Exercise Goals for 2009

Thank you, jespah. I guess, he ditched us here!

Oh, that's strange. When you go to his profile (click on his name), it shows his last post as being on the 13th.

...and now when I go to his profile the last one before today is the 13th... and then one from today where he says thanks for asking about him but he was taking a break. Glad he's OK.

Thanks! Glad to hear about Sozlet getting better, and you at least feeling less awful.

I still overtrained last week, and abused yet another race in Central Park as a training run with drinks. (Broke 50 minutes for 4 miles for the first time, which, again, is decent for me.) Still, my body went on strike. When I met Diva for an after-race lunch (she says hi), I couldn't keep the food to myself. On top of that, I coughed so badly Sunday evening and Monday that I had to skip Monday afternoon at the conference I'm attending. I could tell that my hard, permanent coughing was irritating the speakers.

Today I'm better. I took a very relaxed run in San Diego's Balboa park, surely one of the most gorgeous in the world to run in. The flowers are blooming; the grass shines in a full, saturated green. Sometimes, when you turn a corner in the park, it astonishes you with the unexpected scent of cough candy. (Eucalyptus trees?) It was the perfect scenery for a recovery run, which I managed to make last for two much-too-short hours. I can't wait to go out again tomorrow!

The post I was talking about was in Yahoo, not here.

Hi All!
Sorry to cause concern.
I just have some stuff to sort out.
Be back soon.

Ah, I see.

Sorry about the illness, Thomas! Yeah, I have been there with the persistent coughing and having to absent myself from those sorts of situations (or put up with the glares...) I started taking Advair recently and that seemed to help a lot (knock on wood... a post-illness cough is rearing its ugly head right now, but is relatively tame thus far).

By the way I read an article (again with the articles, I wish I knew which ones I'd have cause to refer back to so I could bookmark 'em or something but I don't seem to be very predictive with this stuff) that said that exercising while sick doesn't hurt and may even help. You have to be careful not to push yourself too hard of course, and "sick" means standard viral/ bacterial stuff, nothing too serious. But that was counterintuitive to me, and has seemed to hold true since I read it. Yesterday I was feeling pretty crappy still in the morning, but my run was much better than I thought it would be and I felt a little better afterwards than I had beforehand.

I do love that eucalyptus smell! One thing I miss about L.A.

Happy sorting...

No problem George! Now that we know you left us for yahoo....

Yes, Balboa park is beautiful indeed, and the Eucalyptus trees are plenty there too. When you go towards the Aerospace museum you can see on
the right hand side, the international houses of hospitality. I'm not sure if they're open during the week, but the House of Germany sells great Apfelstrudel. If you get a chance, take a look at the zoo as well (adjacent to
Balboa Park). It really is not your average zoo and the vegetation is lush and
beautiful as well. The tropical bird sanctuary is quite out of this world.
The weather is just gorgeous these days...

To the coughing sozobe and Thomas: I hope you feel better. Don't take
any cough drops with menthol if you have a dry cough, they dry out the
mucous and you cough even more.

The worst fall I ever took while running was at Horn Pond in Woburn. I was
working in Wakefield at the time and a couple of times a week would drive
over to Woburn to meet my friend Larry who was working Burlington. In the
warmer weather he'd bring his canoe and we'd paddle. In the colder weather
we'd jog along the roads and trails around the pond.

One winter day we had had a thaw, followed by a freeze, followed by a dusting
of snow. Coming downhill on a trail, I stepped on some snow. The snow was
covering a patch of ice and the combination was slicker than a California
mortgage agent. My feet went straight out and I was on my back before I
even knew I was going down. I must have tried to break my fall by slapping out
with my arms the way they taught us in karate because my back did not hurt
much but my wrist and hand were throbbing. I had to finish the run clutching
the front of my jacket.

Another thing they had tried to teach us in karate was the shoulder
roll. Falling forward, you reach out and roll across your hand, arm,
shoulder and back and wind up back on your feet. The last time I
tried to do it, I was rolling before my hand and arm made contact and
I took the brunt of the fall directly on my shoulder. I heard
something like the crack of a dry stick. It was my clavicle.

I've seldom felt more embarrassed than I did in the hospital waiting
room, a fifty-something guy in a karate gi, holding my arm and
wincing. I got a lot of looks that pretty much said "old enough to
know better."

