Thursday, May 22, 2014

Mental High Fives

Been away from my computer for the past two days, at a pharmaceutical solid-state basics course.  Interesting, but way too much sitting.  Way too many snacks, too!  I've seen this at various seminars before: there's breakfast and lunch, plus snacks and beverages available during the mid-morning and mid-afternoon break--typically very simple carbohydrates.  It was relatively easy for me to pass them up, since it was outside of my normal eating schedule, but there's still that lizard-brain impetus, "Food is available.  Should eat food, because some time it will be unavailable."

Despite the upheaval in my work routine, I was able to stick to my exercise regimen!  (The course was located conveniently close to the work gym.)  Tuesday was biking in the morning, folklorico in the evening.  Yesterday I did weight lifting.  Mostly it was my own weight because--

I can now do two chin-ups in a row.  From a dead hang.

High five!

This morning I got out of the stuffy, climate-controlled gym out into the free gym.  Briskly walked a mile down to the park, did some intervals, and then briskly walked back.  The intervals consisted of running up a hill, then walking down, and repeating.  Let me rephrase that so you get a more accurate idea: running up a hill as fast as I could get my legs to move, focusing all my mental energy on the task, reaching the point where I'm gasping for air, feeling my heart pounding, feeling like I'm running through cold molasses, feeling like I'm going to throw up, then jogging just a few feet farther to the turnaround point at the top of the hill and wanting to collapse, then walking down, and repeating.  High-intensity intervals--if you're doing them right--are less than fun, but they certainly are effective.

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