Motivational Desktop 1600x1200

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Found this quote and I thought it was perfect! I might always use the Checkered Background unless anyone wants to submit something that they find motivational that's not so busy a quote can be added with it. :)

Rowing Day & Copycat Frozen Goat

Okay so let's talk about how this was the most un-motivating day since ever and yet it all turned around and it was so wonderful I'm about exploding with happiness! I will refrain from talking about work though I had a great day there today. When I got home I felt drained, so completely sleepy, I was beyond ready for lights out. Instead of sleeping like I thought about doing I made my favorite imitation of Planet Smoothie's Frozen Goat. In case you're interested I put the recipe below.

Making the Frozen Goat is so easy and it packs a punch as far as energy is concerned. It gives you immediate energy and sustainable energy so you don't completely crash.

Take 1 cup Cold Coffee (You can use instant to avoid refrigeration once percolated), 2 tablespoons low-fat creamer (best to go with one that doesn't have a crazy flavor in it), 2 tablespoons chocolate syrup (you can substitute with low-fat hot cocoa mix) 1 large frozen banana sliced, and about 6 ice cubes. You can add soy or whey as well it should not affect the taste. The coffee and the chocolate give you the boost to get going and the banana gives you staying power. I know it's hard to find frozen bananas but its really easy to flash freeze them on your own. Just sliced them to about 1/4 inch thickness and place on a tray in the freezer for an hour and then put it a ziploc bag and keep in freezer for future use. See? Easy. :)

In any case, after I felt extremely full I picked up around the apartment a bit and went to check the mail adn my replacement FitBit arrived and I am soooo happy! If you're a Facebook friend you should be able to find me pretty easily or if you're not on Facebook you can find me by me email. Comment below if you would like to friend me on either social platform ;) So of course I immediately went back to the apartment to get it charged and synced up to take with my when I go to the gym. I can't believe how relieved I was. I just haven't been able to stay on top of my fitness food wise without it telling me "how much I'm allowed to eat."

So I get to the Gym and I have to wait a few minutes for the Rowing Machine to open up (bear in mind my LA Fitness only has TWO! what an oversight.)There's a guy warming up beside the other machine while I get started to go and we're keeping pretty good pace at the same time. Over the intercom they are starting to say 5 minutes until the Gym closes which was perfect because that's about how much time I had left on my half hour timer. :) I make it to the end and the guy beside me goes to a stop and asks if I cross-train in rowing or if I row professionally. I tell him I've only rowed twice in my life and have the blisters to prove it and as it turns out this man was the coach for a local team! He suggested a tryout if I'm just beginning and my stats are that good, enough to keep pace with the coach! By the way my stats are below:

Time: 30 Minutes

Distance: 5360 meters or 3.33 miles

Average Pace: 35 strokes/minute

I'm not really sure I can make the time or monetary commitment and I don't want to get caught up in two athletic hobbies. I want to lose weight but I don't want to completely disappear, lol. That being said I will start to track my progress on this as well since it might turn out to be a nice hobby later on when money is better, I'm stronger, and I've proven my dedication to fitness is more than a passing fancy.

Run Day & Unusual Quandry

Okay so today I did my 30 minute maintenance run. My average pace over 1.95 miles was 15'24" which saved off roughly 40 seconds from my run on Saturday. I am hoping that when I do my run on Thursday during my 30 minutes I make it to 2.25 miles - probably just wishful thinking again. I really tried to pace myself better and I didn't start having real trouble until about a quarter into the mile. When my timer told me I only had 4 minutes to go I pushed the envelope through the pain as much as possible. Like Saturday my body gave up before my will to keep going did. The simple truth might just be that my legs are not strong enough for this yet. That being said I can't crosstrain with emphasis on the legs to build strength. I might just continue with the overall toning of rowing. Will update this post again a little later. I'm just glad I finished strong this time and not just walking all of the last bit.

