Women's Health Ultimate Fitness Plan Update - July 29

I've felt really bad this month that I haven't been sticking to a workout schedule as closely as I would have liked. We did have swimming lessons twice a week and I think I managed a couple workouts in between as well. But, I neglected many of the agility, flexibility, and balance exercises this month. So, it's not surprising that I haven't seen positive gains. My cardio I know has suffered. Swimming is a great workout, but I'm not at the level that it can maintain my cardio endurance.

It's time to switch up the exercises again. There are definitely quite a few of the strength training ones from this last set that I'll keep. The fact that I didn't do the balance, flexibility, and agility ones should tell you how those ones will stick. One of the new flexibility exercises is one that I have already come across via FitSugar. It's called pigeon and I already love it, so I'm looking forward to starting that one regularly. Hopefully August will be a bit calmer than July, although we already have a lot of social commitments lined up. We'll also need to decide what fitness stuff we're signing up for in the fall.

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Women's Health Ultimate Fitness Update

So today I went ahead and tested myself. I was expecting it to be worse off than it was. I don't enjoy this set of balance, flexibility, and agility exercises as much as the previous ones, so I'm more likely to skip that part of the workout. But, it still seems as though I'm not doing too badly.

Our kick boxing classes are officially on hiatus for the summer. They will possibly return in the fall. So far it looks like summer exercise will be a little less intense, so I might start seeing more plateau's and less of the gentle upward slope, but we'll see.

This week coming up we're starting a month of swimming lessons. Every Tuesday and Thursday we'll be hitting the pool and trying to improve our swimming skills. Plus, I've promised Lance a bike ride today, so we may be doing more of that during the summer too.

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Women's Health Ultimate Fitness: 2nd month update

So, I think my last update I miscalculated because it's time that we switch exercises entirely, which means it's been 2 months. I'm feeling pretty pleased because I'm definitely seeing little gains. My heart rate seems to be pretty good according to these measures and I'm feeling better with my balance. My overall body strength is also improving. I can really tell I'm doing ok in my kick boxing class since I can do three 3-minute rounds of skipping with no problem and felt pretty good after yesterday's class. I think my agility score is improving too.



I'm looking forward to switching exercises though, since there are a couple that I'm not enjoying very much. In particular, there was a one-legged bridge chest press exercise that I wasn't overly fond of. Also, since my flexibility score hasn't improved at all, I'm hoping some different stretches will help get me more limber.

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Women's Health Ultimate Fitness: One Month

So, it's been about one month since I started the ultimate fitness challenge and so far I'm enjoying the program. I'm not going terribly hard core, but the plan is helping me keep focussed on exercise, which is definitely a good thing. There are weeks where I miss a session or I cut it short, but I'm still managing about 5 workouts/week. Here are the up-to-date graphs . . .



So first is my heart fitness. You'll notice a big drop in my heart rate! I'm not sure, but I may have messed up when checking my heart rate. I'm terrible at counting my own pulse. But, I'm still going to try the more intense cardio sessions. They are longer sessions, more intense intervals, and more 'roof raising' sessions. What I've been doing on some days is splitting the cardio into two shorter runs, which works out ok. We'll see how my cardio is in another 2-weeks/month.

My upper body strength has felt a bit more solid. I think I definitely am improving. I also think once I get back to kick boxing class, it'll improve even more.

My lower body is definitely improving. The running and the exercises are helping with that. I can't wait to do some kicks with some extra power!

Today my balance felt better. I am definitely improving. I haven't improved enough to go up one category yet, but I'm slowly progressing.

My agility has also improved. I'm able to jump quicker and I'm jumping back and forth from line to line with greater consistency. The exercises definitely help with this one!

My flexibility has not yet progressed to the next level. But, this category is a bit difficult to judge. I love the stretches in the program though! It's too bad I wasn't testing my flexibility before I began kick boxing since I've definitely seen improvement in my kick height (when I started my goal was to kick my own stomach height and now I can consistently kick to my own chest/shoulder height, sometimes stretching it to my own neck/head level).

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Incredi-brief update . . .

Haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update as to why I haven't been updating.

Home - busy, just bought Ikea furniture which is half assembled in my living room. Stepping over cardboard boxes . . . again. Now have an extra bookcase - any takers?

