Our Last Summer Cardio Day

Today is the first time in weeks that I've actually felt the need to wear a hoodie over my gym clothes. Temps dropped into the low 60s which made for fantastic sleeping weather. Clouds rolled in. It rained. Of course, temps are forecast to rise over the holiday weekend so that's kind of a bummer. I drag my son out of bed at noon. I've already been out of the house to run a few errands. But we both stayed up too late, marveling at the fact that the Kodi software finally works on our Xbox, allowing us to stream TV shows and movies. Previous attempts usually ended in frustration as the software would tell us that there were no streams available to view the requested programming. I'm sure it was a glitch and we just gave up. Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime all stream programming, but sometimes there's other stuff you want to watch. I'm not sure what's changed, but it seems that anything new always needs time to settle in. Weird, right?

So, we were up until 4 am watching the Avengers: Infinity War. My son told me we had to watch all the screen credits to catch that last little scene, the Easter Egg, that foretells events in the next film. Overall, as my son had warned me, the movie was exciting, but ultimately very depressing because everyone dies. Or gets to watch all their friends die. Ugh. My son picked up all his info from friends and YouTube discussions. Smart kid.

Today is Friday and that means it's a Cardio Day. It's our last Summer Cardio Day together and that makes us a bit sad. I tell my son that we are doing the cross-trainer, steps and then the Expresso Bike and he doesn't argue. He does complain that his arms are sore. Not from yesterday, but from Wednesday's Pull Day. Must've been those BB Curls! Still, he manages to do his pull ups. While we were on the Step Mill, I could see a male-female couple I've never seen before.

I'm not good with ages so I'll guess that they were both mid to late 40s or 50s. The man looks older, but he's wearing a cap so that makes his age even harder to discern. He's much taller than the woman. She's got decent arms, but a decidedly middle-age backside. I only notice them because she's dragged a box over to the space between the two cable stations where there are pull up bars suspended overhead. She manages to do a few, maybe 3 to 5, pull ups for each set. Sometimes she only gets 1 or 2. They're not full pull ups either, as her arms are severely bent and she's barely moving for each rep. Jeeze, I hope my pull ups look better than that! But I don't know. Most bars are too thick around for me to get a reasonable grip so I don't even attempt them. I have ridiculously small hands, even for a person of my size. She's bigger than I am, obviously. But I like to think I have better arms and back.

I don't push myself very hard on the cross-trainer. And I drop down a speed on the Step Mill but I'm sweating profusely at the end of 20 minutes. The Expresso Bike kicks my butt. I don't score as high as I've done in the past, but today I encountered some mountainous grades that were almost impossible to climb while chasing dragons and coins. In a few weeks I'll have to drop my exercise intensity level to walking. Boring! Not looking forward to that. And I'm a bit perplexed as how to resolve the apparent conflict between doing HIIT cardio, and keeping one's heart in the "safe" zone for your age.

Going all out for 30 seconds means my heart rate will most likely jump to over 200. It probably won't drop down to 60% during the minute or two of jogging/walking because that's a heart rate of 97. 97 is not a reasonable rate for someone who is exercising. All the charts tell me that because I'm 58, my maximum heart rate should be 167.4 beats per minute. It doesn't help one bit that I feel like I've lost conditioning by adhering to these guidelines. (I'm stubborn, but I'm not stupid.) However, cardio doesn't give me the same mental and physical benefits since I slowed down. I feel as if going slower has made me slower, and exercise no longer helps me with my anxiety. Ugh.

We finish in the classroom with lunges, push ups, core and then a little stretching. My son wants to workout on Monday because it'll be the last day of his membership. The gym will only be open from 7 am to 3 pm, so I tell him he can't sleep in if he wants to come. Not quite sure what we'll do on our very last day, but I'd like to plan something fun.

Last Cardio Day with my Son

20 cross-trainer
Manual
Miles1.87
Calories 152
AHR? 128 / 150

20 StepMill
Speed 5
Total steps 943
Floors 58
Calories 140
AHR 112?

20 Expresso Bike
Dragon Island
Total points 99,910
Miles 2.86
Calories 61
AHR? 128

HGPU 15, 15, 15, 15 (60)
M pull ups 8, 8, 7, 7 (30)

Lunges 34
M 26

Push Ups 50+10
M 35
Crunches 30/20
Scissors 50
Side Planks 2 x 60s
Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Dead Bug
Stretch