Sunday, August 31, 2014

Shorter Long Run

Yesterday afternoon I did a shorter long run.  Only 6 mi at 6.0 mph, which took an hour.  This didn't feel too hard, so hopefully that's good.  I'm not running anything longer than 4 miles between now and the half-marathon on Sep. 14.

This morning my weight was over 128 lb!  It's like I didn't lose anything after vacation!  So frustrating.  Where is it coming from?

This morning I did my usual Sunday boxing class.  It was not too tough, but my calorie burn was a little higher than usual.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Saturday Practice

Yesterday afternoon and evening were my rest time, so I didn't do anything active.  However, I did manage to roll my left ankle walking around the house.  It hurt quite a bit like a sprain, but since I was home, and I managed to get ice on it right away, and then elevate and compress it.  Also I took a big dose of Advil.  As a result, I didn't get any swelling.

Fortunately I was able to play tennis at my practice this morning.  I wrapped up the ankle and it was OK.  It's a bit sore, but there's still no swelling and no bruising.  The practice went well.  We only had four people because of the holiday weekend, so we played two full sets.  The first set my partner and I lost 5-7.  We switched partners, and then my partner and I won the second set 6-4.

This morning my weight was still above 127 lb.  But, my waist circumference was the same as last week, even though I weighed over a pound less last week.  Go figure.

Friday, August 29, 2014

NROLW AMRAP part 2

Yesterday afternoon, I did speed intervals on the treadmill.  I did the same strategy as the last time, putting in a longer recovery time.  I really like it a lot, because I feel like I do better on the actual fast-speed interval.  I did 5 min of warm-up at 3.5 mph.  Then I did 7 x 3 min at 7.3 mph, alternating with 7 x 3 min at 3.5 mph.  I finished with 5 min of cool-down at 3.5 mph.  This came to 4.36 mi in 52:00.

This morning, my weight was up some more!  After my low on Monday morning, I've been up all week.  This is crazy, because I'm not eating that much!  I've been doing 1600 cal/day; however, we have had a lot of free food at work this week, so my intake has really been more like 2000 cal/day.  Even so, this is not enough to make me gain!  This is so frustrating. 

When my waist size (and therefore body fat) was lowest ever, in March 2014, for the moth prior to that I had been eating about 1950 cal/day!  According to Body Media, my calorie burn per day during that time is similar to what I've been burning the past few weeks.  During January - March in 2014, I was not not doing as much weight training as I am now - I was doing more cardio/plyo, with a mix of Asylum 1 & 2 and P90X2.  So maybe that's the problem?  This is so frustrating.  I have this problem after every vacation - I cannot lose the few pounds that I gained, and I can't figure out why.  Grrr.

Next week there should be less free food around, and I'll do 1600 cal/day and see what happens.  The week after that is the week before my half-marathon, so I'm going to go up to about 1900 cal/day to make sure I've got enough energy.

This morning, I did the second workout in stage 1 of NROLW for my AMRAP workout (as many reps as possible).  I felt like I didn't improve in this one as much as I did for the first workout, two days ago.
  • Deadlift: I went from 70 lb back down to 53 lb.  I did 25 reps, which was disappointing.  The 70 lb had been really hard, so I thought it would translate to more improvement.
  • Dumbbell shoulder press:  I went from 30 lb per hand back down to 20 lb per hand.  I did 25 reps, which I think was OK.
  • Pull-ups:  I did 3.5, which was pretty much zero improvement.  These show up in the next stage, too, so hopefully I'll see some improvement in them.
  • Lunge:  I went from 30 lb per hand back down to 20 lb per hand.  I did 25 lunges per leg.  My legs could've done more than this, but my hands just couldn't hold on to the weights any more.
  • Swiss-ball crunch:  Well, these had always been really easy for me.  I really think I'm doing them right - I can check my form in the mirror.  I did 60 reps (!!!).  I certainly could've done at least a few more, but I was getting pretty bored.
I am taking two weeks off from NROLW.  I wanted to take a break from it for the week before my half-marathon, and since that's two weeks away, it doesn't make sense to start the next stage for just a week.  The next stage is shorter in time, but adds some HIIT, which will be interesting.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Plyo Workout

Yesterday afternoon I did my lower and upper body plyo workout.  It was pretty hot and there was no shade at all, but there was a bit of a cool breeze.  It could've been worse!  I had bad timing, though, because I was still working on my sprints when the whole high school football team finished practice and had to walk down "my" sidewalk.  So I had a bit of a break there.  Surprisingly, my hamstrings are a little sore today from the workout, even though I just did it last week.  I'll probably do this workout once more before my half-marathon on Sep. 14.

