Monday, April 30, 2012

Exercise 4/23 - 4/29

Last week I did only a bit of running but I did all 4 of my Yayog Workouts so I'm excited about that. Actually I guess I did the Yayog first workout on Sunday but I still did the set of 4 between Sunday and Saturday:

Monday - Yayog Week 1, Day 2 - Leg workout. This one is hard for me mostly due to balance doing the lunges and the romanian dead lifts (or something like that). I'm sure it helps though.

Monday - Lunch hour walk. 1.92 miles in 30 minutes. Lovely until the Oak pollen started me sneezing for the rest of the day.

Tuesday - 3.7 in 47 minutes (12:42 mm) plus the walking warm up/down. I ran at the track keeping it in zone 2-3.

Wednesday - Yayog Week 1, Day 3 - Arms workout. Very good workout.

Thursday - 3.7 in 47 minutes (12:42 mm) plus walking warm up/down. Body felt good but lungs felt tired. Perhaps suffering from allergies. I ran the hills near campus which is a good challenge. Did 2/1 and then even 1/1 ratio.

Thursday - I donated platelets (a double) at the blood bank. I wish I got over there to make a donation more freqently. My platelet count was lower than usual and it took me nearly 2 hours to make the donation. I don't know that I'll do a double again when my count is so low. I took Friday off from walking or running due to the donation.

Saturday - Yayog Week 1, Day 4 - Legs workout. It's hard but I like this one more than day 2 because the lunges are side lunges rather than back lunges.

Sunday - 10.75 miles in 2:25 (13:29 mm) including walking warm up/down. The temperature was 71 and humidity was 84 so it's getting to that time of year. I did a 1/1 and enjoyed the run. I was still sore from the Saturday Yayog but just let it loosen on its own. The first few miles were very tight and then again tight at the end. For the last few miles the running seemed easier. When I look at my splits the 9th mile was under 12:00 pace and the 10th was at 12:03 so those were my fastest miles.

We had semi-unexpected houseguests Saturday night. We knew they might be coming from Friday but didn't know what night or when. I planned on running and had discussed it with ChocolateWife. I got up, ate, got dressed, and left the house about 6:30 planning to get to the park when it was getting light and run a few hours. I texted ChocolateWife and said that I would be done about 9:05 and then that I would be done about 9:15. When I checked in with her on the way home she said the 2 adults and 1 of the two teenagers visiting were still asleep. I got home, iced, drank a recovery drink, took a shower, and helped with breakfast before all the guests got up. I felt like that old Marine commercial. "We get more done before sunrise than most people do all day..." or however it went.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Baby Blanket

I finished this blanket a few weeks ago for an old friend who I haven't seen in years but we've reconnected on Facebook. She sent out a "save the date" for her baby shower which gave me the time to make this quick blanket. It took me about 8-10 days to do a basic granny square stitch and I think it ended up a really fun pattern and color. ChocolateDaughter and I went to the baby shower and had fun and it was nice to see the friend.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Running April 16 - April 22

I'm continuing my running trends for April (in other words - sort of crap) and perhaps it will take the rest of the month to reset. I don't know... things just keep happening and I guess I'm not training for an event so I don't force myself to get out there. Monday - 6.63 miles in 2 hours walking. I've found that after a long event on Sunday it seems to really help my legs to do some walking on Monday. I've done that for both the Austin half-marathon and the Austin 10/20 and both seemed to really help. Monday morning the entire family headed out - kids on bikes, adults on feet - and walked toward the park. At the big street, we parted ways and I walked to the grocery store, got a few items and walked back meeting them again and back home. Then I took my car in to the shop in the afternoon and while they were working on it, I walked around the industrial park. Tuesday - 4.0 in 48 minutes (12:00 mm) plus .6 walking warm up/down. I went to the park and had a lovely beautiful run. While there I felt a little tired and realized I had done 27 miles in the 4 days including Tuesday. Thursday - 4.34 in 49 (11:17 mm) plus .6 walking warm up/down. I ran with a metronome to see how it affected my running and concentrated on swinging my elbows in time. 3:00/1:00. A very good run at the track. Friday - Should have been a long walk day or even a run day. I didn't run because I thought I would run on the weekend. And I only walked about 1.3 miles because it started raining on me and I was wearing work clothes. If I had run, I would have changed into workout clothes and not cared about the rain. No running or walking on the weekend at all. I don't remember the last weekend like that. Sunday - I did the You are your own Gym (Yayog) Week 1, Day 1 workout which was arms. I really like doing the Yayog workouts with the tablet app. My phone won't run the app but we downloaded it to the tablet. I can only use it when ChocolateWife is not though so I did my workout while she was at the accupuncturist. I'd like to actually adhere to the 4 workouts a week for the 10 week basic program and see what happens.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Running April, 9 - April, 15


