Monday Mischung

I have 30 minutes to write this blog, so if the quality of writing is not up to the stellar standards I have set thus far, you will know why.

workout week

In today's Monday Mischung, I will start out with a brief summary of what my workout week looked like. It was as follows:

Monday: Rest. Well, that was easy.

Tuesday: Rowing - 6 kilometers; 3 sets of PT exercises.

Wednesday: Walking/Running on Treadmill - 3.4 miles in 50 minutes.

Thursday: Rowing - 6.7 kilometers; 3 sets of PT exercises.

Friday: Yoga class; Walking on Treadmill - 3+ miles in 50 minutes; 2 sets of three arm exercises

Saturday: Rowing - 5K in 30 minutes; 3 sets of PT exercises.

Sunday: XC Skiing - 80 minutes; 2 sets of PT exercises

Today: Rest.

Summary: I am happy with the consistency of getting some exercise done. I am trying very hard to exercise in my fat burning, inflammation-prevention zone, and that is proving hard.  Obviously, I am limited to mostly walking on the treadmill, otherwise my HR spikes.  So, I try to mix it up with short, slow run bursts, fast walking, and slower walking at an incline.  My HR tends to float higher than it should before I can scale things back and get it where it needs to be, and I don't know how detrimental those indiscretions are to this whole experiment.  This whole HR thing is a learning curve, one that I am determined to master.

While the treadmill is a challenge, rowing with the heart rate monitor seems to be easier.  There, my issue is that my heart rate tends to get too low. So, I am dropping off the bottom of my ideal heart rate zone.  On the positive side, though, I have to say that keeping more or less to my fat burning heart rate, I feel I could row forever - not something I have had the pleasure of knowing before.

As to cross-country skiing, I have not worn my heart rate monitor, so I don't know what I am doing there.  My guess is that it is too high for my fat burning zone, but until I strap on the HRM, I won't know.  Maybe next opportunity I get, I will try the HRM.

pt exercises

As you can see, I have been fairly consistent with my PT exercises.  I was initially shooting for every other day, but now I think I will settle for doing them Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.  I think every day is probably ideal, but I know that I would get burned out doing them so often. With this schedule, I know I can be more consistent and hang in there longer.  I hope they are still doing some good.  For the record, my PT exercises consist of 10 reps of each of the following exercises: clam with band, sidestep with band, a hamstring circuit with a balance ball (three different exercises x 10 each), one-legged squats, and calf raises.  It takes me aobut ten minutes to complete each set, so you can see this is quite the time investment (especially when I do three sets) and I wouldn't be doing them if I didn't think they would help.

injury

Is it getting better? I sure as hell hope so.  I have to say, though, that I don't know for a fact.  It definitely feels better.  This injury at its worst made my knee feel like it was going to pop with every step. In other words, it felt like it was running off its track.  It was sore enough that I couldn't walk without a limp and I was constantly in fear that I was going to irritate it further.  At this time, I can say I haven't had that knee-weirdness problem for a good week and a half or so.  And that is brilliant!  The not-so-good news is that there is a lingering soreness on the outside of my leg (mid-IT band), and that doesn't seem to want to go away anytime soon.  It seems to get a bit sore with my rowing and treadmill work, but it doesn't hurt, per se, so I am hoping going back to its old pre-injury normal before finally dissipating.  I am trying to be consistent with foam rolling and stretching, but to be honest I see both of these activities as a minor irritation in my days, and as such they sometimes get swept under the mental carpet where I can't see them.

I continue to tread carefully though, and while I am optimistically seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, with that comes also the worry that I will never completely trust my IT band again.  I have never had an injury that lingered for so long (and kept me from running!).  If this does clear up, I feel I will freak out anytime there is a twinge over there.  Post-traumatic injury syndrome?

skiing

I still love skiing, but I really need to learn to manage hills and turns better. Yesterday's ski loop saw me going down that little hill (with the curve and wood sign) again.  That's the one I wiped out on the first time I tried it, and then conquered - much to my delight - the last time I went down it.  Yesterday, it was the hill's turn to dominate as I wiped out once again.  I do give myself a lot of credit, though, as there were NO groomed tracks down the hill this time.  The snow was flat and hard-packed.  The fact that I even decided to give it a go still makes me shake my head with wonder.  Anyway, the bad news about all this is that somehow I yanked my big toe quite strangely when I fell over at the bottom.  It's still sore today.  Hopefully this won't be another long, drawn out process of healing.  All this injury recovery stuff is starting to set my teeth on edge.

lunch challenge

So, I finished my personal wellness challenge of eating a rawish lunch every day and it went well. I did botch three days, but I made up for them by tacking on some extra days.  All in all, I have to say that I do feel better for having done the challenge.  I think that my gut was much happier on the whole by the time I was done, and I really have started craving fruits and veggies.  I can definitely see continuing this indefinitely.

superbowl

Did anyone else watch the Superbowl last night? What a snooze fest.  I felt sorry for Denver, who I was voting for by the way.  They just seemed to have a bad day.  My kids were thrilled that Seattle won, though, so I can be happy for them.  Why Seattle?  Well, following the train of thought that the enemy to my enemy is my friend, my daughter decided Seattle deserved her vote because they beat San Francisco, who of course was the team that quashed the Packers' hopes of a Superbowl run - so, obviously, they must be on our side.  Obviously.

Time's up and time to go.

Happy Running!