This morning I did my shortened version of P90X2 Recovery + Mobility.  Like last week, I altered the hamstring stretches to do them on my back with a band pulling on my foot.  I burned about 100 calories.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

New Rules of Lifting for Women: Stage 1 AMRAP

Yesterday evening, I had a practice with my tennis team.  The play went well, and it was a beautiful evening.

this morning I did the first workout in Stage 1 of NROLW.  Since Stage 1 is complete, the workout was supposed to be done with as many reps as possible (AMRAP) for each move.  But, you do each move with the weight you started with at the beginning of Stage 1.  The idea behind this is to show how much your strength has improved.  So here's what I did:
  • Squats:  went from 30 lb per hand back down to 20 lb per hand; 50 reps (!!! - I could've done at least a few more, but I was getting kind of tired mentally of doing them)
  • Push-ups: went from doing 8 side-arm balance push-ups with 12 lb per hand to doing regular push-up; did 40 reps
  • Bent-over row:  went from 28 lb per hand back down to 15 lb per hand; 25 reps - these were definitely one of the hardest moves for me to improve
  • Step-ups: went from 28 lb per hand back down to 15 lb per hand; 30 reps per leg - my left leg is still a lot weaker
  • Prone jackknifes: this is a bodyweight move, so there's nothing to change; I did 22 reps
Over all, I was pretty happy with this, especially my squats.  Squats are definitely an exercise where you can "lift big", and so I feel like I'm on my way for that.  I was hoping the step-ups would be a lot easier going back to the light weight - I'm still not sure I should be using such a high step (my weight bench).

[Edit: I didn't bring my sheet into work to write this up, and I'd gotten some of the numbers wrong, so I fixed them.]

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Extra Boxing

Yesterday afternoon I did a boxing class.  It's not one that I usually go to, but I wanted to do something that wasn't horribly strenuous after my long run on Sunday.  The class fit the bill.  We did do some good plyo/jumping, but nothing that killed me.

This morning I did P90X2 X2 Core.  It's so hard to get the form correct on all the moves in this workout.  I think I'm doing OK, and then I look in the mirror and my butt is up or something.  I burned about 215 calories in the workout, which was quite a bit more than last time. 

Monday, August 25, 2014

Last Long Run before Half Marathon!

Yesterday afternoon, I did my last long run before I start tapering for my half-marathon on Sep. 14.  I ran 11.05 mi in 1:56:51, which was an average speed of about 5.7 mph.  This was slower than my intended speed of about 6 mph.  I ran on the Sligo Creek Trail.  It's a little hilly, although not as bad as the part of the Rock Creek Trail near me.  I started in the middle of the trail and went north until the end, then turned around and went south for quite a bit, and then came back north to my starting point.  The trail is downhill toward the south, so that means the middle was easier than the beginning or the end... I just felt pretty bad after about mile 8, especially.  I took a lot of breaks.  The weather was about as good as it could be for the middle of the afternoon in August - about 80 F and not too humid.  Most of the trail was shaded, which was a blessing. 

this morning I weighed in at 125.8 lb, the lowest since returning from vacation!  Certainly sweating so much in my run yesterday helped get me to this weight, but hopefully it's continuing the downward trend.

This morning I did the last iteration of the second workout of Stage 1 for NROLW.  It was a little tough to get going because I was still pretty tired from my run, but I got it done.  I burned about 135 calories.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

CPTC Tournament

Yesterday I played in a tournament at CPTC.  First, Jessica and I played doubles against two 3.5 women.  I'd played them before at club night, so I knew they would be tough.  However, we played pretty well.  We lost 6-2, 6-4.  We were the only under-4.0 ladies doubles match in the tournament, so we got 2nd place!  Ha.

