Monday, October 8, 2007

Weekly Progress: Boise RACE COMPLETED, Denver FINAL WEEK

Please post your progress in the comments.

5 comments:

Elisabeth said...

So I have been doing well. I slowed down a but for my last long run because I did it with monica, and because I was an idiot and didn't rest the day before. I WILL NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE THIS WEEKEND!!! I have instructed George not to let me do ANYTHING WHATSOEVER on Saturday so I should be ok. I'm wishing I'd worked sooner to improve my time. I started so late, I am thinking my efforts won't make any difference. Also, I'm still not sure how I will pace myself on the day. I have been walking a certain distance then running a certain distance, and repeating. But without my iPod... I'm thinking just a digital watch with a stop watch and make up some kind of time interval (though I don't know what). I used to have this digital watch that had a countdown timer with presets (1 min, 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, 30 min....) and it was just one push of a button to activate. That would be so perfect, but I'm not seeing that anywhere so far. Although I am not sure my fellow runner/walkers would appreciate hearing the beeping every few minutes as the time runs out. UGH I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!

Katrin... we've talked about how this is affected our appearance and our self esteem and everything, but what about heart health and joints? I have brought my heart rate way down. When I started, my runs would bring my heart rate up so high I was afraid for my life. Now it is very controlled and within a good range for a cardio workout or even low enough for a fat burn. Yay. I was also convinced that all of this would be doing a major number on my pre-existing joint issues. Not so. Most of my joints seem to be getting stronger, with the exception of my SI joints... they're the same. What about all of your problems? Do you think this has been helping your joint issues too? I was thinking yesterday about how hard this would be for you otherwise.

Elisabeth said...

Monica and I are trying to think about some other challenges/goals that we can set ourselves next. George was disappointed to find out that my next goal is the NaKnitSweMo (National Knit a Sweater Month), but I'm looking for physical goals too. Monica and I want to work towards all out running. And yesterday we talked about trying to do a certain number of crunches by the end of... whatever. I also thought about setting us all up for a challenge... who could do the most number of miles by the end of the year. What do you guys think?

Anonymous said...

Hey can I join now? I would love to participate now!! Let me know!

Good luck this weekend! I will be thinking of you all!

Kick some ass!!

Elisabeth said...

you betcha. added you as a contributor, welcome aboard!

Katrin said...

About the joints: The joint surfaces and menisci are basically sponges, so any impact between them is going to enhance the movement of fluid in and around them. So the nutrients will get to the various parts more efficiently. That said, it is well known that hard core runners are basically doomed to have bad knees in their old age. Any high impact activity (jogging) will cause micro-trauma that gradually builds up to full blown osteoarthritis.

That is one of the many reasons that I prefer to walk. I plan to increase my speed, nonetheless, by speed walking.

The basic answer is that the short term may provide improvement through improved fitness/body mechanics and fluid movement. However, keep the long term in the back of your mind. Some people are genetically lucky enough to not get knee arthritis, but most people eventually do have total knee reconstruction regardless of what their activities were in youth.

About timing: Bret gave me his watch to use. He preset it to 20 minutes. If it beeped before I got to the next mile marker, then I was going too slow. As you may have noted, It was set way too slow for us. It automatically reset to 20 minutes after each 20 minute interval was up. It works very well for him. He speeds up or slows down depending on what the watch tells him. I brought my ipod, but did not wear it. We were told that ipods weren't allowed, but it was not enforced here. in fact, the starter guy even said he was proud to see that noone wore their headphones today. (nearly everyone had headphones on). I kept my ipod in my fitness pouch and just checked it periodically to see how our speed was holding up.