Ouch -- that sounds very, very painful, George!

I got a very good cardio / leg workout today as Calamity Jane chased me up and down the beach, and up and down the cliffs of Torrey Pines State Park just North of San Diego. Calamity Jane is from Munich and great fun to hang around with -- but I'm repeating myself. Thanks for this afternoon, CJ -- I enjoyed myself a lot!

So did I, Thomas! It was great fun today, and I am beat now and my feet are aching - in a good way though. It was such a beautiful day and a pleasure
meeting you!
---

George, you're not in synch with your body and mind - in your mind you're
still 20, and your body is telling you a different story.

I was spotting Clive on the chest press machine. We had it set to 100
pounds, quite lot for Clive on this machine. I took hold of the arm
of the machine and put a little upward pressure on it. I waited until
Clive was set and starting to push, then I applied just enough force
to help him overcome the machine's intertia. I kept in contact as he
moved through the exercise, keeping the arm from moving back. Once he
was past the point where he could continue unassisted, I started my
coaching chant. "C'mon, man. Push. PUSH. That's it. All you. All
you. Now lower slowly. SLOWLY. That's ONE."

Spotting is an art. Usually you spot for someone doing a bench press
or a squat. The idea is to be ready to take hold of the bar to help
someone who's starting to fail or to keep the bar from coming down out
of control. In this case, safety was not a concern as Clive was on a
machine, not using a free bar. I was trying to get a maximum effort
from him and to get him to use heavier weight. The trick is to give
just enough help, but no more. Clive liked being spotted because he
generally liked being paid attention to and because -- I think -- he
felt more confident with help readily available.

After Clive's set, I set the weight for my set and had Clive spot me.
"Don't help unless I say 'Help' and stop as soon as I say 'OK'" I told
him. I asked for help right at the beginning. I didn't really need
it, but I wanted to see how he would respond. He did well. I could
tell the difference, but it was wasn't too much. On the last rep I
called for help and actually needed it. He got me over the hump.

Yeah, I get told that different story a lot.

Good for Clive!

Nice to have you back, George.

I had a sucky week last week, exercise-wise. Partly 'cause of my health (not so great), partly because of scheduling boondoggles, but the run at the track ended up being my only exercise that week (yikes).

I've been trying to keep to losing a pound a week, which has been going pretty well. Weigh-ins on Saturday (after my Friday long runs). I had gotten off-track a bit and was two pounds off the goal the 21st. After not exercising all week I was loath to weigh in this most recent Saturday (the 28th) but got a gift -- I was only one pound off the goal! (Meaning I'd lost two pounds since the 21st.) Not sure how/ why that happened but I'm happy about it.

Back to usual this week, did elliptical, weights and ball crunches yesterday.

I love it when that happens!
A pound a week? Ambitious.

I was getting frustrated at a lack of short-term markers of progress -- I hate breaking out the scale when I'm just getting established in an exercise routine 'cause the numbers mean so little, but I've been doing this long enough now that I thought I'd try tracking the numbers. Seems to be going well so far, knock on wood.

Change of subject, this looks interesting:

http://www.livescience.com/health/090328-running-perfect-pace.html

George, you're lucky to have Clive exercise with you - father/son bonding with
teenagers is a nice treat. My daughter will walk with me but she refuses going to
the gym. Yes, good to see you back here!

Looks like you've got the optimal running speed, sozobe, according to your
link. I'm way slower, but it just has to do for now. Kudos on your 1 lb. per
week success.

We have my German friends' daughter (14) here for Easter break and with
two teenagers, I don't get my regular exercise done and eat way too much
junk food with them *sigh* - I shall try to work it off though!

You will, CJane!

Oy, that was rough. Intervals -- 6.0, 6.5, 7, and 6.5, mph respectively. The 7 was way too tough for where I've been just recently (as in, recently 7 wasn't much of anything and 8 was a doable challenge). Still not completely healthy I guess.

I ran 3.9 miles in a light rain today. When I posted to RunningAhead and
checked the 1000-mile club, I found that I was 0.3 miles ahead of the Pace
Bunny. I also checked my BMI and found that if I lose just one more pound,
I will no longer be "overweight".

Huzzah.