Let's Get Fit!

I have made a fitness goal for the summer: get back to my fitness level I had when I was playing premier soccer in high school. In "those days" it was easy. Because we were a premier team, there was mandatory fitness once a week at NSD (what better place to train?), and man did we get worked hard! Plus we had practice once a week and then a game once a week. So when you have mandatory times to work out, and other people to push you, it's really easy to be in shape. But I don't have any of that now, which is why I kind of let my fitness get away from me. I'm still healthy, eating right and playing soccer, but I could be much healthier and in much better shape.

No better example than from being injured and now getting back to physical activity. It's rough! I didn't realize how quickly the body could de-condition, especially since it wasn't in that great of condition to begin with, I suppose.

So now, along with all my exercises from physio I've decided to start running every day (or close to it) and to also throw in my own exercises: mostly abdominals, upper body & endurance things like suicides.

Today before I left for my run, I went to download a pedometer but came upon RunKeeper. It is AMAZING! I just did the easy 20 minute run, since I'm still trying to get back into it and don't want to put too much strain right away. In this mode, it does it in intervals. So the "coach" gives you a 5 minute warmup, then switches from 1 minute intervals of a steady pace to 1.5 minutes of a slow pace. This made it a lot easier for me to get through a 20 minute run; hence the "easy mode".

Now while the program is tracking everything, and I mean everything - but I'll get to that-, you can play your music and also take pictures. The "everything" of this program includes: tracking elevation, pace, route (it give you a map of your run after), heart beat (if you have a monitor for it) and of course distance. I don't think the actual ap itself shows everything, but you can connect it to facebook and it also posts your results on it's own website where you can see absolutely everything. I included the link to my run today so you can see everything it does. It even shows where on the route the pictures were taken! So cool. You can even add people to your "street team", like your personal support group, you can track everyone's progress. So I will definitely be using this from now on.

I've also started back on the herbalife shakes. One, because I am/was broke and two, it's a great post-workout meal. Lots of protein and one of the powders I put in is meant for a post-workout shake. I just toss in some frozen strawberries and blueberries and I have a delicious lunch ready in minutes, and it also cools me down from my run.

Hopefully I won't have too many excuses to not get running. For sure on days off, but I hope that when I work early mornings I can motivate myself to do it after work & if I work a late morning hopefully I can drag myself out of bed and do it before work. If I work afternoons it won't be a problem. This also partly solves my problem of what on earth to do when I'm not working; but only slightly so. I need to head to the library and take out some books!!

So, as a last note, if you aren't currently using anything to track your running I highly suggest getting this, it'll be the most useful ap on your phone! And if you aren't a runner/don't normally run, the coach could probably help you out with that, I have yet to discover all the goodies of this FREE ap!

Happy running!