32 posts tagged “gym”
So today I did go and meet the Nutritionist. It was definitely enlightening and quite stressful.
Anyway, since I have now figured out this little part of Winter Park, finding the place was a snap.
I got a little freaked out when I girl left that office who was obviously, disgustingly anorexic. It was an interesting thing to see her stroll up and down the street, she was wearing clothing that was somewhat streetwalker-y as well...I had to agree that whatever weight she was at was simply unattractive. I'll admit it made me feel better, at least I do not look like her, nor do I aspire to look like that. She has a hard life ahead of her.
Mrs. B. was very warm and friendly. She definitely knows her stuff, and despite using her trite-isms, I realized it is going to be impossible to get anything past her. I'm usually pretty good at sort of brushing by stuff, but not her apparently. In some ways the entire visit was a bit comical. I'd come up with all sort and matter of statements, and I realized she had indeed her variations on this theme from many many others and she really wasn't fooled by any of them. Since she wasn't fooled, I also could not be fooled either.So that was definitely different, usually i am pretty good at talking my way out of things.
The big trauma/drama came when she told me I am simply not eating enough the majority of the time. Apparently I was miscounting calories. So I have a list of things that must be consumed at each meal. People, it's like a ton of food. I am trying it but I am pretty skeptical because it's like a ton of food.
So, we'll have to see how things go.
As far as the day. That Hill took the stuffing out of me. I am so so tired.
Teulu is so calm I am worried he has some sort of worms. So, just hemmorhaging cash, will call vet.
So I had a difficult day yesterday.
I got lost due to some squirrley directions given to me by the Nutritionist. I was apparently right by the office, but it was near impossible to find it. Because she does not employ a receptionist or anyone to answer the phone, it was about 20 mins into my appointment time that she called me back. We rescheduled. I was so so disappointed and annoyed. I was very nervous about going, so to have this happen was very frustrating. And then her schedule is such that I would have to wait until next Friday.
She rather annoyed me because she seems to have a very simplistic approach and continues to use her catch phrase "Freedom with Food"...which I just think is wierd.
Luckily she also gave me the name of someone else to call. I called him, left a message and after 5 pm decided he would probably call me back on Monday. I was dreading that because I am working on Monday. While I can answer the phone, its difficult to have a personal conversation that is not overheard. I don't really want anyone to know about the problems with eating that I'm having...it's a sure fire way to get a lot of wierd and unsolicited advice. Yes, everyone eats so everyone has an opinion, but its just usually an opinion stated to make them feel better about their own eating habits, weight, size.
Anyway. Wierdly the other person called me back last night at about 8 pm. He was actually very very nice, did not use any cute catch phrases and seems a bit more laid back, not casual, but very to the point. He did not have any appointments until the 17th of the month. I suppose I sounded a bit distressed, after a few minutes he asked if I could get up early, I laughed...I get up every day at 4 am....So. He made me 2 appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 am to complete a long evaluation of this eating mess. I'm rather shocked that anyone would rearrange their schedule just for me, so already i like him and trust him somewhat. Hopefully he can help.
Unfortunately, my foot is actuing wierd and tight. I took yesterday off and may take off another day today...
I will have to ask the trainer what she thinks. I can run on it, but it feels so strange. I am doing well to look at the long term, and not the shorter term. I got the stress fracture by training too hard, so I am laying off the foot. Lesson learned.
Today I made a small miscalculation. I thought I had an appointment with the trainer at 11. No it was at 12. So there I was at the gym at 10:30 to do run number two.
Ran into trainer in the locker room. She said hey, but nothing else. When I finished my second run I went into the locker room to change my shirt. I checked my phone messages, and there she was again, she stopped me and said, hey...you know you are at twelve today..
So, at her beautiful suggestion I swam before the strength workout.
So. I ran 5.25 miles....and swam for about 30 minutes. before a strength workout.
strenght was alright. We did some modified stuff because I felt like Noodles.
All sorts of fun lunges. Lunges are similar to squats in my mind. Not real fun , but they will get you doing the stuff you want to do.
We did the around the world exersise, or at least what I'm able to do of it. I love that exersise, so i hope I can get better.
