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Showing posts from September, 2009

Update on sprint experiment

Exactly four weeks ago I mentioned I had hit an aerobic plateau , with the plan to change up the workout routine and try again afterwards. So today I tried the same intervals workout on the treadmill that I wasn't able to complete two other times, and the result was ... still couldn't finish it =(. On a positive note, I got farther this time than I have in the past. I think there are a few interesting things here. First, I didn't lose any aerobic fitness during my two-week vacation, and perhaps even gained some, which is great. Next, the bike sprints didn't translate over to running aerobic capacity quite as dramatically as I would have liked. I did three treadmill workouts over those four weeks, and the rest on the bike. Anyway, in retrospect, it seems that I simply bit off more than I could chew. When I went from my previous completable interval workout to this one, I took about 9.16% off the mile pace for the sprints. Apparently that was way too aggressive. I should

Vacation Exercise

Got back Tuesday from a two-week vacation, and for the first time in the history of my vacations, I managed to exercise a lot while on vacation. 11 days out of 14. Part of the dedication was due to my setup. I was staying on a friend's couch, and his apartment had a shower, but it was only accessible through his bedroom. Since someone was usually sleeping in there way later than I woke up, I devised the ingenious plan of working out first thing every morning, followed by a shower at the gym. Two birds with one stone. Some observations: - I used to think I didn't have enough energy to workout in the morning before eating. It's not true. As long as it's a reasonable workout (45 minutes or less), I had plenty of energy, probably glycogen still in the muscles from the previous day. Also a good way to wake myself up. - On the flip side of the previous note, working out after heavy drinking the previous night is not so easy. Alcohol saps my energy in the gym like Kryptonite