"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- WOW-- What a Ride!"

Monday, April 25, 2011

Rest Day Monday & Beginner's Corner

I'm not sure why, but Monday has evolved into a rest day for me.  It's all good though.  Not having to think about the details of a run makes it easier to jump back into a busy workweek.

Today's only plan is to do some stretching and rolling.  The rolling really helps my quads and knees feel much better.  Because of my sedentary desk job I seem to get pretty tight from the hips down.  I try to make sure to move around regularly to loosen up during the day.  I also do some calf stretches under my desk.

Presenting another episode of Beginner's Corner:

Beginner's corner is an irregular series that looks at the meaning of various running terms for the benefit of beginner's like me.  Today we look at easy, medium and hard effort.

Easy effort would be a comfortable, conversational pace.  We looked at easy pace in the previous episode of Beginner's Corner.  I look at easy effort as not causing me to huff and puff.

Medium effort is comfortably hard.  For me this would be just fast enough that I could speak in broken sentences, but I really wouldn't want to carry on a conversation.  It would be a pace that I could maintain for about 3-ish miles.  Some people might be able to carry it farther.  At a medium effort I'll be breathing pretty hard, but still in control.

Hard effort would be starting to get into the all-out category.  This would be trying to go as fast as possible.  I might be able to maintain this pace for about 400 yards or so.  At this effort I will be breathing hard trying to get as much oxygen in as I can.

The majority of my workouts tend to be in the easy effort category.  A few are in the medium effort category and very rarely in the hard effort category.  I might do one medium effort workout per week, and maybe one hard effort per month.

What do you do to stay loose while at work?  Do you have any set pattern between easy, medium and hard effort workouts?

1 comment:

Jen said...

I have only lately been mixing in medium and hard efforts. I do them rarely as I'm still trying to get comfortable at the distances I'm running. Today's run was done with run/walk intervals on purpose because it was so hot when I started (90*). At work, I try to get up every hour and a half and just walk about, either in my office, or I'll walk down to see the view from the reception area. I've been trying to incorporate more stretching of legs under the desk too. Glad to know I'm not the only one. :)