Category: Exercise
The First Run of 2019 – Music by Dragonforce
My Fastest Training 5K-Music by Bryce Janey
Tuesday night before bed I checked what kind of temperatures to expect yesterday morning. The temperatures were predicted to be in the mid-30s, which is perfectly acceptable, to this weather runner! My temperature law is that anything below 30 is just a little too cold! Anyway, I was thinking about adding some distance to my 5K run and running four miles.
Another Strong Run with Blues from Sean Chambers
The Run
Yesterday it was pretty cold in the morning, so I put off running until the afternoon. It was actually pretty nice in the early afternoon but when the sun started to go down it got chilly pretty fast. I ran the same 3.1 mile loop that I’ve been running since I resumed running back in October. It was a pretty easy, nondescript run. The GPS seemed just on target. Here are the results……
A Strong Four-Mile Run with Music by The Windmill
Since I have restarted running back in mid-October, my weekend runs have mostly been on Sunday. However, with the Eagles-Cowboys looming at 4:25 tomorrow and the prospect of a cold Sunday morning, I decided to run today. In addition to changing the day of the weekend, I also decided it’s time to increase my mileage on the weekends. My plan was to run four miles. The course would be my old Creek out and back course.
A Good Run, Great Blues and some Explaining!
What’s Been Happening….
Ok so no long recap of why I haven’t posted here for a long time. I’ll just say I had some health issues that appear to have been resolved favorably! The biggest being a high PSA level which is a test used for detection of prostate problems. But after a retest and a normal exam by a urologist, it appears I am good to go. One of the positives that has happened between the initial PSA test and the retest is switching my aerobic exercise from my heavy dance-Kundalini- cardio workout to running. Another is that I have added a 25-30 minute before bed yoga routine. Many of the asanas in the nightly routine are ones that are good for my prostate. Additionally, I have made some dietary changes, adding foods like avocado to my diet! On the downside, but good side, I also tried to eliminate sugary cakey snacks and potato chips!! Anyway, I think all of the above helped to reduce my PSA level. I still think that the main reason that my PSA level was high in the first place was excessive exercise over the weekend leading up to the test. But that’s neither here nor there, the bottom line is hopefully things are good. And the changes that I made to my exercise routines and diet are positive!A Return to Running
So let’s get to some new stuff and then I’ll try to catch up on some older stuff as we move on! My plan when I started to run again was to return to my old running routine. That routine was running four miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then a 5-8 mile run on a weekend day. So far I have only been running a 3.1 mile course and I think I have made three days a week once. However, my minute per mile pace has been much faster than anticipated. Typically, in recent years when I start back running after a layoff my pace hovers around 11:30 minutes per mile for a long while. This time my pace was only around 11:30 for the first two runs. By the third run it was around 11 minutes/mile and it has gone down from there! I think the major reason for that was that was the pretty hard dance-cardio exercising I did from July up until the fateful PSA test. I believe that through that exercising I was in great aerobic shape and that made the transition to running easier than in the past. My average pace for today’s 3.1 mile run was 10:27 min/mile. Here are the stats for the run….. Mile Splits— Mile 1 – 10:24 Mile 2 -10:39 Mile 3 – 10:30 Mile 0.15 – 9:13 Average HR – 141 bpm Max 172? Calories Burned -419 So hopefully, I can keep running through the winter and not have to start over again next spring! But at least now I know if I do my dance cardio in those super cold or snowy days I will remain in pretty good shape!!The Soundtrack
The soundtrack for today’s run was Hold On the latest release from blues guitarist Kirk Fletcher. Kirk Fletcher is one of the world’s best blues guitarist. He is a four-time Blues Music Award and a 2015 British Blues Award nominee and has played with a variety of popular artists, including Joe Bonamassa and a three-year role as lead guitarist of The Fabulous Thunderbird. Additionally,not that anybody cares, he has played on many of the albums that have been in my music rotation over the last several years.About Hold On
Hold On is a great album. It had me from the first track “Two Steps Forward” and it wasn’t Fletcher’s guitar that caught my attention. It was the organ! Subsequently, I have discovered the keyboardist was Jonny Henderson. Henderson is a well-respected British keyboard artist who has been a member of the Matt Schofield Trio since 2004.Additionally, he has been voted Keyboard Player of the Year at both the 2010 and 2011 British Blues Awards. The other member of Fletcher’s band is drummer Mack Brown. Brown has played with Henderson many times. The trio first played together a year or two ago at the Bristol Jazz Festival and as they say the rest is history. It’s my hope that they will be playing together a lot more!! Hold On will certainly be in my music rotation over the next several weeks and beyond! The songs on the album are varied and Fletcher’s guitar work is perfect on each track. Here;’s what Matt Koehler said about the album….Currently, Hold On is number 24 on the Roots Music Report Blues Chart. So Check it Out!Hold On as an album is so solid, so listenable and so moving that the word“monumental” comes to mind. It sets the bar for modern Rhythm & Blues albums to come, from Kirk or otherwise, and it reminds the world that the genre is still as strong and meaningful as ever. ~ by Mat Koehler
Links for Further Exploration of the Music of Kirk Fletcher
A Morning Workout and Then a Run – Not!
