Tuesday's are very busy days for me and I rarely get much activity. It's a simple schedule, but has me tied up just about all day. I work from 6:45am-2:30pm and then come home and get ready for my Weight Watchers meeting that I arrive at around 4:30pm and don't get home until roughly 8:30pm. By then, activity is not a priority. Sleep is. The two hours in between school and my meeting include travel times and changing from one outfit to the next and freshening. Certainly, not enough time to workout and shower. Today was different, however. School was dismissed at 11:00am thanks to PSAE testing. I took advantage of the early dismissal and packed accordingly to run home. MapQuest tells me it's 7.07 miles from school to home but MapMyRun calculated it as 6.76 miles, so that's what I'll go with.
I crushed my times and made a personal best. I ran the distance in 1 hour and 7 minutes (12 seconds). And I ran the entire thing, not stopping once.
What made me most happy is when the woman come over my music on my iPhone and said "Time is 48 minutes and distance is 5 miles." It made me think back to the Shamrock Shuffle when I ran it in just over 56 minutes and I knew I could do much better had I not enjoyed the evening before as much as I had. I love when I can prove myself right. 48 minutes. I was happy as a clam. When I got home from my run I was looking back at my old runs and the longest run I've done so far is 7.3 miles and that took me 1 hour and 26 minutes. Whether 7.07 miles is correct or 6.76 miles is correct for this run - I would have crushed my 1 hour 26 minute time if I ran to 7.3 miles.
I averaged a 9:36 min/mile this run. I guess the speed trials I've been doing are working. Lately I've been testing my speed rather than my distance to try and work up my endurance. The last run I did was 1.86 miles in 16:10 which was an 8:36 min/mile. Since the 7.3 miles I ran on March 6th was an 11:36 min/mile I'd say I've vastly improved. Funny this was, I told my husband that if it takes me more than 90 minutes to come look for me. He was surprised when I got home much earlier than he thought I would. Ahh the power of positive thinking! It really keeps you going!
This has shown me just how important it is to progress monitor your workouts. Even if running isn't your thing - take notes on the workouts you do, how you feel, and what you were capable of doing that day. To see the progression is such a great feeling - it's proof that you are getting stronger! Knowing that I've crushed my times and have improved my overall endurance really makes me happy and keeps me pushing harder with my running abilities.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Life After Goal
I find it so much more difficult to find things to write about now that I'm at my goal weight and maintaining. I had mentioned before that my new goals were to increase and focus more on my activity and I've been doing just that. Specifically, the territory in which I work for Weight Watcher is divided between two states. We are currently have a battle between states on activity - which state can get more Service Providers to be active at least 15 minutes every day, anyone who has less than 5 days of rest is entered in to win some prize. This is a great motivator for my new goal, if I have a chance to win a prize! Luckily, for me, 15 minutes is no big deal and I rarely would do activity for anything under 30 minutes. Since I have been working full time, until the end of the school year now, I've been participating in my students' P.E. class. It's not intense exercise, but I could just choose not to participate at all and risk no activity for the day. Plus, it's activities I wouldn't do at home - like playing basketball and dancing. It's so fun!
This week I'm on spring break so I've really been focusing on more intense workouts. On Sunday, I went for a 2 mile run, focusing on speed, not distance. I ran 2 miles in 18:03 which was a 9:01/mile. I was extremely happy with that, especially since I had completed a 30 minute upper body boot camp right before. The rest of this week I've been switching it up. I bought a new DVD series that I'm really enjoying.
*Total Body Cardio Stretch - this is essentially a yoga DVD
* Upper Body Boot Camp
*Lower Body Interval Training
*Core Cardio
*Cardio Basic
This week I've been doing two DVDs each with their Express Workout option. It's a quick 15 minutes intense workout. I've been starting with Disc 1 which is the Total Body Cardio Stretch and then proceed to Disc 2 for the 15 minute Express Workout. Then the second day I started again with Disc 1 and then Disc 3, etc. Today I did the main workout for Disc 5 - Cardio Basic. The main workouts are between 30-40 minutes and every exercise is broken down into beginner, intermediate and expert. It's nice when DVDs offer that option because anyone can do them and you can increase your intensity at your own personal level. It's always a good way to show growth when you've been doing it long enough. It's my guess that Jennifer Cohen uses Jillian Michaels as a fitness mentor, because she says a lot of the same things I've noticed in Jillian says also, but without the intimidation Jillian has.
Tomorrow I'll be switching it up and I'm very excited to be getting back to a Bikram Yoga class. If you recall, I did a 30 day Bikram trial at a studio near my home and really enjoyed it! It's been quite a while since my last Bikram class and I've convinced a good friend of mine to join me. It should be a fun 90 minutes! I think it's time I take my measures too. All this activity surely must have changed those!
| My favorite Bikram pose! |
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