The good thing I was able to do was tricep dips...and the Captains chair (errr Roman chair)....like a champ. Trainer actually was shocked and surprised at my ability to manage the Roman chair, since I've improved.
Trying to convince her to run the New Mexican Half with me...shes thinking about it. Which I think is pretty cool.
but I will freely admit. After today, I feel rather like a person put through a meat grinder.
feeling good about progress....
I had a pretty exciting day at the gym today. I was able to use Wilson, my friend like in Castaways, the ball in a newish way.
I did an exercise with the trainer called around the world. Lots of you probably know it. Essentially you use a weighted ball,eerr, Wilson, and do a predetermined number of "Pick Pockets" which is an exersise where you are in a V-sit...like this:
and instead of holding out the hands all nice like this woman is doing, you hold on to Wilson (8 pound ball) and move Wilson from side to side. for say 40-60 repetitions. It's not hard, but it also isn;t easy to maintain the position. After the repetitions, you throw Wilson to the other person in a circle, making the Around the world happen. It's pretty hard for me to catch Wilson and maintain the Vsit.
What was exciting, other than that this was semi-fun, was that I was able to catch my friend Wilson the Ball and did not damage my hand. This is actually the first time I've done any catching of any weighted anything since the bad hand accident. So. that was fun.
Other than that. I'm doing 2 runs a day now. One longer one outside on a running path. and then a mile or two on the treadmill when I come into the gym. And still swimming.
And I'm completely tired.
I have decided that I am emphatically in LOVE with The National Training Center. In a lot of ways, it is just a typical gym, in fact, it's smaller than some typical Bally's or other mega gyms...but there are some really special things about it.
The Pool is astounding. this is actually not the pool. The NTC pool is actually BETTER.
They have a moveable bulkhead, which can be expanded or shortened. It is so wide that they can put lane lines width wise, or length wise. When they are length wise, I feel like I am swimming forever and can not find the end of the pool. It's an outside pool, but it remains supa-supa clean. In fact, never have I seen anything except water and lane lines floating in the pool.
The fitness equipment is regular. I do like that they keep the aerobic studio and the spinning studio open when there aren't classes. I'm able to duck in there and do a bunch of exersises that i wouldn't normally do in a public area. So, it's a huge bonus to me...it's also good to have the full length mirrors to look at to see exactly what I am doing.
There are towels for all members. Some gyms like to charge for that, and while I can easily bring a towel, its nice to have fresh ones, isn't it?
There are really elite atheletes training there. There are also really un-elite atheletes. The elites are rather intimidating and inspiring at the same time. An example is swimming. I swam most of my life on a swim team. So, I can swim pretty well, but I am by no means a competitive swimmer at this point. i just tool up and down the pool. When i swim, there are often champion or wanna be champion swimmers in the pool with their personal coach, working on stroke mechanics etc. For some reason I have decided I must do flip turns, just like the pros. they are probably good
for me in some way or another. I haven't done them in years so I am consistently misjudging the wall, and getting water up my nose.
When I am doing strength, I get to observe people of all ages who are really in super shape...it inspires me and also makes me wonder what exactly I think I'm going to achieve. I've found the guys to be, as usual, friendlier than the girls. Since my face tends to get really really red, people sometimes make comments regarding how hard I must be working, I've gotten several of these comments, paired with encouragement from the elite guys...Sadly, my face turns that color even when I am not working that hard...and no matter how good of shape I am in. it's alarming, but its apparently the way my body works. I am consistently tempted to dunk my face into a bowl of ice water.
Locker Rooms are really super clean. There are enough showers and so far, all of them have decent shower heads and warm water. There's also a nice private, curtained changing area, which is great as several people bring their male (and female) children into the locker room, and while thats fine, I've heard several make comments including "Boobies!!!!" and worse. Children are curious, but I am really uncomfortable with being the object of curiousity, so the changing area is great. I know the idea of a clean locker room seems silly but in the gym I most consistently used last year, the showers were always grungy (like you'd see other ladies hair stuck to the walls) and paper towels all over the floor were common.
