Showing posts with label C25K. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C25K. Show all posts
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Turns out that keeping up routines while travelling is hard...
So, with me being gone for 5 days, it's been a little difficult to stick to plans. We tried, though, and did...mostly ok. Have a summary, in yet another, slightly different format.
Fitness: Despite being across the country from one another, Mu and I both did the scheduled C25K sessions on Sunday and Tuesday. We moved to 4 minutes of walking and 1 minute of jogging for 30 minutes, and it actually didn't feel any harder, which I think is a sign that something is working, ever so slightly. We'll do the last workout with those times today, and then move to 3:1, most likely.
Sleeping: Mu says his sleep schedule is still a work in progress, and mine was all over the place, with the Boston trip and all. I'm gonna try to get back to a midnight-8am thing and see how that goes. I was reminded at my conference, though, that performance is correlated with sleep in a 24hr period rather than nighttime sleep only, so I think as long as I keep my rise time steady, it's ok for me to get a little less sleep at night and take a nap.
Eating: My food intake was really all over the place with travel, and I'm not keeping track of my weight. Mu says he hasn't lost any weight this week.
Language: Mu did 2 modules of the online Russian course he's taking! I was amazed to have a little text exchange with him in Russian, it was great! I haven't done any Italian yet.
Writing: As predicted, I haven't done any. But, I've put blocks into my calendar for next week, so that's progress, right?
Cooking: Nothing new, with being gone. Planning on cooking tomorrow afternoon, most likely. Plus, I'm probably gonna go to the farmer's market with my dad on Saturday. At 7am. Maybe.
Activities: Not much for me, except for lots of socializing with sleep research friends. Mu did spend time with friends and family while I was gone. We're putting lots of interesting things into our calendars, though! I'm pretty excited for next week.
I gotta start taking pictures of something to include in my posts, but what? I also need to figure out some weekly features. This blogging thing is taking effort! :)
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Beginning a routine
Yesterday was the first full day of the summer of self-improvement, so let me try this summary format for updating and see how you all like it.
Mu's goals:
Fitness: See mutual goals below
Language: Mu has learned how to say "good morning!"
Dance: None so far, but he's taking a class soon!
Elaine's goals:
Fitness: See mutual goals
Language: Nothing at all...
Cooking: Nothing today -- my mom made tons of food for our arrival, so there's no point in making more.
Writing: Also nothing, which I think will be the case until I return from my conference next week.
Mutual goals:
C25K: Today was a "rest" day, but we walked around downtown for about 75 minutes, so we felt like we got some exercise -- nearly 4 miles of slow walking. We've both been weirdly sore, I didn't think 5 minutes of jogging was going to affect us so much!
Sleep: Got up at 8am, as I mentioned yesterday. It was a little rough and we both felt slow for a while, but we managed. We both really wanted a nap, but by the time we got really sleepy, it was after 3pm (the recommended cut-off time for a daytime nap not to interfere with nighttime sleep), so we refrained. Mu managed to go to bed on time, but I stayed up a little late.
Food: We've decided that with all the amazing summer fruit here, fruit is an exception to the "little to no snacks" rule -- we want to eat a good amount of it, and we don't always want to include it with a meal, and it's a healthier snack than most. So we had fruit throughout the day. Our meals were also a little wonky -- we had breakfast and lunch as usual, but then we had cocktails and small munchies as an early dinner, and another small munchie as second dinner? I don't know. Not quite on a schedule, but at least it didn't feel like too much food.
Activities: Socialized with friends, explored a new-to-us restaurant -- Taverna Aventine.
All in all, a decent start. I think we'll both need to figure out how to schedule time for all the different things, but not bad so far.
Mu's goals:
Fitness: See mutual goals below
Language: Mu has learned how to say "good morning!"
Dance: None so far, but he's taking a class soon!
Elaine's goals:
Fitness: See mutual goals
Language: Nothing at all...
Cooking: Nothing today -- my mom made tons of food for our arrival, so there's no point in making more.
Writing: Also nothing, which I think will be the case until I return from my conference next week.
Mutual goals:
C25K: Today was a "rest" day, but we walked around downtown for about 75 minutes, so we felt like we got some exercise -- nearly 4 miles of slow walking. We've both been weirdly sore, I didn't think 5 minutes of jogging was going to affect us so much!
Sleep: Got up at 8am, as I mentioned yesterday. It was a little rough and we both felt slow for a while, but we managed. We both really wanted a nap, but by the time we got really sleepy, it was after 3pm (the recommended cut-off time for a daytime nap not to interfere with nighttime sleep), so we refrained. Mu managed to go to bed on time, but I stayed up a little late.
Food: We've decided that with all the amazing summer fruit here, fruit is an exception to the "little to no snacks" rule -- we want to eat a good amount of it, and we don't always want to include it with a meal, and it's a healthier snack than most. So we had fruit throughout the day. Our meals were also a little wonky -- we had breakfast and lunch as usual, but then we had cocktails and small munchies as an early dinner, and another small munchie as second dinner? I don't know. Not quite on a schedule, but at least it didn't feel like too much food.
