Day Three and I'm Over the Hump. Not.

The fog was so thick as I drove to the gym, I began to wonder if I'd been transported to a chilly version of Venus. Zero visibility apparently shut down several airports this morning. I admit I was a bit worried that I would fail miserably at HIIT today, wondering if I was still recovering from yesterday's cardio exertions. I'm not sore. I'm not tired. But I could tell once I got on the elliptical, that the lungs and legs weren't really happy with me. At least I didn't have a wicked stitch in my side like yesterday. Felt like I'd been gripped by a giant lobster claw just off the right side center of my abs. Usually a stitch hits me under the rib cage so this was different. But instead of pausing or slowing down, I just try to "run" faster, hoping it'll go away on its own. It did, eventually.

I toyed with the idea of only doing 7 or 8 minutes of the 1-minute On/Off intervals today instead of 10, but once I got to 8, well, it's only 2 more minutes. The first two minutes were okay, with peaks at 260-275 Strides Per Minute. Troughs are a leisurely 70 SPMs while I'm trying frantically to catch my breath. But the next several minutes had my peaks drop dramatically from 255 to barely making 240 SPM. Wow, that was hard. Then I dropped to 30 seconds On/Off and I was able to recover enough to up my speed back to the 250-275 SPM range. Yay! Not sure how I'm going to fare doing 20 minutes of this if I start that new 21-Day shred program on Monday. Yikes!

The Cage Stretch feels good and I'm pleased that neither hammies or lower back seem inordinately stiff. I plop myself on the floor in front of the Nexersys and proceed to wrap my hands. Today I cut a patch of moleskin and stuck it to my scabbed knuckle for additional protection. Again I punch in 9 rounds for the Follow Me Avatar. The first round is a bust because the machine doesn't register several kicks and my accuracy rating falls abysmally. But I improve and figure out just where the sweet spot is that I need to whack with my foot in order to register a good power kick. Afterwards, even though I know I'm a little tired, I punch in 3 rounds of Sparring. I love it because you can punch and kick in any combination you like, as fast and pretty much as hard as you want. It's rare that the machine stops you with a Warning Buzzer, and then the next blow will reset it most of the time. I wail on the machine, landing twice as many blows and kicks as called for (hence why my Strike stats are over 200%). But I am tired and I conserve my energy by pulling a lot of my punches. I'm not completely sure, but I think today might be a high score for points for me. Again! Yay!

Ignore the last two rows:
only the first three rows show
stats from the Spar Round

Tomorrow I'll do my basic cardio workout, some push ups, sit ups, maybe check out the ab wheel again, and end it with another boring 20 minutes of LISS. The gym scale pops back up to 113 lbs but since I've sucked down everything except two mouthfuls of the entire water bottle, I'm not surprised. And it doesn't bother me because in the mirror I feel like I look better. Maybe it's in my head, but I feel leaner and lighter. And I'm much happier.

Wednesday Cardio Week Day Three

Precor elliptical: 5 min warm up (180 Strides Per Minute); 10 min HIIT (1 min On/ 1 min Off); 5 min HIIT (30 sec On / 30 sec Off) = 2.07 miles  Glad I survived that! Whew!

Cage Stretch with BW heel dips, calf raises and side kicks

Nexersys Boxing machine, Beginner Female
Follow Me Avatar, 9 rounds
  Accuracy 87%  /  Strikes 105%  / Avg Power 129% 
Increases in accuracy, strikes and power! Yay!

Sparring Avatar, 3 rounds
  Strikes 219%  / Avg Power 87%  / Poinsts 964
Increases in number of strikes, power and total points! Yay!