And my trainer is super. I am not really sure why i think so, she has not really done anything too exciting...except to add some new things into my routine. I'm looking forward to being strong enough to run for her.
Right now, i am still running short distances.Trying to decide if I want to work on running the hsort distances faster or increasing distance. The official rule of thumb has been that when you run distance, eventually you speed up....For me that hasn't been true, soooo....I'm considering other things. See trainer later this week and if I remember and have enough breath, I'll ask her.
It's a little bit pathetic, but i really love going to the gym....
now marathon training begins in july....
Well. I ran today, on the treadmill. I still don't get why I am so painfully slow on the mill. Last year at this time, I was very fast on the treadmill, and unable to keep any pace on the ground.
It was cold, and dark, so I decided to take full advantage of the gym at work. I arrived at 6:30 and managed to run 4.10 miles. All but the last 0.25 in essential silence. The last 0.25 was again disturbed by the dulcet tones of Dwight Yoakum. I want to give the lady a new CD. Trisha Yearwood, Shania Twain, The Bellamy brothers, Brooks and Dunn, I don't mind country, but how can she stand to hear the same CD over and over again???
My lungs did not do very well, my legs did alright.
After the run I did a full set of crunches alternating between them and the running arms exersise with weights. I also ran again on the trampoline. I swear that thing gets my heart rate into the 200's, hard work.
and I found a good wobble board so I wobbled on it.
Afterwards I enjoyed taking a shower in a properly heated shower room, with water than does not smell sulphuric...
All in all a nice morning. I need ot be running longer, but, so far I have not. Tomorro, I want to run outside and see how things go. I figure I'll cover the same amount of time. If I run like I have been outside, I imagine I';ll cover about one more mile...
I have been feeling again very stressed, mostly due to one very difficult night at work, and I have to say after the run I started to feel better. Exersise is so nice.
Lest you wonder, Teulu can not come to the gym, but he did get a 45 minute walk after all that, so he had a good day as well...
I can not seem to get over this. I felt better for a day and then just awful again last night. I must find my Z pack RX and attempt it, at this point, despite what the docs say i think it will actually make me better. there i nothing majorly wrong with me, but I feel like I have the creeping crud...I was a little cranky at work yesterday just because the charge Nurse was being a bit lazy, and asking me to do stuff when I was already running around. It was clear he didn't know who was doing what, so I was a bit snappy. But I digress, even if he turns out to be a lazy SOB, i only have 11 more weeks with him, and he is actually a nice feller. I was just cranky and I wanted to do one thing before he had me do anything else..
Bright side: I got stellar directions to the BLM land.
There is of course, a ton of it in New Mexico. And within about 20 min from my house is a bunch of single track or dirt road to run on. It is gated, so I can tell if I am likely to run into another person out there...which is important to know because it is several thousand acres of "out there" Now if I felt better I could run out there and run the dog as well.
I took the dog running yesterday. Major pain. He wants to run 5 min miles and then stop to look at rocks. I do not want to do this. We did one mile of hill repeats...and then I took him home. He slept well.
I have been cleared to use the hospital gym. FREE! I have to use it after hours and security must let me in. I am a little intimidate dby security and I hate to ask them, because I hate to hassle people, and you know how official policy sometimes doesn't filter down properly? But I am going to do so on Monday night. Even if I am still coughy wheezy snotty I definitely could do some light weight/balance work.
I miss running appropriate distances. I dont know how I will make up for my 1500 mile in a year goal after january of about 10-15 miles... Bleeech. Pffffft.
Canyonlands is starting to seem like a large looming adversary rather than an enjoyable weekend of sight-seeing, running and meeting new people. I still have ome time, but not that much anymore. I hate being sick. It gets in the way of everything!!!! ANy inspiration regarding missing the weeks in the middle of a training plan???
I finally feel back on track. It was insanely 80 degrees farenheit today, so I waited until about 5:30 to go running. Unfortunately, it got dark pretty fast, so I had to do my run at a faster that usual pace, which was fine, but since it got so dark, I was of course worried I would go splat or meet up with an undesirable character. As it was, I only saw other male runners, but running in the dark with no cell phone is not usually my plan, so I finished as soon as I could. Not totally speedy, but as I plugged in the Garmin, I could actually see some improvement. I held a 7:29 pace for about 3 minutes, and then slowed back to 10:37. Thats improvement. Overall the time was slightly faster, but not super fast.
After that, I went into the gym and used the spinning bike. My trainer was working with some muscle bound man and looked like he would fall over with a slight push when he saw me. I think he thought I never used the gym except with him! I only could bear the spinning for 15 minutes. But I then went and swam 1000 yards, which was interesting as the water was pretty cool with the sun being down.
I feel much better about training now. I'm worried about moving again and what that will do. A search on the net reveals that there are not many gygms in that area, and I imagine the trainer choices are going to be , err, limited. So we will see what happens.
Yay Running!!!!
Had a long conversation with new trainer today while I spinned, much to my misery. I would have preferred the long convo while I was NOT spinning. I woke up feeling bad and it continued through the workout. Every time I turn my head to a certain angle, I get dizzy and nauseous. So needless to say, I am home sick from work.
Anyway we talked about my poor fated mental breakdown at mile 2 the other day. He found it really interesting and suggested that a lot of my recent lack of progress is mental. He sort of continued to prove it throughout the workout.
We started with side planks, which are a weakness. I kept coming down, and he kept making me complete out the time. He said, that if I could get up in the plank, then there was no reason for me not to be able to hold the plank. I almost cried during the planks. then we did some "axes" with increased weight, I was surprised that the axes were OK. He was too, apparently people usually hate them as much as I dislike planks. After the "axe chops" we did the reverse fly, which is really hard for me, but not painful. Then we headed to the bench and I was filled with dread:
The V sit ups. I do V sit ups with the bicycle crunch involved. Oh Pain. Interestingly, I had trouble with the first set, but managed to do the other sets with very little trouble. Trainer pointed that out and said, So...I must work on your mind-set. Post workout, I headed to the pool which really was alright today, sun was out and helped the heating. The way the pool is though, all sorts of things run through your head when you are doing laps.
I think since I broke my fingers I've really struggled with believing I can go faster or stronger. I feel a need to be very cautious with running so I won't fall. And I also have this feeling that I can't get any faster despite the fact that I am slowly getting faster, more efficient. It's a wierd thing to not be at the same level you are used to being at, I bop in expecting one thing and then struggle to achieve it now. I know everything takes time, but.
Poor Jason has 4 more sessions with me. I'll be interested to see what I can achieve from them.
More running tomorro, If I am not still dizzy.
Today was another gym day. It was shall we say interesting.
I started by deciding to do a run around the lake that Jason showed me yesterday...It's a great place to run because the lake is populated by Geese, ducks and also Lots of Herons. I love to watch Herons take flight, so I was distracted a bit by them. It helped me to continue chugging along. I ran 3.10 miles with no walking breaks. the first two miles were slow ish but steady. The third was very slow. Unfortunately, just as I did on my last long run, I found myself running over a bridge that I didn't remember. I was LOST again!!!! And not just a little lost, apparently I overshot the turnoff to get back to the club by about a mile. So I ended up walking another mile to find my way back, grrrrrrrr. Disgusted with myself, I eventually found the turn off, and was very embarassingly 20 minutes late for my appointment with the trainer. he was great about it, saying, "Well, you have a really good excuse" Today was upper body day. V. Unpleasant. i just about died, side planks were also involved.
Anyway, I just wonder why I have no sense of direction lately. I am getting a little annoyed that each time I end up going for a run, I get lost and seem to do more. I really need to pay attention. In todays case it was quite difficult because around the lake essentially everything looks the same. The turn off isn't marked, but still I made a special point to look carefully for it when I left it....
And even sadder, I was wearing a GPS Garmin!!! But I had no way to use it because I didn't know what coordinates I was looking for! Insane!!!!
I did a bunch of form drills with weights as well today. While this has not been enjoyable, this little bit of boot camp is probably going to vastly improve my running form and hopefully my times as well...as long as I don't veer off course in a race....and get lost.
