Dizzy's and Back Again

... (Dissmore's, that is) with times 14:46 downhill, 17:13 uphill, 31:59 overall.  Other times for the trip as recorded in this blog are 39 minutes or 35 minutes, so I have to feel pretty good about getting in under 32 minutes.

Building a String

22 for 22 (workdays) so far.  SOme of these days are "lighter" than others, but at least 25 minutes of quick-walking or other exercise are included.

I managed to do the outbound leg of the Airport Rd. walk in under 16 minutes for the first time ever (15:57), but the back leg was nearly 18 minutes (frankly, the effort outbound wore me out).  It is interesting that the difference between an all-out effort and merely "purposeful" striding is only 12%.

Quick March up Oly

Times 4:33, 5:11, 5:54, 8:31!, for a total of 24:11.  I don't see how I can go much faster without some big change, either race-walking biomechanics or partial jogging.

Updated Oly table:

	Monday	Wednesday	Thur 19	Thur 26
Stadium & Nevada	4:50	4:38	4:44	4:33	Down Stadium Way
Global Animal Health Driveway	5:14	5:20	5:12	5:11	Uphill on Olympia
Observation Dr.	6:27	6:06	5:51	5:54
Back to SCUE	9:03	9:02	8:28	8:31
Total	25:34	25:08	24:17	24:11

Rocking the Oly

I decided to dedicate this week to Olympia Av walks (except for Tuesday Yoga, which turned out to be more of a vinyasan-style workout that previous sessions).  Times so far:

	Monday	Wednesday	Thursday
Stadium & Nevada	4:50	4:38	4:44	Down Stadium Way
Global Animal Health Driveway	5:14	5:20	5:12	Uphill on Olympia
Observation Dr.	6:27	6:06	5:51
Back to SCUE	9:03	9:02	8:28
Total	25:34	25:08	24:17

The uphill climb takes me to my aerobic limit and is very tiring. On Monday and Wednesday, I couldn't maintain a high level of effort on the "back" leg, but on Thursday I did better.

Week Behind, Week Ahead

Last week I was 5 for 5 on exercise (zero for 5 on blogging :-S).  Four Airport Road walks, plus a pretty vigorous workout at Yoga.  Erika found an old "Fundamental Sequence" handout that had that old-time-religion ring -- to begin with, twenty standing poses in a row.

Monday's walk was just about 35 minutes -- I didn't make any attempt to go beyond Stage 3 ("Purposeful") walking. On Wednesday and Thursday, I tried Stage 4 ("Hurrying") on the way out, but fell back to Stage 3 or 3.5 on the way back due to fatigue.  My times were very close on both days to 33:45. On Friday I attempted Stage 5 ("Maximum Effort") on the way out, and made excellent time (16:13), only to fall off  even more due to fatigue to 17:44 on the way back, for a total of 33:57.

Today I did Olympia Ave instead.  More aerobic challenge,but shorter in miles and time.  I counted 1620 paces (where Airport Rd. is 1150 paces one way) in 25:29.  The average pace rate today was only 45, where it is usually about 65 for Airport Road.  I guess the hill took more out of me than I realized.

One further innovation:  following a suggestion of Diane Kress, I had a small apple (15 grams of readily-available carbohydrates) just before 1/2 hour of exercise.  It did seem to make my muscles (and me!) a lot more comfortable, and the aftermath less of a wipe-out.

Doin' It

Olympia Ave today, the first in some time.  Too busy at work -- I even had to skip yoga two weeks in a row (though I'm going to try for Thursday night this week).

Overall time was 25:26 (with about a minute off for texting with Liz). 4:36 at Nevada Street, 9:47 at Forest way, 15:45 at the observatory.  Good if not great, but hey, at least I'm doin' it.

Back to it...

... after a rough December at work.  Sometimes there wasn't time to eat lunch, much less take exercise.  So I started slow today with a 20-minute walk on the flat.  The temp was in the 40's, but the wind was in the 30's, and felt like 20's.

I did notice while climbing the two flights of stairs to my office that my aerobic condition has slipped some -- not all the way back, but a definite loss from a month layoff.