Bill and I played mixed doubles in the tournament, after Bill had played a singles match and lost.  The first pair we played were not great players, and the man had played three (!) singles matches that morning.  We played an 8-game proset and won 8-4.

That moved us on to the mixed doubles final.  We played a really good pair.  The woman was a 4.5 player that Bill had taken a clinic with before.  The man was apparently rated over 5.0.  He was coaching her.  The good thing about this was that he wasn't playing to win.  He would just hit the ball back, but he could get to everything.  Even so, we focused on playing her.  Again, we were playing an 8-game proset.  We were pretty much neck-and neck the whole match and got to 7-7 to force a tiebreaker.  We lost the tiebreaker - no way the man on the other side was going to let them lose.  So we got runner-up mixed doubles - this was at least a little more earned.

This morning I did my usual Sunday boxing class.  Nothing special about it, but it was fine.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Longer Speed Intervals

Yesterday evening there was rain, so my planned tennis practice was canceled.  I decided to do some speed intervals on the treadmill.  I changed it up a bit from my usual speed interval workout, though, because I was still feeling tired from the tempo run on Wednesday.  I had a 5-min warm-up at 3.5 mph.  Then I did 2 min x 10 at 7.3 mph, alternating with 3 min x 10 at 3.5 mph, and then a 5-min cool-down at 3.5 mph.  This gave me more of a break between the intervals.  It makes the run take longer, but I usually walk out the rest of the hour, anyway.  This workout was 1 hour and covered 4.73 mi.  Are the intervals more or less effective when they are more space out?  I don't know.

This morning I did the first workout in stage 1 of NROLW.  This is the last time doing this workout as written.  I used the same weights as on Monday.  I burned about 180 calories today, though, which was a lot more than on Monday.  I'm not sure why.  It was hard, but not harder than Monday.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Sweaty Run

Yesterday I did a tempo run on the treadmill.  I did 6 mi in 56:16 at 6.4 mph.  This was a hard run - I had a lot of breaks on the rails.  For some reason, I sweated like crazy during this run.  I was inside in the climate control, so I'm not sure why I sweated so much.  I did enjoy watching Stargate SG-1 "There but for the Grace of God", which is starting the first season wrap-up.

This morning I did my shortened version of P90X2 Recovery + Mobility.  I did change a couple things from my usual routine, taking the advice from this blog article.  The article talks about reasons for hamstring pain at the very top of the hamstrings, which is very much like the pain I often get.  It's quite likely that I have over-lengthened hamstrings.  So I added in the low-back stretch, which did feel good - I held it for over 30 sec.  Then when the DVD called for hamstring stretches, I did them on my back with a resistance band, as the blog article suggests.  I'm going to try to make these two changes also when I do my near-daily foam rolling of my legs.  We'll see how it feels after awhile!  I burned about 90 calories during the workout.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Deadlifted 70 lb!

Yesterday afternoon I did my lower and upper body plyo workout.  The weather wasn't too hot, which made it easier to do.

This morning I woke up and felt and looked thin.  My weight was 126.2 lb, which is tied for the lowest it's been since vacation.  Cutting back on my calories per day seems to be paying off, but it does make me hungry.

This morning I did the second workout for the first stage of NROLW.  I did 3 sets of 8 reps.  For the deadlifts, I increased my weight to 70 lb, which made me feel good.  They were hard, but it's the most I've ever lifted!  For the overhead shoulder presses, I did 30 lb per hand, which was also a lot.  It's getting hard to get the weights in position for that move.  I only did 3 pull-ups per set.  For the lunges, I did 30 lb per hand, which was not as hard as I was expecting.  The stability-ball crunches increased to 15 per set, which was not a problem.  I burned about 140 calories in the workout.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Club Night

Last night was the last club night at TCCP.  There was a pretty good turn-out, since it was free for members.  I played OK.  In the first round, my partner and I won.  In the second round, a different partner and I got completely crushed by two players with precision-placement shots.  In the third round, my partner and I fell behind at first, but we managed to come back and even the score by the end of the round.

