God, this is really such an exciting time in my life right now, health-wise. My lungs feel good, my legs feel pretty good, and I've actually got the time to do it all CORRECTLY.
This includes the crosstraining. I went back to the gym today for the express purpose of putting in half an hour on the stationary bike. I got out of the house later than I'd have liked, due to having problems emailing a document to a colleague, but who needed it right away, and got there about the time the rest of the after-work crowd arrived.
I started with foam rolling and light stretching, then got on the stationary bike. For some reason, they have five of them downstairs in the weight gym. Those and the exercise ball area make up a mini workout-room within the weight room. The other dozen or so bikes are upstairs on the cardio mezzanine, along with the eliptical machines, treadmills, rowers, recumbent bike machines, and stair climbers.
The nice thing about having a video-capable iPod is that you can catch up on bad movies while sweating it out on the stationary. And I did sweat. I had the heart rate monitor going and it regulated resistance to try to keep me at my target heart level. I put mine at a paltry 123 bpm for this first workout - and found that fairly difficult to do. It took about fifteen minutes to get into the groove. I'll eke the heartrate target up by increments until I'm in a real cardio range of 155.
When I was done with the 30 minutes on the bike - coincidentally also wrapping up a viewing of Team America: World Police - all I could think was, "America! Fuck yeah!" as my legs almost collapsed from under me. This was very strange. I was stiff outside the bike range of motion. But I was feeling no pain - or much of anything at all - and walking felt very strange. I assume that feeling will not be as pronounced as my legs get used to this kind of workout.
I stretched mildly and headed up to cardio, where I commandered a treadmill. My timing was good - my bike was immediately claimed by someone coming in and they were all in use (remember, this is about 6:15 now, a very busy time) and by the time I got going on the treadmill for a brief jog, most of the other treadmills were already in use. (4 walkers, 2 runners, hm.)
My purpose on the treadmill was to attempt to recalibrate my footpod for running. I spent a few minutes jogging, walking, stopping, trying to figure out the bewildering array of buttons on the machine, then trying to get my watch ready for a calibration run. Finally had it all together, set the treadmill at 5.8 miles per hour and went for a half-mile jog. This was easy on the legs - the treadmill bed is really nice and it was on a flat grade - but stunningly boring and without air rushing by, there was no convection cooling. By the end of the half mile, I was thankful to get off the treadmill, as I was burning up.
I will reserve treadmill runs for days when it's otherwise impossible to run outside. I hope the new calibration proves more accurate.
Next up: tomorrow a 3-miler after a new client meeting + Core. Saturday: six miles in the park with potential running partner. Sunday: shovel sidewalk and cower indoors nursing frostbite. Monday: 3 miles + possibly Adult beginner swimming class. Tuesday: stretching class + Core + weights.
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