Saturday, October 13, 2012

Loving your workout



Because I had skipped body pump on Tuesday, and I was starting to feel better by yesterday, I thought “I could still get a body pump in tonight at Thursday’s class.” I also had strayed away from any other workouts this week, so I wanted this one to be worth it. The weather was beautiful- nice and chilly and sprinkling just a little. I haven’t ran on wet pavement in over 6 months, so I had forgotten how refreshing it is. I knew I could save a little money by not driving to the gym and get an extra running work out in, so why not just run to the gym for body pump and back? I could feel every bit of the run: my feet as they hit the pavement and make a splashing noise, the cold air as it rushes past my arms, neck and face, and my numb hands as they try to circulate blood to keep warm. Because there is no music to listen to, the only rhythmic noise is my steady breathing and, soon, that is all I am concentrating on. I love every bit of it. These feelings are why I continue to run and have ran for the past couple years. This is why I have accomplished four 5ks, one 10k, and three mud runs.

I ran to the gym for 1.64 miles at 12.04/mile. This is not as long as my run home because I needed to warm up a little by walking some of the distance there. Once I got to body pump, the room looked different. Finally, 24 hours fitness saw how sad our gym is and were finally painting the room and getting new weights. Right now, I use these sand weights for body pump mostly because all the iron weights are taken first. Since they are now getting rid of the sand weights, I need convert from the kilograms I am used to, to pounds. Bare with me as I calculate this out loud- one kilogram is 2.2 pounds (roughly). If I have one 2.5 kg weight, one 1 kg weight on each side of the bar, that would be equivalent to 5.5 pounds plus 2.2 pounds, which is 7.7 pounds. That is warm up weight- I add one more kg after that, which would make my heavier weight at 9.9 pounds. Good to know, so I know what I am working with. I spoke to my friend, Kathleen, and asked her if she noticed results faster when she was going twice a week. After a couple texts back and forth with her (and how amazing she looks), I decided I was going to give that a shot. So starting next week, I will try and do body pump Tues and Thurs. This will not only be beneficial because I will be lifting twice a week but both nights are taught by someone different, so it will switch it up just a tad.

My run home was more enjoyable than the run there because my muscles were nice and warmed up and it helped that none of it was uphill J This made it possible to shave 40 seconds off each mile and do 1.83 miles at 11.36/mile. After an hour and 40 minute workout, I felt amazing. Even this morning I still feel amazing because I know I gave a great workout the effort and drive it needed. I will give my boy a rest today, but Saturday morning will be the day I do a longer run. I need to start tacking on more and getting my mileage back up, so I figured bumping it up to 4 miles would be sufficient.

Run there: 1.64 miles at 12.04/mile
Run home: 1.83 miles at 11.36/mile

1 comment:

  1. Are you serious? They're FINALLY getting new weights?!?! Oh happy day! I need to make a return to class I think. How exciting! A combination of going 2x a week and gradually upping my weights (going up 1-5lbs every 2 weeks) definitely made a difference. I didn't notice it at first, but suddenly people were commenting on my "guns" and I was able to carry an obscene number of grocery bags up to the apartment without breaking a sweat ;-)

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