It's only getting to the gym that takes motivation. Once I'm there I'm usually golden and actually actively think of things to keep pushing myself in one way or another.
I like to break down my exercises so that I'm not focusing on "Oh gee I want to go 40 minutes today.... I've only done two.... where is there a hot butt to focus on...."
Instead I just focus on getting to a small milestone be that a certain amount of minutes or calories burned or distance traveled, whatever. It helps me stay focused and when I get to the end of my workout if I'm still feeling really good then I focus on just going a bit more.. "Ok, I did my 30 minutes but I'm only 30 calories away from xxx, I'll just keep going till I hit that" type of stuff.
So yesterday when I got myself to the gym I knew my goal was going to be 4 miles as I did over 3 the last time. I'm lighter than ever and I'm feeling good and I like the fact that I can actually get in this kind of time and distance so quickly. I guess losing weight does have a benefit or two.
So, I set my distance goal at 4 miles (normally I set time goals but I like these machines giving me distance goals instead) and started off.
Another nice thing about being lighter is that my breathing is better and I'm able to go at a better pace than previously. I've been easily keeping myself above 5 mph and not struggling so after about 5-7 minutes I decided to try to pick the pace up a little bit. I saw that I could come close to getting the first mile done in about 10 minutes so I started pushing myself a bit.
It was about 10 minutes and 30 seconds or so and I was happy with that. And after a small swig of water I decided to just keep pushing myself at over 6mph for another song or two and next thing you know I'm approaching mile #2 while still maintaining.
Mile two happened around the 19 minute mark and that was quite elating. So I kept at it.
Mile 3 dropped at the 29 minute mark meaning I was at least keeping to a 6mph pace for this long and I wanted to just finish off my goal doing the same.
The last mile ended around 38:08 knocking off almost a minute for the last mile. Stoked.
I've never done a mile in under 10 before and today I managed to average under 10 minutes for 4 miles.
My calves are killing me today - well not killing but I notice the tightness. I'm hoping to stretch and loosen them up a good deal so that I can go back tomorrow morning and do it again. My goal is to be able to get to the point where I can do an hour every other day and at least 6 miles.
Yesterday I proved that I'm probably not too far off from being able to reach that. Tomorrow I'll shoot for 5 miles and see how I feel.
I posted this on Facebook yesterday and one of my friends responded with
"So you're telling me you waited 45 minutes for that person to get off the treadmill just so you could take a picture of the screen?"
Hey, sit back in the ol' recliner.
ReplyDeleteNow, where is that big bag of Chitoes?
[Now where is that Devil with the pitchfork I wanted to use here? Darn! Can't find it... Nevermind!]
You are starting to remind me of a little versus we thought was neat in grade school days:
Rooty toot toot
Rooty too toot
We are the boys from the institute
We don't smoke and we don't chew
And we don't go with the girls who do
Our class won a bible.
[Maybe my grade school gang was as sophisticated as we thought. You think?]