Exhausted

Yesterday I did a 8.5km run at my dad's house. It was a good clean run. Not easy but not hard. The time went by fairly quickly. But today I woke up after 11.5 hours of sleep absolutely exhausted. This feeling came with me to the gym. I ran at a much slower rate and had about 3x as many walking breaks. I did a short run and followed it up with the wave and elliptical machines. It was a tough cardio day. The rest of the day felt just the same. I hope tomorrow I'm feeling a little more with it.

Yet another 'recovery' week

Back to the gym in a more regular manner again.

On Monday I got new shoes! This should have been really exciting but....first the saleswoman was kind of a bitch and completely unhelpful. It was like I was taking up her time even though no one else was in the store. This-is-your-job-moron! She seemed annoyed I didn't want to buy the pink shoes because they are pink. I don't like pink. So I got some blue/white but still kinda ugly shoes.

On Tuesday's scheduled run I wanted to take them off within 15mins. Pain. Ouch. They had a lot of stability in them. Too much stability. The shoes were overcorrecting and I was running basically on the outer edge of my foot. This also somehow absolutely killed my arches. Even the next day they hurt. I did finish my 35min run that day, plus 10mins on the wave and 15mins on the elliptical, finally an hour of strength training.

Wednesday I returned to the gym in my old runners and did some cardio. I skipped the strength training because I overdid it the day before on the inner thigh machine thing. oops.

Thursday I returned to the Running Room to find a very likeable and knowledgable saleswoman who helped me return the sucky shoes and find better ones. They are also much prettier :) Don't you think?

Friday I tested out these new shoes on the treadmill. I found that the left foot was absolutely perfect but the right foot was overcorrecting a bit. After the horrendous test on the Tuesday this was great and I was happy enough. I expect my foot to adjust to the shoe in time. It doesn't bother me too much, just at the beginning. I finished the cardio hour with the wave machine and the elliptical. I'm starting to really not enjoy the elliptical. It makes my toes numb.

Finally today I did some cardio at the gym. I had to cut my gym session short to go to porketta bingo with my parents lol. Don't worry I just had the bread! So today at the Y I ran into Evan Caldbick on the treadmills. After his run we walked around the track and talked. When the snow clears we are going to try to meet up and do some runs together outside. He is training for a full marathon for september or october. So that should be fun - except he has those long legs and therefore will run so much faster. I'll have to try to keep up!

Tomorrow is the weekend long run. 8kms - man 'recovery' week is starting to not feel like much recovery. 'Building' week next week. Bring it.

Do I have to???

So I have taken a week and two days off so far... not to mention the amount of junk I consumed over Easter... so bad. I had good intentions of going to the rock gym today, but sadly I was not to make it there. I hung out with Mark and Micheline for most of the night which was really nice. It has become my mission now to get to the rock gym tomorrow... yes I have to make it a mission otherwise I will put it off.. and just feel even more horrible then I already do. So my mission should I choose to accept.....

Week Off - Oops

Due to a stupidly hectic academic schedule I managed to skip the gym for an entire week and a half! I did the tuesday fun on Mar 11th and didn't get back until Mar 21st! I ended up missing 3 scheduled runs in my program. The book suggests to ease back into the schedule if you miss a week or two but what do they know lol? So right into the end of "Building week" I went. I did a 50min run on Friday at Melanie's parents place on their treadmill. Motivation was very low that day because I could hear people having fun upstairs. ugh.

Today I did my long run at my dad's house on their treadmill. (man I wish I owned my own treadmill! It would life so much easier!) 10km took me 96mins. I'm still saddened by my terrible running times. I just have to remind myself that I'm doing this to finish. The first half was difficult - I had many walking breaks as I was having troubles with cramping again - this time in my left side. The second half I put on some of my favourite songs on the shuffle, uped the volume and ran through the pain. I worked pretty well. ouch though. I had a good 3-4 kms without much pain which was appreciated. I was getting bored the last 2 km so I uped the speed and sprinted to the end.

Thank Goodness this coming week is "Easy/Recovery!" But I have a personal training session on Tuesday.

Observations at the Gym

#1) Okay so there is this machine at the gym that you exercise your back with. It’s angled at about a 45 and you lay on it stomach down. You swing the top half of your body down and up again. Like a crunch upside down maybe? Do you know which one I’m talking about? Either way, I’ve noticed lately that when women in tight pants are using this machine they get the camel-toe effect in the back. It’s hilarious! Stay away from this equipment! Not flattering.

