Transitional times are kind of challenging for one who likes to have some routine - especially in the area of my exercise / training. The time sense the 'big ride' has been such a time: where my schedule and goals are not firmed up and my routine is different day to day. I am still trying to figure out what it should normalize to once the kids are out of school in one more week. It will be different as I'm not going to solely focus on biking; I want to add back in running and weights (for overall balance). We'll see...
Wed night was the second of two youth meetings (with some adults attending too) where we talked about Health and Nutrition. The first night was more focused on scriptures and a foundation and this past Wed was hitting some highlights: water, rest, nutrition, exercise, stress, detoxification, ... etc. I went to the grocery store that morning and took pictures of the nutritional information on various things: Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, diet Coke, M&M's, cake mix, frosting, chips, ... which were then shown via a power point and we talked briefly about them. We talked about different ingredients like hydrogenated oils, aspartame, MSG, sugar, and what quantities are in those foods and some of the effects of those foods on our bodies. I also brought the nutritional information put out by many of the 'food stores' in the area: Taco Bueno, Taco Bell, Chili's, Chick-Fillet, Mc Donald's, Starbucks, Crispy Cream, ... so people could take a look at the ingredients in most of these foods (sugar, salt, fats ...). The night ended with a 'juice bar'! Lynne and I had juiced some fruits and veggies and brought it up for others to sample. I had separate containers of apple, orange, carrot, sweet potato, beet and spinach. It was a lot of fun to start with nice yummy beginner drinks like apple and orange and then have others request straight spinach, or some started saying, "Make me something." - which interpreted means "Give me some of the stuff that doesn't taste good by them selves in a mix that does taste good." Those are more advanced drinks (meaning higher nutritional value and higher nutritional taste). There was a lot of information given and hopefully there was something for each person to grasp onto and take a step towards improved health.
Exercise: has been light during the transition and slight floundering while I am with out a goal to be training for. I did run yesterday morning - 8 miles. I haven't run for an hour for quite some time, so that was kind of the goal - to maintain the HR of 145 and run for over an hour - aiming at 8 miles (the 6 mile route with a one mile loop done twice at about 3 miles in). The actual time was 1:05:12 with avg HR of 146 and max HR of 166. The two one mile loops were aiming at avg HR of 150 and had a time of 7:19 and 7:20. (This is where I'd like to be in a couple of months after keeping this HR training.) The recovery HR time for the run was 1:41 for 50 beats. [The recovery time is a good indicator of fitness and improvement, so it's also a good number to watch. I have my HRM (Polar S610i) set for a recovery HR of 115 BPM, so it will time how long it takes from the end of the run to get to that HR. It's something that I'm going to be watching. It is dependant on how hard I'm working over all, so it's not exactly a linear problem.] It has been nice to run in the mornings as the rabbits, birds and squirrels are out in large numbers: the air has been cool and the sun rises nice too. The thought of a fall marathon is still simmering as is a fall century ride of under 5 hrs - both events would be firsts for me.
Time to speak up: what are you training for, or what could you be training for? Something to stretch you physically and mentally, maybe bump you off of a comfortable place? One of the best ways to see progress is to share it 'out loud' with someone else and if don't have someone to share it with - add it to a comment here. I'll do my best to help keep you accountable... :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment