stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (Default)
Had a small comment war on a friend's journal and it's colored my mood. It did not help that the marketing people at work who would like to incorporate my LinkedIn account into their social media are being a bit uppity. Perhaps a nice jog or lifting session is in order?

Ah - workout update.

Saturday - 2.7 mile walk/jog. The jogging was much faster than my average pace (which is turtle-licious.)

Sunday - 11ish (or maybe 12 mile) bike ride on the MTB to take advantage of daylights savings time. If it was going to eff up my weekend, I was going to get something out of it.

Monday - nada. Hellacious day at work and I relaxed by playing Skyrim for a few hours.

Tuesday - nada. Work + a 3 hours of teaching plasma physics made Stef a tired girl.

Wednesday - I didn't feel like working out so I talked myself onto the recumbent bicycle. I cranked up the resistance to 7 (usually do 8) and did 7 miles (about 35 minutes.) That made me feel inspired so I went for a jog and - wow - what a difference that made versus Saturday. My speed went DOWN and I was shuffling for a half hour - and two miles.

Looking at my logs the challenge is to work our on Thursday, which is another full day of work and evening of teaching, and Friday which inevitably has a fire at work in the afternoon or a pre-scheduled event. I'm not a morning person, so that leaves lunch. Must focus on the progress and not fall victim to the perfectionism.

Haz a cold

Mar. 6th, 2012 04:02 pm
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (finger)
I sound like that giant nose in the decongestant advertisement.
Also, Shimon Peres has cause me delays twice in two days.

Facebook moved near my work and guess where he visited today.
ANYWAY...
honking sounds )
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (ramones)
This may be the book with the longest and silliest subtitle:

Convict conditioning: How to Bust Free of All Weakness Using the Lost Secrets of Supreme Survival Strength

Premise: Strength through progressive calisthenics using body weight as told by a former prison inmate.

Actuality: A body-weight approach to fitness. Very sound tips on injury, great explanation of forms (starting with very beginner (e.g. wall push-ups) to cross-fit games exercises (e.g. hand-stand push-ups.) The prison story? Likely fake given the following disclaimer "names, histories and circumstances have been changed partially or completely."

Quick read, sound advice, and realistic work out schedules (emphasis on going slowly as joints, tendons, and ligaments do not strengthen as quickly as muscles.) For some reason the paper book is outrageously expensive on Amazon but the Kindle price was significantly less. Recommended to me by a Fitocracy pal in the UK. I love it.

(Note, I am 43, female, and a recovering couch potato.)

Unique featureDiscussion and photos of early 20th century strongmen. 6 pack abs before the invention of the "crunch"!

This is likely going to join the pantheon of fitness books that focus on body-weight exercises and/or non-gym training.
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (Default)
Just making a note; you are welcome to read or not read as you wish :-)

week thus far and plans )
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (Default)
New blog post over at matscigirl

click here!
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (Default)
Some of you know I am working my through the "Couch to 5k" program

Finished week 5 day 3. Perhaps it was a bit of a cheat ;-)
I did the warm up by walking up a large hill and then jogged the 20min primarily down hill. My heart rate hit 187 (I'm 42.) Then I walked up another hill for about 20 minutes and jogged 13 minutes (which equaled a mile) with my heart rate up to about 175 (which is the upper limit usually.)

All in all I jogged about 2.5 miles and walked an additional 3 miles on lovely trails. Here's a photo from the top of the first hill (taken a couple of months ago)

pic under the cut )

So excited to have broken this barrier; I've been in week 5 for a while. Had to share!

Cross posted to C25k.
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (Default)
From my other blog at http://matscigirl.wordpress.com Feel free to comment here or there.

Friday morning my gf was getting ready for spin class and I decided to go jogging (good call considering I broke my right foot yesterday, but that’s another blog post.)

It’s been cold for Northern California so I threw on black tights, a black long-sleeved running turtleneck, and was already wearing black socks. As she brushed her teeth, I walked up behind her and grabbed her in a bear-hug saying, “Chubby Ninja beats you up, steals your lunch money.”

