Weekly roundup

Last week's exercise

Monday, 9/14:

Intervals -- three sets of 2:00 @ zone 2 (144-156 bpm), then 10:00 @ zone 4 (165-175 bpm)

For the time being, I'm not going to try to increase my zone 4 times -- I'm working plenty hard on my endurance with running right now, and I've already made it to the goal that smart Izette at Real Rehab gave me last year. Until I can: a) make a decision about/complete/attempt the Seattle Marathon; and b) afford the fee for a new EMR, I'm going to stick to this pattern of intervals and do it once a week.

Tuesday, 9/15:

Full-body weights

40 minutes on the newfangled elliptical machine at the gym, zone 2 (147 bpm)

I love these new machines but man are they ass-kickers. They're called Adaptive Motion Trainers and they're made by Precor. Here's a link to see what they look like: http://www.precor.com/comm/en/amt. And they're not extra hard simply because they involve arm movement too -- my gym has some older elliptical trainers that make you use your arms and they're not nearly as challenging as these new guys. It's got to be something about the way the lower-body part works ... that you can lengthen or shorten your stride, plus increase or decrease the resistance. There's a lot more flexibility to these machines.

Wednesday, 9/16:

6-mile run

The first time I've taken a rainy run in a long time! I headed out immediately after buying the shoes I wrote about in my last post. I ran a couple times around Green Lake, plus another half mile to make sure I did a full 6 (the inner path around the lake is 2.8 miles and there are markers every quarter mile). Almost exactly at mile 1, the sky opened up and it started to pour. It was still pretty warm outside, though, so I didn't suffer -- except at the end of the run, when I realized that I forgotten to put on my Body Glide ... all the extra moisture from the rain contributed to a huge chafing rash across my sternum. (BTW, I can't rave enough about Body Glide; it's saved my skin on countless occasions. Here's a link to it on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/BodyGlide-Anti-Chafing-Stick/dp/B001FSL8MA.) The rash was the last straw -- I decided I had to find a new bra before my long run on Friday.

Thursday, 9/17:

Upper-body weights

45 minutes on the treadmill at low zone 1 (100 bpm)

My second time doing the new fat-burner that Trainer A recommended to me. Love it!

Friday, 9/18:

13-mile run

Yee-haw! What a great, hope-building run. Not only did I have new shoes, socks and a sport bra -- I also carried water and sport beans AND enjoyed the very fine company of J for the first 9.6 miles of the run. Icing on the cake? It was a fabulously beautiful day and we had a gorgeous route that took us past lots of amazing views.

My shoes and socks felt incredible ... for the first time in months, I didn't come away from my long run with blisters. And I loved, loved the sport beans. Here's a link to them: http://www.sportbeans.com/. I had the "Extreme Watermelon" flavor and found them to be yummy but not overpowering, and small enough to fit comfortably in my mouth. I've tried several options for quick fuel on long runs and haven't liked any of them ... I'm thankful to have finally found something palatable.

J and I turned out to be great running partners. She's a total star athlete and her natural pace is far faster than mine (as I humiliatingly discovered on a couple runs with her earlier this year) -- but as I mentioned in an earlier post, she's working to stay in her fat-burning zones on long runs, which means she has to slow down quite a bit. Thanks to that, we're now quite compatible! I couldn't get an accurate read from my heart rate monitor thanks to the barricade of Band Aids I had on my chest to cover the chafing from Wednesday's run. So I just slowed down whenever J needed to and assumed that I was OK as long as I felt good. She was only running 10 miles that day, and we split off at 9.6 miles. I finished my 13 feeling strong and like I can definitely push my distance ... whether I can push to 26 miles remains to be seen.

The only off note about the run: I tried out a new water-carrying device and feel so strongly about what happened that I'm going to do a separate post about it.

Saturday, 9/19:

Rest day, yay!

And what a perfect day for it: chilly and rainy. Little C and I stayed inside for most of the day; we left only to go to her soccer game (where she played like a trooper despite the showery weather) and out to dinner.

Sunday, 9/20:

Full-body weights

45 minutes on the elliptical at zone 1 (125 bpm)

All in all, a very satisfying week!