Activities: Socialized with friends, explored a new-to-us restaurant -- Taverna Aventine.
All in all, a decent start. I think we'll both need to figure out how to schedule time for all the different things, but not bad so far.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Summer of self-improvement (and hopefully, a return to blogging)!
Hello! I'm back! Did you miss me? Please don't answer that if the answer is "no." :) Anyways, as I'm sure you realized, between my dissertation proposal and some trips and other craziness, I have fallen away from the blogging thing. I've kept up somewhat with the cooking thing, though that has also varied. But, now Mu and I are in SF for the next 2.5 months (minus 2 trips on my part), and we have goals for the summer! Those feel sufficiently like projects that I think I can safely blog about them here. Plus, I will hopefully be cooking again.
So, to get started, I'll tell you what our goals are. They fall mostly into the "get in better shape" category, with a few random other things. Mu's goals are: to learn Russian, to lose 20 lbs, and to learn ballroom dance. Mine are: to learn Italian, to take trapeze, to improve my core strength (through maybe pilates, and also through aerial conditioning classes), and to cook at least several times a week (which will be more possible once my parents put in a small stovetop in their in-law unit, where we're staying). Oh, and I also want to finish all the paperwork needed to get my dissertation running in the fall, as well as submit my master's data for publication. Our mutual goals are: to run a 5K, to regularize our sleep schedules (trying for a midnight-8 approach, we'll see how it goes), and to eat more regularly and with fewer snacks (the French way). I would theoretically also like to lose weight, but I don't do well with that as a specific goal -- I just get annoyed and give up. I'm hoping that having more fitness-oriented goals will work better for me. It seems likely that some of the goals won't be met by summer's end (learning languages, say, or running a full 5K), but I think we can make significant progress.
Yesterday, our first full day in SF, we started working on those goals. We're doing a couck-to-5K (C25K) training program that's designed to take 12 weeks (nice and easy buildup, hopefully), and we started it yesterday. The program is designed for 3 workouts/week, 30 minutes each, with a mixture of running and walking. The first week actually starts at just walking, which we are fine with, so we skipped to the 2nd week and modified it slightly based on what we felt we could manage. We ended up alternating 5 minutes of walking with 1 minute of running for 30 minutes. This was manageable (though next time, we need to go to a less hilly area -- we're not in good enough shape to run up hills!), so that's what we'll do for the next 2 training days and go from there.
The other thing we've started working on is sleep and meals. Yesterday, we both did the 3 meals and no snacks thing, and it felt fine, but I'm not sure how it'll go for me specifically when I'm traveling next week. I guess we'll see. Last night, we also went to bed at midnight and woke up at 8 this morning. This should've been enough sleep, but...wasn't. But we're up and about, so hopefully we can manage.
So, that's the overview. I think I'll try to write frequent summaries, and I'll only go into detail when the details are interesting (since bed and wake times really aren't). I may also bring back some of the other features, like links and/or art. :)
So, to get started, I'll tell you what our goals are. They fall mostly into the "get in better shape" category, with a few random other things. Mu's goals are: to learn Russian, to lose 20 lbs, and to learn ballroom dance. Mine are: to learn Italian, to take trapeze, to improve my core strength (through maybe pilates, and also through aerial conditioning classes), and to cook at least several times a week (which will be more possible once my parents put in a small stovetop in their in-law unit, where we're staying). Oh, and I also want to finish all the paperwork needed to get my dissertation running in the fall, as well as submit my master's data for publication. Our mutual goals are: to run a 5K, to regularize our sleep schedules (trying for a midnight-8 approach, we'll see how it goes), and to eat more regularly and with fewer snacks (the French way). I would theoretically also like to lose weight, but I don't do well with that as a specific goal -- I just get annoyed and give up. I'm hoping that having more fitness-oriented goals will work better for me. It seems likely that some of the goals won't be met by summer's end (learning languages, say, or running a full 5K), but I think we can make significant progress.
Yesterday, our first full day in SF, we started working on those goals. We're doing a couck-to-5K (C25K) training program that's designed to take 12 weeks (nice and easy buildup, hopefully), and we started it yesterday. The program is designed for 3 workouts/week, 30 minutes each, with a mixture of running and walking. The first week actually starts at just walking, which we are fine with, so we skipped to the 2nd week and modified it slightly based on what we felt we could manage. We ended up alternating 5 minutes of walking with 1 minute of running for 30 minutes. This was manageable (though next time, we need to go to a less hilly area -- we're not in good enough shape to run up hills!), so that's what we'll do for the next 2 training days and go from there.
The other thing we've started working on is sleep and meals. Yesterday, we both did the 3 meals and no snacks thing, and it felt fine, but I'm not sure how it'll go for me specifically when I'm traveling next week. I guess we'll see. Last night, we also went to bed at midnight and woke up at 8 this morning. This should've been enough sleep, but...wasn't. But we're up and about, so hopefully we can manage.
So, that's the overview. I think I'll try to write frequent summaries, and I'll only go into detail when the details are interesting (since bed and wake times really aren't). I may also bring back some of the other features, like links and/or art. :)
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