I didn’t quite look like a chubby ninja – no sword or head covering, but it was sobering to take a realistic look at myself in the mirror. Not bad for forty-two, definite room for work.

It’s odd becoming a middle-aged athlete. There are advantages – working joints, for example. No high school or college nagging injuries. No youthful metrics to woefully fail to meet. I work out with hard-core jocks – women who were varsity athletes at their Division One schools. Ladies who can run 20 miles on a lark, hike 15 miles though the Sierras in an afternoon, or cycle double centuries for fun. It keeps me honest. They know the pitfalls of training, the rigors of nutrition and just as talented musicians jam with anyone, they’ve invited me into their inner circle despite my naiveté and low VO2 max.

Gf left to be brutalized by a small woman whose resting heart rate is below 45 beats per minute and I decided to head home and run along the constructed arroyo behind my house. I live in what is Sunnyvale, California’s closest equivalent to the ‘hood which means I ran on a raised berm, next to an electric transmission station where the homeless have dragged couches for summer relaxation, spray painting “don’t piss here” on a fence enclosing a public utility box. I was alone under the gray, foreboding sky. For a moment I was concerned for my safety, thinking people would blame me if I were to get jumped; the hubris of wanting to be outside and by myself.

I jogged past the Santa Clara Water Authority No Trespassing sign. There was a slight hum from the transmission line resonating above me and my ragged breath matched the cadence of my feet on the gravel below. Three quarters of a mile until another fence, turn around, and run back. Some of my friends find my hood depressing - the rows of “modular homes” (read: trailers) with little vegetation discouraging. It was all I could afford given turn of century Silicon Valley home prices and my objection to commuting more than 20 minutes to work. My neighbors are mostly older and retired. A few families have moved in – recent immigrants with young children. It’s been a good place to live and a tiny tax write-off. I feel safe there, next to the light rail and two major highways. I grew up three-quarters of a mile from the Pentagon and am used to the fuzzy line between urban living and suburban sprawl.

As I jogged back toward the entrance I noticed the arroyo had running water from the recent rains. There were several mallards and their drab mates swimming against the flow. Further upstream was an egret. His yellow beak probed the air and his surprisingly large black feet were a few inches underwater. A plastic bread bag and some water bottles lay just a few feet from him, a filthy juxtaposition to his white plume. My heart sank. So few places for water fowl, seeking refuge behind the trailer park in what amounts to a glorified ditch. I shook off the dark thoughts as the egret eyed me suspiciously.

“Chubby Ninja should clean up this arroyo”, I thought, wondering how I could scale the steep concrete walls. I made a note to ask my friend Peter, who would engineer a solution if one wasn’t immediately available. I may not have a sword, but I do have black nitrile gloves. I turned left and ran along the John W. Christian Greenbelt to Lakewood Park. I passed two people, a young teenager wearing an iPod and an elderly asian woman carrying a small grocery bag. We nodded our hellos and I turned around, sneaking past the old Advanced Devices semiconductor fab long closed, surrounded by a tall chain link fence. My cardio threshold expended I walked into the park, noticing the Christmas lights and a few new cars. Chubby Ninja took a shower and then went to San Francisco for a New Year’s Eve dinner.
stef_tm: Stef looking to her right suspiciously (Default)
A short day at work - the morning began with our group meeting one of the South American business development managers who specializes in undersea products. Spent most of the day on expense reports and scheduling teleconferences. I left in the early afternoon to attend a student's master's thesis proposal. He had an outstanding presentation; he was one of my students during his undergrad work and it's been fun watching him graduate, get a job, return to school and grow as a scientist.

One of the members of his committee works in the chemistry department and we had a chance to get introduced; we have several areas of common interest and will meet after the semester to discuss collaborating. Our student is working on dye-sensitive solar cells and there is some good work that can be done in that area.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled for a chest x-ray as the doctor suspects pneumonia. That would be a first for me. I hope I can download the image, but I suspect Kaiser won't allow that - they didn't upload my broken finger, the bastards.

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