Work - busy and not busy. We don't have many customers right now, but all the normal work stuff that my former co-worker used to do have all sorta fallen on my shoulders. So, now I get to fit her three days worth of work into the one extra day that I'm working now and still do all my normal tasks too. At least no more tax returns though! And, there is a warm and fuzzy side too! I just saved someone $200 on his car insurance so I feel good about that right now.

Exercise - Feeling pretty good in my consistency. Haven't felt too challenged during workouts lately, but my muscles tell a bit of a different story. It turns out I'm going to miss 4 kickboxing sessions this time around :( I guess I'll have to make up for it with the rest of them being more intense!

Summer Plans - Summer is filling up fast with a picnic in Maple Ridge planned, a wedding, and a trip down to Seattle for PAX (aka Geek convention). Luckily, my CAIB exam is early in July so I'll either get to enjoy my summer because I've passed and I'm finished that designation, or be anguishing over my books because I failed and have to re-write it in the fall.

Well, back to work for me since that is where I'm posting from.

New Fitness Goals

Today I started the Women's Health Ultimate Fitness Plan for 2007. I took the fitness test and was a bit surprised by some of my results. They test you in 5 areas: Cardio, Strength (upper and lower body), Balance, Flexibility, and Agility. Based on your results, you fall into one of three categories: Aspiring, Solid, or Strong. I expected my Cardio to be Solid along with my Lower Body Strength. I thought I'd probably be aspiring in Flexibility, Agility, and Balance though. What I ended up with was a solid score for Cardio, Balance, Flexibility, and Upper Body Strength, with aspiring for Lower Body Strength and Agility. Go figure!



Since I love data tracking, I've already made new tracking graphs. These will only get updated once every two weeks instead of once a week. But, there are more graphs to look at. I kept them small this week because there isn't much to see yet. My goal for each of the categories is to get to the 'Strong' level.

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - Today!

Variable cloudiness. 5 degrees Sunday morning with highs in the afternoon reading 11. 20% probability of precipitation.



Well, the big day is here! I realized one flaw with these weather forecasts is the predicted high usually isn't reached until sometime in the afternoon. But, that's ok.  Our garage is usually around 5-7 degrees when we run on the treadmill. It was really the rain I was more concerned about, because I'm a big wimp!





I'm a bit nervous, but my primary goal today is just to go out and have fun. I'm already all dressed and just need to assemble our drinks, brush my teeth, and hop in the car. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post after the run to let you know my time. Until then, assume that I ran it in 58 minutes ;)

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Sun Run Training - Week 12

Here's the week 12 graph. I'm slowly creeping up to the target line. Next week is the last week of training and there are only 2 more running sessions scheduled before the actual run on Sunday.

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Sun Run Training - Week 11

I'm making a bit of progress and I'm pretty pleased with my running performance so far.  I'm really hoping that weather forecast starts looking better for the Sun Run though.  I'm only recording two training sessions.  My third was supposed to be Saturday morning for a 70 minute run.  But, I didn't have time before work (because I wasted too much time in the morning), so I just did some fartlek-ing for half an hour.  I didn't really get a chance to do any fartlek training sessions earlier in the training program and they are a more diverting kind of running session.

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Sun Run Training - Week 10

This week I can see a bit of progress on my overall speed. I also ran for 65 minutes on Saturday and managed to do just a little over 10 km in that time. It was about a minute faster than my actual Sun Run time last year. I'm kind of disappointed because I'd like to be faster than my time last year. But, I also still have 3 more weeks left to train (man did the time fly by!). Plus, last year I thought my time would be about 10 minutes slower than it actually was. So, I'm hopeful that I'll still be able to shave off a few minutes and reach my basic goal of running it in under an hour.

I'm feeling pretty good overall about my fitness level. Kick boxing is awesome! Our friends Gareth and Debbie have signed up for the boxing class that runs a little later in the afternoon with the same instructor. We might sign up for that one too and then we'll have friends in class.

I've spent most of today doing some general housework and applying a grout sealer to the various grouted surfaces of the house. Lance is going to help me move some kitchen furniture this evening so we can tackle that area. The only real tough part about the kitchen is moving everything off the floor. I really wasn't looking forward to that. Hopefully we'll get the whole area a bit more organized though so things will look generally neater in there when we're done.

Sun Run Training - Week 8 or 9

So, when I got back on track with the Sun Run training, I actually started out a week behind where I should have. I realized that this week and combined the training sessions of Week 8, which was a rest week, and Week 9, which was a normal training week. Next week I'll be doing Week 10, which is really getting into longer runs (40-65 minutes). I was startled by that big jump from Tuesday of this week. Hopefully, that'll be my performance on Sun Run day!

