Oly Walk at (Partial) High Cadence

I promised myself today not to exhaust myself trying to set records and then being blasted for work the rest of the afternoon.  However, I did want to test the hypothesis that high cadence (above 25/10 seconds or 150/minute) is the most important factor to improve times.  And I wanted not to be lazy, but do the Olympia Av route with its big uphill.

I set the high cadence when I turned from the CUE driveway onto Stadium way.  I clocked myself at 27/10 (162!).  I turned the corner at Nevada, and apparently failed to click the lap timer.  On the uphill, I used very short steps but tried to keep up the cadence;  however, by half-way up I was struggling aerobically and knew my no-being-blasted goal was in danger.  So I dropped the cadence to 20 (120) and lengthened my stride somewhat.  I still had a PB improvement of 6 seconds at Global Animal Health.

Once on the flat by GAH I upped the cadence to 24 (144), still trying not to overdo.  My time to Observation Dr. was comparable to other good times.  I tried to keep it at 24 or 25 all the way back, which worked surprisingly well (though not perfectly).  I discovered that I could control some tiredness symptoms like wobbling by engaging core muscles,  My time on the back run was 8:26, one second off PB.

Overall the time was 23:55, a PB improvement of 16 seconds, or 1%.  Obviously, aerobic capacity is still limiting.  I wonder what time I could accomplish if I could keep the cadence up above 25 all the way around.

It seems that I rely on the racing-against-myself aspect to keep myself engaged in the work.  It tends to result in too much tiredness at work, but I'll put up with it for the time being because it puts the "work" in my walking workout.

Just another airport

... road trek, that is.

times 15:52 outbound, 16:29 inbound, for a total of 32:22.

This was an attempt to keep up a high cadence, without much regard to biomechanics or stride length.  I managed over 150 most of the way (which I used to think I could not do), so the time is very good -- two minutes better than on 4/16, and only one second off the PB on 3/26.  It was still quite tiring -- made my early afternoon at work not very productive, but a good workout is worth it occasionally.

Strings and n-for-m

I missed one Friday exercise on the 17th.  I missed two in the week of the 20th (Wednesday and Friday).  Not really a surprise, as this is the very busiest time of the semester at work.  Still a better performance than last semester.  Overall, I believe I am 54-for-58 on workday chances since February 9th.  Another way to put it, in the 11 1/2 weeks since 2/9, 9 were 5-for-5.

Olympia - Conditioning is working!

After a few days of gymming, I went back to the Olympia Av walk today, forgetting that a detour would be needed due to demolition of (part of?) McAllister Hall.  The walk went well, with less respiratory stress -- I never really considered begging for mercy, and I'm not totally blown after.   In fact, I was able to keep up a "hurrying" pace (about 24 steps per 10 seconds or 144 per minute) throughout -- which I can't usually do because I get too tired toward the end.

Times were 5:50 at Nevada Street (with detour), 5:18 to GAH (with detour), 5:43 to Observatory Rd, and 8:16 home, a total of 25:10.  So though the time was about a minute longer than my best, all of that was in the detour area -- my times for the last two "laps" were the best yet!

A Couple Of Shorts

... down to Stadium Way and the highway and back (about 13 minutes), then down to the Stadium Way/highway corner, over to the Cougar Bridge, then back (about 18 minutes).  Pretty good times, but suprisingly tiring effort -- the Stadium Way hill is no slouch!

24 for 25

... for the record, missed Friday 3/13 (!) due to overbusiness at work.  I had to prepare the database for a meeting Peg had at two, so powered through lunch at my desk, planning to make it up after work.  Then at 4:00 we were doing a DB update that went unexpectedly wrong, and it was 7:00 before I was able to get free.  Oh, well...

Airport Rd Proof-of-pudding

I was a little sceptical about my under-16-minute time outbound to Airport Rd, based on a 17-minute time from seemingly little-less effort.  So today I tried again a "maximum-effort" walk out.  15:47!  I tried a little harder to keep it up on the way back, for a return time of 16:58 and a total of 32:46.