Double Shift

PM - 30 minutes on the elliptical (with incline)

This is my second workout of the day. This morning's "Back on Track" workout felt so good that I decided to give it a go with another low-impact workout. Both of the bicycles were occupied, so I tried the elliptical machine. It has a standard workout that has some serious incline, so I opted for that. The machine has lights corresponding to the different leg groups that are being worked out at any given time. (butt, quads, hamstrings, calves). But I never really felt the isolated strain indicated by the machine. I tried to keep the RPMs up to about 180 (just like running), but in general I'd say my average was closer to 165-170.

I'm so used to running motions that I wasn't very good on an elliptical machine. I try not to lift my feet too far off of the ground while I'm running (think "shuffling"), but the elliptical motion had me on an incline similar to shallow stairs. My feet kept sliding off and my knees would lock up from time to time when I fought against the repetitive motion. I had to hang on to the bar pretty much the whole time for fear of falling backward. Overall I probably looked like a crazy person, but the workout felt great. I'm feeling so good that I'm probably up for a 10-15 miler this weekend. This is very encouraging because I didn't know how well I could prepare for the Houston marathon with a long recovery and taper built into five short weeks.

Incidentally, I crossed a threshold a few weeks ago without even noticing it. I've run more than 1100 miles since I started tracking my runs with my Garmin watch on March 29, 2007. That's about four miles a day overall, and it doesn't even take into account the miles on the treadmill (since the GPS doesn't work there.) The watch can interface with a foot pod for indoor use, which uses an accelerometer to approximate distance. In other words I could work out inside, but still get my distance info for the data analysis that I love to do. That would be really cool, but I'll probably put that purchase off until after the Houston marathon.