catherine's running efforts

It was about 9:30 tonight before we were done with everything, and I still needed to go to the gym. I kind of didn't want to go, but then I thought, "What would Nan (or Allie or Melody or Lily or any number of people on the blog) do?" Probably they wouldn't have waited until it was so late to go to the gym. But if they *did* find themselves in such a situation, I'm sure they'd go. So I went. It was fine. I walked (semi-briskly) for 30 minutes at the 12% incline, and based on my heart rate and how much I sweat I decided it was similar to an easy run. That made me feel better. 

Then I did fake pullups and dips, and Eric helped me with the bench press. My goal is to be able to lift the bar on my own. :)

I'm so lucky to have a spouse who will fit his gym time around my schedule. It makes it a lot easier to go when I know he needs to go too, and it's nice that he helps me lift the weights that are too heavy for me right now. 

An hour on the treadmill at a 12% incline, alternating between two brisk walking speeds. I can tell it's an okay workout because it's hard enough that it makes me want to quit early. I tried .25 of slow running at the end, and I think that the jiggling of my belly is maybe what makes the tightening come. Unfortunately, I'm not big enough yet for the support belt we bought.

I also did the incline bench press machine since I don't want to be flat on my back and the empty bar is hard enough that it's pointless to try to do it at an incline. It turns out that the machine without any weights is just the right amount of resistance as long as I do my arms separately. Yes, my arms are that wimpy.

And I got the waterproof mp3 case from Bonnie in the mail today! She's the best. I'm so excited to try water jogging.

An hour on the treadmill at 12%, alternating between the two walking speeds again. I think that tomorrow I'm going to try the whole hour at the faster speed. I was going to try the water jogging with Awesome Bonnie's waterproof mp3 case, but I had to get home to finish some grading (one of my goals for the year is to stay on top of that), so I'll probably wait until Friday when I have more time to do the whole clothes-swimsuit-clothes thing. 

Oh, and I started running a little because yesterday's .25 was okay, but then the tightness came so I stopped. Also fake pullups and dips. My shoulders were a little sore from yesterday's fake bench press thing. 

And really, Live to Dance isn't great. And I think that real lindy hop should mostly be a club/social dance, not a performance dance.

I was all sorts of cranky about a kid who plagiarized in one of my classes and then dropped the class when I confronted him, so I wasn't really in the mood to go to the gym. But I knew I'd be glad I went, so I ended up with an hour walking on the treadmill at varying speeds and inclines. Then I worked on the fake bench press machine. 

I think I'm getting burned out on the walking on the treadmill thing. *So* excited to try the pool tomorrow. 30 minutes on a bike, 30 minutes walking up a fake hill. 

Also, I know I'm supposed to gain weight because I'm pregnant, but I feel like mostly I'm just getting fatter. I feel bad for eating more, especially since I'm not running, but I'm just so hungry...

And Eric did *great* on his first-semester grades. We should all congratulate him for his hard work while still running and spending time with me at home. :)

One time I did a sprint triathlon. It was a bunch of years ago, and I can't remember why I wanted to do it. The swim part was in a lake, and I think I had gone swimming maybe twice in preparation. I started swimming like everyone else, but there were so many people that all the thrashing kind of threw me off. Then something touched my leg. Anyway, I got tired after about 30 seconds, so I started dog-paddling. Then I got more tired and decided I didn't care what people thought, so I alternated between the paddling and kind of a back stroke. A race volunteer came over in his canoe to make sure I was okay. I told him I was just slow. I think I was second-to-last overall. 

So I'm not a swimmer. But guess what? There's a lot else that I can do in a pool that still feels like a good workout. Thank you again to Bonnie for helping introduce me to something that makes me hate being pregnant a little bit less!

I wasn't exactly sure how water jogging would work, but Eric said something about needing weights. I started with one of those ankle weights on each foot, but they weren't quite weighing me down enough. I put another set on, but I was still just kind of prancing around. It was better in the more shallow part, but for 3/4 of the length of the pool I could just bob around on my toes. I think our regular gym (pool was closed today in AF) has waist weights, so I'll try those on Monday.

I didn't want to get my head wet (and plus I'm still self-conscious about regular swimming (my swimmer brother is going to give me some lessons)), so next I grabbed a noodle and started kicking back and forth. That actually made my legs feel really good and tired, so I did that for about 15 minutes. But I wanted to work my arms, too, so I switched the noodle for those weird foam barbells and did little tricep thingies as I was kicking. It was awesome. I was visualizing how ripped I was going to get. Then I realized that was probably unrealistic, but I think it'd definitely help me be more toned.

So...best day at the gym in a long time. Yay.