Perhaps Too Much of a Good Thing

I hauled myself into the gym very late--it was nearly 11:30 pm when I got there. I didn't want to cut my workout short, so I asked the front desk guy if women are allowed in the locker room when it's being cleaned. I was thrilled to find out that not only are we allowed in, but that the cleaning guy is supposed leave if we ask him.

YAY! I can use the locker room late at night.

Boogers. No more excuses about not being able to go in at X time of night because of the locker room. Oh well.

Anyhow, I started out with a little bit of time on the recumbent bike because I actually hadn't done much of that lately. It only sorta challenges me, but what I feel like I need to push is the "running" so I've been trying to spend more time on the treadmill. So after only about 20 minutes on the bike, I moved over to the treadmill.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this previously and it's too much effort to go back and read what I've already posted (or it distracts me for so long I get nothing else done), so I'll lay it all out here. The first time I completed 3.1 miles (the triathlon run distance), it was all walking and took me over an hour because I went so slowly. I don't even remember the exact time. That's okay, because if I already put it in print, it certainly doesn't need to be out there twice.

The first time I mixed jogging (with how slow I went, it's totally not running) with my slow walking, I just barely finished my 3.1 miles in 60 minutes.

Friday, I got it down to 56 minutes.

Tonight, 53:20.

I would say yay me, but I actually may have pushed myself a bit too hard. This time though, I'm not talking about my back (which is the usual, but that bit is getting old). Instead, I'm talking about my poor it's-been-so-long-since-I-had-endurance-I-don't-remember-what-the-word-means heart. I interspersed my slow walking with jogging, but made the walking stretches shorter and the jogging stretches longer.

Pop quiz: how many of you know how to calculate heart rates? Here's the answers:

Take 220.

Subtract your age. Just for fun, let's say you're 35.

This gives you 185.

This is your "maximum" heart rate. In other words, supposedly the maximum your heart can tolerate.

For the record, apparently either this "fun example" is only 30, or the calculation of when I should drop dead is wrong.

Continuing with the "example" though...

To calculate an "aerobic/fat loss" heart rate, one should work out maintaining a heart rate at 55-70% of the maximum heart rate. In other words, between 102 and 130.

To calculate a "cardiovascular training" heart rate, one should work out maintaining a heart rate at 70-85% of the maximum heart rate. In other words, between 130 and 157.

(Note: these are general and there are more specific and updated ways of calculating this, but this is just a "fun example," right?)

So I'm jogging along for my terribly brief bursts as usual, but again, trying to up my speeds a little bit since I seem to be able to tolerate a little more. When Examplechick then goes to put her hands on the heart rate calculator on the treadmill is when I discovered she should be dead.

It's also about when I realized my lungs were BURNING and I felt kinda weird.

I slowed down for a bit and took longer walking stretches.

Then something possessed me and I pushed myself on another jogging spurt.

And sent my heart rate over the top, again.

Lungs. Burn.

Chest. Feels funny.

Brain. Hey stupid, knock it off.

So I walked much of the rest of it. I tried picking up speed on the walking (since I couldn't seem to do the jogging in moderation), but still can't go very fast yet.

When I was done, I went and sat in the pool for about 20 minutes to try and cool myself down. I could already tell I was dehydrated (not just from the general ickiness of my shirt), so I was chugging water.

I fell asleep quickly when I got home at 2:00 am.