Well it's lunchtime on Friday and I'm writing this for tomorrow's entry. I'm trying to atone for Friday's breakfast by eating a salad for lunch - GROAN - I mean dear sweet Lord I'm kinda liking it, and considering changing my name from Gummy Bear to Rabbit Boy. My trainer walked by giving me the fingers to eyes and pointing at me thing - "I'm watching YOU to see if you're misbehaving at lunch!" I'm glad she didn't bear witness to the sheer depravity that occurred at breakfast, I fess up to her, I don't know why, probably lying to one's trainer is a cardinal sin. I then ask about tomorrow's workout and say, "Heart rate of 144 for thirty minutes right?" Kind of hoping, no, fervently hoping she'll respond with, "Did I say 144? I meant 124!"Instead she stares me dead in the eyes and says, "Yep."
Yesterday (Friday, I'm beginning to feel like this post is going to read like an episode of The Time Tunnel), a coworker (remember my shyness at naming names in this blog, but THANKS coworker, you know who you are) sent me a bunch of stuff that was based on years of her doing exercise. One was a document on fat burning that I'm going to have to read a few times. Another was a VO2 measuring formula, I'm gonna hold off of that one for a bit since my number (currently) is abysmal - I might wait until the three month mark when the trainer checks up on me again. And last was a spreadsheet called 'The Sally Edwards Method for Heart Rate.' I don't have a clue who Sally Edwards is - GASP!, but I plug in some numbers and it informs me my 'base' which I'm interpreting as my Max Heart Rate is 174 (a moment for quiet gloating) but then goes on to inform me that my 'Strength Energy Zone (75-85%) is 131-148 which is where my trainer wants me (allows for my wondrous trainer to gloat, go on, you know you want to) and that my 'Interval Energy Zone (65-92%) is 113-164. She wants me in the 144-154 range for most of my workouts (or 83-89% of Max Heart Rate, I've reset my Garmin with these Edwards numbers). At one time I told my trainer that I didn't go to college to learn all this stuff but she did, so I'm gonna listen to her and try for that range, God help me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'll trust her numbers but use mine :-) In other words using her Max HR calculation of 203 (based off of The American College of Sports Medicine) puts me in 70-76% of Max Heart Rate. Why is this so complicated?
I brave the weather and get into the gym and make sure I know exactly where the trash can is, there's a high probability puking will be involved! I feign indifference at this latest hurdle but I'm pretty nervous. I've got my trusty USPS water bottle with me. I'm lugging THAT thing around everywhere, like the binky its become.
I'm alone, it's around 6:30am and this is the first time I'm all by my lonesome. It's weird. I dawdle, hanging out in front of the touch screen for the really cool HDTVs and Sirius radio station they have installed. There's a note there saying something I don't bother to read, probably something down the lines of don't TOUCH the touchscreen!
I tentatively touch the blank screen. It lights up! It's remarkably easy to use. I push the button for the radio and soon it's blasting out some techno-funk. This station was on yesterday and it feels a lot like I imagine a Rave party would be without the ecstasy and a lot of people miserably exercising. It's way too loud. I turn it off. You can turn on individual HDTVs. I've decided to try the elliptical for this ordeal so I turn on that TV for those machines and set it for FoxNews in glorious high definition. I turn on the other TV next to it and it comes up as FitTV, cool.
Lap one (on the metrics above) was an attempt to use the elliptical machine for a heart rate, thinking it would help me get in the zone I needed to be at but it didn't work out. It set a target heart rate of 118bpm and I can hear my trainer laughing if I was to turn in that, or worse staring at me sympathetically and saying, "Try harder." (shudder)
I also had a problem with the Garmin. You can set an alarm if you're either above or below a zone and I had set it to warn me if I went below 144bpms. When I turn on the Garmin it starts beeping.
You are below your target heart rate.
I know, I'm trying to get up to it!
BEEP - You are below your target heart rate.
DAMMIT!
I turn that warning off and set the elliptical for 'Manual' and the level for 8 and the time for 45 minutes and start to work. When I get into zone 3.8 - 4.0 I hit the target heart rate. I note the time and when I can quit after hitting my thirty minutes. Two minutes later I've forgotten it.
I don't know when to quit. Screw it I'll try and go the distance, time wise. I'm also keeping a close eye on my 'Avg Heart Rate' since that's the objective. The Garmin only gives the average for the entire workout and I want to point to that number for the trainer.
Here's the chart for lap two:
Average of 146 bpm for 45 minutes. I was in the target heart range for forty minutes, ten minutes more than requested. Mmhmm, I rock. Also when I'm in this range I'm 'puffy' and really couldn't hold a conversation, also sweaty and gross - this 'puffy' business is for my trainer.The cool down was a mess. I was worried about my average bpms so I kept it at 144 so that it wouldn't go down - I now know I don't need to do that for laps. So 45 minutes in the target range! 560 calories burned according to the machine.
I stretch with more focus than yesterday and then do a few curls with a dumb bell as a heads up to my muscles (this is coming, be afraid muscles).
As I leave I notice I'm all alone again (a few people came in during the ordeal), I turn off the TVs and head home. Tomorrow I think I'll do a fairly light interval training or something. I suspect I'm gonna feel this.
Apologies for the length of this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment