Daily Log 3 May 2011

CORE WORKOUTS I spent an hour working out at home, half an hour on the Jillian Michaels (of The Biggest Loser Fame) Shred Workout and another half using free weights and stretch cords. I haven't really worked out a routine for my workout though I know that I now have to do 2 a week, 1 session focussing on the upper body and another on the lower part. The Shred Workout is really tough and I find myself struggling to keep up. It's funny that I can run for 90 minutes non-stop but I can't keep up with this kind of workouts. It's not strictly speaking a workout on the core but there are elements of it like the push-ups and lunges. It's also quite fun to workout out to Jillian's voice.

RUN After the Core workouts I went out for a fartlek run. Fartleks are intervals type of running workouts where you pick a spot (like a lamp post or a particular spot on the track) and run as fast as you can to it. When you reach the spot you stop to rest before picking another spot. Ideally it should be something visible form where you are (i.e. not too far away). You can also this with a selected heart rate. Pick a heart rate, say 85%, and run fast until you reach the desired heart rate. Then stop, rest and repeat. The critical thing about fartleks is that you should make sure that you don't lose your running form. If you do, then you're not doing it right. Fast does not mean as fast as you can. It means fast with proper runing form. So that's what I did. I did about 30 minutes of this and covered 2.5 km. Not bad. I was really struggling at the end as fartleks are not something to do for long distances or time. Tomorrow is a big day as I'm supposed to do a 8km slow run between 70%-80% MHR. This is on top of a 1500m swim in the morning. Let's see what happens.