#2) So I go to the Y gym and therefore that comes with people from all walks of life. But my question is – where are all the really hot people? Shouldn’t there be really hot people at the gym because well that’s where you go to be this way? There are a couple mind you but in general most people at the gym – you would never know they worked out. This begs the question – If the gym doesn’t make you hot and vanity is out of the question, then why do people go? The perceived hotness goal?

Last Week's Wrap-up

Last week was a little bit of a write-off in the exercise deptarment. I had my major quantum mechanics assignment and the quantum midterm PLUS the diabetes Fundraiser. I'm surprised I got to the gym at all. I was supposed to do the long run day on saturday, but my feet and calf muscles killed from running around in dress shoes at the fundraiser for 8 hours! So I went on Sunday instead - with Sydney and Romi. It was great to have someone else in the gym, even if they were doing their own thing while I sat on the hamster wheel for 80 mins.

Here's a summary;

Tuesday
Warm Up: Walk 5 mins
Jog 6 mins, Walk 1 min, repeat 7 times
Cool Down; Walk 5 mins

Sunday
Warm Up: Walk 5 mins
Jog 4 mins, Walk 1 min, repeat until 8 km
Cool Down; Walk 5 mins

This page is getting a little too orange for my liking...

Hey you! Yeah you! Blog!

Okay.. that is about all I have left in me tonight after doing some bouldering. I've been trying some new manoeuvres that are making my muscles fail a lot earlier than before. Today I fell off one slanting wall about 10 times, and this one guy took pity on my and showed me a new move to try to get to the next hand hold which involved dropping my right knee and twisting my right hip towards the wall while reaching up for the next hold with my right hand. I made it one rock higher which is progress for progress' sake... but still have not completed the route. I suppose this is a vendetta wall to be defeated at a later date...

Other then that I am done with snow... done you hear me? The snow banks are officially half my height in most places and where they haven't been religiously plowing, it is 3 feet over my head!!! 33.9 cm to go to beat the record of 444.6 set in 1970/1971. And guess what the weather man is telling me to expect for tomorrow.....

Snowed In...

So as you have probably heard Ottawa is getting a 50cm dump of snow between Friday and Saturday (in addition to the 35cm we got on Wednesday). So I am pretty much hermiting in my apartment and refusing to go outside until it stops. Good thing I am too tired anyway otherwise I would be getting cabin fever fairly soon.

Wednesday: I went at lunch time to the gym at work. I did 13 minutes on the treadmill, with two minutes of that being running (in sequence). Yes I can hear you laughing... I didn't want to die, but it did hurt a little, I am not going to lie. Then I did 10 minutes on the bike, and then ten minutes of various things like medicine ball exercises, crunches and pushups on a stability ball, and stretches. I felt pretty good going back to work actually.

Today: I went to the rock gym again. I did about an hour of attempts at a few routes. I did most of route 5. I gave up on that after falling off it 6 times. I moved on to route 2 which I completed and felt very accomplishy. Onto a new route... #9. This one is on a wall that is about a 60 degree slant the whole way. I can get halfway up the wall but then can't get good enough balance or foot holds to move up to the next hand hold. I am definitely getting better at falling though!

Support

You are not allowed to eat your way out of your apartment even if someone does fill it with chips, you are only allowed to crush them to fight you way out! Crushing is fun right? Chips are evil, they are the devils food!

I went climbing yesterday for about 2.5 hours. It was fun! I beat route 5!!! I was so happy. I was a little tired after doing that so I went down and watched a group of guys going at the boulder and one randomly asked my name, apparently I look exactly like this girl he went to university with. Whatever, all is good... I went on my way. Later I went to go try the bouldering room above the office, there was about 10 of us up there including this guy. Only one climber can climb in this room at a time so the rest of us spotted them because it actually goes pretty high. He was really cool though because he kept encouraging me to try this route even though I don't think I can do the whole thing yet because it is a crazy underhang, and then up at 60 degrees and then it is a rounded edge to the top... I just really like the random support that happens there. I like being able to go by myself but not having to be completely alone. Yeah I know it sounds weird but it makes me happy. I am hopefully going to go on Friday... probably not today or tomorrow as the stupid snow won't stop!

