Day 872

Challenges:
Easy Core Challenge Day 7
Plank Hero Day 7
20x3 Running Day 5? Actually, I'm not at all sure that what I did today counts as a run. I tried, you see, to do it in zone 2, but even loping along really slowly (more like a loping walk, really), I couldn't keep my HR in the right range. So I ended up walking, but I had to walk faster than I'd normally walk. Even then, though, my HR kept dropping so I'd have to ramp things up a bit to raise it again. Occasionally it went too high, and into zone 3. So I'd walk again, and when the HR dropped, I picked up the weights that are part of the treadmill, only they are quite light - the heaviest is 5lb, so what's that, 2.5kg? Anyway, swinging them around and pumping my arms while holding them got the heart rate up but I didn't really enjoy that. Finally, I found that if I walk normally, but every few minutes do a lot of little mincing steps to raise the HR, then walk normally again, I can keep the HR in zone 2. Phew! All up today, I walked/ran/loped/minced for 55 minutes which was about 5k. This had better be worth it, but from what I've been reading, it takes months of working in zone 2 before you see any real difference. Still, if it works... Anyway, so that's why I'm not sure that today's workout counted. I did run for a bit, but not for 20 minutes. I think I'm going to have to stop this challenge, and just do my walking 3 or so times a week for the next... year? Nah, it shouldn't be like that, because the more I do it (according to the research I've done), the better I'll get and the harder I can work while remaining in that zone. Well, we'll see.

I struggle with two of the exercises the podiatrist gave me. One is heel/calf raises. Not that I have any difficulty doing them, mind you, but on my bad foot, now that I have to do them one-legged, they hurt my big toe, so I'm doing the "toe push-ups" the physio told me about ages ago to see if that helps. The other is the hop-and-stick exercise, where I hop to one side (only a little hop) and stay/stick, making sure I have good balance before I hop back the other way. I wonder if this problem is connected to the toe more than the ankle... Doing well with the other exercises though.

calendula It seems a good thing to do, and what with my peculiarly high exercise heart rate, it might be the solution, so I'm going to stick with it as best I can. Plus it gives me a really good excuse - I mean, reason - to run even slower than I do already!

I've tried zone 2 training in the past and experienced the same thing - my heart rate seems very happy at zone 3 for what seems like the most basic cardio effort. Glad that you've found the "golf course pace" keeps you within that zone!

Day 871

Challenges:
Easy Core Challenge Day 6
Plank Hero Day 5
20x3 Running Day 4. Another ab day - Classic Abs. I've been working to avoid the ab workouts that are planks, partly because of the challenge and partly because I ought to do ab exercises that aren't just planks.
Exercise bike. 30 minutes.

I've been looking into Zone 2 training and thought I'd give it a bit of a go on the exercise bike. It was harder than I thought to get my heart rate up to zone 2 but not into zone 3. I kept dropping 20-30bpm below what I was aiming for, but if I really cranked things up, I'd shoot past, and that would be a waste of time too. This Z2 training is harder than I thought! Apparently, though, according to my Fitbit record, my usual walk around the golf course has me in the right zone, except for a few parts when it drops, so that might be the best thing to do, and walking around the place is way more interesting than sitting on an exercise bike for an hour. The weather today, however, was not propitious - a bit wet, very windy, with the feel temp hovering between -2° and 2° all day. It's been quite cold already, with another week forecast to be around 8-11°.

Day 870

Challenges:
Easy Core Challenge Day 5
Plank Hero Day 4
20x3 Running Day 3. Second day of doing the ZR interval training. I still enjoyed it, though I don't know for how long. I suppose it depends on how different the transmissions are because hearing pretty much the same thing again and again can get a little wearing. Still, if that happens, I'll just set the timer with those same intervals and listen to an episode instead - but I think that's still a while in the future. With all the sprints, I increased the speed to that higher level and that was rather good.
Playdate with Marcy. 3 x 10 Lat pull-downs.
Stretching. Did a follow-along which was okay and there was a stretch that was new to me that I quite liked, but all-in-all, it wasn't what I wanted/needed today so it wasn't very satisfying. But I did learn a new stretch and that was good.