Sun Run Training - Week 7

Well, we've passed the halfway point and I've finally managed to get another good training week in.





You can see the gap between reported sessions on the graph and I'm happy that my time off didn't seem to have a major impact. I didn't gain any, but I didn't lose any either. You'll also notice that I lowered that goal of mine to just 10 kph. It looks a lot closer to where I'm currently at. I've been at a bit of a plateau lately but hopefully I'll be able to see a bit more improvement in the last 5 weeks of training.

Low Profile

Well, it looks like I might be keeping a bit of a low profile on the blog world for a while. I haven't had much time lately to keep up with my blog reading/posting and it'll probably be like this for the next couple of weeks too. I'm going to try to pop in with some updates and stuff, but I can't make any promises. For the next two weeks, I'll be working 6 days a week, as I've picked up some extra shifts. The good news is that they are at our Cloverdale office, so I'll actually be working with my husband for a couple days each week. That might be bad news too, but the only way I'll know for sure is to try it out. I'm looking forward to it since it'll give me a chance to see how another office runs and they way they organize things there.

In other news, I'm happy to say I got new runners! Thanks to the new shoes, I've been able to start my Sun Run training without pain. Well, there's still a little pain. I mean, 'no pain, no gain,' right? But at least it's the normal muscle ache and not shooting pains through my feet and legs. The only slight downside is that it ate up pretty much all of my allowance (minus my Treo fund) so I'm broke until April. I'm thinking this won't be so hard to bear since I'll be working most of the time anyway. I've got pictures, but they are at home and I'm posting from work.

Speaking of work things, I get to help out a bit with tax returns this year. It is quite interesting so far. And, with the program we've got, not very hard at all. I've done a few simple ones under supervision. I also have done most of my own tax return for this year. We're just waiting for a couple more RRSP slips from our automatic contributions that were set up. This year, I've managed to really increase my basic financial intelligence and things are starting to make a little more sense now.

Sun Run Training - Week 5

Well, you'll notice that there isn't any fancy chart for this week, and my update isn't even on time. I hit a bit of a bump in my training last week. The whole time I've been running, I've been noticing that my legs feel fatigued quite easily. This week I guess I hit my limit because during one of the training sessions, my right foot started to hurt quite badly, right in the middle of the foot in the centre of the arch. So, I slowed it down. The next time I tried running, I had major shin splints. I slowed it down to a walk and it took almost the whole session of walking for my legs to feel ok.

After doing a bit of online research on it (which I'm too lazy to look up and link to right now), it looks like I my be starting to get falling arches. I'm guessing it's probably because of the high-impact kickboxing activity combined with runners that are definitely due for retirement.

I've still been training, although I've dialed it back majorly so I avoid aggravating my feet/ankles/shins any more. I've also started doing some strengthening exercises on alternating days. This morning I went for a short run and they felt ok. I think new shoes will definitely help.

So, I'll still be training, but I'll probably be aiming to complete the race in just under an hour instead of the original 49 minutes I had hoped for. That's ok though since the 49 minutes was my secondary goal. I figured I might as well aim for something a bit more impressive than a 5 minute improvement on last year's time.

My new shoes probably won't be purchased until March, since I don't have enough February allowance left-over right now for shoes (I do have allowance left over to get myself a new MAC eyeshadow though).

Sun Run Training - Week 4

This week was a bit of a rest week and I was very glad since I've had a bit of a cold. I'm not making as much progress as I'd like. However, looking at the numbers, my kph has increased by about a whole kilometer from about 8.3 to 9.3. Hopefully I'll be able to increase that to at least 10 kilometers per hour by April 15th.

Redemption

So, I managed to slightly redeem myself with a really good first session at kick boxing. The only familiar face that was there was Darcy, the instructor. But, this class seems to have a little bit more of a serious tone overall. We started with three intense rounds of skipping for 2 minutes, punctuated with one minute of sit-ups. Then we did some stretching and went over the basic kicks and punches again. I was even impressed with my injured finger since it was only a little sore, but mostly just stiff.

Sun Run Training - Week 3

So in this week's graph it looks like I've plateaued a bit. This week in general was just a bit of a wash for me. I want a do-over! I did a bit of weight training this week and my legs were so tired that I didn't do my full run today. My km/hr is a bit higher, but in general the run felt terrible. Plus, I still have kickboxing to do today! Hopefully I'll feel better after that!