A bit of a light week (again).
Tuesday - I stood up, hoisted my backpack over my shoulder, and reached for my towel which wasn't there. I forgot I took it home from work last week and didn't take another. So... I went out to lunch with a friend.
Wednesday - Nice run at the Park. 4.12 miles in 50 minutes (12:08) plus my walking warm up/down. Did about 3/1 ratio.
Thursday - 3.6 miles walking 1:01. I should have run but I had some phone calls to make so I just walked on the track. I'm glad to have made the calls though.
Saturday - Family walk with bikes and dogs. 2.94 miles 55 minutes. Lovely and fun.
Sunday - 10 miles 2:07 (12:41) plus walking to and from the start/finish of the Austin 10/20 race. Considering how apathetic I felt about the race, I was quite happy with it. It was hotter and much more humid than I was ready for. I wanted to break 2:00 and did a 2:30/1:00 for the first 8 miles. By then I knew I wouldn't break the time so I dropped to 2:00/1:00 for the last 2 miles. Still, a very fun race and I would do it again. Also... sweet bling.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Running April 2 - April 9


Yes. You see that just right. 14 miles last week. Strangely, I wouldn't call it a bad training week. I basically only missed one walk off the week's plan.

Thursday - 4.0 in 48 (12:00) plus warm up/down. Running at the park. I was hot. Hot and thirsty and spent the run wondering how many more weeks I can maintain my lunchtime runs before I switch my work hours again. I had a meeting that ran long and couldn't get out to run until 12:30 but soon that won't even matter. My ratio ranged from 3:00, 2:00, 1:00/1:00.
Friday - 3.65 in 45 (12:19) plus warm up/down. I went to the track and ran in circles and concentrated on standing up straight. I felt faster than that but sometimes take the Nike + distance with a grain of salt.
Sunday - 4.5 in 53 (11:46) plus warm up/down. I ran at Walnut Creek Park so it was a trail run which means the 11:46 means even more. 3:00/1:00 ratio and I loved it. There were bike riders and hikers and dogs and only a few runners. I should have done a MM but chose to run on the trail instead. Perhaps I will do the MM on Tuesday.

If I don't do another magic mile, my last two were 9:46 and 10:03. The average of those would be 9:54. I will have to look at the book to see the multiplier for a 10 mile race. My target pace for a 10K would be 11:23 or my target pace for a half-marathon would be 11:53 so obviously my target for the Austin 10/20 is somewhere between those.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Running March, 26 - April, 1


I had a pretty good workout week last week.
Monday> - I got up early to do the YaYoG Week 1, Day 4 workouts. It was legs and core and I worked up a good sweat in 30 minutes.
Monday - 30 minutes, 1.6 miles. I had a half-hour free so I went for a walk at lunchtime. It was a really nice break from the office.
Tuesday - 3.6 in 42 minutes (11:39) plus .5 walking warm up/down. My legs were really tired and sore from YaYoG so I took it easy with a 2:00/1:00.
Thursday - 4 miles 48 minutes (12:00) plus walking warm up/down. I ran up and then through campus. Then to the track and did 6 hill sprints. It felt fun and not that hard but when I got back to the locker room my HR had peaked at 211 (my previous Max HR being 197). Tee hee.
Friday - 3.12 miles in 52 minutes walk. It was very nice out. I'm going to have to start changing clothes/showering after my Friday walks very soon.
Saturday - 12.05 miles in 2:50 LSR (14:06) including walking warm up/down. 1:00/1:00 ratio. Very had long miles. It was close to 80 out and humid and hard to keep going. By the Galloway target my pace should have been 13:55 plus 1:30 for temperature so 15:25 which I beat.
Sunday - No formal workout but we went over to friends' and helped them finish building their playscape. We had so much fun. We were there from around 9:00 to after 4:00 and I probably spent 5-6 hours of that working. Because the other two builders (including Chocolate Wife) are taller and stronger than me I did quite a bit of holding up this board and handing this screw or drill or whatever but I got in some "tool work" too. The temperature was close to 90 so I'm sure I burned more calories that I ate in the expansive strawberry, queso, and scone repast they put out for our efforts.