Day 869

Challenges:
Easy Core Challenge Day 4
Plank Hero Day 3
20x3 Running Day 2. Abs day today - Washboard Abs

Poomsae training. Thought I'd try a little experiments today and wore a long-sleeved shirt rather than my usual short-sleeves under my dobok tonight. I was a little warmer before we started but got too hot when actually training. Of course, training poomsae is different from general training because we've got our whole bodies activated pretty much the whole time, doing a pattern, but if we're holding a paddle or waiting for a turn in general class, it's easy to cool down. So, no long-sleeves for poomsae! Tonight we did Taebaek. It's been a while since I've done it so I screwed it up the first time through. The second time - well, at least by then I'd remembered the moves! As usual, we did a station, got comments, then drilled it about five times. Finally we had about 15 minutes to go through any parts we wanted, then we did it another 3 or 4 times. I think mine got better.

Day 868

Challenges:
Easy Core Challenge Day 3
Plank Hero Day 2
20x3 Running Day 1. Not really sure that this one should go under Challenge. It didn't used to be under Challenges until all the running stuff moved. Not sure it's really a Challenge because it's a decent length of time, and on non-running days, there is a whole workout to do. Today I tried Interval training for the first time. This actually took 27 minutes. I set it so that I had a 5-minute warmup walk to begin with, then I jogged/ran at the pace I had been doing during the 5k training, then I had to sprint for 30 to 60 seconds, and then the jogging, sprinting and walking varied and alternated until the end. It was quite fun. At the last sprint, I put the speed up a little higher again, and that felt good.
Stretching. Today I did a Follow-along for middle splits which I had not done before (either the follow-along OR the middle splits!) and quite enjoyed it, especially when I was advised to adopt a "comfortably uncomfortable" position!

Taekwondo training. Started off with relays. Unfortunately, we did these with partners, and my partner was quite slow and, even more unfortunately, in the front which meant that I was almost always last because everyone else's partner had started their rounds before my partner had finished. The second lot of relays was across the width of the gym, and started with one person having to run three laps while the other person did wall-sit, three times. Then one person had to run to point A and back, then point B and back, and C and back, while the other did up-and-down plank; then only the two furthest points while the other did a V-sit. Phew! Then we did dynamic stretching, followed by static. Finally, the coach had us put on socks (I was one of the few who actually had socks because I didn't like cold ankles coming and going), and we did side splits from standing, but when we were as far as we could go, we had to lean down and rest our forearms on the floor and hold for a minute, twice. After that, a lap of instep kick, one of ball kick, two of turning kick, one of down kick. Then we formed into groups, one person held a paddle, and one by one everyone else did turning kick. When everyone had held, then we changed legs. Continued to do this but with instep kick and then down kick with the other leg. We were just about to start on tornado kick when our time was up. Quite a good day, but it's getting cold, and it's hard to get everything warmed up.

Now, that's courage!

Thanks, BlackButler Lady Celerity NancyTree (it is surprising how many toe exercises there actually are!)
Montserrat Yep, I went from hair that didn't quite tuck into my waistband (I always chopped it off a bit when it got that long and I did that a couple of weeks ago) to hair that is only fractionally longer than my hairline - so quite a change! The GM saw it tonight and called it "ballsy"!)

Day 867

Challenges:
Easy Core Challenge Day 2
Plank Hero Day 1. Well, a plank challenge - no question about doing that one!

Poomsae training. I hardly know if I ought to include this one tonight. I mean, I went. Despite the frigid weather. The first snowfall on the ranges was seen this morning, and the temperature didn't get past 8° but most of the day it felt around or less than 0°! Anyway, when I got to the gym tonight, I heard such a ruckus. I thought that, as it was near the end of the general class, they were just having a bit of fun, but it turned out that the entire class had been handed over to fun fitness activities - things like: someone curls up on the floor, someone else jumps over them, leaves a space, and curls up likewise. Then the third person jumps over each one, and then curls up, etc etc etc. Jumping training. Anyway, it finished with people getting into a large circle and hitting around a volleyball, either with head or foot (I think hand may have been permitted but not open), and it was counted how many hits before it touched the floor. This game went on and on, with just the sparring and poomsae people left. The poomsae coach watched with me and we chatted for a while. He said that tonight we were supposed to do side kick training (oh, joy...) but they were all having so much fun he didn't want to interrupt them. He asked me if I wanted to train something, but doing it by myself didn't really appeal. Then he joined the circle and I chatted with some other people who hadn't wanted to play ball, and that was quite nice. So I didn't really train, but I did go the training!