P.S. Sorry about lack of posts this week. Just haven't felt much like blogging. But, I probably should since I think it keeps me slightly more sane in the long-run.

Sun Run Training - Week 2

Well, I've just finished my third session for week 2 and I thought I'd better update before I lose momentum. I've made a little bit of progress and I am getting faster. However, I still have a long way to go. I'll probably re-evaluate my target in a few weeks and see if I can realistically improve as much as I'd like to by the Sun Run.

Sun Run Training - Week 1

Well, my finger injury did not stand in the way of my Sun Run Training the way it did for my strength training. So far I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm running at about 3/4 of the speed I did the Sun Run in last year, so hopefully the next few months will improve upon that. Here's a graph I created with ">bellygraph to track my progress . . .





The little blue line represents how fast I've run during this week. The dashed line represents my goal run. It's actually a little scary right now having it put down in numbers and seeing it in a graphic form like that. But, having a very clear goal in mind is one of the best ways to actually achieve your goals.

Happy New Year!

Ok, I know I'm a wee bit late on that one! But, I'll save you the explanations and get on with the post.

I had mentioned earlier that I was going to post about my New Year's Resolutions a bit more in detail, so here's that post.

First of all, I take a look at the changing of the year as an opportunity to stop and spend some time reflecting about my life. Which direction do I want to be headed in? How can I bring myself closer to the things I want out of life? What did I set out to do in the past year that I haven't done, and what have I managed to spend a lot of time on? What also helps is that I've done up a list of things that I would like to accomplish in my life. I think the current total is somewhere between 115 and 130, but I can't be sure. A lot of my "New Year's Resolutions" come off of that list too. These are things I've generally put a lot of thought into and are things I think would make my life better or more interesting.

I'll tell you right now that I don't manage to keep all my resolutions. Some of them are things that I would like to constantly improve upon. Others are things that once I achieve them, they're done. If I don't manage to do something, it isn't the end of the world, because this is not the one time of year that I do any goal setting or life evaluation. It just happens to be a time when many people are thinking about it, so I join in with them and get a little benefit for myself out of it.

This year, my resolution list looks like this . . .

1) Finish my CAIB designation.

I've done CAIB 2 and 3 and I really should just finish numbers 1 and 4 and be done with it. It is boring and tedious, but finishing it will be nice on the resume. Plus, while Lance is doing CGA courses it's a good time for me to be studying too. The next test writes in February and I'll be there (so long as the textbook finally gets here!).

2) Get my full driver's license.

I think this one is more daunting than all the studying. However, I also haven't been driving as much lately since Lance's work schedule changed a little bit so that he starts and finishes earlier in the day.

3) Run the Sun Run in less than an hour.

Last year I surprised the heck out of myself by finishing in 1h 4m. I thought I would be a full 10 minutes slower at least! This year, I'm pretty sure if I train diligently, I should be able to finish in under an hour. I'm just not sure whether I'll be using this site, or this one for the training schedule.

4) NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month

Every November a bunch of people as weird as I am set themselves the challenging task of writing a novel in one month. The goal is quantity and not quality. It builds up some writing skills and since writing is something I'd love to do professionally, I thought I'd give it a shot. I know it'll be crap, but at least it'll be a long piece of crap that I could improve upon.

5) Skydiving

Yes, I am going to jump out of a perfectly good airplane strapped to a person and a parachute. Lance even said that he would go skydiving with me, which is a big deal since the thought rather frightens him. The only thing that might interfere with this one is saving up the money for it since I'm also saving up for goal #6.

6) Buy a SmartPhone

I'd really like to upgrade my Palm Pilot. A cell phone makes sense for so many things in the future. So, it seems like it would be foolish not to get a combo deal. Only problem is that I'm not a phone person so I don't want a monthly contract. Besides, the monthly contract that I'd need to get in order to get the phone for cheap is insanely expensive because it's a voice and data plan. So, I have to save up for an $800 phone and then do the monthly pre-paid phone card thing. I think I'm going to go with Rogers because they have a $100 phone card that doesn't expire for a year. If I'm saving up $800, I may as well save an extra hundred for the phone card. Anyway, I have a savings plan in place so that I should be able to get it in the fall (or earlier depending on how quickly I save up those pennies, or how quickly the phone prices come down).

So there you have it. If you have some goals that you'd like to share, feel free to list them in the comments.