This morning, I had myself scheduled to do P90X2 Balance + Power.  However, I just wasn't feeling like doing that workout.  Instead I did P90X+ Kenpo Cardio+, my fall-back workout whenever I get the workout blahs.  I burned about 275 calories.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Last Iteration of First Stage of NROLW

Yesterday afternoon and evening, I did not do any more specific activity or workout.  I did some house cleaning.  Our basement has finally dried out, so my husband and I spent some time moving the things back into the exercise room and doing some cleaning.

this morning I started on the last part of the stage 1 workouts for NROLW.  I did the first workout of the stage with 3 sets of 8 reps.  I went up to 30 lb per hand on the squats, which was doable.  I continued with the push-ups with the side-arm balance move using 12 lb per hand, even though I did fewer reps.  The 15-lb weights I have are not so good for doing push-ups on.  For the bent-over rows, I increased to 28 lb per hand, which was really tough.  I thought in one set that I might have tweaked a shoulder muscle, but I haven't really been feeling it, so hopefully not.  For the step-ups, I also increased to 28 lb per hand.  These were really, really hard, especially for the left leg.  Yuck.  The prone jackknifes increased to 15 reps, which was tough but doable.  I burned about 145 calories in the workout.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Long Run

Yesterday afternoon I set out for a 9-mi run.  I ended up running 8.89 miles in a little over 1:31, for an average speed of 5.85 mph.  I had a lot of annoying problems.  After about 1.5 mi, I decided I had to go to the bathroom, so I kept my eye out for a porta-potty.  I was running on Rock Creek Trail, which has lots of parks, so I figured I wouldn't have to wait to long.  I saw one at about 2 mi, but the potty was completely full.  I was afraid if I added anything, it would overflow - pretty gross.  So I kept going, but I'd wasted some time turning off all my apps and stuff to get ready to use the potty quickly.

At about 4.2 mi, I found another potty.  I paused RunKeeper and used the potty - relief!  However, when I started RunKeeper again, it got confused and did not notify me at 4.5 mi, the next half-mile.  So I missed my turn-around point and ran to about 4.66 mi.  On the way back, RunKeeper decided to notify me at approximately each half-mile after 4.2 mi, which didn't match with the self-pacing I was trying to do, so I kept pulling out my phone to look at the app.  A little after 6 mi, I accidentally hit "stop" on the app.  There's no confirmation for this!  So I had to start up a new "run" to finish off my tracking.  Grrr.    At least the app went back to notifying me every half-mile.

I kept up with my goal of about 6.0 mph until about 7.5 mi.  Then I really had to go to the bathroom again, which made it harder and harder to run.  I put in some walking breaks.  Finally, with a total of about 8.89 mi for both "runs", I accidentally hit "stop" again and gave up on the whole thing.  But I was farther from my car at that point than I had planned, so I had a longer walking cool-down than anticipated.  At least having to go to the bathroom didn't bother me so much when I was walking.

Besides the bathroom issues, which I don't usually have, the run definitely got a lot harder after 6 miles.  My legs were starting to hurt.  The weather was sunny, but it was only about 80 F and not too humid, thank goodness.

This morning, I went to my usual Sunday morning boxing class.  I haven't done this for awhile because of vacation, so it was good to get back.  A new lady was using the bag next to mine, and she said at the end that she was really impressed by me, which felt good.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Saturday Morning Practice

Yesterday afternoon and evening were a rest day for me.  Even so, my husband and I went on a short walk around the neighborhood because the weather was so nice.  We haven't done that for awhile since we've been on vacation, so it was very pleasant.

This morning my weight was down almost 2 lb from Tuesday morning.  Some of that is probably water weight, but it's still nice to see.  I guess I'm going to try to stick to the 1600 cal/day for another week, even though I was really hungry on it.  Except for today - Saturday is always my treat day.  However, my waist measurement was way up compared to before vacation.  Blah.

