again, a weekly recap

monday: the standard four mile route + core

tuesday: 45 minutes on the elliptical

wednesday: I ran around the park because for some reason I thought that might be a good idea. see, when I run around the park I don't just run around the road inside the park, I actually run around the park. the perimeter. which right now is covered in snow, if you do recall. but it was a sunny day and the snow was turning more to slush and I was kind of slipping around. not so good for the ankle or the hamstring. I iced when I got home in leu of doing my core workout.

thursday: I walked around town doing some errands. and by that I mean I walked a. long. time. it was probably a few miles all in all.

friday: the day kind of slipped away from me without a workout. we'll just count it as a rest day.

saturday: twelve mile long run. and yes, it was outside. thank goodness! my left arch felt a little weird for the first few miles again, but then it felt normal. my right hamstring is bugging me a little bit. the legs were getting pretty tight by the end. to be honest, I didn't take an ice bath or even ice at all afterward. I ate and then jumped into a warm shower. my legs are a little tight today.

the difference of pain

ack! I went to the gym to have some low-impact elliptical fun and now my left calf is hurting! while I was working out I noticed it started bugging me a bit. like the motion was pulling it a little if I had too high of a resistance or whatever. so I toned the already mellow workout down another notch or two. when I came home I iced the calf for a bit. but it still kinda hurts.

my other calf hurts too, but it's a different kind of pain. more of an I-just-ran-a-marathon-two-days-ago kind of pain. the left calf is more of an injured pain. yikes. it looks like I might take tomorrow completely off. hopefully this is nothing major.

45 minutes; elliptical

update

okay, I've been kind of a slacker and haven't been updating the blog after each workout... let's see what I can remember...

w: just my core workout, I think.

h: 4 miles. maybe. I'm pretty sure.

f: 45 minutes on the elliptical.

s: 12 miles. my ankle didn't hurt. my legs felt a little tight overall, but nothing major. my right hamstring has been bugging me a little bit since, though.

m: 3.5 miles + the core workout. I made sure I iced the hamstrings afterward.

yesterday + today

tuesday: ran somewhere around 4 miles. maybe a little more. I took the garmin {because I finally found it!} but I kept losing my satellite signal, so it was totally inaccurate. lame! at one point it told me I was running a 40-minute mile. yeah, don't so much believe that. {guys, I'm really not that slow. I swear.}

wednesday: eliptical at steiner. I just set it to 45 minutes turned up the tunes and then dove into the mags off the rack. the time flew by.

it was just me, the january 2007 issue of trail running, and cnn on the tube

since I went in to work this morning, I decided to take my gym stuff and walk over to steiner afterward. I really like my community rec center. as I was upstairs, ellipticalling my face off, I looked around and noticed no one else was there in the cardio machine area. no one. I had the place to myself! I love it. I love that this place has everything I need without that trendy gym feel.

45 minutes; elliptical

status

monday: 3 miles

tuesday: 4 miles

wednesday: 30 minute elliptical

thursday: 3 miles

I've been feeling a cold coming on for the past couple of days. I'm happy to report I've been successful at staving it off so far. I think I might just take today as a rest day {though I thought that about wednesday and thursday as well. we'll see how much will power I actually have} and hopefully do something awesome tomorrow. you know, like a long run. or even a fun ride with the hubs.

a recap

tuesday (august 26): I went running in the morning. the same route as the day before. 3+ miles.

tuesday - sunday were meant to be a backpacking trip in the wind rivers, but our plans changed when we noticed the area we were headed for was on fire. so we tried to salvage the trip by car camping in grand teton national park. it wasn't quite the same, but we did go on a hike around jenny lake and happened upon a small black bear a few feet off the trail. yeah, we got out of there quick! we ended up driving home thursday afternoon. it was pretty sad.

saturday: went on a seven mile hike up big cottonwood canyon. kinda steep. very dry out there. but it was pretty fun and I didn't have to worry about seeing bears on the trail, which is always a relief. we came home tired + dirty. you can't ask for much more out of life.

monday: did the short 3 mile liberty park loop (as opposed to the longer three mile loop I usually do) with peter. it was kind of a struggle because we pounded some serious cafe rio earlier that day.

tuesday: did an hour of elliptical at steiner. it was kind of low key. I was more interested in the magazine I was reading than keeping my heart rate up, I guess.


and that's pretty much it.

