Snow Day with pictures

So I woke up to a ridiculous amount of snow, and promptly got back in bed with my coffee.  The view from my coffee cup:

After finishing 2 cups, I finally went outside and shovelled snow for about 1.5 hours.  It was crazy--more so than usual because of the enormous piles of snow from the last three snowstorms.  So every shovel had to be hoisted up and over 6-8 foot walls of old snow.  After a while, I just couldn't rely solely on my arms so I was using my leg as a lever to launch the snow over the pile.  Rock hard abs, one snowstorm at a time.

 I realized when I got back in that my shirt combination turned out kind of funny, as shown here:

Why, yes, that is Gary Coleman in the v of my sweater.

I made Laura and I awesome vegan pizza and strawberry/banana/lemon smoothies for lunch.  Then I drank an entire pot of black tea while reading a cookbook.  I am still excessively caffeinated (picture me typing very quickly but very poorly due to the shakiness, and you'll have the idea).  Then I went to school and convinced Caitlin and Heidi to go to the gym with me.  The entire track team seemed to be hogging the treadmills so I ended up doing 20 minutes of elliptical, then some other leg stuff so as not to further abuse my arms and abs.  It's been a lovely day.

7 worst sandwiches in America

I saw this article on the Yahoo homepage.  It's the 7 most unhealthy sandwiches served at American chain restaurants.  It is astounding.  One of them has 98g of fat.  In a single sandwich.  Not including the fries and stuff that come along free at most restaurants.

7 worst sandwiches in America

Soreness, pull ups, and frozen pipes

I stayed with Alex & Andi last night because our pipes had frozen at our house.  They get up at an insane hour to go to the gym so I actually got to the school gym right after it opened (after stopping by my house to see if the water was back on--and it was, yay!).  I couldn't even look at the treadmills this morning.  My quadriceps are quite sore from the run yesterday.  I rowed to warm up (and did a short stretch) then did 45 minutes of core and upper body strength training before a 10 minute final stretch.  I tried out some of the exercises from my new plyometrics book.  We'll see how I feel tomorrow.  I don't feel wrecked like I do after running, but I need to be able to do pull ups/chin ups so hopefully this new regimine will be effective.  I found a website with recommendations on how to do more pull ups (over here).

It boils down to these 4 things:

1. do more pull ups (since i can't do any actual pull ups; i just hand from the pull up grips and try to bend my elbows a bit)
2. do negatives (the part of the pull up where you're letting yourself down (I hand't thought of this, I'll try it out next time)
3. do lat pull-downs, the inverse of a pull up (I did 30 of these today, I'll try to up the weight next time--I only had it on 50 lbs)
4. use an assisted pull-up machine (we don't have one of these in the gym so I'll not be doing this one)

My longest run ever

Alex did another 10k on Saturday so I finally attempted it today.  I think we're generally near the same fitness level so we trade workouts kind of.  Like he tried the inclined interval runs that I talked about in a previous post.

The max time on the treadmill is 60 minutes so I just set it for that.  I did 5 minutes @ 4.5mph to warm up, then 5 min @ 5.5 then 30 min at 6.0.  Then the last ~20 min @ 5.5 again.  About every 5-10 minutes I would walk at 4.0 mph for a minute so I could drink water and prevent a stroke.  My max heart rate is around 170 bpm (200 - age), and each time I went down to the walk speed to drink, I measured my heart rate.  It was usually at 161 bpm (though it takes ~30 seconds to register).  In 60 min, I went 5.50 miles (8.8km).  The longest run I've ever done is a 5km (3.1 miles) so I'm feeling pretty good about it despite not getting to 10km.  And I'm feeling pretty good about the >700 calorie burn.  I celebrated with a bit of the red velvet cake sitting in the community room.

I think from now on, I'll alternate between shorter inclined interval runs and long-distance runs for the running part of my training.

I could never be a marathoner.  I am just not a natural long-distance runner.

Obstacle Test: #8 The Ball Shrinker

Alex and I set up one of the Tough Mudder obstacles (#8 The Ball Shrinker) out behind the ESS building on Saturday.  It was great fun trying to fling each other off the ropes. Sunday we set it up again but this time our fellow tough mudder competitors joined us (Bill and Hyuck).  The trees are conveniently located next to a 12' concrete wall which we proceeded to go up and down in different combinations trying to figure out how to get everyone over.  It just hit home how much I need to work on my upper body strength.  They could lift me up so I could put my arms over the top, but I can't pull myself over unless I get a leg on the top.  Less than three months.

