Fickled Weather Workout

I'm not used to weather changing so quickly, from a frosty 30-something degrees this morning to a windy 47F interspersed with snow flurries, torrential rain, and hail all in a period of just a few hours. Luckily my workout wasn't nearly as temperamental. Today I decided to return home after taking my son to his early morning elective gym class, so I could actually eat my oatmeal, egg and pomegranate breakfast. I also got all my moleskin pieces cut and positioned before I left the house again. My bird feeder appears to be an avian United Nations, with just one or two of several different species: song sparrows, goldfinches, purple finches, Downey woodpeckers, nuthatches, tufted titmouse, English sparrows, house wrens, cardinals, and chickadees. Actually, by mid-afternoon, there's nothing but a good dozen chickadees, a street gang of tiny acrobats. The mourning doves, cooing with their squeaky wings, don't visit the feeder. Nor do the robins racing across the lawns. However, squirrels and chipmunks make themselves right at home unless my dog is sitting outside, watching from the stoop.

The gym isn't too crowded. I spend 10 min on the elliptical for a steady-state warm up but I don't feel warm. Seven rounds of Beginner Follow Me is a warm up. The machine doesn't register my Lead Kick for several rounds. I'm wearing my new Ryka walking shoes to see if they're suitable for this activity. Sadly, they're not. Once I finally figure out exactly where and how I need to kick the Lead Kick pad, my left big toe feels a bit battered. I've actually cracked that nail down by the base (from just this sort of thing) and had to wait several months for it to grow out to a point where I could trim it off. I blank the machine a few times too. And there's two rounds where the machine goes crazy and runs a series of incongruous combinations that I totally miss. So my accuracy needs work.

I don't fair much better in the Intermediate program, although I quite enjoy the faster pace, and the greater force tolerance. I don't stop the machine nearly as often. After seven rounds, I feel pretty good. That's nearly an hour of whacking and kicking, sometimes in rapid succession. Today I feel like I need a change. Because I'm doing HIIT Cardio 3x week ( on days that I lift), I decide to do LISS Cardio on the Step Mill. I start off planning to do 15 minutes but do 20 on a whim. Even though my pace is fairly slow, I start to sweat. Thank goodness I put my hoodie back on!

Today is hectic: I need to pick my son up from school. We're skipping Kung fu because we need to cut out 50 paper robot patterns for tonight's Cub Scout Pack meeting. My husband is leaving work early to pick up more ink for our printer. 50 is a lot of cutting! My desktop computer has been acting oddly today and after I reboot it, it loses all email and Internet abilities even though it's got a strong wifi signal. My hubs surprises me with a brand new iPad Air. Well, that explains all the weird questions he was texting me the other day! We don't have time for dinner as we cut the last robot pattern. Then we get the urgent email: Cub Scout meeting cancelled due to power outage at the school. Well, now we have time for dinner.

I'm really bummed about my desktop machine. It's where I do all my photography projects, where I print all my emails from, my son's Chinese school hw, and where I normally write my blog. I feel a little lost now. Hopefully I can get it fixed. Or I'll just have to adapt a workaround.

Thursday Workout

10 min Precor elliptical

7 rounds Beginner Follow Me: 92% Accuracy / 96% Strikes / 126% Average Power
7 rounds Intermediate Follow Me: 83% Accuracy / 96% Strikes / 102% Average Power

20 min Matrix Step Mill (50 flights)