sweet & sweat
After a day full of math meetings (admit it, you’re totally jealous!) and torrential rain I barely had time to run home and change before the fabulous duo J-Money and K-Fresh came to pick me up for some fruit picking. Yes, it is that time of year! Last summer I stocked up on sweet cherries, raspberries, and blueberries. Our freezer was not-quite full, but I thought for sure that we’d make it through the winter. Imagine my horror when I polished off the last of the frozen goodness mid-February. I am determined to do better this year.
We headed out to the farm, picked up our boxes to fill with the little red jewels. Raspberries are my favorite summer fruit. I used to eat them rarely if ever because they were so expensive in the stores and even if you decided to fork over the small fortune to get them they would mold or spoil before you could even get them home to wash and eat. AND, I never realized how shrunken the raspberries you can find at the grocery-store! Seriously. The berries here are the size of large grapes! Oh, so yummy.
I could not believe how humid and hot it was though. Within 10 minutes I was sweating so much I could barely see. All day long I’d been trying to figure out the best plan for my run today. I had 4 miles on the schedule. I was going to go this morning but there was a severe thunderstorm. Then I was going to go after my meetings but that got trumped by the berried. I had been toying with the idea of going when I was done harvesting but somewhere in the middle of the sweltering heat and humidity I decided to wait until after it cooled off. NOW, I am in the middle of another huge storm blowing through. Oh well. Tomorrow it is. I’m in my “reverse” taper mode, which means I’m slowly building up my mileage and number of running days per week. Since there was not a run scheduled for tomorrow I can easily run my 4 miles tomorrow without a problem.
Honestly, I’ve been tempted to run more than I have on the schedule. I know that I could handle it and my legs are itching to get out there and run. I’m holding them back though. I know that I will eventually be running upwards of 50 miles a week and be kicking myself for not enjoying this rest/recovery time. So, I will reign it in and enjoy all the time off. Actually I’ve been able to up my Jazzercise attendance since I don’t have to fit it in around work and/or running. I’ve gone every day this week and it’s been great to be back in class, working and stretching my muscles, lifting weights, and dancing my tail off.
I have made a renewed commitment to wear my heart rate monitor throughout this training cycle. I will do it! I don’t know much about the numbers, which means that I tend to ignore them. But I figure the more I use it and pay attention to my heart rate the more significant and helpful it will be. I just wish that I could take some sort of fitness test or whatever to figure out what my maximum heart rate is, cause I’m pretty sure I have no idea.
That’s that for now. I think I’ll go eat some raspberries and watch the lightening…
You can figure out your max heart rate by taking 220 and subtracting you age.
220-??= your MAX heartrate! (Although occasionally, it can peak higher!)
for a good cardio workout, take your max and figure out 80% of it…that’s the cardio end of it. If you’re trying for weight loss, you should stick around 60% of your max.
At work, we have a treadmill with the vO2 max output so you can see how efficently you use your oxygen while running. You increase speed and incline for as long as you can tolerate…and get the numbers. From there, Nick (who’s our performance coach) can set up a program especially for you! If you’re ever in Jackson, I would be happy to set you up!
We (myself and my coworkers) moniter our heart rates because we get a “fitness bonus” based on how many hours a week we work out. If we keep our heart rates above 80%, then it counts as double (workout 30 min it counts as 60 mins) so we always try and shoot high!
Jazzercise sounds amazing…I used to take jazz, ballet, tap and Loved it! Good luck with your training!
I’m jealous about the berries! Brian introduced me to the joy & wonder of freshly picked fruit. We have different places to go for strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and peaches.
The wedding kind of got in the way of our strawberry picking, so we didn’t get our usual 10+ pounds. I think we need to look into the state of blueberries very soon.
Enjoy!
gina it sounds to me like you need to go and see a heart Dr. get checked out and then do a stress test. they will run you on a tred mill with a heart moniter check you heart rate and tell you the best max rate for you and your age.