last week recap

wednesday: swimteam. I busted out a 1500m to see how long it would take me in a pool. 35 minutes. (hopefully I didn't tack on any extra laps... it's easy to lose track) I wonder how long it will take in the washing machine of a cold reservoir, with hundreds of little feet kicking me in the face. I can't wait for my first open water swim! oh, and after I swam my little 1500 I went and did twenty minutes on the stationary bike. it was my first brick.

thursday: elliptical. if I remember correctly, I did 45 minutes.

friday: swimteam. pete, tori, and I had our own little early AM swimteam. coach tori made up the workout and it was a lot of fun. let's see if I can remember what we did... okay, I can't really remember the sets. I do remember that my arms were tired from the beginning. but it felt great to be out there swimming.

saturday: again we had planned to do a ride, but again the day slipped away until there was no time for a ride. if I'm going to do this olympic triathlon, I should probably get out on my bike at least once. don't you think? my butt is going to have one huge shock in the saddle if I don't.

tomorrow we are going to go on a ride in leu of the PM swim. I might even try and get in a little swim on my own in the morning. hopefully tori doesn't mind. but I need to get on that bike!

the elliptical

I did the elliptical at the gym today. no real pain in the foot, which is good.

I was trying to push it and really work up a sweat. I love that feeling.

thirty minutes - cross country course; five minutes cool down

it's time to feel normal again

it's almost been a week since I've worked out. I'm actually walking normally now, so I figured it's time to get back in the game.

it's been a little rainny around here, so I couldn't go out on a ride. and I didn't really feel like swimming because I need a little break from the pool (though tomorrow I'm back in it for friday masters!). so I decided I'd try the elliptical since the good doctor says I still shouldn't be running.

I had higher expectations, I suppose. I set the time for an hour. my foots been bugging me slightly both yesterday and today, though, so after going a little over twenty minutes I realized it might be a good idea to stop. ease into this slowly. my foot was hurting slightly.

so I went and got one of those resistance bands and did a few sets of arm stuff. maybe now I should actually start focusing on strength. hmmm, what a novel idea. (I'm still too scared to go in the actual weight room, though)

20 minute elliptical, stiener

the elliptical

I ellipticalled while reading real simple magazine today. what a treat. I also programmed in the wrong cross-country route (I had switched machines quickly when one with the swinging handle bars became available, and hadn't noticed that they weren't the same routes) which kind of sucked, but I didn't really bother changing it. (probably because I noticed half-way through) and then at the very end of my workout the machine went on the fritz and all my info was lost. so I have no idea how far I went, how many calories burned. nothing. I'm devastated. okay, so not really devastated. I could not actually care less about my calories, and miles on the elliptical? what does that even mean to me? I'm just happy I worked out for forty-five minutes. that's all.

I exercised before work. I haven't been able to squelch my hunger since. and I've been eating good, healthy choices spread out throughout the whole day. I guess this is what happens when your metabolism gets going early on.

45 minutes; steiner; elliptical

friday

I did the elliptical. for thirty minutes. did the cross country workout. went a relatively slow pace. jammed to the juno soundtrack the whole time. loved it.

eliptical; 30 mintues; 3 miles

back for a second time this week

I went back to steiner for some more elliptical. I figured I'd be over that way anyway, and the air wasn't that great, so working out inside wasn't a bad idea.

it was a good workout. I had forgot my ipod + a few other key items so I just grabbed a fitness mag and ellipticalled my little heart out in front of the figure skaters. time flew by. I was sweating up a storm. it felt great. my legs are now all the better for it.

elliptical; steiner; 35 minutes, 4.30 distance, 403 calories burned

tuesday: elliptical

since my legs are so crazy lately, I decided to head up to steiner yesterday after work to do something a little more low-impact. I took on the elliptical. I love the elliptical. it's by far my favorite peice of gym equipment.

I did a cross country route. my legs felt pretty good. my hamstring didn't bug me too much. I stretched afterwards, and then when I got home I iced.

my legs have felt pretty good today (I only kinda feel the hamstring) and I feel like I had a lot of energy last night instead of feeling beat. I think it was a good switch.

elliptical; steiner; 35 minutes, 4.2 distance, 400'ish calories burned

the gym

I don't know why I did it exactly, but I passed up a perfectly good autumn running day to go to the gym. maybe it was for the pure joy of jammin' to the ipod (I am strictly against this while road running. hey, a girl's got to watch out for herself). maybe it was to get my elliptical fix. maybe it was to rest my legs a bit. maybe it was just to see if my membership is still current (it is! I think it expires next month, though). regardless, I went up to steiner to do some elliptical workout fun. and what fun it was.