I ordered my new bike

Oh, man, the bike I ordered is just gorgeous.  I am in love with this bike.  I can't wait for it to come in.  It'll be fitted for me, and then I can finally take it home.  It's going to be blissful.

mmmm...bike porn

Training and Unintended Weight Loss

Okay so I still haven't been calorie counting and without realizing it until this morning, I lost 7.1 pounds in a week, well actually in 6 days.  That is so not a healthy rate of weight loss especially at my current weight (that's over 4% loss).  So my new plan is to have a protein shake with every meal.  And also to actually look at the numbers I type in my phone every morning after I weigh.  I'm usually still mostly asleep.

I did the interval incline runs again and it was was at the limit of my endurance, but I also hadn't eaten breakfast.  I know, I know.
Time         % Incline     mph
5 min              0             4.0
stretch
5 min              0             5.0
5 min              5             5.0
5 min              0             5.0
5 min              5             5.0
5 min              0             5.0
5 min              5             5.0
5 min              0             3.5
stretch
That last incline was killer.


I'm gonna do better.  And start working on upper body too.

Incline Intervals, again, and thoughts about protein

I tried running incline intervals again.  I can't decide if it was harder or easier than the first time.  Maybe about the same.  I didn't try to do anything at 10% this time and I did a short stretch after my warmup (go me!).  So the overall time was longer 30 minutes at 5.0 mph or higher.  I set it up as rest-incline-rest-incline-rest-rest with each segment being 5 minutes.  The incline segments were 5.0 mph at 5% incline and the rest segments were half 5.0 and half 5.5 mph.  Then I did a 5 minute cool down (4.5 - 3.5 mph).  Total of 3.38 miles in 40 minutes brunging 430 calories.  Then I went to the 30 minute Ab Attack fitness class.  It was fun but I was just so tired all day yesterday (even before the running).

Workout Summary for the day: incline interval running total of 3.38 miles in 40 minutes burning 430 calories + 25 min Ab Attack class

I started having more protein shakes yesterday.  Alex found a recommendation of 1g protein/kg of body mass which puts me at ~70 g of protein a day.  On a 3-veggie burger day I'm lucky to get 50g.  We'll see if I can keep choking down the shakes.  They are not particularly appetizing.  But the ones I have now are at least better than the Pea Protein powder I had before (I actually threw out more than half of it it was so horrifically bad tasting).  It makes me shudder just thinking about it.  Guh.

And so it begins

So Tuesday I started training specifically for the Tough Mudder.  I ran intervals on the treadmill, but instead of speed intervals I changed the incline like this:
5 min warm up at 4.5 mph
5 min at 5 mph at an incline of 5%
5 min at 5 mph with no incline
5 min at 5 mph at an incline of 5%
5 min at 5 mph with no incline
1 min at 5 mph at an incline of 10% (I was thinking of doing 2-3 minutes, but this was killer)
4 min at 5 mph with no inclin
5 min cool down at 4.5 to 3.5 mph
~10 minute stretch
 My right knee hurt quite a bit after this workout (and it also hurt doing pirouettes in ballet last night).  And after three weeks of no ballet, I've lost a lot of flexibility, but I think it will come back a lot faster the second time around.  I went to yoga last night before ballet to try to pre-stretch a bit.  The first 15 minutes was all breathing stuff, which I cannot get into in the beginning.  The positions were really difficult and awesome and the last portion of relaxation I got more into.  Then the last 2 minutes or so was this semi-religious crap.  I can't stand it.  I just tried to tune out.

Monday, I also started back to my vegan diet (though I hate calling it that).  I've already lost most of the weight I gained over the holidays, yay!  Maybe a pound more and I'll be back where I was.  I need to start keeping track of calories again because otherwise I don't think I eat enough for all the exercise I do.  My food paranoia makes me tend toward under eating when I don't keep track meticulously.  I only think it's a problem because I started seeing spots in my peripheral vision after doing a bunch of leaps at the end of ballet.  Not good.  Usually, I just get dizzy when I stand up from sitting; this was different.  I immediately got in the car and ate an apple.

Registered for the Tough Mudder

I registered for the Tough Mudder today: Saturday April 9, 2011, 10AM start wave.

Now I just need to train for it and raise the money and stuff...