kathryn
Cathlete
I hit 4.5 mph!
(If you hate wordy posts, you can stop there!)
Since mid-July, I've added power walking to my workouts. I used to do a lot of walking , but had gotten out of the habit here because I thought there was no where to walk.
I decided I wanted to transition into some lower-impact workouts, another type of cardio I'm not used to for cross-training (and to get less used to the cardio I had been doing, so it becomes less efficient and more calorie burning once I get back to it) and something I could continue for a lifetime, and walking was always something I did well, so I used the last part of the summer to figure out some routes that would keep me away from most student areas once they came back in the fall. (And while I've succeeded in doing that, ít's impossible to avoid the student-produced trash---beer cans, fast-food containers, styrofoam and plastic beer cups--that students throw all over town!)
I started out about 45 minutes a day for a few days. First three days, shins were burning like mad, and my right hip felt like it was getting some sort of '-itis.' Did some foam rolling, took a couple of days off due to weather (I don't do rain walks or walk when it's way too hot).
I used a lame pedometer, coupled with keeping track of my time, to figure out my speed and distance the first two weeks. Then I discovered the Garmin wrist-mounted GPS at Amazon for a good price (the version without a heart-rate monitor, because those don't work for me). I LOVE this thing! Now I can keep really accurate account of speed, distance, time, etc. And I'm doing lots of competing against myself!
When I first started using the Garmin, I was going 3.8/3.9 mph on average (for an hour). Then I gradually got faster, trying to break my speed each time (though forcing myself to take some workouts more easy, to not do too much too soon).
I'm now walking most days of the week, usually an hour, but sometimes 1 1/2 hours (if I'm on a roll), and sometimes a faster, shorter workout ("2 fast miles").
Yesterday, I broke the 4.5 mph average barrier for a full 5 miles! (the day before, I hit 4.467.. mph, but I didn't round up and count it as 4.5 because I wanted to REALLY 'have it' before I claimed it.
I'll stay here for a while, I think, but I eventually want to try to get to a 5 mph average on my hour-long walks, since that's supposed to be around the speed where the body becomes very inefficient at walking, and calorie burn and intensity really go up (though I don't see how it can be the same for everyone: you'd think it would happen at a lower speed for folks with shorter legs, for example).
I know I can do the speed, because my maximum speed (which the Garmin records as well) is usually 5 mph or faster (strange, though, I thought, that my maximum was faster (sometimes around an 8 minute mile) when my average was slower, and now that my average is faster, my maximum is slower (usually around an 11-minute mile).
I'm trying to find some 5 k walk/runs around, but so far, no luck.
I'm finding that I can easily push myself to walk alot (and often feel like I could keep going when I get within a few blocks of my 'cool-down' spot), but other cardio hasn't been that appealing to me.
The next three days or so have rain on the forcast, so I won't be walking. Will have to do some indoor cardio again!
(If you hate wordy posts, you can stop there!)
Since mid-July, I've added power walking to my workouts. I used to do a lot of walking , but had gotten out of the habit here because I thought there was no where to walk.
I decided I wanted to transition into some lower-impact workouts, another type of cardio I'm not used to for cross-training (and to get less used to the cardio I had been doing, so it becomes less efficient and more calorie burning once I get back to it) and something I could continue for a lifetime, and walking was always something I did well, so I used the last part of the summer to figure out some routes that would keep me away from most student areas once they came back in the fall. (And while I've succeeded in doing that, ít's impossible to avoid the student-produced trash---beer cans, fast-food containers, styrofoam and plastic beer cups--that students throw all over town!)
I started out about 45 minutes a day for a few days. First three days, shins were burning like mad, and my right hip felt like it was getting some sort of '-itis.' Did some foam rolling, took a couple of days off due to weather (I don't do rain walks or walk when it's way too hot).
I used a lame pedometer, coupled with keeping track of my time, to figure out my speed and distance the first two weeks. Then I discovered the Garmin wrist-mounted GPS at Amazon for a good price (the version without a heart-rate monitor, because those don't work for me). I LOVE this thing! Now I can keep really accurate account of speed, distance, time, etc. And I'm doing lots of competing against myself!
When I first started using the Garmin, I was going 3.8/3.9 mph on average (for an hour). Then I gradually got faster, trying to break my speed each time (though forcing myself to take some workouts more easy, to not do too much too soon).
I'm now walking most days of the week, usually an hour, but sometimes 1 1/2 hours (if I'm on a roll), and sometimes a faster, shorter workout ("2 fast miles").
Yesterday, I broke the 4.5 mph average barrier for a full 5 miles! (the day before, I hit 4.467.. mph, but I didn't round up and count it as 4.5 because I wanted to REALLY 'have it' before I claimed it.
I'll stay here for a while, I think, but I eventually want to try to get to a 5 mph average on my hour-long walks, since that's supposed to be around the speed where the body becomes very inefficient at walking, and calorie burn and intensity really go up (though I don't see how it can be the same for everyone: you'd think it would happen at a lower speed for folks with shorter legs, for example).
I know I can do the speed, because my maximum speed (which the Garmin records as well) is usually 5 mph or faster (strange, though, I thought, that my maximum was faster (sometimes around an 8 minute mile) when my average was slower, and now that my average is faster, my maximum is slower (usually around an 11-minute mile).
I'm trying to find some 5 k walk/runs around, but so far, no luck.
I'm finding that I can easily push myself to walk alot (and often feel like I could keep going when I get within a few blocks of my 'cool-down' spot), but other cardio hasn't been that appealing to me.
The next three days or so have rain on the forcast, so I won't be walking. Will have to do some indoor cardio again!