I decided to go for an hour. I set the machine on a lovely little cross country circuit, grabbed some health + nutrition mags, plugged in and jammed out. it was fabulous.

yesterday a little while after my run my left knee started to hurt. it was very random because the pain came out of nowhere. I could also feel my left hamstring this morning. yikes! I really should've stretched and iced yesterday. I did stretch a lot better today. still no ice, though.

5.56 elliptical distance (~530 calories burned); steiner

thursday:

elliptical team.

I did it for like 3o minutes (plus that five minute cool down, of course) and it was alright. I don't know, maybe it was just an off day for me and the elliptical machine, but I just didn't feel it. is it losing that spark? do I not love it as much as I used to? I don't know... maybe it's this change in weather. why should I be stuck inside when I could be outside enjoying the ideal temps? I mean, I should take advantage of the cool spring weather while I have it. soon it will be nothing but too hot to do anything.

steiner; 3.3 elliptical distance
jerry seinfield on the ipod

the rest of last week

tuesday I ran on the treadmill, I do believe. something like three miles.

wednesday I ditched swimteam to go running with peter. it was probably around three miles. we went out on 600 east to liberty, circled the park and then came home.

thursday I elipticalled for 45 minutes.

friday was a rest day.

saturday I ran ten miles! from here on out it's double digit miles until taper. it's kind of exciting. the run felt pretty good. I was a little tight halfway through. I ran in downtown and then up city creek canyon a bit. so far my ankles are behaving. we'll see how my body holds up for the rest of training.

oh, if anyone doesn't know, I'm training for the Famous Potato Marathon in Boise, Idaho in May. It should be definite good times. It will be my fourth state -- whoohoo!!!

wednesday | thursday | friday

wednesday:
swimteam. I was having a rough time. I felt slow. the upper (read: faster) lanes were crowded so they made a few people shift down. it happened to be just me and this other guy that night, until the german, that other lady, and the pregnant chick all moved down into our lane. I wasn't too thrilled about it since they're (at least the german guy and the non-pregnant chick) faster than us. I remember the german guys condescending look with his eyes when he motioned with his head to the other girl that they were going to have to swim with us.

warm up
3 200's - descending

100 free
25 stroke/75 free
50 stroke/50 free
75 stroke/25 free
100 stroke
[3 times through; 1st set - fly, 2nd set - back, 3rd set breast]

cool down

it was hard and I felt beat. I wanted to quit about a thousand times. I kept going, though, so I guess that was a victory in itself. sometimes you just have off workouts. you just have to shake them off and focus on the good ones...


thursday:
elliptical team. I went for 45 minutes again... it felt good. I had a lot of energy afterwards. I tried reading my new runner's world that came in the mail... it's slightly harder while elipticalling.

45 minutes; 5.9 elliptical distance
the get up kids


friday:
joint swimteam. peter and I met up at the pool. I wanted to focus on my butterfly since it's so hard. I used fins to try and help me get out of the water to breathe. it was still pretty tough. I want to keep working on it, though, and get better. it just takes a lot of endurance. I also did some work just on my arms with the pool buoy. I want to save my legs for tomorrow's long run...

monday | tuesday

Monday:
I ditched swimteam for a run. my legs needed to stretch. plus I had a little bit of a headache and the thought of putting on a tightly fitting swimcap and goggles wasn't too appealing. I headed north on 600 east, straight through liberty park and on to 400 south and back. it was a good run. I felt strong. it was just what I needed after my run on saturday.

3+ miles; 600 east


Tuesday:
Eliptical! I don't know why I love this machine so much, but I do. I could go forever on this thing and not even think twice about it. Way better than a treadmill, that's for sure! I felt great!

45 minutes; 5.78 eliptical distance
sufjan stevens/weezer

elliptical love.

I went to the gym and ellipticalled my face off. it was fabulous.

marta, you would appreciate this -- oprah in surround sound. on one television she was a guest on ellen. on another tv was the oprah winfrey show, and they were talking about obesity and weight loss. how fitting, since I was at the gym.

I ellipticalled for like 45 minutes - went 5.5 miles - burned over 550 calories. and I jammed out to counting crows the whole time*. hurrah!


*okay, so during my five minute cooldown I finished the counting crows set on the ipod. then I turned it to Jesus on the Radio by Guster. It is quite possibly one of my favorite songs ever. I kept it on repeat all the way home. literally.