Last workout at this location

As I move tomorrow, I took today off from work to manage the details of the move. I nearly talked myself out of the workout again today, but did it anyway. I headed out to the fitness center and did a 30 minute elliptical cross train aerobic workout at level 7, then did a 30 minute jaunt on the stationary bike at level 7 and did some HIIT as well.

For my last workout at this place, I was pretty happy with it.

I also awoke with a pleasant surprise. I am down to 205 pounds this morning.

Paul

Moving Day Approaches

I am nearly packed and ready for my move. One of the last things I am packing, however, is my exercise clothing. I move on Saturday, and have been doing the "two more workouts until I move" game. Of course, I am a little bit spoiled at my current apartments fitness center, as it has several pieces of decent exercise machines that add a bit of variety to my daily grind, where the new apartment only has 4 machines, making my working out there limited. Granted I do have a nearly unused gym membership that I continue to pay for "just in case" I decided to do something different. Actually one of the primary excuses I have used to date for not using the gym I belong to is that it is about a 45 minute drive to get to the nearest one from my current apartment. It will thankfully be much closer at the new place, so I will have to come up with a different excuse I guess :)

Today was a pretty standard run/bike day. I ran 2.55 miles in 35 minutes, and then hopped on the stationary bike and rode the standard 10.8 miles at level 7 for 30 minutes. I plan on getting my butt back to some strength training. It will be a focus soon as my surgery and goal weight approach. I will likely go ahead and invest in a personal trainer to help me be a bit consistent and progress better than I have been, but I have to afford it first, and this move is financially draining me.

Paul

Cross Training

I didn't perform my best this morning. I woke up with a sliver of glass in my foot, and spent the first 10 minutes of my morning trying to figure out how to remove it. After that I hit the elliptical machine and did a cross-train aerobic workout for 30 minutes at level 7. Then I hit the stationary bike for another 30 minutes at level 7. No HIIT today though, just a moderate-intensity workout.

Paul

Dreams can inspire...or anger

I had a pretty weird dream last night. Without going into details, I awoke quite pissed off. I really hate starting my morning pissed off, but if nothing else, I didn't argue with myself, and instead wanted to go work out to burn off the remnants of my late night vision. So, I headed on the treadmill and did a 2.75 mile run a little slower than I have been doing lately, to see what the effect on my heart rate was. I ran for 35 minutes at only 5.0 miles per hour and that kept my heart rate under 160 the entire run. At 5.2 miles per hour, it has been hitting 175.

I then hopped on the stationary bike and did a 10.8 mile ride using HIIT techniques on level 7 for 30 minutes.

I guess being angry at a dream in the morning is a good motivator as well. After the workout I felt much better, and was quite happy at my intensity and duration.

Paul

Longish run

After my normal mental battle with myself, I once again won and headed out to work out. I decided to try and do a long run today. I set the machine and ran about 4.3 miles, which wasn't exactly my long distance record, but felt VERY long indeed. I ran 55 minutes walking a little bit towards the end. Not too bad a workout, although I really want to build back up to 6 miles again.

Paul

Arguing with myself

Getting up in the morning at 5am is sure difficult at times. Today, for example, I woke up, stumbled around the room a bit trying to stagger in a general direction towards the bathroom scale, all the time trying mentally to convince myself that it is too damn early and to go back to bed. I must have stood at my mirror for a good 5 minutes trying to come up with a variety of justifications not to do my workout today. I ended up then just saying "screw it" and went over to put on my gym clothes.

I believe most of the difficulty in working out every day is not the actual exercise, but somehow its related to motivating myself to just get dressed to go work out. Because once I am dressed, I stop arguing with myself and just head out the door. Go figure.

Today, after the mental battle, I did a 30 minute level 7 cross-training aerobic elliptical machine workout which tallied up 3.3 miles, and then did a HIIT-based 30 minute stationary bike workout at level 8 for 10.8 miles. Generally it was a pretty good workout, and I only needed to put on my magic gym clothes to motivate my butt out the door to go do it.

