Greg's Running Blog

I as going to do a whole lot of cardio today but ended up with only 45 minutes. I was going to have a second 45 minute session in the evening but we ended up babysitting our friend’s daughter and she slept in our bedroom so the elliptical was off limits until 11:30PM when they picked her up. And while usually I can still manage to put a cardio session in that late I just didn’t feel like it today. So I had to make do with the 45 minutes I put in while the kids were napping in the afternoon.

I have done a new VO2 measurement yesterday and my VO2 has jumped from 34 to 38. I have also measured my resting heart rate and I’m sitting at 54 bpm. That is pretty good considering that it was in the low 70s when I have started. Sicne I have dropped 20 beats off my resting heart rate it’s only normal to see my exercise heart rate dropping too. And since my VO2 has gone up I’m more efficient in utilizing oxygen so I need less heart betas to get he same amount of oxygen in and to burn the same amount of calories. This shows in my exercises now as my heart rate only averaged 115 tonight yet I still burned 497 calories in an hour. Before I needed 119 bmp average heart rate and I had weighed a good 14 lbs more to burn the same amount of calories.

I have a hard time getting my heart rate up. I have upped resistance both at home and at work on the elliptical and I’m still much lower on my heart rate than before. I think my resting heart rate must have dropped since I have lost some weight, and my cardio exercises aren’t burning as much as they used to. I have checked my VO2 again and it has improved from 34 to 38 which means it’s still pretty bad but it’s better than it used to be. It will also positively influence my calculated caloric usage but not my actual caloric usage.

Since I won’t be going to work for the rest of the year I think this was the last day that I will manage to do 90 minutes of cardio. I’ll be shooting for 60 minutes a day for the rest of the year.

I finally got 90 minutes of cardio in today. That hasn’t happened in almost a week with all the stuff that has been going on lately. I’m pretty glad I finally got around to doing that much cardio. The bad news is that for some reason my heart rate stayed pretty low at both times which could mean two things. I’m either a) not going as strong as I should or b) my VO2 has improved drastically. Somehow I’m leaning towards answer a) even though I wish it was answer b). I will have to do another fitness test with my heart rate monitor soon to see if my VO2 has improved or not.

As good as the strength exercise felt that’s how bad the cardio session was. It was a real drag and I was in absolutely no mood to do any of it. But I suffered through the first 60 minutes of G.I. Joe and kept on doing the elliptical. Because of the Christmass errand at lunch I had to skip the 30 minute session at work but tomorrow I’ll just run more errands after work and get the 30 minutes in at lunch as well.

Elliptical

• 60 minutes
• 121 avg heart rate
• 483 calories

I had skipped last nights cardio and I had to forgo today’s lunch one as I was at home, resting instead of in the gym at work. My the evening I have felt better and I have felt good enough to do my hour long cardio. It was OK and I felt pretty good after it. My nose is still heavily congested but it clears up while doing cardio. It really gets bad during the night though.

Elliptical

• 60 minutes
• 131 avg heart rate
• 564 calories

Today I had to miss my lunch cardio again. We had a company lunch and I had to attend. And since I fiddled around with my blog way too much once I got home I didn’t quite have the time to put in the extra 30 minutes of cardio like I did yesterday. So I had to settle with my 60 minutes and call it a day.

Today’s cardio at lunch felt great! I was pushing it pretty good and despite the horrible morning I had with waking up at 3:50AM with a throbbing ear infection I think I did great. Since I really went overboard with my diet today and had two whole slices of cake I felt I had to make it right by doing an extra 30 minutes of cardio at night for a total of 90 minutes plus the 30 at lunch. I’m feeling a lot less remorse about the second slice of cake now but I’m also not 100% sure the extra cake was worth it. It is a lot of work! I have started watching Modern Family and I’ve just finished episode 5. At the rate I’m going I’ll be back to 30 Rock in no time.