Saturday, May 26, 2012

M.I.A.

I know, I've been a bad blogger.  Between work. working out, and my not-so-new Scramble addiction, I haven't had a lot of writing time.  Fortunately, I haven't completely fallen off the wagon and I can now share with you a few awesome workouts that I found online and tried this week.

The first one is not for the faint of heart.  I tried it last Friday and could barely walk on Saturday morning, which proved to be a little bit of an issue because I ended up having to trek through a huge field in a wedges (and a yellow sundress and giant hat) but that's a different story for a different day... or for never if you are particularly attached to horses.

I found the ridiculously hard workout on this lovely website. and it seemed like such a great challenge that I wanted to try it, just to see whether I could get through it.  I had to split some of the exercises into smaller sets (there was just no way I could do 50 push ups or burpees in a row) but eventually I got through them all.  If you want a hard, satisfying workout and have plenty of time to do it, I highly recommend this one.  The author says it is like Crossfit and Body Pump, but since I've never tried either, I can't say.  What do you guys think?



The rest of my workouts were all cardio based.  At work I'm really limited to the treadmill or elliptical in the gym, and getting on them day after day can be rather monotonous.  I thought I was being clever by changing my pace on the treadmill every five minutes, but both of the workouts below were far more interesting than that.  I spent so much time paying attention to getting the speed changes right that I had very little time to think about how hard I was working.  Both days I completed 5.5 miles.
The first is courtesy of Iowa Girl Eats

TimeSpeed
0-24.0
2-76.0
7-116.5
11-147.0
14-167.5
16-178.0
17-226.0
22-266.5
26-297.0
29-317.5
31-328.0
32-354.0 (break time!)
35-406.0
40-446.5
44-477.0
47-497.5
49-508.0
50-553.5
Total:5.6 Miles
That’s 5 minutes @ 6.0mph, 4 minutes @ 6.5, 3 minutes @ 7.0, 2 minutes @ 7.5 and 1 minute at 8.0. 
I really enjoyed the workout and felt super sweaty afterward.  The best part was how easy 6.0 mph felt after 8.0 mph.

The second workout was much simpler.  After a brief walking warm up, I would run 9.0 mph for 20 seconds and 6.0 for 40 seconds.  I repeated 10 times and then walked for 5 minutes, then started all over again.  I did three rounds and finished out 5.5 miles by the time I cooled down.  I have to admit, I felt a little self conscious rocking out the 9.0.  My feet were pounding so hard on the treadmill that things in the room were shaking.  Not exactly a delicate, graceful female as sweat streamed down to my face and into my eyes.  In the end the satisfaction was worth any embarrassment.  Running that fast made me feel great, and every time I hit 9 or 10 mph on the treadmill now it seems a little less intimidating.

The final workout was an interval workout for the elliptical machine, which I had never seen before.  For me, I usually just set the Crossramp at 10, the resistance at 8 and try to keep my calories per minute above 13, and then distract myself until I feel I've gone a sufficient distance.  This was much more interesting.  By the 15 and 16 resistance I felt like I was wading through mud and my legs got heavier and heavier.  I finished up with some stretching and some abs.  


With that, I'm off to do some very serious reading.  Don't judge.  Happy Memorial Day weekend!




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