouching (and getting up) that I did.  Think of it as doing lots of squats every day.  My sides were sore all along my ribcage; my shoulders and triceps were too.  It’s proof that moving 1-2 pounds over and over really adds up.

It was good though.  Today’s jog felt like my muscles were remembering how to move me a little bit better, and I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out.  I know as I keep doing this I’ll eventually be able to run the whole 30 minutes without stopping.  I might even be able to go fast!

I set the treadmill at 1% and broke my jogging up with walking again.

• 5 minute warm-up walk
• 5 minute jog
• 3 minute walk
• 5 minute jog
• 3 minute walk
• 2 minute jog
• 1 minute walk
• 4 minute jog
• 30 second walk
• 1.5 minute jog
• 2 minute walk

 

1/24/11 Exercise Check-in

It’s been about a month since I last jog/walked for exercise. I’m surprised I did as well as I did on this jog. I went for it at a 1% incline on my treadmill and basically broke my walks up with jogging at regular intervals. After a 5 minute warmup walk, I jogged for 5, walked for 3, jogged for 2, walked for 2, jogged for 3, walked for 3, jogged for 2, etc., until I hit 30 minutes. Then I cooled down for 2 minutes by going progressively slower on the treadmill.  In all, I went 2.15 miles in 32 minutes.  According to DailyMile that’s a 14.53 minute pace

At one point I felt liquid running down my leg. I knew I hadn’t peed myself, so I know it was sweat. Still a gross feeling. Somewhere in there the whole left side of my lower ribcage hurt, which really sucked. It went away after awhile. Then my knee. Then my ankle.

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to walk during that last 3 minute jog. It was so hard to breathe. The saliva was thick in my mouth. I could tell my posture was off but I didn’t have the energy to fix it. I was relieved to see the timer turn to 30 minutes so I could walk and bring my breathing back to normal.

I’m glad I jogged today. I need to do it a lot more regularly if I’m ever going to complete a 5k in a decent amount of time.

Exercise in Jeans

Admittedly, exercising in jeans isn’t the best idea in the world… but here’s the thing: I knew that if I had to change clothes I wouldn’t exercise.  Sometimes that one little thing is all that stands in the way of me and meeting that daily exercise goal.  Rather than let the fact that I was wearing inappropriate workout attire stop me, I just jumped on the treadmill and got to it.

I knew that walking on the treadmill non-stop for 30 minutes would bore me out of my mind today.  I thought I’d spice things up by walking for 5 minutes at a time and then stopping to do some form of resistance training or stretching.  So here’s how it worked:

• 5 minute walk, 1.5 minute stretch
• 5 minute walk, 100 bicep curls with 2.5 lbs
• 5 minute walk, 30 reverse flys, 30 shoulder presses, 30 lawn mower things, 10 bicep curls (all with 2.5 lbs)
• 5 minute walk, 30 chest presses, 30 flys, 10 crunches (all with 2.5 lbs)
• 5 minute walk, 30 right side bends, 30 left side bends, 30 crunches (all with 2.5 lbs), 20 leg lifts
• 5 minute walk, 30 leg circles towards the front (each leg), 30 leg circles towards the back (each leg), 40 calf raises
• 5 minute walk, 1.5 minute stretch

I ended up working out for about an hour, and the constant change-ups kept me from getting bored.  Some muscle groups feel more worked than others but it was good to get up and move.  The only downside is that my jeans began to stick to me because I was sweating so much.  Oh well, better to exercise in jeans than not exercise at all, right?