Rowing & Blisters

Okay so first things first, I super enjoyed rowing today. I rowed for a half hour and burned 253 calories and rowed 5000 meters which translates to 3.10686 miles! Talk about a work out that packs one heck of a punch. I was rowing 25 strokes per minute! One Livestrong article says a person who rows an hour every day can lose a pound each week! It's a wonderful cardio workout that increases endurance when performed at low resistance over a long period such as a half hour like I did today. One of the unique things about a rowing machine is that is uses all the muscles in the body a single workout allowing for even muscle toning. When I say it works everything I mean everything! You work your legs by doing the initial drive, the arms get worked out as pull the bar from beginning to your abdomen, the entire drive involves your back and abs. If you want a breakdown on the exact muscle groups used can check out this Concept2 Article and click on the graphics on the middle of the page. As a note the Concept2 is the rowing machine I used today at my Gym which I totally love! That page also compare the exercise level with other workout machines which shows that an indoor rower is the most practical workout machine.

Active.com suggests the following routines for runners hoping to increase endurance through rowing:  4 500 meter repeats resting for 2 minutes between each 500 meters, Interval sprinting which 8 45 seconds of hard rowing followed by 15 seconds of recovery rowing between each of the 45 seconds, 10 minutes nonstop increasing intensity as you go up, 4 5 minute sessions where each 1 minute segment is broken down by number of strokes per minute - the first minute should be 18 strokes per minute, the second minute 22 strokes per minute, the third 26 strokes per minute, the fourth 22 strokes per minute, and the fifth 26 strokes per minute - this should be done continuously with no breaks. The website also breaks down proper form so check it out and the Concept2 article to get an idea of how you should be doing this to get the maximum benefit.

I will say though, WEAR workout gloves. I have 2 blisters on each hand from the machine but I have to admit it was totally worth it. You can can get a pair of cheap ones to start with for $8.77 from Walmart. I imagine the ones from Sports Authority are better but they encroach on $30 a pair so save that for if you get really into it or use multiple machines where the grip might blister your hands (like weights!)

All this being said, I left the gym soaked in my own sweat and completely satisfied and content. Some days I really love my  workout. I think I will replace Water Aerobics with Rowing. :)

Run Day, Screaming Thighs, and Progress Report

Okay so today is the first day I attempted the 2 mile run as Saturdays's according to Disney Run's Training Program should be about distance and adding distance every week rather than time. I will say I started the first mile off pretty strong with an average pace of 14'44"/mile. It was so humid and the sun was so bright, but I did manage to break through my mental barrier and keep going until about a quarter into the second mile where my thighs thought they were going to die. I could breathe, I wasn't tired, but my body was giving up on me. I kept going anyway determined to at least finish the two miles even if I had to walk the rest of it which I sadly had to do. My second mile had an average pace of  17'25"/mile which was a decrease of 19% in performance. You can see how I completely choked the in the pace graph below.

I ran these numbers through Runswift Pace Calculator on my Windows 8 Phone and it predicted that it would take me just 56 seconds shy of 3 hours to complete 10 miles. I took a screenshot so you can see the whole breakdown. Hopefully these numbers will decrease every week. :) That being said this is probably the only truly useful running app on the Windows 8 operating system what with it's limited store selection but for something simple like this is has proved a valuable tool in guessing how I'm going to finish up.

Below is my progress report for the last week. Nike+ also uses a trophy system, I won my first trophy this week for running 3 times in a week. On my dashboard it displays tips that are appropriate for your data, for instance after syncing this last run my advice was to Pace Myself - You're starting fast and losing steam. You can see my average pace for this week has gone down with each run and that I've already run on a road and that I have done a run at each point in the day this week. For argument's sake let's look at those times. The  first run I did this week I did on Tuesday at 5PM and I ran the mile in 14'46" with an average pace of 14'. The second run I did this week I did on Wednesday at 9:45PM and I ran the mile in 15'48" with an average pace of 14'33". The last run I did today Saturday at 9:30AM and I ran the mile in 14'42" with an average pace of 14'44" and the second mile I ran in 18'26" with an average pace of 17'25". So my pace most suffers with additional mileage and I seem to run my best run after work hours but before it's dark out.