I am still weighing at about 208 pounds.

Paul

Easy does it

It was a good day to take it easy a bit. I woke up really cranky, discovering that my cats had torn open a bag of cat food and decorated my kitchen with the contents. Suffice it to say, I wasn't in the best of moods for my workout. I ended up hitting the treadmill for 2.25 miles in 28 minutes and felt that that was enough for the day.

Paul

Elliptical Machine and HIIT Bike

I spent another day working on the HIIT workout I had planned for this week. So far so good. I did an intense workout for 30 minutes on the Elliptical machine at level 6 for 3.25 miles, and then did an HIIT focused bike ride for another 30 minutes (L6 10.8 miles) using the same style as yesterday's workout. It was tougher today to do the high intensity parts than yesterday, but I guess that was expected. I do hope this helps to advance me a bit in my training, where I have been stuck at this level for too long.

At least my weight continues to drop at a regular pace. Today it was 207 pounds.

Paul

Run and HIIT Bike

I ran this morning. 3.26 miles in 41 minutes. Then hopped on the bike and did 30 minutes on a hilly course at level 7. On the hills, I increased my speed to as fast as I could go (~110-120 rpm) for a minute and then rested (80 rpm) for a minute for the next minute. I did this 9 times, and then cooled down. I would say today's workout was pretty good. I definitely kept my heart rate at the upper end of my zone, like I do when I run.

I didn't work out this weekend, as I spent most of it packing getting ready for a move in 2 weeks.

I weighed in this morning at 209 as well.

Paul

Interval Training and a long run

This workout was all about trying to get my speed up a bit and get my body shocked a bit in to improving. I didn't quite do the HIIT that I mentioned yesterday, but did combine an interval training workout with a long run. I ran 4.9 miles in 1:05:00 doing 2 minute intervals at 3.5 mph flat to 5.5-6 mph at 3% grade. HIIT would have been more like one minute on two minute rest at probably 8-10mph for the one minute. I will try that on my next short run.

In either case, I felt that this workout was pretty intense, and very effective. The proof will be on the scale and in my training however.

Just for the heck of it, I ordered a book the other day called "Treadmill Training for Runners" by Rick Morris. Supposedly it has some good techniques that will assist me in breaking the training plateau I have been on for my runs.

On top of all that I weighed in at 209 lbs today. Cool huh!

Paul

Stairmaster

I woke up and did the Elliptical machine, really pushing myself to get my heart rate up. I did about 3.3 miles at level 6 for 30 minutes. Then I tried the StairMaster for 10 minutes or so and got tired really fast, but didn't want to end it so I hopped on the bike for about 30 minutes at level 7 and worked intensely there as well.

I am going to start adding some High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to my routines to hopefully advance my training progress. Basically that is just doing 6-7 reps of 1 minute as intense a workout as you can get and then 2 minutes recovery. That is coming to future workouts.

Paul

Back to Basics

Ok, I used a lame excuse for not working out yesterday, and was not about to repeat myself. I ran 35 minutes for about 2.8 miles and then did a bike ride 10.8 miles in 30 minutes at level 7.

So there.

Paul

Another longer run

Keep in mind that I am not quite back to 6 miles. I did 3.22 miles today on the treadmill in about 40 minutes. Then I hopped on the elliptical machine and did another 3 miles at level 5 on a cross-training aerobic setting.

All in all a pretty good workout.

I am down to 211 lbs today too. Cool eh?

Paul

Extra Push

Today, I woke up feeling pretty good and headed out to do my run. I hit the treadmill and decided to run 3 miles today. I did that pretty good, and completed 3.22 miles in about 40 minutes. My run speeds are starting to settle in comfortably at a 12 minute pace, which used to about kill me to do. I plan to keep pushing this up slowly to get to a 10 minute or better pace. I also did a 30 minute stationary bike ride at level 7 for 10.8 miles.

