Sunshine

I must admit, I haven't been doing too much exercise in past couple of weeks. I had a big workshop coming up and that took all my free time. In fact significant exercise minutes were made of running between gates at airports. I missed goals for two weeks consecutively. I still managed to do some kickboxing, aerobics, and abs, but not too much. It didn't help that it was continuously raining for a few days in New England.

Then last week, it was sunny! I managed to go running, which was a great feeling. Then last weekend, I invited a bunch of people and we made a community vegetable plot in my backyard. Digging, running, cleaning soil - I count all of them as good exercise. It's pretty awesome to spend an entire day outdoors in gorgeous sunshine. I now have planted fenugreek, mustard, and spinach.

Past two weeks

Past two weeks weren't great. The first week I missed my goal of 225 minutes. I only completed 134. I also learnt that no matter how firm you think your mattress is, it's never a good idea to do abs workout in a bed.

First week minutes - Hill walking, Abs, Kickboxing and Biking. I finally brought out my bike for the season...and discovered there's a problem with the breaks. I essentially ended up riding like 4 miles with breaks touching the tires, which made it really heavy. May be I am just in a bad shape.

Second week I did finish my goal (Thank God!) of 225 minutes. It included Hill walking of course. But I get super bored with doing as the video instructor says, whether it's kickboxing or something else. So this week I basically memorized all the steps, put on the music of my choice and did kickboxing. It's a little weird. Oh well.

This week has started off nicely. I went for my first run of the season and it feels great! I am SO glad spring is finally here.

Hello exhaustion!

This week I went back to bouldering. It's kind of addicting. I really want to complete the pre-marked routes. Right now I am on the 0+ level...just a little above the lowest level.

Target minutes: 210
Completed: 222
Kick-boxing: 12
Abs (high intensity): 20
Hill walking: 40
Bouldering: 60
5 mile Bike ride around the Charles: 90

The bike ride was made more fun by the fact that the zipride bike had broken gears and rusted chain. It was really fun though. Boston looks rather pretty after dark along the Charles.

GetFit again

Alright, so it's been a while since I've updated this blog. I did finish the half-marathon that I was training for and it was a miserable experience - freezing rain, soaking wet shoes, running through giant puddles. All I really remember is how cold it was. All in all, the training was fun, the race wasn't, but that makes me optimistic about next half marathon I might do. After all, it can't get much worse than this one.

I did little in terms of actual exercise after the race. I blame it on winter, though snow shoveling in New England is quite a workout.

Recently I joined MIT's GetFit program with 5 other people. The idea is to meet minimum weekly exercise minutes target as an individual and help your team maintain the average throughout the 3 month program, where 15 minutes are added to the previous week's goal each week. We are in the week 4 right now. So far, I have only missed one weekly target due to intense work schedule.

It is still winter out and I have ruled out running or biking until the roadside snow piles melt. This leaves me to find alternate exercise routines to meet the target. So far, I've been doing aerobics, cardio kickboxing, and yoga off of the Tubes. But I have to find different stuff to keep myself interested enough. So I thought I would start blogging about all the different workouts. It might not be much, but good to keep a track of what I liked 3 weeks ago as opposed to now.

Today, for example, I went climbing with another teammate at MIT's climbing wall. Apparently it's called bouldering, since it was done without harnesses. A lot of fun, but I am definitely going to be sore tomorrow.

This week's target minutes: 195
So far: 195
Brisk hill walking: 40 Intensity: Low
Aerobics: 30 Intensity: Low
Cardio Kickboxing: 25 Intensity: Low
Abs: 10 Intensity: Medium
Climbing: 90 Intensity: High

Hmm, it seems I have already met this week's goal. Probably good since I won't be able to move anything tomorrow. (Okay so brisk walking isn't exactly considered exercise if you're from Ithaca, but it's hard to do anything else during the day).

Fall morning

3 miles in 40 minutes. Not bad considering this is our hills workout. It was a cloudy morning and both Long Sought for Pond and the Keyes pond were reflecting pretty fall colors. Here's Keyes pond. I am glad we're running or we'd completely miss this.






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Short runs week

This week has been short runs week - 10/6, Tuesday and 10/8, Thursday 3 miles each one side of Nabnasset lake.

Millstone Hill

Ran down and up from Haystack to the road - 2.8 miles, 40 minutes.


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