things are looking up

I think things are looking up. I've had a challenging food week, and have gained a little weight, and wish I could get it off. That is frustrating. Not being able to racewalk as much as I'd like is frustrating too. However, I'm in a little better mood today and I see that as a trend. This winter was hard, and I'm looking forward to spring. My friend Lisa (who I weight train with) told me yesterday that I'd get the weight off --- spring is around the corner and with that comes better mood, more activity, and hopefully therefore less inclination to overeat.

This morning's workout was awesome, too, and that also puts me in a good mood. I started with 50 minutes on the video bike; I did the "Temple Ridge" workout, which takes you all around a South American Mayan-type temple. It was a good hard workout; I kept a 170-watt pace the whole time and averaged about 18 mph with hills and everything. My legs were really burning. Next, I did some PT exercises, and then I went to my swimming workout.

I figured the hard biking would be OK with swimming to follow, as swimming is so much arms. Well, today the coach decided we'd do some kicking. Figures! I warmed up with 400 free and then did 4x150 kick: 50 easy, 50 med, 50 fast. I was slow after biking, so it took me about 3:45-4:00 for each, and then I rested 30 sec in between. Next I did 12x100 in descending sets: on the 2:05, 2:00, 1:55, and 1:50. Repeat twice. Whew. That was tough for me, but I got it done (was a bit slow on the last 100 in the first set, because I went out too fast, but by the 2nd and 3rd set I got it). Total: 2200 yds.

Activity points: Biking 6, Swimming 7. Total 13.

After my workout, my mood was pretty darn good. It's sunny today (but it was chilly heading into work; 34F) and the air was clear and the mountains were beautiful. Gotta love those endorphins, though. That's the best thing about regular exercise; I used to be pretty gloomy about half the time, and now it's much less frequent, thankfully.