Steps, walking, swimming and other things

This past week continuing through today, I have had various forms of exercise.

Today I ran the 65ish steps 20 times, for grand total of 16:01. Not my best time ever, but one of my better times. The temps were in the low 60s, and it was cloudy, so I was a bit chilly. Not that I am complaining! I think I was relatively pain-free, so yeah.

Yesterday and Saturday, I walked around my mom's neighborhood in Indiana County with her and my kid. Not a fast pace, but some exercise nonetheless. We walked between 30 and 45 minutes each day. The temps were in the upper 50s, maybe even 60 on Saturday and definitely in the 60s on Sunday. Sunny both days. Great walking weather.

On Friday, I started off with about seven minutes on the stepper. I used the weight machine to do some upper and lower body. Then I moved to the stationary bike and rode for 10 minutes. I followed that up with about 18 minutes on the treadmill where I started off walking for a few minutes then I alternated between short bursts of speed and walking and finished with a couple minutes of walking. Finally, I swam about 15 laps in the pool at a steady pace, throwing in a couple of faster laps for good measure.

Thursday I pretty much did nothing, other than a little bit of walking with the kids in the after-school program I volunteer for.

Wednesday the kid and I spent about three hours playing the snow and sun-filled sky. I probably shoveled for about 20 minutes. I was planning to swim but decided we had done enough.

Tuesday I did Zumba.

I think I gave myself the day off on Monday, but I don't really remember.

I feel pretty good about the level of activity. Unfortunately tomorrow I won't get to do my usual Zumba because I am going to an afternoon funeral, but presumably I will be back in the pool on Wednesday.

Moving on!

Stupid cold

Well, so much for my intentions of running and doing other types of exercise this week. My sore throat turned into a cold, which became progressively worse as the week went on. The only other bit of exercise I did was a 15-minute-round-trip walk in the chilly air Tuesday morning (hardly counts, to me anyway) and about 15 minutes on the stepper followed by about 10 on the treadmill on Wednesday. I was going at a low-to-medium intensity on both machines, but yet I felt as if I were running. The subsequent 10 minutes in the hot tub only made things worse. For that reason, I decided I would skip Zumba yesterday, plus the thought of blowing my nose once or twice during ever song did not seem appealing.

I can only hope that next week I will be back to "normal" and can at least get in a three or four days of exercise. I hate feeling lazy and the thought of becoming out of shape.

Resistance is futile!

I was not my usual exercising self over the past few weeks. I think I swam only three times between the days leading up to Christmas through New Year's Eve. As for running, I had not run at all for almost three weeks, back when I fought with the treadmill. And my last run outside was over a month ago, way back when I was still in my 30s!

But yesterday, not really feeling like swimming lap after lap as I had done on Saturday and Monday, I decided to jog in the pool instead. To save my knees some, I would jog up a lane and then over, and then I would jog backwards three lanes from where I started. When I am in 3', I can actually pump my arms and get some speed going. But when I get into 4' and beyond (I usually turn just before I get to 5'), it feels as if I am going through molasses, not that I have had first-hand experience.

For the last few minutes of my 30 minute "jog," I tried to run as fast as I could, perpendicular to the lanes, while in 3'. I never feel as if I get a great workout when I jog in the pool, mostly, I presume, because I am not doing it that fast. So hopefully with the speed at the end, I challenged myself enough. And I did manage to swim five laps after that, just because it would seem almost pathetic not to get in some laps.

It has been cold the past few days and crazy snowy on Tuesday, so running has been out this week. But maybe, just maybe, I can bring myself to run a couple miles on Friday, when it is supposed to hit the upper 40s. I won't have much of an excuse then.

Back on the treadmill

Last week, after who knows how many months, I got back on the treadmill. My timing to run outside has been off, and I cannot bring myself to run in the rain or the cold, both of which we have seen in the past two weeks, so I figured I needed to do something.