Paul

Kill that rabbit

I woke up this morning feeling VERY tired. I guess I didn't sleep that well too. That energizer bunny that I was yesterday decided to take the day off and sleep in.

I almost talked myself out of working out and going back to bed.

Instead, I got dressed and headed out for 30 minutes on the bike at level 7 for 10.8 miles, and then 30 minutes on the elliptical machine at level 6 for 2.99 miles.

I'll show that fricking bunny who is boss eh?

Paul

Energizer Bunny

Even though I slept pretty lousy last night, I woke up this morning feeling like the damned energizer bunny. I headed out the door and hopped on the elliptical machine and did 30 minutes at level 5 for 2.7 miles and then hopped on the Stationary bike and did another 10.8 miles in 30 minutes at level 7. I still feel like I can do much more as well. I barely was able to get my heart rate in the cardio zone that I keep it in, and never even peaked too high. I was working pretty hard too. Perhaps the row I did last night kept my body lubricated or some such. Either way, I hope it is this way tomorrow, as I will attempt another long run again if so.

Paul

Sore Legs

Now as I didn't take the extended break this weekend that I have the last couple of weekends, I am not sure why exactly my inner thighs are hurting. I thought it was just plain DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), but now I am not so sure. I ran 2.75 miles today and did it at about 5.2 miles per hour to finish it in 35 minutes. I then hit the bike for another 30 minutes for 10.8 miles at level 7. On the bike, I adjusted my seating several times during the ride and noted that I was kind of sitting on my inner thighs a bit, which may be the cause of the soreness.

I guess I'll just limp around a bit today and try to get my legs in better shape for tomorrow's workout.

Paul

UPDATE: Was feeling pretty good after work, so I decided to spoil it and worked out on my rowing machine for 5000 meters in 25:20.5

Breaking a Pattern

I woke up today and went ahead and worked out. I am trying to break a pattern that has been developing with me working only 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday and then sitting on my butt until Monday again. I saw myself falling back in to the pattern for the third week in a row yesterday, when I slept in for an hour and skipped the morning workout. Today I was bound and determined not to do so though.

I headed out the door and did a 2.75 mile run in 30 minutes. I did 5.5 miles per hour to get to that distance, which for me is the fastest pace I have sustained yet. I then hopped on the stationary bike for 30 minutes at level 8 and rode 10.8 miles.

A pretty good workout, and I now get to work all day on cleaning my house up, which will keep me active most of the day.

Paul

Cross Training

Today I did a little cross training. Did 30 minutes on the stationary bike for 10.8 miles at level 8. Then did 30 minutes on the elliptical on the Cross Training - Aerobic setting at level 4. This is pretty good considering that I didn't get all that great a nights sleep. I bought a new mattress and my cats decided that it was their own personal nighttime amusement park. So they kept me up quite a bit. Guess I'll have to have a nap at work :)

Paul

Old Clothes....Old Life

I am getting ready to move, and one of my tasks before I move out of my current apartment is to go through all my old clothes that don't fit anymore and donate them to charity. Yesterday, I started going through them. I looked at all the sizes, and styles and realized that not only did I wear crappy looking clothes, but I have really lost a significant amount of weight. I was wearing 4X and 5X shirts, and 60" waist pants. I must have bagged up 6 kitchen trashbags full of these tent-like articles. This weekend I head to GoodWill to see if they want them. If not, then they will go on CraigsList for free before I throw them out. It is hard to believe those clothes used to fit me really well. I wear XL shirts and 40" pants nowadays, and these are starting to get baggy as well. Going through my old clothes gave me a tremendous feeling of accomplishment.

Today I woke up, weighed myself (215 pounds, yay!) and headed out to do my morning routine. I walked outside and it was nice but cold out, so I grabbed my knit cap and headed out on the road for a short 2 mile run. Then headed inside for a 30 minute bike ride for 10.8 miles on level 7-8.

Paul