The Training Goal Report: Last but not least let's check out where I am in my training goals I am in week 2 of my training plan. According to my predicted splits it at this juncture it will take me 1 hr, 7 min, and 37 sec to complete 4 miles, I'm putting these all into the same unit for calculation simplicity which comes to 67.62 minutes, when divided out by 4 comes out to 16.905 minutes. My goal by end of Week 4 is to 4 miles with an average pace of 14 minutes per mile. So at this point I'm short by nearly 3 minutes per mile so my Weekly goal next week is shave a minute and a half per mile off my time. I had hoped to lose half an inch off my waistline by Week 4 - my measurements won't be too good this week as I didn't measure myself until Wednesday but for the sake of consistency I will measure anyway :) My waistline is 27 inches same as Wednesday.

My Improvement Plan - This week I did not follow my schedule and I cheated a few times here or there too so next week I will be active for at least 1 hour every day in some form and I will limit my intake of sugared beverages and junk food. That's right I confess I ate pizza for dinner Thursday night and Friday I ate a hamburger! 

Making Running a Game

 Okay so as you can see I did a little better yesterday than I did today. Some things that may have influenced my pace time tonight is that I have been awake since 6:00AM and my leg muscles are still a little sore from yesterday. I totally understand now why they say don't run two days in a row for beginners (not sure if that's true for experienced runners or not, anybody want to weigh in on that?) my legs just aren't used to the abuse anymore and needless to say I'm going to be walking stiff tomorrow if at all, LESSON LEARNED. Some things that worked in my favor was the temperature and running at night - simulating the conditions of the race which is great for practicing. I also used a specifically designed playlist with a little game in mind. Since I don't have a way to actively watch my pace at this juncture I decided to use music as my way of determining when to jog and when to walk fast. I would walk fast through all the verses and run/jog through every chorus. Looking at my graph below you can see that I started off with slow songs to warm up or rather songs with non repeating choruses and saved the hard sells for the middle. I hit a bit of a wall towards the end there because my legs were just throbbing but I tried my best to continue to walk/jog according to the game I set for myself.

I ran using mostly high intensity country songs, in case you're interested this was the playlist I ran with today. Days Go By is a great song for the above mentioned game because the chorus just keeps freaking repeating I thought it would NEVER end. I might change my last song it took too long to get to the meat of the song while fast begins a little slow. Just as a personal critique.

1. Kerosene - Miranda Lambert
2. Sin Wagon - Dixie Chicks
3. Be My Baby Tonight - John Michael Montgomery
4. Days Go By - Keith Urban
5. Sold - John Michael Montgomery

Running Day & Motivating Playlist

Howdy folks, I broke with the schedule, yeah I know I may as well not have one since I cannot stick to it exactly. I do everything just not always when I intend to do it lol. Yesterday it rained all evening so I ran today skipping Water Aerobics. Looking at the stats you can see I did much better this afternoon than I did on Sunday. I think it has to do with the fact that it had JUST finished raining when I ran which gave me a nice edge. I had intended to do a whole 30 minutes but My legs were just too sore. I think what I'm going to need to do for a little while is do a daily mile until my legs are built enough to handle the sustained stress. That being said I didn't have as much difficulty breathing this time around. I believe using a pumped up playlist helped as well. Below is the graph of my pace.

I am little more comfortable with the Nike+ Website now and there are some pretty cool features but I will with-hold a review until the end of the week so there are more stats to work with.


This was the "Eclectic" playlist I used today:

1. Original (feature Katharine McPhee) - SMASH Cast - SMASH Soundtrack Season 2
2. I Do - Colbie Caillat - All of You
3. Down in Mississippi - Sugarland - Twice the Speed of Life
4. Double Heart - The Band Perry - Self Titled Album
5. Love Letter - Leona Lewis - Echo
6. A Night Like This - Caro Emerald - Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor
7. Good Time (feature Carly Rae Jepsen) - Owl City - Good Time Single
8. Diva - Beyonce - I Am...Sasha Fierce
9. Move Ya Body - Nina Sky - Now! That's What I Call Music 16

I have a handful of playlists, I might post one with each run or maybe just once a week? Comment below with song suggestions or frequency of posting. :)