Pretending To Run

This morning was the Terrier group run, but I didn't go because I'm still babying my heel from two weekends ago. My heel is finally back to the point where it doesn't hurt to walk around, which is awesome, and I'm going to try to go slow and get back into the groove of running.

When I left work today, I was exhausted walking home. I thought that I could have just walked into my apartment, laid down and been out for the night. Instead, I had a snack to try and get a little pep in my step and headed over to Drew's. I dropped off my stuff and went to his gym. By the time I got there, I was feeling a little bit better (or at least more awake).

I decided to start in the weight room and I think I did the following workout (I forgot to bring something to write it down exactly, so this is what I remember weight-wise):

Leg Extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps each at 50 pounds
Hamstring Curls: 3 sets of 10 reps each at 10 pounds
Seated Lat Pull-Downs: 1 set of 10 reps at 50 pounds, 1 set of 10 reps at 60 pounds, 1 set of 10 reps at 70 pounds
Chest Press Machine: 3 sets of 10 reps each at 50 pounds
Arm Curl Machine: 2 sets of 10 reps each at 30 pounds

The weight room was packed with boys (I feel justified that I have given it the name of "the boy area"). Those lifts weren't exactly what I had in mind when I was heading to the gym, but they were available pieces of equipment and I didn't really feel like waiting around for the boys to clear out. I decided that I didn't really like the chest press machine. I wanted to do actual bench presses, but all of the benches were saved with towels on them, even though no one was really using any of them. I'm not really sure what my options are in that scenario and I wasn't quite brave enough to just go ahead and move the stuff off the bench. I only did two sets of the arm curls because my right elbow has been bothering me for a while now and that seemed to aggravate it, so I decided to quit while I was ahead.

I headed downstairs to the cardio area and checked out the treadmills. There was a line and I didn't really feel like waiting around there either. Don't worry! I wasn't going to do too much, I was really going to walk for a while, run a 1/2 mile, and then walk some more ... but I figured that the line was a sign that I shouldn't run at all.

I decided to do the next best thing and use the elliptical machine. (I don't actually know that it's the next best thing, but it did let me watch "American Idol", which was all I really cared about). I did a total of 50 minutes - 45 minutes on the cross country setting and a 5 minute cool-down. My total distance was 4.59 miles. My heel is still feeling fine, but I'm a little scared to wake up in the morning and see how it is then.

As a complete side note to my daily stuff, I have firmly lost 5 pounds since starting this whole triathlon training. It was really never my goal to lose weight when I started this and I've waited a couple weeks to report on this weight loss because I wanted to make sure it was going to stick and it wasn't just a fluke. I will say that I'm feeling pretty good about this weight loss. I think going forward my goal will be more to decrease my body fat percentage (so that I'm gaining muscle). Luckily, Drew's scale reports on body fat. I've seen a small decrease since I've started, but I'm hoping to have it go down a bit more.