After setting my goal to run the 10KM in June, we left town for two weeks which really does wonders for a fitness routine. Now that we're home again, I sat down and worked out a schedule that takes me up to June 27th (race day). I have it all on an Excel file (4 tabs, including cool little graphs to show my progress on my Saturday "weigh-ins", calculation cells to project my weekly targets...). This is one of the side-effects when a computer geek decides to get physically active. Some who read this will say I'm much more than a computer geek. There's Star Wars geek, Trek geek, Lego geek,...
For my aerobic training, I'm going to alternate running and walking days. I walked two miles tonight and tomorrow I'll see if I can still run a mile (that was back in July, so my expectations aren't really high right now).
For my strength training, I borrowed an idea from the Perfect Push-up workout where you do 3 or 4 sets with decreasing reps in a 2-minute period. For example, if your max reps at a specific weight was 10, you would do 8 reps, rest momentarily, then 6 reps, rest, 4 reps, rest, 2 reps. You end up doing 10 more reps than you normally would have done, which is really handy for things like push-ups (or leg presses on the Bowflex) when you can't easily add more weights or resistance. If your max is 20 reps, then you would do 14, 10, and 6 in two minutes. I'd like to say it has been more effective for me, but this is Day 2 and right now all I can say is "ouch". I've never been one to bulk up, it's just not in my genetic make-up. I wouldn't mind getting some tone back though.
One of my other efforts (not really a goal) is that I have been mostly carbonation-free for a month now. It probably shouldn't be so hard, but that could have sometihng to do with the fact my beverage of choice was Barq's Rootbeer (sweet, sweet nectar). So, to combat the withdrawal pains, I'm drinking more juice now. I know I should drink more water, but it gives me kidney pains (which I should probably have checked out someday). I'm trying to ease my way back on the water wagon, hoping it will hurt less. I choose to think of it as my body's way of saying I should drink something with actual flavor in it. The Slimfast & ice cream milkshakes help too, mostly because that's the only way I can swallow the horse pills someone is trying to pass off as multi-vitamins. I've seen my grandpa force-feed smaller pills to his dairy cows. Each morning I stare at the vitamin in my hand, wishing I had one of those long metal "thingies" they use to force the pill down the cow's throat.
For my aerobic training, I'm going to alternate running and walking days. I walked two miles tonight and tomorrow I'll see if I can still run a mile (that was back in July, so my expectations aren't really high right now).
For my strength training, I borrowed an idea from the Perfect Push-up workout where you do 3 or 4 sets with decreasing reps in a 2-minute period. For example, if your max reps at a specific weight was 10, you would do 8 reps, rest momentarily, then 6 reps, rest, 4 reps, rest, 2 reps. You end up doing 10 more reps than you normally would have done, which is really handy for things like push-ups (or leg presses on the Bowflex) when you can't easily add more weights or resistance. If your max is 20 reps, then you would do 14, 10, and 6 in two minutes. I'd like to say it has been more effective for me, but this is Day 2 and right now all I can say is "ouch". I've never been one to bulk up, it's just not in my genetic make-up. I wouldn't mind getting some tone back though.
One of my other efforts (not really a goal) is that I have been mostly carbonation-free for a month now. It probably shouldn't be so hard, but that could have sometihng to do with the fact my beverage of choice was Barq's Rootbeer (sweet, sweet nectar). So, to combat the withdrawal pains, I'm drinking more juice now. I know I should drink more water, but it gives me kidney pains (which I should probably have checked out someday). I'm trying to ease my way back on the water wagon, hoping it will hurt less. I choose to think of it as my body's way of saying I should drink something with actual flavor in it. The Slimfast & ice cream milkshakes help too, mostly because that's the only way I can swallow the horse pills someone is trying to pass off as multi-vitamins. I've seen my grandpa force-feed smaller pills to his dairy cows. Each morning I stare at the vitamin in my hand, wishing I had one of those long metal "thingies" they use to force the pill down the cow's throat.
1 comment:
Go Gary! I love how organized you are about this.
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