Sprints while the weather holds

Nutshell: Jogged to the park, sprinted up a hill eight times, jogged home, lunged 60 times, stretched (a bit). Listened to jets fly overhead.

Details: Distance to the park is 1.2 km. Ran 13-15 second sprints (around 50 m), with 1:15 min rest in between, including walking back to the start of the sprint. About half the sprint (the middle half) was up a very steep hill.

The park was really busy today, so a couple of my rests were a little longer as I waited for meanderers to get off my hill. (I didn't want to startle anyone. What with my superhero tights and all.) I realized that the busy-ness was likely due to Remembrance Day. Our neighbourhood is full of government lackeys, who all have a holiday today. I'm guessing Overunder's commute was quicker than usual today? May bode well for being on time to wine club tonight!

Also, I'm going to write this down so I'm accountable: I have a car now. (As of Wednesday, Onge passed on the keys to the Green Chariot*.) But, I'm going to keep WALKING Tim to school as long as I can (ie: until the sidewalks are impassable with the stroller. He's still too little to walk that far. Or if it's frigid.) One-way-only exceptions allowed for days when I really need to get shit done at home -- like today, I picked him up so that I'd have time to listen to the Remembrance Day ceremonies on the radio.

* Green Chariot: A sporty 1998 Honda Civic. She's got power nothing, unless you count the powerfully rusting buckled ding on the trunk where Onge backed into a tree. Probably the one beside her own driveway.

Sprints and bodyweights

Only the second workout of the week (Tim was too snotty to send to school on Monday). So, I did my sprints and my "lifting heavy things" all in one go. The sprints were a little long, but not as long as a 400 m run. :-)  It looked like this:

Row 250 m in just < 1 min (1:55 min/500 m pace)
Rest 1 min
25/leg Bulgarian squats
Row 1/rest 1
5 pike position presses*
90 sec plank
Row 1/rest 1
25 push-ups (knees)
Row 1/rest 1
5 + 5 cheater pull-ups (two legs for support)

(In summary, that's 4 sprints and one round of five bodyweight exercise that theoretically hit the key functional areas.)

Cool down with 1000 m easy row.

* Start in a downward dog position and do a shoulder press til your head hits the floor (or thereabouts). This is about a half-dozen steps on the progression ladder from a handstand push-up.

Emma - if you guys are looking to increase your indoor workout possibilities, I recommend the Concept 2 rower (we are currently babysitting Daddy-o's). Once you get over your hatred of rowing, it's fabulous: versatile, compact, and easy on the joints.

Showing the kids how it's done

There was a window of lovely weather today, so I jogged over to the park and did some hill sprints.

Nine sprints, each about 12 seconds of full-out, with a 70 second rest in between (40 to walk back down the hill, 30 just letting my breath come back).

I ran the last two sprints to the cheers (jeers?) of a group high school boys who'd gathered at the top of the hill for their gym class. And yes, my ninth set was gratuitous. Punks.