A Tad Sore

My hubs was feeling under the weather and took a rare sick day. I'm wondering if he hasn't caught flu as reports indicate a "bad" flu season. But doesn't the media always say that to scare you into getting a flu shot? Never mind the fact that it's another ineffective vaccine, due to viral mutations happening inside the eggs where the vaccines are spawned. If you caught flu last year, then apparently you're protected because you've still got immunity. And those who were immunized last year? Nope, out of luck I suppose...

Today's a Cardio Day. The gym is peopled by the same folks pre New Year although I do see one or two new faces. That's actually not a lot considering attrition. A lot of regulars don't show up much during the winter. I'm not sure if they've fled to Florida, where they wouldn't be enjoying mild weather anyway. Today it's almost warm out at 40F. Still, I have my hat, puffy down coat, fleece gloves and boots on. It's still January after all.

My glutes and hammies are actually a tad sore today. Not sure if it's due to the light RDLs I tried yesterday, or just the fact that I worked out after 4 days of relative inactivity. I'm dragging and I don't think my mileage will be very good. Pull Ups are again hard during the last 6 reps. Of course. I feel really tired! But I'm also stubborn so I keep going. To change things up, I add elbow planks today, and subtract any of the crunch, bicycle and scissors that would have me laying on my back, which would force me to take my hair clip out.

Yesterday I saw a gal on the treadmill with two pigtails and I thought I'd see if I could do that and not look ridiculous. It might take me a bit more practice to not have my braids stick out at 45° from the back of my head. I wound up clipping them together and that looked okay. This morning, my hair was crazy from all the braiding. I'm back to a single braid clipped to my head because that's so much easier. But when I'm really bored, I guess I'll try my hand at pigtails again.

After doing two sets of elbow planks, I could feel my stomach. Great! I guess I'll add those as a regular component to my workout now. Because it's a Cardio Day, I do Intervals. I'm tired so I really only want to do 20 minutes but I talk myself out of it, and punch in 30 minutes. I have trouble getting past 200 SPMs (Strides Per Minute) for the first two troughs. Yes, even though I just did 30 minutes on the cross-trainer, I still need to "warm up" for my legs to get to speed. By the third trough in the Intervals program, I'm able to hit 239 SPMs for almost 20 seconds before dropping down to 220, then 210. I figure I can keep the first minute of High Intensity up past 200 SPMs, then drop down to 170 to 180 SPMs for the second minute. Then the program peaks and I drop to 100 to 120 SPMs. Each bar lasts a minute and each cycle totals 4 minutes. Halfway through, I tell myself I should've just done 20 minutes. But I don't quit. Because that's not my nature. I make it through the entire 30 minutes.

I even do a full Mat Stretch afterwards to see if I can improve my horizontal stretch. Creepy Frankenstein keeps staring at me from 20 yards away as he sits in the pec deck. I rotate and put my back to him. Why do old guys think it's okay to stare? Yuck. But at least the gym scale is friendly today, reading 110.2 lbs. Of course, I've only drunk half my water. And sweated profusely. We'll see where I am in a week.

Tuesday 
6.45 cardio miles

30 x-trainer
Calories 143
Miles 3.85
Average Heart Rate 152

HGPU 26
Push-ups 60
Elbow Plank 60s
Bird Dogs 2 x 60s
Side Planks 2 x 60s
Elbow Plank 60s

30 elliptical
Intervals
Calories 295
Miles 2.60
Average Heart Rate 151