cheryl

My cross-training today:  35 minutes on the elliptical, 22:47 of it at a fast pace (did a 5K in that time) on a level 10; 23 minutes on the stair stepper.  I then walked with my dog on the canal road for about 30 minutes.  How many miles is all that?  I think I'll just put down 5, that sounds good.

For cross-training today, I spent 50 minutes on the elliptical.  Lots of fun.  I figured since my BBK group went 60 minutes today, I should do 60 also, but only made it to 50 because I had to get home so my son could have the car.

Update on the injury:  when I broke my toe a few years ago, I could feel it get better each day.  In other words, every day it felt a little better, and by a week after it felt almost healed.  For this current injury, every day it feels about the same.  If there is any improvement, I can't really tell, but I figure there has to be since I'm not running on it.  That's why I think it will be at least a month and probably longer before I can run again.  Remember when Carlos Boozer had the never ending hamstring injury a couple of years ago?  Everyone thought he was faking the injury because no injury takes that long to heal, or so they said.  Unfortunately, these hamstring injuries take a long time to heal.  So I'm just going to have to become a friend of the gym and learn to love cross-training.

On another note, I went to the BYU bookstore the other day, and saw they were selling shirts that said, "Quest for 12-1."  Sorry, BYU fans, I couldn't resist, and I'm a BYU fan myself.

Not much today, 20 minutes on the stair master.  Actually, timewise it wasn't a lot, but exercise effort-wise it was quite a bit.  Nothing gives you an aerobic workout like that stairmaster.  I have a love/hate relationship with it.

I couldn't spend a lot of time at the gym today because my 9 year old's football team was making a visit to BYU.  We got to see the locker room, weight room and then we got to watch a practice.  Some of the players got into a scuffle right in front of us.  I thought that wasn't much of an example for these young boys, but it did make things interesting.  Then all the players came over and gave autographs to anyone who asked.  They were all very nice.  I was especially impressed with Bronco Mendenhall.  I saw a lot of kindness and goodness in the way he treated everyone.  Maybe I'm just a biased BYU fan, but I was just really impressed by him.  Harvey Unga was also really nice, he went up to all the boys and called them by name (they had their jerseys on with their names on them) and thanked them all for coming.  It was a fun experience and I will root even more vigorously for BYU now.

I spent about 35 minutes on the elliptical and was able to go the 5K distance in 21:55 at a level 10.  I then did 12 minutes on the stair master.  I also did some yoga and core work.  I heard that a weak core leads to hamstring issues, so I'm going to try and strengthen that area.  I also was able to run in place for 5 minutes with no pain.  I'm not sure what that means because most of the pain is when I stride out, but maybe if I can run in place regularly I'll keep some muscle memory on how it feels to run.

My workout today consisted of 53 minutes on the elliptical.  I did 1:30 at a hard pace, then 30 seconds recovery.  That was pretty fun.  I then walked for 10 minutes on the treadmill, just to see if walking aggravated my hamstrings.  I could feel a little something, but it wasn't too bad.

 I'm tempted every day to run, but I just have to resist, knowing I'll be glad that I took the time to heal completely.  I keep telling myself that if I can't really run again for two months, that's ok, two months goes fast.  I remember when I had an IT band injury many years ago, it was a bad injury, at its worst I couldn't have run if I wanted to. Despite that, I resisted taking time off from running, and I would rest a few days, then test it out.  I did that several times before I just decided I would not run for two months.  I stuck to that, and then after two months started running again, had a really good running season capped by a PR at St. George, and have never again had IT band issues.  So I guess taking enough time off is the answer to some of these nagging injuries.  I hope I can stick to my plan of no running until everything feels better.

I'm especially tempted to run when I read the blogs of the BBK people telling about the workouts.  Then some of them talk about how cold they were, and then I'm happy I didn't have to get up early to run in the dark and cold.  So BBK people, keep telling how cold it is during the workouts so I don't miss the group so much.

To the Rec Center.  I did 2x20 minutes on the stair stepper.  The last 20 minutes I put the stair master on its highest level and did some running--not the whole 20 minutes, that would have killed me, but some minute intervals spread throughout.  I can do that kind of running without feeling any pain in my hamstrings, so maybe that's what I'll have to do the next few weeks.  I then spent 25 minutes on the elliptical.  Family Guy was on the TV when I did that, so of course I was forced to watch.  What a show.  Funny but very crude at the same time.