As usual, I was reminded how much I hate the treadmill. For the first few minutes, I jogged about 6.0 miles per hour, to the best of my recollection, although it could have been a little slower. I will never understand why running a 10 mph pace on the treadmill is rather difficult when that is how long it takes me to run up that awful hill. Shouldn't it be easier on the treadmill? I had the hill set rather low.

After a couple minutes of that and feeling convinced I would never be able to complete a mile, I decided to alternate running with jogging. So for 20-some minutes, I would run for about a minute, each time increasing my speed 1/10th of a mile until I got to around 8 mph. In between each run, I would jog about a minute at anywhere from 5 to 5.5 mph.

Despite the challenge and how out of breath I was, I think I could have run longer than the 25 or so minutes I did. Unfortunately, the treadmill is a little temperamental, and the last time I switched from about 8 mph to 5-something, the treadmill stopped. After a couple of minutes of unplugging and replugging, I just gave up. Ugh!

Anyway, I considered the run a success because I did run over about 2.5 miles and I do not recall feeling any pain. I would like to go through that routine again to see if I can do it for 30 minutes. Hopefully the treadmill will cooperate next time.

I swear, I have been exercising!

Between Christmas-related stuff and subbing, I have been pretty busy. Too busy to post about my exercising, but fortunately not too busy to do said exercising.

For the past few weeks, I have consistently managed to swim three times a week. Unfortunately, other than a run on the treadmill, which I will blog about next, I have done nothing other than swim, unless you count running around Christmas shopping, which, when you think about it, is really kind of a sport.

I don't know if it is my age or the repetition, but I have noticed some leg pain lately when I have been swimming. It is almost starting to feel like running!

Yesterday was my most productive swim of the past two weeks. I manged to swim 40 laps (20 + 20) and jog about 30 minutes (20 + 10). It was a bit of a struggle for the first 20 laps as my left hamstring was bothering me. But I refused to stop, not so much because I am being dumb (at least I hope not), but because my leg pain pretty much always goes away when I am done swimming, so I reason it can't be serious. When I did my second set of 20 laps, I did not notice the leg pain as much or maybe at all. But I was swimming fast as there was a guy in the pool, and I am all about looking as if I am athletic!

I still contend that swimming is great exercise, and I am going to try to keep with it. Maybe I just need to switch it up a bit. We'll see.

The second verse is ALMOST the same as the first

Yesterday, I attempted another run on the treadmill. I loathe to admit this, but I am a little gun-shy about running outside with the snow, a little ice, and the cold temps (which have been around or close to 30 degrees, a temperature I had no problem with last winter). As I mentioned in previous posts, I have been swimming, which is a really good workout, so I am not so worried about staying in shape. But I am a little afraid that when I finally get back out there, I may end up struggling to complete two miles (maybe even one) and/or I will run at a pace well over 10 minutes.

But back to my treadmill run. I ran the first mile in just under 10 minutes, going at about a 6 mph pace. For the second mile, I would alternate between fast runs (anywhere between 6.3 mph and 7.5 mph, hitting above that once or twice) and a slower pace of 5 mph. Then I completed the last half mile at a pace of about 5 mph for the first three to five minutes minutes before walking the final few minutes at about 3 to 3.5 mph.

I felt as if this run went better than the previous treadmill attempts. I was never in doubt that I would run two miles, which is something I can't say about my prior times. However, I still found myself bored and wishing I were outside, where I would have trees, cars, people, houses, the road, etc. to look at. The 4 o'clock news on the TV is just not the same..

Hopefully, after Christmas I can get back on the horse.

Dear real December weather, please come back

This week was crazy cold. There was just no way I was going to run in temps in the teens. Wednesday was pretty decent, with temps in the lower 20s by earlier afternoon, but with the snow and ice still on the road, it was just not enough to motivate me to run outside. I did get a brisk, 20-minute walk in, so there is that.

So when I went to the pool on Friday, I knew that in addition to swimming my laps and jogging around the pool, I needed to get on that dreaded treadmill again. This time, I ran about 1.5 miles, and, once again, it was quite a chore.