Something else I do. Together with Zombies, Run!, I got The Walk, which is a (can you guess?) walking programme! It's not a step counter, though it does count your steps. Rather, it counts the time you spend moving, and you can have lengthy gaps if you like. There are transmissions occasionally to tell you the story, and there is a total of 51 episodes. Generally, each episode is between 1 and 2 hours. So as well as trying to make sure I do my 250 steps every hour (with FitBit to remind me), I endeavour to walk throughout the day for however long the episode is. I never do this, though, when I go out for a walk. You don't get music playing with this one. Rather, I use this one to encourage me to walk during an otherwise inactive sort of day, because I can do my hourly steps in a couple of minutes if I choose but this Walk records each period of actual movement. Anyway, I generally take about 2200 steps during an episode, and today was episode 39.

Congrats on better arms! I searched the Darebee database, unfortunately there's no 'better toes' challenge...

Well done on Better Arms

Yes, I was also thinking about what to do with the 31-day month! Well, it's better than February I guess...
I'll just pick a stand-alone workout that seems fun, there are so many!

Did you go from really long hair to short hair? I imagine that takes a bit of getting used to?

Belated congrats on Better Arms buddy

Thanks, Fremen Montserrat ( I think I've done that programme about three times now. I'm possibly a bit closer...) Anek Whirly Manuela PetiteSheWolf Silent Wolf

Day 866

The problem with 31-day months is that you've got a day when there's nothing to do! Except try to work out what you'll do next. It used to be that you could see what the next month's challenge would be the day before it started but I couldn't do that today, so I quickly chose one just to do one -
Easy Core Challenge Day 1. I like this challenge. Or rather, my back really likes this one! Will I do it again for the whole month? I don't know. I was thinking of doing the Steel challenges again. I'll see what tomorrow's challenge is and then decide.
There is another challenge that I'm going to do - 20x3 Running challenge which would fit nicely with my proposed interval training, but I can't start that one until Thursday so that I have running on only one training day.

Taekwondo training. There was a tiny little turnout today. A few people were sick - with Covid and just with that old-fashioned thing called "feeling a bit sick", someone didn't want to come because the weather was horrible (when I left home, it was just under 5° but felt about -2°, with a strong wind and light rain), and others - well, who knows? A few laps of running to warm up (but my feet were still cold!), then we did our HIIT session. This time, however, we were to have an active rest of jumping jacks! Hello - a couple of session ago, jumping jacks were one of the exercises!! Anyway, we started off with 30 seconds of push-ups, then had our "active rest" of 30 seconds of jumping jacks. Then we did squat jumps, switches, mountain climbers, and plank. I tell you, after about the third exercise, those jumping jacks were getting a lot slower! Stretches again. Then we actually did patterns. 1-4, two or three times each. The coach wasn't happy with our L-stances in pattern 4 so we had to do a couple of laps of L-stance. I can do them pretty well because I have drilled the darned things because I had such a problem with them, but the coach said he wanted to see more "snap" from me. "Snap" is my problem, and something I have to work on in everything. It's making that final sharp "snap" at the end of a movement, be it a hip twist into a step or stance, or a block or a punch. I'm too much the same all through. It's a work in progress.

And the locks did get chopped today. How light my head felt once the stylist had lopped them off. And how funny it has been reaching back to pull my no-longer-existent braid out from my collar! But why do stylists have to put so much gunk into your hair?! It looks great, sure, but after today, my hair is never going to see wax again! The children have been having fun rubbing my hair - I hope the novelty wears off quickly. It was, however, nice not to be whalloped in the face by my braid when doing windmills tonight!

Congrats on Better Arms