A Morning Workout and Then a Run – Not!
This morning I was planning on running, First though I had to drop my wife off at the doctor for a 3-month check-up. So I decided to do a limited dance-cardio workout before taking her and then run. Typically, over the summer and into September my morning dance-cardio workout lasted anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes long and burnt 400-600 calories.Everything was moving along nicely, I was dropping the last few pounds I needed and was get very close to my goal weight.
Exercising Reboot with a Surprising Soundtrack for EK!
I think it’s beyond time for an update. Just because I have not been posting, doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. This week in fact I have been very busy. Tuesday we took our daughter Elizabeth and her boyfriend Marcus to the Newark Airport. They are taking a trip to Portugal, where Marcus’ grandparents live. They will be staying with them for a few days and then they will be sightseeing for the remainder of their nine-day trip.
So while the farthest I’ve ever been from home is Florida, Elizabeth has been to England and Ireland and now to Portugal. Anyway a typical 3.5 hour trip to Newark and back took 5.5 thanks to a horrible t-storm while I was driving on the NJ Turnpike and then a traffic jam getting back on the NJ Turnpike.
Yesterday we babysat Zoe, while our daughter-in-law took Logan to the Paediatrician for his 7 month checkup. The little chunky guy weighed in at 22 lbs!
So while the farthest I’ve ever been from home is Florida, Elizabeth has been to England and Ireland and now to Portugal. Anyway a typical 3.5 hour trip to Newark and back took 5.5 thanks to a horrible t-storm while I was driving on the NJ Turnpike and then a traffic jam getting back on the NJ Turnpike.
Yesterday we babysat Zoe, while our daughter-in-law took Logan to the Paediatrician for his 7 month checkup. The little chunky guy weighed in at 22 lbs!
EK Starts Exercising Again…..
At the beginning of the week, I decided that it was time to start exercising again so that I can start running again. I stopped running in the beginning of June. I had some funky twinges in my left knee and I decided to rest it for a few days. Well, a few days turned into a few weeks. During that time, I also stopped doing any extended cardio exercising. The only thing I continued to do was my morning yoga. This last Saturday (July 14th) I did a 30 minute cardio workout and felt pretty good. I followed that with a 3.30 walk/jog on Sunday. Because I felt pretty good after those two workouts, I decided to go full steam ahead this week. The result has been a great week of exercising! Every day, including Monday a Target work day, I have had at least one 30-50 minute cardio workout that burned 300-500 calories. The routine that I have been doing includes: some dance-cardio (or in my case some movement cardio), a set of Kundalini yoga, kettle bell and bands. Yesterday, I also added a 30 minute plus walk! Two out of the four days (Sunday-Wednesday) I surpassed my steps goal of 14,300 steps. One of the days I didn’t make my goal was Tuesday, which was the day I was in the car from five and a half hours! Anyway the bottom line is that I think I am doing well as far as exercising goes……With A Surprising Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the dance-cardio portion of my morning workouts has been music from the late 50s and early 60s. I think I’ve chosen some classic tunes that really get my old body moving! What do you think?? I have some thoughts about the pop music of the 60s versus today’s pop music that I’m going to share in a future post! But until then get moving!! Guess you can say that I am and was sweating wit the “oldies”!A Yoga Challenge Update & Logan Does Yoga!
A Yoga Challenge Update
Since I started my 21-day yoga challenge, which later morphed into a 30-day yoga challenge on April 8th, I have done a yoga routine every morning except one! Most days I have done one of the three routines presented in Richard Hittleman’s Yoga – 28 Day Exercise Program. On several of days that I didn’t do a Hittleman routine, I did a Kundalini routine. The end result is that I am a lot more flexible than I was two months ago. A bonus is I also feel better overall. The bottomland is that the three Hittleman yoga routines are now a regular part of my morning exercise routine and hopefully will stay there.
