I have taken a nice LONG vacation from exercise. This all starting in early November when my entire family and I got the flu, which turned into bronchitis, and lasted weeks and weeks, aka became enforced time off training. Then prolonged time off with beloved Christmas visitors combined with my mom’s whipped everything delicious and decadent meals and desserts… But…I’m BACK ON TRACK! (5 lbs more of me.)
How are you doing? I hope you are healthy and have thought of your goals for this year, health and otherwise. If you don’t have a goal, you have nothing. Training on a treadmill is BLAH…UNLESS you have in your mind a specific goal to meet, such as a level of fitness that you know this run will bring you that much closer to attaining, a big spring time hike you plan on doing with friends or family, or a specific race that will be that much easier to conquer by running in this way. Riding 2 hours on an indoor trainer is fun and makes sense when you have a specific workout with for example 1 leg repeats and 30 second repeat all out spin cycles and so on, because it is a well thought out plan to hit a higher goal. It isn’t half as fun when training to “lose weight”. That philosophy never works. Goal orient to a fun event or challenge, and in the end you will hit all your goals while having fun!
Talking about having fun. I did my VO2 max test last Friday. I used the excuse that my calf started hurting when I wanted to stop, but the truth is, I am just plain out of shape! However, NOW I HAVE A PLAN, and I am so excited! I ran today for a steady hour at my zone 2, which is 147-155 beats per minute (using my new and awesome Polar heart rate monitor!) For the first 15 minutes, I found it a little hard to keep my heart rate at the upper end of that range, and the last 45 minutes I found it tough to keep it below 156. Very interesting. I will post my schedule on this blog as soon as I do my bike VO2 max test on Friday, so you can see my plan as I participate in a great schedule of fitness building. I hope you have a schedule of your own that adheres you to a fantastic, exciting, adventure-filled, FIT 2010!
My parting advice to you is this: Get a VO2 max test so that you can realize 2 things: How to train properly and efficiently so you can hit attainable goals injury free, and how good it feels when you stop. Naturally I refer to Melissa Dalio, she is nothing but patient and awesome.
Good day everyone, and good luck to all your wonderful goals I know you can hit. No more excuse, let’s do this once and for all!!!!
