Semantic's Exercise Journal

Wednesday Jog

2009-04-03T06:33:00.004-05:00

Went for a 2.5+ mile jog on Wednesday, and managed about a 12 minute mile.
The route featured a few hills, none of them too steep or long. I'll get a map of my route up at some point.
The most annoying part was in the middle of the way out (around the 1 mile mark) and at the same point on the way back. The street is in disrepair with a lot of patches and cracks just waiting to trip someone up. I managed to avoid eating asphalt, and am currently scouring Google Earth to find another, perhaps better route I can easily get to from home.
Vitals:
Average pace was 12 minutes per mile.
Average heart rate was in the low 150s.
Calories burned: ~350.

Post-jog food, a clif bar and a mix of 75%water 25% fruit drink (No, not the 100% fruit juice that I should be drinking)

Fitness test

2009-04-02T08:11:00.004-05:00

On Tuesday, I had my second fitness test since I joined the rec center. For the most part, all my numbers moved in the right direction.
Bruce test: Last time, I only lasted 7.5 minutes. This time around, I lasted 8.5 minutes - a huge improvement.
Push-ups: Last time, I only managed 21 push-ups. This time, I got to 28.
Sit-ups: I don't remember the numbers on this one - I know I got about 10 more than I did last time.
Sit-and-reach: About an inch further.
About the only bad numbers were my % body fat, muscle, and water. These went up, down, and down respectively. I'll be getting a new weight lifting schedule which should do better with my schedule, and maybe I can at least get my muscle percentage up.
Actual numbers will come next week, when I've gotten them.

Still here

2009-03-30T08:02:00.003-05:00

I know, it's been a couple of days since I last posted. More than it should have been... But don't worry, I've still been getting out and exercising.
Thursday the 26th, I got out and jogged a mile. I got a new toy (another post on it later once I've had more time to play with it), and it looks like a 10 minute mile is enough for 80%+ heart rate - not good by any means, but it's better than it could be. And it's good for me.
It snowed this weekend. I tried to get out on Saturday before it all fell, but only managed to get about .1 miles before my hands started to freeze. I decided that getting my mileage in wasn't worth it, and headed back home. I need to get better cold weather gear before next winter hits.
I weighed myself Saturday morning, and was happily surprised to find myself at 188 and change. Hope it wasn't just dehydration, but it very well could have been. I'll be drinking myself into a water-induced stupor throughout the day today. It will be awesome.
This morning was a fairly tough workout. We started at 5:30 A.M. (where it used to be 9:30...), but we had a better turn out. Probably about 7 or 8 people, where we used to have 2. It was kind of odd driving to work and seeing all the lights still blinking yellow/red.
Our workout today consisted of three laps around the (1/10th mi) track, 3 miles on the aerodyne bikes, a mile on the track, 1 mile on a stair climber, another mile on the track, then ending with a cool-down period on the aerodyne.
About the cool-down period, I was feeling pretty tired. After the cool-down period, and (at least up to now) I'm feeling pretty good. No major pains, although my leg does twinge a little bit every so often when I walk. Nothing an ibuprofen and an ice pack won't fix.
And tomorrow, one of the other trainers is going to try to kill me via exercise testing. I'm hoping that all my good numbers went up by a little bit while my bad numbers went down a smidge. Won't know until the results come back, however.

Little bit of pain today

2009-03-24T14:28:00.002-05:00

Woke up this morning, and my legs hurt! Mainly just my upper legs, shins aren't doing too bad today. Which means it's probably the good pain, of the "I actually worked those muscles out correctly!" kind, as opposed to the bad type of pain that I'd get from something being torn, broken, or otherwise damaged.
I decided not to work out today, but I'm going to do a good workout tomorrow - some cardio (probably biking on the Expresso machines, and some time on the ergometer), and I'll also try and get in some good weight training.
Weighed myself this morning - 190.5 lbs.
As earlier promised, my percent bodyfat (as measured by my fiancee's Curves scale): 33.4%
Means I'm carrying around about 63 pounds of fat.
New goal: Get this number down to 55.

Slowly getting better!

