Saturday, September 5, 2009

Pilates, Hummus & Running

This morning Nicole came over and we headed down to pilates together. It was my first solo pilates class in a while and it was fantastic. I really like that Laura also tends to go with me on Mondays, but this was just a nice treat to have all the attention on me (and it also meant that I didn't get to cheat at all). Nicole also did some of the exercises with me, so that was sort-of fun. We started out using one of those big exercise balls and did a whole set of exercises on that. Nicole said that she hasn't really taught those exercises before, so that was part of the class that she did with me to ensure that she was telling me to get into the right positions.

Then we did some exercises with the ball on the mat. All I can say is that the ab series with the ball is not easy! After I was done with all the ball exercises, Nicole decided that I should stay on the mat/tower instead of moving over to the reformer. We did a whole lot of exercises I'd never done before with the tower. One of them involved sitting facing away from the tower itself and pushing the bar down behind me while also stretching forward toward my toes. My back wasn't sure that it wanted to stretch like that and while it did hurt a little bit, it also was a really good stretch. I'm thinking that once all this triathlon stuff is done, I'm going to take a rest and just do lots and lots of yoga.

One of the last exercises that we did involved putting my feet up on the tower bar while in a push-up position and then doing 5 push-ups. Because the bar can move back and forth if you don't keep your core strong and your feet in place, that is not an easy thing to do!

After pilates, I spent the rest of the morning doing more stuff around the apartment with Drew. We moved the televisions around and got all of the electronics hooked up the way that we wanted them (which took a little bit longer than we thought). We then met our friend Eric for lunch (at 5:00) at Hummus Kitchen. We all had a really nice (and really filling) late lunch/early dinner. The three of us were also planning on going to see Inglourious Basterds at 8:30. Eric and Drew headed to the theater to make sure we could get tickets while I headed home to change and get ready for my run.

I will say that while my lunch was really yummy, I didn't have quite enough time between it and my run. I ran for about 1.5 miles before I started feeling pretty icky. I walked for a few minutes and then tried to keep running for as long as I could. I just kept that going for the whole run. My run plan was to go to the park and run north to the reservoir path. Then I would run almost the whole way around the path and exit on the West side and then head back down to the bottom of the park.

Although it wasn't my best personal effort, I did have a really good time. I haven't been in the park on a weekend for a workout in a really long time and I forgot how great it is for people watching. Some really interesting highlights included: a dad running with his kid in a jogging stroller while the kid was screaming bloody murder and the dad was listening to his iPod; a couple having a really intense fight; and a woman running with forearm crutches (which I found to be super inspiring, especially after the first two).

I know that I walked probably about 5 minutes of the whole time (although it wouldn't shock me if it was slightly more than that). I ended up going 4.3 miles in 42:17 (9:50 pace), which leads me to believe that while I was actually running, I was going pretty fast! I learned not to eat so close to running, although I actually knew that before, but I thought it was really important to make sure that I got a good run in this weekend. Even though it wasn't fantastic because of all the walking, the total time ended up being something that I am really happy with, so all in all, it worked out fine.

(And, as a complete aside, I totally recommend the movie! It was fantastic!!)

No comments:

Post a Comment