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)

Eat. Sleep. Teach. Learn. Swim. Bike. Run.

Ah yes, my life has been the good life these past few days. I can encapsulate everything I've done into the above seven words, and I wouldn't change a thing. Luckily for me, or what would be unluckily for some, I get to keep at it this way for at least the next week, and hopefully all through break.

Last night I had what felt like a really break through swim. For the first time, my coach had me do more than drills. This means I'm going to start getting in really great workouts there too, rather than just doing my thing for an hour and leaving.

Usually with my drills, I end up swimming 25 or maybe 50 yards tops and take a little break. I'll think about how to improve my technique or just catch my breath, let my heart rate get down, etc.

Well, once we did the workout, first thing was 100 yards! It was rough, and I was panting like crazy when it was over. Whats up next? Yeah. 200 yards. I suppose I inadvertently gave an "oh sh*t" look when she said that, because she backed it off to 150; but I did the 200 anyways. Who knew I could swim that far?!

She had me count my strokes to get across the pool, too. Told me that getting down to 20 would be a great goal to shoot for. Bam! 17! Oh yeah! Eat that di-hydrogen monoxide (that's H2O)!

This morning I decided to squeeze in some time on the bike between classes. I somehow managed to get ready, drive out of the city, bike 20 miles, get back, shower, and eat lunch all in three hours. Not sure how, but its good to know I can get it done!

All in all it was a great ride. Much easier than my first one, mostly because I know a little bit more about how to pace myself. I tried to focus on trying little things on the bike. The one reason I won't let myself ride in the city is I simply can't let go with my left hand in order to signal a left turn. I wobble out of control.

Just like today when I was practicing. I decided to signal left before a turn, and then make the turn. Well, it didn't go so hot. I came pretty close to doing a face plant in the ditch, and I'm really, really glad I didn't. I'll have to come up with some way to ease into it so I don't have another experience like that one! Face plant = bad!

Running tomorrow, 4 miles on the agenda. If the rest of the world operated in base-2 like we computer scientists do, I could tell you thats triple digits. I'm confident it'll go well, my hip feels great after yesterday's 3 and change. I've set the goal to run 6 miles next weekend, which is easily in reach unless tomorrow's 4 goes poorly.

Also, don't forget the 8 on the 8th is tomorrow! Even though I get to cheat (in fact, I'm already 3/4ths done, suckers!), you can bet I'll have a race report up tomorrow. Best of luck in catching me!

Finally, finals are next week. Pretty much everybody is a great big ball of stress except for me. I crunched the numbers and I'm going into my finals with fairly strong A's. I have quite a bit of room to spare if I need it. I found out second-hand that jerk-face's A range goes down to about 65%, so I'm actually doing fairly well in that class, despite having what normally looks like a craptastic grade.

Winter Goals

This was the first week I had to bust out my winter coat. That means its time to bust out my winter goals, too. Everybody else is doing it, what are you waiting for?

Here they are:

• Stick to my list of physical therapy exercises/stretches as if it was a religious document and I was the pope
• Regain the 5 lbs of muscle I've lost since graduation
• Make ab and core workouts a habit
• Slowly rebuild my mileage up to 40-50 miles per week. Slowly being the key word.

Thats it. Four goals. But each one is doable and will have a significant impact on my running and general fitness. The gaining of weight is probably a very foreign topic to most people. But I, apparently, live in a very different part of the galaxy! Gaining weight is a very difficult thing for me to do; my metabolism is naturally very fast, I (ideally) run 40-50 miles per week, and don't eat much junk food at all. I'm sure you'll agree with this goal after looking at the before picture!

Although I am not part of SLB's Running Through Th3 Wall Challenge, I am going to post my before pictures. It'll help keep me on track. And as usual, no smiling is allowed in the before picture, because that makes the after picture look that much better! Seriously, have you ever seen anybody smile in a before picture?


Putting those running shorts on for the picture sure felt good. They haven't been on for a while. In fact, I still have them on. Call it nostalgia. Maybe I should go grab my mylar blanket from Chicago too?

Notice that none of my goals involve races. Not yet. I am not looking at any races until I can painlessly run 25 miles in a week. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. Previously, I was considering the Myrtle Beach marathon in February, but it definitely isn't happening due to the amount of time I have needed to take off. The half at Myrtle Beach is a possibility, but I am not even considering it an upcoming race until I can run pain free. My goals listed above are much more important than any race, for now!

The chips are on the table. Its time to get to it!