Those of you that guessed a tile floor got yesterday's riddle correct. Some guessed it was tile early & before I announced that it was tile, and, well some of you guessed correctly after that. As I am from Chicagoland in Illinois all of your votes count regardless of when the polls closed. Oh, some of you guessed what room it came from, it was from a bathroom.
Sunday I took the day off from exercise. Needed rest after Saturday's NSV of being able to do Sit-Ups once again; my core felt good & thrashed Sunday. Monday came & I got busy with a 5 a.m. dumbbell routine session and 5 sets of push ups. No sit ups, still sore in the gut and sides. But I will get after more of them this week for sure.
After work I had about an hour before the varsity soccer game so I got in my workout duds and headed off to Stanton Hill. The plan was to best my previous PR of 20 laps up & down that hill in 30 minutes. That was the plan, but this time out was a buffet of struggles.
Each lap had it's own story, and most not pleasant. Buffets are supposed to be pleasant, bountiful and satisfying. Trust me, I know from experience.
Lap one & I took off like a rocket, felt ballistic, and was ready to explode up in that PR's mug.
Lap three, eased up on the macho as my breathing lost it's ease.
Lap six or seven, pain; left lower leg just was starting to whine. I don't like wine so I refused to have any.
Lap ten & I was tapping reserves as fast as kegs at a frat party.
Lap fourteen or fifteen & my sides start splitting and I wonder how much shame there is in pulling the abort lever?
Lap seventeen & I swear that lost tortoise pass me up and flipped me off, @#%$ Tortuga!
Lap eighteen and I have company all of the sudden....
The Grant Sophomore football team saw me thrashing the hill & decided to get in on the action.
Lap nineteen and pride swells throughout igniting a surge to the finish. Or was it a save-face reflex?
Lap twenty, finally! Pride or not my attitude was clear, it is time for this to be over. Regardless of how impressed the football players are, I must soon go.
Huh, lap twenty finished and the 30 minutes, while close, had not ticked off yet?
Lap twenty-one, Stomping the dirt like a child; I was supposed to be done!
Argh, so close, missed completing twenty-one laps in 30 minutes by thirteen seconds.
Next time, there will be a next time, Stanton Hill.
OK, serious moment; this post is titled "Stretch Me Please". Need some help folks, I feel I do a terrible job of stretching and that may be why I had a rough go at the hill yesterday. I do try & stretch, but I feel the stretching I do is as useful as a back pocket on jock strap. So, I need those of you in the know to suggest stretching for both when I weight train and when I walk, hill climb, jog or sprint. Please, it would be rude to not say please. Don't make me beg; please.
Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!
Posts
It's a tile right....
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing tile ...
ReplyDeleteGREAT job on the exercise, Patrick! I'm proud of you, and quite impressed. I couldn't do it.
Can't help you with stretching. Exercise isn't my forte, but I do stretch when I first sit up in bed in the morning, as I yawn. Does that count?
Keep up the good work!
My recommendation is all the basic stretches you can think of just do them slowly and try to reach as far as you can reach as slow as you can reach for ten seconds at a time.
ReplyDeleteFor running -
STANDING UP
- legs apart (left side, middle, right side, left side, middle, right side) ten seconds each
- legs together (three sets ten second straight down)
REPEAT for SITTING DOWN
QUAD STRETCHES
(one leg at a time bending your knee pulling your ankle back to your butt)
- left leg and right leg individually, three sets of ten seconds
CALF MUSCLES
- three sets of ten seconds on each calf (just use a wall and prop the ball of your foot on it and move your whole body forward to get the stretch in the calf).
Lifting – it really depends on the muscle group you will be working out. I would recommend a short class with an instructor if you wish to get aggressive with lifting otherwise just find a way to get the muscle group you are working to stretch a bit – it does not take much. If you do not feel the muscle strain just a bit you are not stretching it.
I will try to find one of my posts or a good article for you later today. I think I did a stretching post not too long ago... it was an ACE article I shred on my blog. Need my after gym sleep first!
ReplyDeleteYou are a monster! Congrats on the workouts!
YOGA Patrick. All yoga is is a series of stretches. Each pose focuses on a different muscle group, and believe me, some you won't even realize you had until the next morning! LOL! I have some PDFs of the basic yoga poses for download here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.phoenixrevolution.net/archives/85
I also have some Youtube links on that page.
These are great, basic stretches that will be good on your cardio days:
http://www.halhigdon.com/15Ktraining/Stretch.htm
http://www.thestretchinghandbook.com/sports-stretches.php
http://www.womensheart.org/content/Exercise/stretching_exercise.asp
For running, I just have five basic stretches I do, and these are them:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pccoach.com/newsletters/May05/stretching.htm
Are you warming up prior to stretching? You shouldn't stretch totally cold muscles, so it would be good to do a short walk or something before stretching and tackling stanton hill.
I don't do any formal stretching, but in the interest of preserving my elderly muscles from harm, I do what I call mirror stretching. I do the exercise I'm going to do in a less exercisy form. For my running, I walk for the first 3 or 4 minutes to warm up my muscles. Most of my bad weather DVD options have warm up (slower, less vigorous) exercises. Maybe for your bleacher running (GREAT job, BTW to work through all that ) you could walk the bleachers (gently) once before you start your timed marathon. Good Luck
ReplyDeleteI don't stretch either, except my achilles tendons before I run. I guess I need to do more, but maybe the cycling has helped because I am sometimes a bit tight, but never too sore.
ReplyDeleteGood job on getting out there. Seems very impressive.
Patrick, enjoyed the lap play by play. Good stuff. I see you already have received lots of advice about stretching. Just don't overstretch or bounce - static stretching = good and important.
ReplyDeleteI knew you would be sore, and I said so!!! Anyway I think its more that your not resting enough in between workouts than stretching. Take it easy tiger you don't want to overtrain.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if you get good tips on stretching. I always feel like my stretching is a waste of time as well.
ReplyDeleteI love to stretch and do it a lot. I don't really know how to describe the stretches though! I just do whatever feels good for all the parts of the body.
ReplyDeleteNot a stretcher here, but If I am able to keep up with the C25K program, I might become one!
ReplyDeleteI'm bad about stretching too but reading your post I will try to do better. Good advice from everyone.
ReplyDeleteSore is good - we could all be "sore losers!"
ReplyDelete