Sunday, March 19, 2006

Weekend Workouts

Saturday morning I dragged myself downstairs to the gym and did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer. My plan was to go for a run afterwards, weather permitting. And although it was gusty and threatening rain, I decided to just go for it and see what happened. I'm glad I did! It didn't rain a drop, and I did two bayou loops, walk/run but at a nice hearty 20 minutes per run session. Barring unforeseen illness or injury, I'll be ready to tackle a full ten miles without scheduled breaks next weekend!

I didn't see much of interest on my route, but I was pleased at the number of spring wildflowers that are starting to pop up. And the mulberry trees are full of little green clusters that will be ripe in just a few more weeks. In other happy news, the new stairs that they've been taking their sweet time about building from Sabine street down to the water level, are almost done. They have some fancy signs up now that say "Buffalo Bayou" something-or-other and have a picture of a buffalo. I'm pretty sure Houston wasn't ever buffalo country, but I'm very excited about the stairs. They'll be good for torturing myself when I want to add a little stair-running challenge in the middle of a run. I hope to learn to hate these stairs with enthusiasm.

My tentative plan for today had been to do an organized ride out in Pearland this morning. But last night the weather reports said to expect thunderstorms, "some possibly severe." Well, that didn't sound like good bike-riding weather to me, although since the promised rain on Saturday hadn't materialized I kept checking weather.com all evening long for updates. When I finally went to bed, it was still "thunderstorms, some possibly severe."

So when I woke up at 9 am this morning to no storms, severe or otherwise, I logged on and found that we were now due for "scattered showers." That's right, just showers.

Thanks, guys. I know weather forecasting isn't easy, but I wouldn't have stayed home just for scattered showers.

I went to the Y instead and got in a good strength training workout. There was a woman there who looked to be in her fifties and she was slim, strong and gorgeous with fab upper arms that curved in all the right places and didn't jiggle a bit. I was so envious! I tried not to stare, but I so wanted to go tell her, "I want to be just like you when I grow up!" Oh, and did I mention she was lifting 25 pound hand weights? Sigh. Someday. Heck, if I could just get back up to 20, I'd consider myself well on the road to goddesshood.

Tonight's plan is to spend a little time on the trainer, since the you-know-what's at the weather service can't tell a thunderstorm from a chance of showers and I still need to do something on the bike today. Grrrr… Maybe I can get Dan to leave me his satellite radio when goes out for the evening. Sometimes I prefer that to queuing up mp3s. I don't know why it is, but I can never think of a song I want to hear when I go to download new music, but whenever I turn on the satellite radio, I hear song after song that I love.

Go figure.

Update: I did a 90 minute spin session this evening. All scheduled workouts present and accounted for!

Recent Workouts
Saturday: 30 minute elliptical, 8.5 mile run, 1.5 mile walk
Sunday: 15 minute elliptical, 45 minute core/strength training, 90 minute spin - Spinervals 5.0 Mental Toughness

3 comments:

Rachel said...

Awesome workouts! I always stare at women I admire at the gym too. I hope they don't think I'm weird! I worked out yesterday and overdid it. I can barely walk today! Sometimes, I wish I were just a bunny with a good owner to care for me so I could nap all day.

Cliff said...

No fair. I have no one to stare at in the gym except myself *LOL*.

I like the radio too b/c it is more spontaneous and random.

Comm's said...

I know what you mean about MP3 music playlists. I think of what I want to download, go to my site and then get completely off track and forget what I went there for but get six other songs.