This morning I had a practice with my tennis team.  It was another beautiful day - not as hot as it usually is in August.  We started out with an approach shot drill, which the ladies seemed to appreciate.  I played pretty well in the doubles rounds.  My partner and I lost the first round, 2-4, but we were two 3.0s playing against two 3.5s.  The second round, a different partner and I won 7-6, 1-0.  In the third round, my partner and I lost 4-5, but we came back from having been down 2-5.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Unexpected Tennis

Yesterday, a woman that I know from my mixed doubles tennis team emailed me to ask if I'd be willing to play some doubles with some ladies from her team.  I had been unsure what to do for my evening activity yesterday, so I was happy to take her up on the offer.  We met at some lighted courts before sunset, but they were really busy, and it was clear we weren't going to get one any time soon.  We went to a different park and fortunately only waited 10 minutes or so before some of the current players had to relinquish their court because we were waiting.  We played a good "match": my partner and I won the first set 6-1, lost the second set 2-6, and then lost the match tie-breaker 10-12.  We were very even, so it was fun.

This morning I did the second workout for the Stage 1 of the NROLW.  This was my last workout with 3 sets of 10 reps.  I had to move my equipment upstairs because our basement is still wet.  I tried not to clank the weights too much, since my husband was still sleeping.  The deadlifts were hard, but I have to say that the forward lunges may be the single hardest exercise for me at this stage.  I burned about 130 calories.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Evening Practice

Yesterday evening I had a practice with my team.  I was feeling pretty sore from getting back into lifting after vacation, but I played pretty well.  The first round, my partner and I won 6-3.  The second round, my partner and I won 7-6, 2-1.  We had 12 people for practice, which was a lot more than usual for a weeknight.  The weather was beautiful, which probably helped.

This morning, I did P90X2 X2 Core.  Because of my wet basement, I did the workout on the first floor in my living room.  The challenge was to not be too noisy, since my husband was still sleeping.  Some of the moves, like the one-leg medicine-ball burpees, I just can never do very well.  I burned about 160 calories.

So far, my weight has declined slightly since returning from vacation.  I'm eating 1600 cal/day for a couple more days, at least.  I'm hungry!  Which means I don't know how long I can stick with it.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Wet Basement

Yesterday afternoon I did my lower- and upper-body plyo workout.  With vacation, I hadn't done this workout in two weeks, so the sprinting felt hard.  However, the temperature was a little cooler, so that helped.

Unfortunately we got some very heavy rain yesterday, which caused our basement to flood a bit.  Usually it just affects a storage room, but yesterday it also got my exercise room wet.  My husband moved everything to the dry end of the room in order to use the wet vac, but that made it hard to do any kind of workout.

This morning, I did the second workout from Stage 1 of NROLW.  I managed to collect my gear from the exercise room and do the exercises in the hallway outside the room.  Not optimal, but everything did fit.  I had to do the step-ups on the first step of the stairway instead of on my bench.  This makes them lower and easier, but I didn't have much choice.  I burned about 135 calories in the workout, which was definitely more than usual.  The push-ups with the balance move plus weight really got me sweating.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Back to the Usual

Yesterday, we returned home from our trip, so I was back to my usual activities.

I did some speed intervals on the treadmill yesterday evening.  I did 9 x 2 min at 7.3mph, alternating with 9 x 90 sec at 3.5 mph.  There was a 5-min warm-up and cool-down.  The distance came to 3.56 mi in 41:30.  These felt hard. 

this morning I was back to the second workout in the first stage of NROLW.  This was my first time to do 3 sets of 10 reps for this workout.  I did 68 lb on the deadlifts, which was definitely hard - I'm not sure if it was just because of the weight, or because I had 10 days off.  I did 28 lb per hand on the shoulder presses.  I could not increase my number of pull-ups.  I did 28 lb per hand on the forward lunges, which was definitely hard.  The 28-lb weights are also the plate-type that can adjust, which are bulky.  Lastly, I increased my swiss-ball crunches, which were not difficult.  The workout took about 36 minutes and burned about 120 calories.

Sadly, I did gain about 3 lb on my trip.  I weighed in at 128.8 lb today, which was tough to see.  Gaining 3 lb in 10 days means I ate about 1000 calories more than I burned per day, which is probably all too likely, unfortunately.  I'm going to try to eat 1600 cal/day for the next few days, and then may 1900 cal/day for awhile after that.  I just am unhappy eating so little.  Blah.

