Tuesday, August 9th:

10 minutes warmup on Stairmaster, aerobic setting, resistance at 10
60 minutes arm & shoulders routine
60 minutes spin class with weights


I had a great spin class tonight. I don't know what got in me. It reminds me of a long time ago -- years ago -- years & years ago -- when I used to ride, and when I'd have a good riding lesson, and be really ON, I mean, really **with** the horse, and the world seemed perfectly balanced. And I'd think, Oh how I wish life could always be like this. Everything would seem calm afterward, and clearer, and in focus. Even walking the horse to cool him down afterward, with a chorus of evening bugs buzzing in the background, made me feel slightly high, elated but calm, not overexcited. Same feelings tonight walking home from spin in slightly foggy weather, from the day's rain and humidity. I don't know why this happens periodically. I don't know what circumstances coincide. I don't know if it's serotonin levels even, for God's sake. But it's as rare as some planetary alignment. Anytime it happens, I am grateful. For as long as it lasts. It's never long, but while it's happening, it's hard to believe life can feel quite this good.

Wednesday, August 10:

30 minutes Abs Express class
45 minute spin class


I woke up too late to go to 6 AM spin, and anyway, had I gone, I would have been a little late to arrive at the office, as I had to go to CT for a luncheon. So I took the evening spin class instead, with an instructor I hadn't worked with for a while. She cues differently and likes a lot of change-ups in movements in a short period of time, so I lost any feeling of mastery & was back to self-doubt & pushing to make it through again. But change is good, right?

8/10: just being on my feet for a while

8/11: 35 min stationary bike -- 30 min interval program avg level 7, 5 min cooldown. Total avg 14.1mph.

Jessica, how did you feel on the bike? Is there any discernible difference? Or is it too soon to tell? I'm always glad to see you posting here.

As for me ...

Thursday, August 11:

60 minutes elliptical, over half backward, resistance at random intervals and at eight
30 minutes Pilates mat routine on my own

What a strange day. The humidity dropped, it was warm but beautifully so, with a whiff of September crispness. And the office was nearly empty and got emptier as the day wore on. I drove home at my regular time, quite speedily, with less traffic. It was as if everyone had simultaneously decided to take a vacation day. (Except, of course, the analysts with whom I write research reports on my job, who've left me with several projects.)

That apparently included the Pilates instructor at our gym, who hasn't shown now for her Thursday night class for something like five consecutive weeks. Today they couldn't get a sub, so there was no class. So I was rolling around on a mat in the studio all by myself. The rest of the class played hooky, since that kind of mood was in the air, or signed up for spin instead.

Friday, August 12:

9:33 minutes rowing on the Concept 2 got me to 2013 meters
60 minutes back & biceps routine
45 minutes arc trainer, intervals, resistance at 10 -- this was a slog.


I want to mention my Runner's Guilt. This is a feeling I get when I'm driving or walking someplace and a runner goes by. I feel momentarily guilty. Because I'm not running, too. This feeling comes over me even if I have signed up for spin class later in the day. Sometimes even if I have already been to the gym in the morning. I hold running and runners in great esteem, far more than I do any of us schlumps on the gym equipment. It seems like a "purer" exercise somehow. Somehow ennobling. Maybe even primal. Perhaps because runners are moving through the outdoors, interacting with the greater world, rather than going off to a specially designated facility.

But I can't run myself. It's the impact. It's my age and my lousy feet, arthritic already, with chronic plantar fasciitis in the left foot.

I realize this Runner's Guilt not rational, but that's how I feel.

Particularly when I'm driving to work around 8 AM on a summer day and I pass them in an affluent suburban Connecticut neighborhood, working their way past gorgeous lawns, preserved elm trees, freshly painted 19th century Shingle houses, and the air smells like the ocean, like Long Island Sound. And yeah, I'm on my way to the office. I forget the hard work that running really is, the pounding, the breathing, & I think it is as easy as a gull's flight or a deer sprinting through grass.

Saturday, August 13:

60 minutes spin class with weights
60 minutes Pilates class


My quads were burning in spin today. Then in Pilates we were doing the Bridge pose and my quads were actually shaking from trying to pulse upward for consecutive reps. I may feel this tomorrow.

Sunday, August 14:

9:39 on the Concept 2 got me to 2018 meters
60 minutes arm and shoulders routine
45 minute spin class


Pouring rain today. The kind of rain that seems eternal. For a while I was the only one in the gym other than the sleepy pretty girl at the front desk. Then a few other regulars drifted in. Others are likely on vacation. This town empties out during some weeks in August. Even the instructors go off someplace. The substitute spin teacher was so young, I could have given birth to her. She used a lot of short songs -- she has great taste in music, though -- and frenetic cues. I felt old. And it's still raining hard.

