0 comments Ever hear about The Office’s episode about their fun run? Well, thanks to my work’s Hulu Beta test run, I can embed the whole episode for you to watch here. If you’ve ever ran a 5k to a marathon, you’ll enjoy this episode.
Update: Video was deleted on Hulu, but watch the “Fun Run” video if you’re into running. Hilarious!
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Week 5 Sunday Run – Marina Del Rey – 8 Miles
The last time I showed up to practice was at 4 miles, 2 weeks ago. I was afraid that with such a long hiatus (although I’ve been keeping up with other forms of cardio), that I would struggle coming back at 2x the mileage. Fortunately, that was not the case. It was challenging, as any other run, but I think I did quite well. Our route: From Marina Del Rey to the outskirts of LAX. There were no other runners to dodge, but there were a few bikers. The weather was moderately cold and gloomy, but our body heat made up for it. I met a few new faces, so that makes it about 100 more people on the Team to meet and greet. It was off to Ihop brunch afterwards for some spinach and mushroom omelettes and chocolate chip pancakes. Not sure if it’s good for you after the run, but hey, I just ran 8 miles.
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I know what you’re thinking. It’s not what you think. One of our teammates, Javier, and Marie from TNT Tri Team planned a really fun event in Santa Monica, along Main Street. The Pub Crawl. It was at 2pm – 6pm (yeah, I know, a little too early to go drinking, but hey, it’s for a good cause). The plan was to hit up 4 bars, 1)Waterfront cafe, 2) O’Briens, 3) World Cafe, and 4) Finn McCool’s. Since I had a pretty crazy Friday (not going to get into that), I didn’t make it out to the event until the end of bar #3. People referred to each bar stop a base, so I started at third base. What people told me from the bar #2 and #3, people didn’t get crazy until bar #4. People had negative splits (marathon jargon, where people do better in the second half of the run) in their drinking. Great turnout though at about 70 people. At $20 donation each, this seemed to be a great fundraiser to have. Mental note to self: Throw an event like this next time.
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Beer bellies are genetic. I don’t believe it, but I do believe that it does take a lot of exercising to work off the beer.
Tonight we continued our Strength & Conditioning Training (1 more to go), and it wasn’t easy. We did our usual training, working on basic stretches and our core. The toughest part was the ab training, 6-minute abs, where 2 minutes are crunches forward, 1 to the left, 1 to the right, then we end it with 2 minutes of bicycle crunches. By the end, my legs aren’t even moving anymore. It was like I was on a bicycle, but not peddling anymore – just gliding.
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Mondays will be my crosstraining nights where I plan to experiment with different types of workouts and classes. I’ve had an indoor rockclimbing gym membership for half a year now, and I realized that I haven’t maximized its use to offset the monthly cost. I go to Rockreation over in West LA. It’s a great upper body and core workout, the gym environment is friendly, the music gets you pumped, and it exercises the mind by trying to get to a certain goal by trying different climbing routes. You can either rock-climb, where a partner is required to spot you, or you can boulder, which is my preferred choice of activity.
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Ok it’s not “real” training, but this I decided to skip out on this week’s long run to party it up in Vegas. We went to 4 different clubs throughout the weekend, and I’m guesstimating about 5 hours of dancing. Going back to the good ol Calorie Calculator, I burned about 2313 calories. Not bad. It’s good to actually keep active, even on crazy Vegas weekends.
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Tonight we had a fundraiser before the Strength & Conditioning class at the Rubios across the street at The Howard Hughes Center in LA. Whoever brought in a TNT flyer will get a cut of the money made that night from 6pm – 8pm. This kicked off my fundraising as I haven’t really started yet (OOPS!). Class started at the usual 8:30pm time and we did the usual exercises, but for some odd reason, Byong and I had a really hard time with the leg raises. Could it be all the partying last weekend? I know alcohol messes with your metabolism, but 4 days later? That bartender must have slipped something in there!
After the workout, I felt pumped to do a mid-week run. When I got home, I chatted a little bit online, browsed a few sites (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter… my usuals), and decided to go run. Yes, midnight. According to our training schedule, we’re supposed to bring in 30 minutes of running, and I did it! It was midnight, but I didn’t care. I used my cadence tactics from Sunday, and it’s working very well. My tempo has improved, and I can feel my cardio stepping it up a notch. Sweet! At this point, I can say I have surpassed my hump. The hump of willingness to go run. All I ever think about now is getting home from work to get in that run.