My BodyMedia CORE armband is on its last legs.  The company warns you not to wear the armband over sunscreen, because the plastic degrades.  But, really, how can you do that?  I obviously want to wear the device when I'm outside being active, but I can't afford to get fried.  At any rate, the plastic on the back is slowly disintegrating.  I am partly keeping it together now with some packing tape.  We'll see how long it lasts.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Tennis and More Golf

Today we were still in Grosse Pointe.  In the morning, Bill and I played an hour of tennis.  Bill kicked my butt, like usual.

In the afternoon, we played a round of golf at the Detroit Country Club with Bill's Aunt Sue.  I am not a big golf fan, but she loves golf, so it was a good opportunity for a little socializing.  I played very well on the front nine, but on the back nine holes, my game really fell apart.  I am still not a big golf fan.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Lake Shore Run

Yesterday, Bill and I drove to Grosse Point, MI, to visit his parents.

This morning I ran 6.01 miles in 59:47, which gives an average speed of a bit over 6.0 mph, which was my goal.  It was a very pretty run, because I ran along Lake Shore Drive, which goes along Lake St. Clair.  It was a nice morning.  I ran the first 3 miles without stopping to support a friend who was running his first 5K this morning.  I ended up going out a little fast, so I was pretty worn out the last couple miles.

This afternoon, we played golf at the Country Club of Detroit.  I usually play poorly on this course, but I had a very good round for me:  107.  I had two pars and five bogeys.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Niagara Falls

Yesterday we drove to the American side of Niagara Falls.  We did the Caves of the Winds and the Maid of the Mist, which were both awesome.  Fortunately we had beautiful weather.  We then hiked along the American side of the Niagara gorge, where there are several consecutive scenic trails.  With the out-and-back, we hiked about 9 miles and did about 1000 vertical steps.

Today we crossed to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.  We did the Wild Water Walk, which has a sequence of boardwalks down near the water level of the Niagara rapids downstream from the falls.  It was very impressive.  From there, we walked up to the falls on the Canadian side and back, which was almost 6 miles.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Golf

Today the weather looked good in NY (low chance of rain), so we planned some golf.  We could not get a tee time as early as we hoped, so I did a run before.  I ran 3 miles in 30:00 on the treadmill at the hotel.  Then I walked at 3.5 mph to fill out the hour.  It definitely goes faster when watching something like Stargate SG-1 "Solitudes".  I also watched a bit more of Star Trek the original series "Devil in the Dark", which finally finished downloading.

In the afternoon, we played a round of golf.  The course was quite pretty, and also hilly.  I played OK.  Fortunately the weather remained cooperative.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Watkins Glen State Park

Today we had to get in our hiking early, since we were expecting rain sometime in the afternoon.

First we went to Watkins Glen State Park in NY, which is a ways away from where we're staying in Mount Morris, but it's supposed to be very impressive.  It definitely was!  The Gorge Trail in the park is only about 1.5 miles long, but the waterfalls and shallow slot canyons and other erosion features are amazing.  The down side of the park is that it's extremely popular and busy, so it was quite crowded, even on a weekday.  We also walked some along the South Rim Trail and Indian Trail.  It was worth the trip!

After we finished at Watkins Glen, it still looked like the rain would hold off for awhile, so we went to nearby Finger Lakes National Forest for some hiking.  We hiked about 4.2 miles in a loop following the Burnt Hill Trail and the Interloken Trail.  The hike was fine, but there wasn't really anything particularly remarkable about it.  A lot of it was muddy, which was perhaps expected but still a pain, and there were lots of insect bugging us.  The worst thing is that we couldn't really find a map of the park/trails anywhere.  Nothing posted on the information bulletin boards at various parking/camping areas, and the online maps from the park service were not very good.  I pulled up an online map to verify the loop we wanted to hike.

After that we drove back to Mount Morris, and it poured on the way.  We had good timing!