2009-03-23T13:49:00.003-05:00

Today at 9:30 was the meeting of the Rec Center Marathoners, but I was the only person who showed up. Sounds like the local schools are doing their spring break this week. Since the only other person who shows up regularly has kids that are of high school age, she had to stay home to watch them.
Today's workout consisted of 5 easy laps around a 1/10th mile indoor track. After which, I biked for two miles on an aerodyne bike (the bike with moving handles so you work out your arms as well as your legs).
Then it was another set of 5 laps, alternating between an easy lap and a hard lap.
The next exercise was doing 1500m on an ergometer - an indoor rowing machine. This one, I didn't pace myself nearly as well as I should have. The goal was to do the 1500 m in 10 minutes. I ended up doing it in less than 7, and was too pooped to do the last set of 5 laps - again alternating easy and hard - as hard as I should have. I need to learn to pace myself.
The last set of 5 laps had the easy laps as the easiest laps I had done so far, and and the hard laps were about at the same pace as my easy laps from the first set. Probably due, partly, to over working myself at the ergometer.
After that, I was directed in some stretches and other easy exercises.
The first one involved holding a 6lb medicine ball and twisting my torso while doing lunges.
The next was squats - again with the 6lb medicine ball.
After that was a bunch of exercises to stretch the hamstrings. I'm going to have to find out the technical name(s) and link to them. Otherwise, I know I'll forget what they were and how to do them myself!
The coach then told me to ice down my legs more often to try and avoid shin splints, and to take some ibuprofen whenever my shins started to hurt to allow them to heal better, and not be painfully inflamed.

2009-03-21T18:58:00.001-05:00

Today was a pretty easy run.
Did 1.5 mi in Amanda's parents' basement. They have a treadmill. I think I got my pace wrong (4.5 mph... Slow, I know, but I'm working on improving) because I was starting to have problems keeping it up. It was also kind of boring just looking at the escape window.
I went outside, and ran 2 laps around their neighborhood - assuming 1200 paces per mile, I did about another mile and a half. Not sure how long I was out, so I don't know what my pace was.
I've been reading through a book on running published by Runners World, and I'm going to work on integrating some of their training ideas into what I've been working on.
No pain today - probably a good sign. I also probably should have run a little bit further than I did. Hopefully, will be able to ramp up to getting to a good 5 mi long run next week - I was hoping to do that today. Oh well. I'm still improving from where I used to be.

A little bit about me

2009-03-20T08:55:00.002-05:00

So that my workout stats don't exist in a vacuum, here's a little about me - so I can keep track as time goes on.
Age: 24
Sex: Male
Height: 5'6" (give or take...)
Weight: 190.5 this morning.

I usually weigh myself in the morning, either right before I hope in the shower or right after I've toweled myself off, to try and keep that consistent.

Goals:

Get rid of my stomach flab
Be able to jog/run 1/2 marathon
Get mile time to under 10 mins
Drop my percentage of body fat by 2% (Not sure what it is now...)
Make it in to the gym for strength training once a month.
VO2 Max up to 40 (currently at around 33)

So, there's my goals. Notice that weight isn't a part of it - although yes, I would like to drop 10 pounds, I won't make it a goal so I won't feel as bad if I don't make it. If I can make even half my other goals, who cares about weight?

So... It's been a while

2009-03-19T17:25:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I know, it's been quite a while since I last posted. Nearly two years, it looks like. But I remembered about this blog today.
It's not going to be anything too interesting - I just need something to keep track of my jogging/running, where I'm at, and so on.
For those who don't know, I signed up at the Rockwell Rec Center to join the Rec Center Marathoners. Funny, isn't it. As I was walking out the door, I slapped myself in the forehead - I didn't think there was any way I'd be able to get into any sort of shape save round, or even more so to run a half marathon.
It's been a month or two, but today I jogged two miles. That's a big step from... Well, ever. I think the longest I've done before that has been a mile, that mostly walking, and then only because I was forced to due to school. Funny how things change.
Anyway:
Today, did 5 laps around a 3/7th mile lap. Adds up to just about 2.15 miles. Took about 1/2 hour. Not the speediest thing out there. But I'm doing better than I've done before, and that's what's ultimately important.
My right leg twinges a little bit when I stand on it, but it's not too terrible. Should hopefully be healed up for a long run (3.5 or 4 miles, I hope!) on Saturday. Tomorrow will be a rest day - and by rest, I mean 10 minutes cardio, doing my strength training, followed by a final 10 mins of cardio.

So far so good

2007-03-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

So far, I've only missed one day of doing DDR, and that was Sunday. I ended up helping to go through my parents' cubboards to throw out everything that was old or had too much sugar. I started at 10, and didn't get done until around 3, there was that much stuff. Ended up throwing out 5 garbage bags (not the big black ones, but just the small white ones like what goes into a kitchen garbage can) of old food. A shame to throw it all away, but what food shelter is going to want food that expired back in '99?
Yesterday, Carl came down after I got done with work. We did 3 sets of DDR, and I managed to kick his ass at most of the songs (there was one song that I keep getting my ups and downs screwed up that he beat me on). Of course, I also play it a lot more than he does, and I'm used to the hard pads that we have. But I still beat him! :-D
Today is going to be work, Lodge, and some more DDR. Mayhaps I'll get an updated weight up later on this afternoon - I'm going to try and avoid being the type of person who checks their weight several times a day, so my updates here are going to be fairly infrequent.