I do not understand how people run on treadmills. It is sooooo boring. I simply cannot help myself from staring at the elapsed time, which seems to drag on and on, and wishing I had just completed my mile(s) already. I wanted to be done after one mile, which took me just under 10 minutes, but since my kid was in the exercise room with me watching the last few minutes of a Penguins of Madagascar Christmas special, I figured I might as well keep going.

Even though I have not been running, with the regular swimming I have been doing, I have managed to stay in pretty good shape. I will say that after running 1.5 miles and doing a set of various arm and leg exercises on some weight machines, swimming laps was quite challenging yesterday.

Can't we just have our regular December back?!

And speaking of the treadmill

Some time ago, I wrote about barefoot running, after I had happened upon an article in the Parade magazine. I never could bring myself to try it until yesterday, when I decided to jump on the treadmill for a quick run.

So how was it? After having run about a mile barefoot, I feel pretty confident in saying I won't be doing that any time soon. Or maybe ever. My feet really hurt by the time I had finished. But almost as important, I am not sure I did it "right." It seemed as if I was slamming my feet pretty hard on the treadmill, but maybe I normally do that and just don't notice. I recently read an article that stated barefoot runners come down on the front or balls of their feet, which I definitely did (and the balls of my feet are what hurt). But I have never really paid attention to how I usually run for comparison. I just know it did not feel "normal," whatever that is.

I also read an article about how a young woman got her toe caught in the treadmill and flew backwards off it, resulting in some stitches. Eek! Of course, you could get your shoelace caught as well.

I just hope it warms up soon so I can get back outside to run. It has been in the low 20s the past few days (was only 20 degrees today), with a windchill much lower. There is no way I am going to run in those conditions when I struggled with my run in 37-degree temps two weeks ago. In the meantime, I am going to try to run on the treadmill at least once a week and/or run in the pool.

 It is good to mix it up!

The dreaded treadmill

After last week's tough run in the cold, I could not will myself to do it again this week (welcome to the next three months in Pittsburgh!). But since I had been making such good progress running, I hated the thought of a layoff. So hello, treadmill, old friend!

For about three years now, Bally's has been trying to get me to come back. The $100 offer for a year's membership is pretty good, but I was hesitant to spend the money on something I would rarely use or stop using after a few months. The last one to two years I was a member at Bally's, I probably went four or five times. And my husband reminded me of this, saying instead of rejoining, I should just take a 100-dollar bill and burn it.

Then, about a month and a half ago, my mother-in-law generously bought us a family pool membership at a local hotel. My kid loves to swim (and pretty much has no other interests), so it seemed like a good idea. And I don't hate swimming (more just the bathing suit!), plus I figured the smaller exercise room would give me the chance to start lifting weights again or jump on a treadmill if I felt so inclined.

So I did yesterday. And IT WAS HARD! I could not believe how challenging running about 6 mph was, considering that pace was slower than my usual run mostly up hill. I did start on a 4.5 incline (no idea what that means exactly), and once I started getting into the 9-minute mile pace, I had to cut back the incline.

After running about 3/4 of a mile and being bored and willing the miles to add up, I decided to alternate between a fast (7 to 9 mph) pace for 15 to 30 seconds and a slower one (5 to 6.5 mph) for up to 60 seconds. As challenging as that was, it forced me to keep going and really pay attention to the time. No more boredom!

I was planning to run only two miles, knowing I was going to swim for 30 minutes after and I had already used the weight machines on my upper body. Unfortunately, all that frenetic running caused a wire on the treadmill to come loose, shutting the darned thing down after I had run about 1.75 miles. I tried to start it back up, but after a couple of minutes, I gave up and jumped on the older treadmill for a two-minute walk.

Because it is so darned cold (in the upper 20s and maybe 30 or 31), I am going to try the treadmill again next week. Hopefully that baby rights itself!