On the Active Living Front Tuesday - It's All a Mental State

Hi Folks,
So in addition to failing at proper eating last week, I was also quite lacking in the activity department.  Aparently, a night of dancing and - as Willow Smith puts it "Whip my hair"," + 5 hours of yard work = 4 days of a very bad muscle strain.  The energy to keep my neck still while at work completely drained me that I was so exhausted after work to want to work out.  After a much needed trip to Urgent Care, a few doses of muscle relaxers, I was back to my perky, energetic self.  I did do a little bit of yard work on Saturday before my massage, so I did get some activity in.

So with this week, I did a 2 mile incline run to get back in the game!  This workout was no joke! 

Minutes - Speed - Incline

5 - 5.5 - 0

1 - 3- 5

1 - 6.5 - 5

1 - 3 - 6

1 - 6.3 - 6

1 - 3 - 7

1 - 6.1 - 7

1 - 3 - 8

1 - 5. 9- 8

1 - 3 - 9

1 - 5.7 - 9

1 - 3 - 10

1 - 5.5 - 10

1 - 3  - 11

1 - 5.3 - 11

1 - 3 - 12

1 - 5.1 - 12

1 - 3 - 13

1 - 4.9 -  13

1 - 3 - 14

This is where I stopped and walked for 2 minutes, ran for two minutes, then walked for another 2 minutes.  Had I kept going, I would have had to done the following.

1 - 4.7 - 14

1 - 3 - 15

1 - 4.5 - 15

3 - 3 - 0

This was a bit of a challenge and especially as the incline moved higher and higher.  But I stuck with it until I knew that I shouldn't push myself too much.  Oddly enough, when I lowered the treadmill back to 1.0 and I ran for those last two minutes, it was a pretty easy run.  I probably could have kept going, but I knew when to say "when" and I stopped at 30 minutes. 

Throughout this run, I kept my notebook that has the minutes/speed/incline on top covering the mileage.  For me, when running on the treadmill, depending on the type of running I'm doing, I will cover parts of the treadmill with post its or a magazine.  I feel that I need to cover anything that denotes time and distance in order to get into the groove of the run.  If I'm doing the interval run, I will cover the seconds part of the clock and only show the minutes.

This was after my interval run from two weeks ago.  I had these post-its on the treadmill when I was doing my run.  When I was done, I went to the cubby to get my camera phone because I knew that I wanted blog about this soon.  Definitely got a strange look from the lady on the eliptical behind me, but whateve!

I have one post-it covering the one half of the mileage counter and the other post it is covering the seconds on the time.  When I have these cover, I find myself not looking at the time as much or get that disappointing feeling of "I've only been at this for 3 minutes!!!"  It's all a mental game.  If the minute measurements are covered, I can look at the bigger picture.  It's not, "I only have 30 second left."  It's "Ok, 9 minutes. I can make it to 10.  Just breathe and feel the music."  I also have my zune playing and I find that timing myself with music is great.  I tell myself to look at the time at the start of every over song.  Again, this makes the time or the mileage go by faster.

So when I go to the gym I always bring the follow for the treadmill?
1) A small notebook with all my interval runs written out
2) Post It notes to cover the appropriate areas
3) A magazine to also cover the console when I'm just doing a long run on the treadmill.

What mental thing do you do to push through your workouts?



And since I was being told that I couldn't "Whip My Hair" anymore all last week, I leave you with this nifty little number!