Spin out the tiredness

35:47 min; average bpm 132; 3, 015 "steps"; 401 calories burned

This week really has been brutal on me because of a lot of all-nighters at work. On Wednesday, I wanted to do some kind of workout after teaching my Genetics class. The funny thing is that I was all about working out, yet I slept on the M31 crosstown bus and almost missed the stop for my gym. I guess that I was more tired that I had thought. 

Since I could barely keep my eyes open, I figured that lifting heavy weights over my head and chest would not be a good idea. As fate would have it, I arrived to the gym 15 minutes before "Ripped Ride, " a newish 45 minute spin class. 

I thought that this class has a cool concept, because I am often annoyed that many spin classes do not try to incorporate some aspect of an upper body workout. Yes, I know spinning is a lower body workout but you can still do things for the upper body for a full body workout. 

In the saddle with my weight.

The instructor, Tyler, was pretty energetic and fun. Also, his music selections was pretty on point for the pace and activity level of the class. It's kind of weird/interesting that Tyler does not spend anytime on his stationary bike, but that does not bother me. I only wish that there were one or two more tough "hills" in the class because my average heart rate was not as high in this class as it typically is for some the other spin classes that I have attended in the past. Also, I would like an option to use heavier weights, maybe 5 or 10 pounds, because doing curls with 2.5 pounds weights does not do too much for me.   

So, I think that that I have found my new Wednesday thing to do after teaching Genetics and before conducting biomedical research. 

After attending spin class, showering, and eating a healthy lunch (a Cobb salad without cheese and bacon), and feeling pretty high on life, my department put out the leftover cookies from a seminar and there goes all of the calories that I burned in spin class. BUUUUUUUUTTTTTTT, those cookies (especially the brownie-like ones) are so delicious. Plus, you have to "treat yourself" here and there. 

Nyc Half Marathon Training Runs 24/45 and 25/45

Two posts in one.  

Saturday was supposed to be a lobg run day - 11 miles. Let's say tgat I did not get anywhere close to that - a measly 6.3 miles. At the start of the run, I knew that it was going to be a struggle: 

1. I did not get much sleep. 
2. My route was dumb.  
3. I still had some soreness in my hip flexors and in my upper left theigh.  
4. I just was not feeling it.  

Nothing much to write about. The run was dumb, and I sucked at it. The only good part of the run was exploring Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, on foot.  

The route

Training Run 25/45

4.00 mi; 8'29" min/mi pace; 140 ave bpm; 5, 078 steps; 429 calories burned

After my disastrous long run in Saturday, I was elated to do my favorite training run on Tuesday - INTERVALS!!!! 

The route and the run.  

Pretty simple, huh.   

• 0.5 mi warm up
• 4x o.5 mi fast (7:15-7:45 min/ mi) and 0.5 mi recovery (sub 8:00min/mi)
• 0.5 cool down.  

This run was done in Saratoga park, which is in my neighborhood and is becoming one of my favorite local parks. I love this park for intervals, because the outer loop of the park is approximately 0.25 miles - similar to a real track. This similarity allows me to practice really racing conditions with my intervals. Plus, 0.5 miles is the lowest increment that my Runtastic and Fitbit Charge can do, so I can run my 0.25 mi intervals without constantly looking at my tracker to check my distance. 

This run returned some of the joy that I had lost doing that long training run on Saturday.  

That is it for now. I think that I will try to do some weight training sometime this week.

Btw, I do not know if I really like Squarespace's blog feature because it is very struggle. 

1. You cannot change the order of uploaded pictures with the Squarespace blog App on a mobile device. 
2. Image uploads take forever. 
3. Half the time, I do not know if my edited pictures will come out the way that I want them once I post the blog entry. 
4. Many times it is very difficult to edit the images that I uploaded using the mobile app on desktop app. Plus, the mobile app does not allow you to edit the images. 

I will see how long  I will continue using this format.  

NYC Half Marathon Training Run (???/45)

The East side gets no love.  

4 mi; 8'21'' min/mi; 146 ave bpm; 5, 149 steps; 428 calories.  

After class on Wednesday, I decided to do a quick run up the East River greenway into Harlem. What a  bad idea because the greenway is closed (once again) at 79 street, so my run became a back and forth run. I hate changing my running plans at the last minute.  

The route ... Sorta  

The rant 

This supposed greenway has been "in progress" since I moved to NYC -BACK in 2002!!!  The West side has its nice greenway with beautiful sights into New Jersey and various activities and parks. Where is ours (although I now live in Brooklyn, I will always be an east sider at heart)? I firgure by now, 2016, there would have been a continuous greenway that would go around the entire island of Manhattan. This probably happen in 3019, if the island of Manhattan is not underwater by that time. But, I guess you gotta make lemonade out of lemons. 

What a beautiful site, huh?

Roosevelt Island ( "the little apple in the big apple"), the East River and the Queensborough Bridge. Hey, you can see my old apartment building from here. 

This was a quick update because the mobile app did not save the previous draft, and I did not feel like rewriting the entire post.  

Cross Promotion

I really was not in the mood to do interval runs yesterday so I decided to check out this fairly new class at Crunch Firness - Accerlation Powered by Fitbit. 

Basically, the class is chopped full of cardio units or segments that focus on you taking as many "steps" as possible. I type "steps" because we all know that Fitbit  (Fitbit Surge, in my case) uses arm movements as steps, and the class has a lot of punching and jabs. 

Steps or "steps" aside, this class was pretty fun. The instructor totally was energetic and super engaging. Also, her music choices really suited the class. 

For most of the class, I stayed within my peak cardio range and my Fitbit Surge say that I took 2,513 "steps" during the class. It seems that 4,000 "steps" may be a bit of a stretch. 

 I guess my goal for next week is to beat 2,513. However, I think that my real goal will be to stay in my peak cardio range longer than 17-18 minutes. 

A critique or two

1. I think that the class may have too many people in it. I say this because there are a lot of jumping forward, skipping, shuffling side to side, and running back and forth movements, which can lead to potential collisions. These can happen when as person next to you does not have a lot of physical stamina and have to stop during an exercise like suicides. 
2. I do not really see too much of the cross promotion. Crunch fitness (at least the one on 59th Street) started selling Fitbit Charges a few month ago. However, most of the people in the class did not have fitbit (perhaps they are fancy and own apple watches) or any type of tracker. To me, it does not make sense to say the class is powered by Fitbit. I think if fitbit and Crunch fitness (to some extent) should have some type of incentive for people to attend this class and buy Fitbits. Perhaps, making specific online Fitbit community group for the class at one or multiple Crunch fitness locations would get more people involved. I know that I am somewhat competitive and like to benchmarch my fitness progress with myself and others, so one could see how well he/she stacks up with other Crunch Fitness members. Just a thought. 

Postworkout

Since I was already trying new things, I decided to eat a Muscle Making Grill instead of the healthy Mexican grill, which usually sscrews up my orders, that I normally go to after the gym. This place prides itself on low carb, low fat, and high protein food options. I ordered the Arizona, which had grilled chicken, some chipoltle like sauce, brown rice, chives and tomato. I wonder if Arizona tastes like the plate?