Back from Houston and VERY PROUD that I managed to work out each day even my travel days!:carrot::carrot: However, I'm back to work this week and already don't know if I'll be able to fit in workouts Monday or Tuesday (Monday is registration all day at my school until probably 8 pm, and Tuesday I work both of my jobs).

Aug. 5: : travel day but still managed 30 minutes swimming and treading water.

Aug. 6: 40 min running

Aug. 7: 33 min running

Aug. 8: 32 min running

Aug. 9: 35 min running (this is the day I had a food hangover! I ran the same distance each day and found it interesting my time differences. The first day I ran with dh and he asked me to walk more so I don't really count that one).

Aug. 10: 33 min running

Aug. 11: 32 min running

Aug. 12: 90 min. bikram yoga

Aug. 13: 60 min. spin and 90 min. fast walking with dh

Totals:
13 days
745 minutes

Monday, August 15:

45 minutes arc trainer, hill intervals, resistance at nine
60 minutes circuit training class


An illumination today: I realized that I have trouble leaving work undone till the next day. I feel guilty. I feel like I've just got to keep going -- even if it takes me till bedtime to finish, even if it overruns my personal life. It's like the compulsion to eat everything on your plate, just to make it clean and empty. One good thing: I will make myself stop if I know I have to get to the gym or to some other scheduled engagement. I leave reluctantly, but enjoy myself at the engagement. That seems to break the spell. That's what obsessiveness is like: I'm fixated, but if I can somehow break the concentration or flow, I'm able to move on.

Behind again.

8/12: pilates routines: back attack, legs & thighs (I think, don't recall)
8/13: biked to farmer's market and back, 8.5 miles total, hilly
8/14: long dog walk
8/15:
- dog walk
- pilates routines: inner thigh insanity, saddlebag shaver, ab challenge

Michele, I'm taking you as inspiration for my forthcoming trip Upstate. I may try running at the nature center on at least one day. The footing is softer there, which may help.

Tuesday, 16 August:

9:34 rowing on the Concept 2 got me to 2,014 meters
60 minutes back and shoulders routine
45 minute spin class

There was an older man standing in the doorway watching the spin class tonight. It felt weird. Really weird. He did not seem to be watching to judge whether he might take it. I trust my instincts on this, about when something is off somehow. But I still can't figure out what was going on.

Be careful Saef. Just take it slow and listen to your body. When I'm outside I usually run intervals which is supposed to be the best way to run anyway. I listen to music and will run for 2-3 songs and then walk for 1 song. It helps me to know I will get a break soon.:carrot:

Aug. 14: 90 min. bikram yoga

August 15: nada

August 16: 60 min. elliptical

Totals:
15 days
895 minutes

saef As someone who also can no longer run (plantar fascitis and general decline of my feet after 16 years of dogwalking) I can say that walking on a different surface does really make a difference on the feet.

I mostly walk on sand, grass, and boardwalk (real wooden boards - not plastic). Those times when I do a dog sit that requires an extra walk in the evening (usually on concrete) or when I have to walk the dogs on the street I really feel it in my feet the next day. The plantar fascitis flares right up.

So good luck with trying running on a natural surface - it might feel really good!

Dagmar :beach:

Michele, thanks for giving me a song count. I, too, listen to music, and that will help me work this out. Dagmar, the nature center has a real wooden boardwalk through the wetlands and dirt roads and in the forest, the paths are covered with a mulch-like substance which is particularly soft.

A lot of runners go out there. They hold races there, too. In fact, there is a 5K & 10K this weekend. I ran the 5K back in 2008, the only 5K I've done, and my mother brought my father to see it (he was ill & had just two and a half more months to live). But I'll be at a big outdoor antique show with my mother on race day.


Wednesday, 17 August 2011

45 minute spin class, with weights
30 minutes boring old Pilates mat routine, on my own


I need to try the Pop Pilates routines that Jessica showed me, but I tend to do Pilates in the gym, in a studio, with two mats under me and mirrors all around, rather than in the privacy of my home. So I'd have to bring my laptop (and hope the gym has Wi-Fi) to try a routine there. Or do Pilates at home. I must admit, when I am on the floor in my apartment, I'm distracted. (My thoughts are running like this: "Just look at the floor under the furniture. I need to get out a dust mop. I missed that little dried leaf when I vacuumed two days ago. It is a dried leaf, right, not a dead bug? God, I hope it's a dried leaf that stuck to my sneaker ...")