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In the beginning of February, representatives of Crunch, a gym in Hollywood, offered to give all employees a one month complimentary pass. February flew by so fast, and time’s running out! I finally decided to go since today was scheduled to be a “rest day” or a “crosstrain day”. It’s somewhat on the way home, it’s free, I’ll get some cardio in, and there won’t be traffic when I’m done. How can I resist? I looked at the classes online and at 8pm there was something called “Raw Groove.” Fair enough, that’s what I decided to do.
The gym is somewhat small, but seems to have a wide variety of things to do. It had all the machines and weights of what you’d expect from a gym. What sets itself from 24 Hr Fitness or LA Fitness is the amount of classes they offer, multiple rooms for classes, they have a boxing ring, and it has that sense of “Hollywood” style. Not sure if that last one is a good or bad thing. No one really hassled me about signing up for a year contract which some gyms do. I had some time to kill before my class, so I worked on my shoulders with some of the machines.
I felt a little weird when I first entered the class because aside from the instructor, there were only 2 other guys… and there were oh, 30 other girls. 10 girl to 1 guy ratio? Oh darn, right? Who am I to complain? Once the music started though, I knew I wasn’t in a “beginner” class. I eventually got used to the moves, after a few moments of just standing there, and some times when I’d spin the wrong way. Damn, they were making some difficult “U Got Served” moves to Justin Timberlake, Flo Rida, Mary J Blige, and more. I came to realize how uncoordinated I am, but it was really fun. Watch out now, I’ll bust some of these moves out in the clubs! There were so many 8 counts, jumps, spins, and hits for a whole hour.. it was a well worth cross train session and was a good break from the running monotony. Tomorrow night’s classes: Cardio Tai Boxing, or Pole Dancing?
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Week 3 Sunday Run
Every Sunday I make a trip out to Santa Monica from Pomona for the long runs. This morning, it rained. Practice doesn’t stop if it rains – the Team still runs. I decided not to make the trek because I have bald tires (I know, I know I should have changed them earlier… especially since I did a 720 degree spinout last night on the onramp, and luckily I didn’t hit anything – but that’s a whole other story I’m not going to get into). That terrifying experience of almost getting into a major accident was enough reason for me to just go to the local 24 and make up my mileage until I get new tires tomorrow. My goal for this week was to work on my cadence, while I make up for lost mileage.
Making up 5 miles at the gym isn’t too bad since we are still in the beginning. Even though my last post was about treadmills and pain, I toughed it out and went back on it. This time around it wasn’t so painful, and it took about an hour to do the 5 miles. What bugged the hell out of me though was that the treadmill I was on had a 20 minute cap, and I had to restart my cycle every 20 minutes.
Towards the end of the 5 miles, I experimented with my cadence, which last week, coach said that the optimal cadence should be 180 steps per minute. Last week I counted 165 as my cadence, so I counted what was mine on a 4.5 speed on the treadmill as a base speed. It was 155. I then raised the speed to 5.5, and it was 165 steps per minute. I also tried 6.0 speed, but I still had about 167 steps per minute. I brought it down to 5.5 again, and it came out to about 165 again. I felt very comfortable with that 5.5. So comfortable, that I was able to run for 20 minutes without stopping. I felt very efficient and tried to keep a very consistent tempo. Of course, a little of this was assisted with the motor of the treadmill, but it’s good to know where I stand in terms of cadence. Next time I’m on the pavement, I’ll experiment more so I can run like a gazelle (the photo of this post).
0 comments No, not fitness clubs… dance clubs.
Last night, I got a few hours of dancing (ouch, my thighs are sore) at the JLounge in Downtown L.A.. I would consider this part of my cross-training program. Kenn Kihiu seems to think so. According to this Calories Burned Calcultor, I burned approximately 925 calories @ 2 hours of dancing, give or take.
Ok, if you know me, all that dancing, especially at a club, cannot be done without the help of alcohol, which pretty much cancels out all the cardio I did. It is, though, better than drinking alcohol and just standing there.
