Week 2 Day 3

Ker-Pow!  Week 2 is in the books, folks.  As you can see, I went down the stairs as a nose-breather and came back as a mouth-breather.  For today's exercise, the same across Week 2, I wiggled at 3.3 mph and jiggled at 5.1 or 5.2 mph.  My heart rate was 140s after walks and 160s after the first five jogs.  (I was at 120 after the warm-up walk.) For the last run I took the incline to zero and slowed it down to 5.0 mph. Just as the music changed and the podcast dude was saying congratulations for finishing, I ripped the headphones out of the ipod and kept jogging.  My last jog was three minutes.

Why would I do three minutes at the end?  What I have noticed in the C25K forums is that a lot of people get anxious, dare I say melodramatic, at the imposing requirements of a following week's exercise regimen.  Given my melodramatic tendencies, I told myself if I felt good at the end, that I'd keep going to prove I could do three minutes.  I like to think that I took some gloves and whacked them across the face of Week 3.  :)

In terms of stride, I started the first two jogs with heel-striking.  When that felt sufficiently jarring and uncomfortable, I switched to fore-foot striking.  For jogs 3-6, I did exclusively fore-foot striking and I tried to get my heel down before my center of mass was already in front of the foot.  I wasn't overly lucky in that category.  Clearly, to avoid the heel, I'm coming in at a steeper angle than would otherwise be necessary.

There was something fascinating about this exercise.  I could feel my lower legs accommodate their conditions.  At first, I thought things might not end up too comfortable - the ankles and shins were saying "Oh crap, here he goes again."  Then, they leveled off and I didn't hear a peep out of them.

Afterwards, I stretched the gastroc, soleus, piriformis, hamstrings, and quads like a proper soldier.  All muscles are happy and accounted for.  I checked my shin bones before the run, and everything was in order, but now I can feel that Tanya Harding had 'em whacked again when I wasn't looking.  Given my weight, and the fact that each leg gets 2-3 times my body weight per stride, it's only natural that they will flex a bit and search for calcium in the off days.

I also did some of my favorite cross-training today: snow shoveling 4.25 +/- 0.25 inches of snow.  Here's a picture of the kids playing while Daddy was at work.  Currently, they are forecasting 12-24 inches of snow for Friday and Saturday.  Lots of cross-training in my future!  Is it just me, or is that rusty Dodge depressing property values?