At the hotel, I ran 3.5 miles on the treadmill at 6.0 mph, totalling 35:00.  I started watching Star Trek the original series "Devil in the Dark", but the download was so slow that I couldn't watch it all.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Letchworth State Park

Today we hiked Letchworth State Park in New York, which has a gorge on the Genesee River called "the Grand Canyon of the East".  I will admit that it was pretty impressive, but even though I have not yet visited the Grand Canyon, I really don't think it's comparable.

First we hiked a lot of the Gorge Trail, from below the Lower Falls to just past the Upper Falls, and back.  With all the little spurs and extras in order to see various views, we hiked 7 - 7.5 mi.  All three falls were quite impressive.  We were able to get quite close to the Lower Falls, to the extent that we were really enveloped in the mist from the falls.  The Middle Falls are the tallest, and they were certainly impressive; the perpetual rainbow in the mist from the falls was beautiful.  The Upper Falls were also impressive.  The hike was quite easy, with some ups and downs, but nothing too strenuous.

After this hike, we drove to the other side of the river and hiked the Letchworth Trail, which was a little less than 4 miles.  Some of this trail walked along the former canal that was dug along the river in the 1800s.  Not much is left of it.  The end of this hike was not the best, as the loop completed along a busy road.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Mt. Morris

This morning it was raining in Gettysburg, so I couldn't do a run.

Today we drove up to Mt. Morris, NY.  We will be visiting Letchworth State Park (with the "Grand Canyon of the East") and other areas in the next few days.  If we don't get too much rain.

The Country Inn & Suites where we are staying has a very minimal fitness room:  a treadmill, an elliptical, and a stationary bike.  Since it was still raining, I did 7.5 miles on the treadmill in 1:15:00, which is 6.0 mph.  I really needed to burn some calories, since I have been eating too much.  I watched Stargate SG-1 "Enigma" and "Tin Man", which are both good episodes.  I had some fun with the very old treadmill, trying to get my Kindle Fire HDX to sit up on it so I could watch my episodes.

I figured out that I can put treadmill runs and other activities into my RunKeeper app on my phone.  This is nice to be able to keep track of all my runs, especially, in one place.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Gettysburg

Yesterday afternoon we drove up to Gettysburg for the first stop on our vacation.

Today, we visited Gettysburg National Military Park.  After visiting the Visitor Center, we spent several hours walking on paths in the park.  We walked almost 6 miles.  Fortunately we did not get any rain, although it sometimes looked like we might. 

I didn't do any other activity today.  And I've eaten too much already.  I'm hoping to get in a run tomorrow morning before we drive to NY, but it's supposed to rain.

Friday, August 1, 2014

3 Sets

Yesterday afternoon I did a long run of 12 miles on the treadmill.  I ran at 6.0 mph, so the run took 2:00:00.  I did take some drink breaks on the side rails, but overall this run did not feel horribly hard.  It was long enough that I watched a Star Trek TOS episode ("This Side of Paradise"), a Stargate SG-1 episode ("Singularity"), and another episode from the Showtime documentary Years of Living Dangerously.  At least they kept me amused.

This morning I weight 125.4 lb.  This is down to a more believable level, but I still don't understand what happened.  My waist measurement was down a bit, but still significantly above where I think it should be.  Blah.  And I really don't think I'm significantly overeating.  I woke up in the middle of the night hungry, and woke up hungry this morning.

This morning I did the first workout from Stage 1 of NROLW.  Today was the first day of 3 sets with 10 reps each.  I did increase my weights.
  • Squats:  two 28-lb dumb bells
  • Push-ups: I did what they call "T-pushups" and included a 12-lb dumb bell in each hand.
  • Bent-over rows: two 25-lb dumb bells.  These were really hard, especially just trying to keep my back flat.
  • Step-ups: two 25-lb dumb bells.  Also a really hard move, especially for my left leg.
  • Prone jackknifes: nothing different hear, just an increase in reps, since it's a bodyweight move
Because of the increase in sets, the workout took about 8 minutes longer.  So my calorie burn was up a bit: about 110 calories for the workout.

I am going on vacation today.  We'll be doing some hiking.  I'm also hoping to work in some runs.  My goal is to not gain TOO much weight while also enjoying some vacation food.  Since I don't seem to have lost the weight I gained over my Memorial Day vacation, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage that.