Winter Goals Progress

Productivity seems to be a major theme lately, and thats the case again today!

I woke up at 8am and jumped on the exercise bike downstairs. The windchill was around 20 and biking in that would have been begging for frost bite, so I think I took the best route, even if I do hate working my tail off and getting no where! As much as I dislike it though, the bike told me my fitness is definitely increasing! Back when I first started on the exercise bike, my best, all out efforts, at the peak of marathon season, would get me around 24 miles in an hour.

Here's today's stats:

Time: 1 hour
Distance: 25.34 miles
Heart rate: 155 bpm

I was pushing pretty hard, but I always felt like there was something left in the tank. If I hadn't run out of Gatorade, I definitely could have kept at it for a little while longer.

After that today was a big homework and study fest. Tomorrow I have an entry exam for my database class, and if I don't do well its very strongly suggested I drop the class; especially because I haven't taken the pre-reqs! I feel prepared, but we'll find out if thats the truth tomorrow!

This evening I did another ab workout; these are really starting to get to be habit, which was one of my winter goals! I can really see and feel the results, so I'm all about keeping at it. On the topic of my winter goals, all of them are going well:

• I stuck with my physical therapy religiously, and now my hip is pain free
• I've started to regain some of my muscle mass, but it fluctuates like crazy because I'm having a hard time eating enough to keep up with my workout schedule
• Ab workouts are a habit, as mentioned previously, and it feels like its paying off!
• Mileage is rebuilding slowly and steadily, although I don't plan to get my running mileage back up to 40 this winter since I'm balancing biking and swimming too. Although, if I follow the rule of 3 miles biked counting as 1 mile ran, I'm back in the 40-50 mile range per week!

Tomorrow morning I'm going out for a tempo run. Yeah. Thats right. I'm going to run hard for the first time in 15 weeks. The plan is one mile warmup, 3.1 miles hard, and then cool down the rest of the way back to my apartment.

I don't really have a precise goal pace in mind for tomorrow, although I would like to bring my tempo pace down to 6:06/mile in the next month or two. No I don't want to run a 1:20 half marathon this year (6:06/mile). No way. Honest. You can trust me.

(I had my fingers crossed)