Chips are Delicious

We were talking about chips tonight. My greatest temptation of all - Ruffle bbq chips awwww. You know if someone played a joke on me and filled my apartment with chips, I would eat my way out. Yum.

But there is a new development on the chip front these days. I spend way too much time at the bus terminal and when I'm there there are always a couple vending machines just staring at you. I can resist these just fine on their own. But then people will buy them, and you sit there for 30 minutes waiting for the bus watching this person in front on you enjoying! crunch crunch crunch... I actually don't feel tempted in a way that makes me want to jump up and go buy them, rather I get like angry at this person for eating them in front of me. A teenager on the Paris Loellen bus scarfed back a big bag of ruffles sour cream and onion. Grrr...why can't I have some. So jealous. No one eats chips in front of me....unless I'm on public transit...maybe this should tell me something about the avoidance of this drug because well the bus terminal people are just plain weird....

Interesting...

I somewhat knew this little fact, but they way they put it here is quite interesting...

"Losing muscle is a bad thing. Muscle tissue is very active--it burns a lot of calories. Every pound of muscle burns about 35 calories per day. Using the above example, if you lost 12 pounds, then, you lost three pounds of muscle. You would be burning 105 less calories per day or 3150 per month. Since there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, you would gain almost one pound of fat per month just from the muscle mass that you lost!"

"Contrary to what many people think, strength training is as important, maybe more important to successful fat loss than aerobic exercise. The reason lies in the amount of calories that are burned when you aren't exercising. Depending on the intensity and your weight, an aerobic workout (walking, cycling, stair stepping) will burn approximately 300 calories per hour. If the exercise is strenuous enough (which is unlikely in the beginning exerciser) the RMR will be elevated temporarily up to a few hours afterwards. Compare this to strength training which elevates the RMR permanently. The RMR accounts for 60 to 75 percent of your daily calorie expenditure, so even a modest increase will help burn off more fat."

http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article887.html

"The flat-stomach myth: Fact: Many people are on a quest to achieve a "flat stomach". Unfortunately, this is not physiologically possible. The obsession with the abdominal area can cause frustration, anxiety, and can even lead to eating disorders. The truth is, our abdominals aren't designed to be flat. Instead, the abdominal muscles form a rounded--not flat--shape. The torso is shaped like a cylinder, not a laundry aid (the washboard!) Gender, age, and individual body types can effect the size and shape of your abdomen."

http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article881.html

Just some fun food for the brain....

Week Recap

Monday:
I was really tired on Monday. I woke up at 7am to get my posters at Staples at 8am. Various obligations throughout the day I didn't make it to the gym until 7:30pm. Here's what I managed:
- 30min elliptical
- 20min bike

Tuesday:
Beginning of 'recovery' week for my running program. I was scheduled run 4mins, walk 1 min and repeat 6 times. I managed to stick to this routine and felt great after the run. It took 40mins. I finished up the cardio on the bike and did some strength training.
- 4.6km treadmill
- 10min elliptical
- 10min bike
- Leg/torso weights

Thursday:
Second run of the week went smoothly. Run 2mins, walk 1min and repeat 10 times. This was great with all the walking. I uped the speed on the treadmill to 5.0mph instead of the 4.4-4.8mph that I usually do. I completed the same distance as tuesday's run in the same amount of time, even with all the walking!
- 4.6km treadmill
- 10min wave
- 10min bike
- Leg/torso weights

Friday:
The elliptical is very boring. I feel like a hamster on it's wheel. The gym was busy so I was on the elliptical facing the pool instead of the tvs. The pool is not overly entertaining. The strength training for arms is going pretty well.
- 30min elliptical
- 10min wave
- 10min bike
- 10min row machine
- Arms/torso weights

Saturday:
Long slow run today. There was a really chatty lady on the treadmill beside me. It's hard to keep a conversation while running. Luckily as part of recovery week, I was to run 2 mins and walk 1 min. I told her all about Team Diabetes and school and such. Apparently her daughter has 2 master's degrees and is now in med school - see there are people who like school more than me! I also had a nice conversation with a guy during strength training. I think I'm becoming one of the regulars!
- 6.5km treadmill
- Leg/torso weights