That that don't kill me, can only make me stronger. I need you to hurry up now, cause I can't wait much longer. Kanye West, Stronger

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Recap and Rock Your Body Challenge 2

Recap: Workout Like/With a Guy--Double Whammy!

Last night I worked out with not one, but two guys! It uped the anti a bit.

Here was the workout:

~30 minute treadmill run-average speed 6.6 mph
~15 rowing
~20 minute elliptical, level 8, hard intensity, 4 minute cool down
~8 minute rowing with underhand grip
20 minutes strength: ab workout from fitness magazine.

After the workout, I had a one hour massage, and boy do I feel like a new person! All toxins are gone! soreness? what soreness? More on why you need to treat yourself well tomorrow! PS I was incredibly lucky and they weren't able to provide the service I originally scheduled, so I received 30% my massage at Juvenex and free access to all mineral baths, steam rooms, saunas and other amenties!

So here is my second Rock Your Body Running Challenge to anyone interested:

PS for a hilarious look at the obsession with running marathon's checkout this!


From my coach, who is running a 100 mile race soon!
Goal and description of the workout : This is all about challenging yourself, and working on strengthening your calf, quad and hip muscles. You will work based on effort and not speed, just put a good effort-7 out of 10.
It is ok to let the breathing to get a bit out of wack today, challenge yourself !

Treadmill workout:

Warm-up 10 minutes

1 min @ incline 2 + 2 mins @ incline 8, recover 4 minutes
Repeat 8 times.
cool down

Push the 1 minute and the 2 minutes, take it easy on the recovery, it is a long recovery, so you can afford to really challenge yourself.

If this is too intense for all of you,tomorrow's (Saturday's--need more time!) post will be "The Lazy Girl's Guide to Getting a Gorgeous Bod"

3 comments:

chandra said...

I love that you're posting these... I'm trying to increase my running speed right now because I am slooow (like 5.3-5.5), and I think I'm going to try your suggestions! About what speed to you recommend going for the different inclines here?

Melissa said...

Hi Chandra!

Because everyone is a different running level, it is better to select your speed based on how you feel on a 1-10 scale. I also think this helps because every treadmill feels different, and your body feels different every time you work out.

So the point of this workout is to pretty much maintain your pace through the first two intervals. So if you are at a moderate pace (5 on 1-10) at 2% incline, it should be much harder to keep that pace at 8% so you will be at a 7-8 on a scale of 1-10.
Listen to your body, you should be working very hard on the 8% incline (not able to say more than a few words at a time), and really happy when you get to recover in between intervals.

For me 7.5 on 0% incline is very challenging, but mantainable. at 2% incline 6.5ish is moderate to hard, by 8% 5.8 is the fastest I can hold for a few minutes at a time.

chandra said...

Thanks! I'm going to give this a try tonight and see how it goes. :)