Day 46: Sunday, May 10, 2009

Today was a good day. Not only was I at the end of my workout week, having worked out every single day, but on Sunday, I had time to workout twice - working my muscles in the morning, and doing some cardio in the evening. It helped in breaking up the two workouts, and I think my activity level for each will prove that.

For starters, in the morning I lifted weights. I decided on Friday that I could up the intensity on a few of the machines, and that's exactly what I did. Again, doing the lifting, my arms do become fatigued, and I do have to fight though that fatigue, but I am able to overcome it by taking breaks between sets. Again, this will read much like past lists of weight training, but there are a few subtle differences, namely the amount of weight used on the butterflies and the tricep curls:

Bicep curls - free weights - 20 lbs. each arm - 45 reps
Tricep curls - machine - 40 lbs. total - 30 reps
Lat Pulldown - machine - 70 lbs. total - 30 reps
Deltoid Laterals - machine - 50 lbs. total - 30 reps
Butterfiles - machine - 70 lbs. total - 40 reps

Then, in the evening, I went back to the gym with my wife. We didn't work together, as we did on Saturday, but since she was going, I decided to work in some cardio as well. I began on the treadmill at 4 MPH for one minute to get the settings of the machine to match my body before upping the speed to 5.2 MPH. I felt good running, luckily, it wasn't 7, or even 6, MPH, so I was able to endure longer than I would at the higher speeds. I ran for 15 minutes - though I had visions of running longer, I simply did not - before slowing for 2 minutes. After walking for 2 minutes I upped my speed again, still feeling really good at the 5.2 MPH pace, and ran for another 10 minutes. At this point, I was assuming my wife would be done at the 30 minute mark, so I was planning to slow for a 3 minute cool-down. She then proceeds to ask me if it would be okay if she did the elliptical for 10 minutes, of which I readily agreed to.

Knowing I still had time to run, I decided to go ahead and walk the 2 minutes up to the 30 minute mark before again upping my pace. As I was running, I decided that only 5 more minutes of running would do me just fine, and so at the 35 minute mark, I slowed my pace to 4 MPH to complete my time. However, after 2 minutes I felt like running once again, so I decided to do a final sprint at 7 MPH for one minute before starting my ultimate cool down.

All said and done, I ran the first 25 of 28 minutes (given that I did the first minute at walking pace), and 30 of 35 minutes. Quite a big difference from when I began and could only run 10 minutes out of every 30 - and certainly not 10 minutes in a row.

In total, I walked at 4 MPH for 9 minutes (since I walked pretty much the last four, not including my minute sprint at 7 MPH) for a distance of 0.60 miles, I ran at 5.2 MPH for 30 minutes for a distance of 2.60 miles, I ran at 7 MPH for one minute for a distance of 0.12 miles, and complete with cool down, I completed 42 minutes for 3.40 miles. Quite an excellent workout, and quite a good day overall for me, if I do say so myself.

With the 5k in mind, I eclipsed the 3.1 mile marker at 37 minutes and 44 seconds - of course, by this time I was in my walking mode, and probably could have pushed myself for a better time, but I was in the gym for a well-rounded workout, not to complete the 5k, necessarily. Either way, it was certainly a good workout, my body felt good, my breathing was great, and my max heart rate was only 163 - meaning, at least I hope, that my heart is becoming healthier. I won't see the cardiologist for another couple of months yet, but I'm sure he'll be ecstatic at my progress.