Lämmchen's Workout Thread

[Lamb]

We've finally had such great weather with cool temps and no rain that I could go hiking again! I've been back to a trail that lets me do a nice 4 mile hike by a river and it puts me in a great mood.

 

[tango]

We've finally had such great weather with cool temps and no rain that I could go hiking again! I've been back to a trail that lets me do a nice 4 mile hike by a river and it puts me in a great mood.

I'm enjoying the cooler weather for running too. My times now are probably 45 seconds per mile faster than during the extreme heat, for a comparable (maybe even slightly reduced) perceived effort. Hopefully plugging on through during the crazy heat will produce some rewards as we move into the cooler seasons.

Sadly the 45 seconds per mile nominal gain as we move into cooler weather doesn't mean I'm breaking new records, when it got hot my times got slower because of the heat. I think I'm somewhat ahead of where I was going into summer, just nowhere near as much as that 45 second statistic might suggest.

 

[Castle Church]

I am so jealous!! We are still in super high humidity and temps here - our first cool front is historically not until mid to late October, so still a while of hot and humid.

 

[Lamb]

I am so jealous!! We are still in super high humidity and temps here - our first cool front is historically not until mid to late October, so still a while of hot and humid.

Oh I couldn't handle that!! Are you in the south or the west? I can't remember, sorry. I'm in the mid-atlantic.

 

[Castle Church]

Oh I couldn't handle that!! Are you in the south or the west? I can't remember, sorry. I'm in the mid-atlantic.

Down south, central Gulf coast of Florida area. I love it here most of the year, but August and September start to get bad since it rains pretty heavily most days and the humidity is super high. But October through May are really nice, so that's the trade off.

 

[Lamb]

Down south, central Gulf coast of Florida area. I love it here most of the year, but August and September start to get bad since it rains pretty heavily most days and the humidity is super high. But October through May are really nice, so that's the trade off.

Oh yeah, I can't put up with that humidity!! I went to Disney World twice and ugh, I couldn't wait to get home LOL

 

[tango]

Another easy run today. My tracker suggested a recovery run which was 30 minutes with a target heart rate of 130. It's hard to keep it that low on the hills, so if it beeped at me I walked until it came back down. Running slowly is something I can do up to a point but I still struggle to keep my speed down as low as my tracker wants me to.

 

[tango]

This thread kinda died.

My suggested workouts for the last several days have been either "rest" or very light runs. Today I decided to tick off the month's long run challenge so ignored the suggestion to do 30 minutes at a tediously slow pace and did a 10-mile run instead. Today was a really good day, the kind of run that reminds me why I do it. It makes a wonderful change from the heat of the summer when I often found myself wondering why I bothered with it

 

[Lamb]

This past weekend I was at church both mornings so I didn't get to do any hiking. Once I get home from there, I'm too tired to do much of anything because it's not a short commute. I hope to get back to hiking a few days this week at least.

 

[tango]

This past weekend I was at church both mornings so I didn't get to do any hiking. Once I get home from there, I'm too tired to do much of anything because it's not a short commute. I hope to get back to hiking a few days this week at least.

How far do you drive to go to church?

 

[Lamb]

How far do you drive to go to church?

It can take anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes. In the morning going there it's almost always 35 minutes, unless I get caught behind a series of Amish buggies going in the same direction for their worship. They switch houses so I never know where they'll be at.

Coming home from church always takes longer because more people are out and about and I get stopped by a few traffic lights. So it's about 40 minutes at least.

 

[tango]

It can take anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes. In the morning going there it's almost always 35 minutes, unless I get caught behind a series of Amish buggies going in the same direction for their worship. They switch houses so I never know where they'll be at.

Coming home from church always takes longer because more people are out and about and I get stopped by a few traffic lights. So it's about 40 minutes at least.

That seems like a long way to go to church. Sometimes you can tell where Amish church is going to be if an oversized buggy shows up at one particular house.

Years ago I was talking to an Amish man and he was telling me a little bit about their church. He showed me a buggy loaded with benches for people to sit on the following day, when church was at his house. I looked at the huge load of benches and must have looked horrified as I asked him if a single horse pulled all that weight. He seemed quite amused when he said that it didn't - they'd use two horses to pull the extra load.

 

[Lamb]

That seems like a long way to go to church. Sometimes you can tell where Amish church is going to be if an oversized buggy shows up at one particular house.

Years ago I was talking to an Amish man and he was telling me a little bit about their church. He showed me a buggy loaded with benches for people to sit on the following day, when church was at his house. I looked at the huge load of benches and must have looked horrified as I asked him if a single horse pulled all that weight. He seemed quite amused when he said that it didn't - they'd use two horses to pull the extra load.

Yes, we see the Amish houses with all the horses and buggies parked outside and it's A LOT. When it's time for them to leave after church, that's when it gets crazy and I try to avoid that time of day, but it's hard when I stay late for my church and get caught up in their queue on the drive home.

 

[Lamb]

My husband is taking a 4 day weekend, starting yesterday, and we went to a Gardens attraction because our membership ends next week and got a lot of steps in. Today, we're going hiking and taking a picnic lunch to sit by the water and relax. Not sure what we'll do the next two days, but I promised him we'd do some nice activities since he's been overworked for the past 9 months with his co-worker on long disability.

 

[tango]

Sounds fun. Is it a botanical garden with the focus on specific plants, or more like an open space where you can walk around and there happen to be more cultivated plants than a wild forest?

I always enjoyed finding unexpected things in the woods when I was hiking. One day I found a couple of orchids, and there's a kind of fungus whose name escapes me that is deathly white and looks like pipes (it's not the destroying angel mushroom). It's kinda cool, it breaks a lot of the "rules" relating to plants but every once in a while I find one. I'm still hoping to find some cool mushrooms - a friend of mine knows a spot where he gathers up huge numbers of chanterelle mushrooms but the forest is a big place and I never found anything as interesting as a chanterelle.

 

[Lamb]

Sounds fun. Is it a botanical garden with the focus on specific plants, or more like an open space where you can walk around and there happen to be more cultivated plants than a wild forest?

I always enjoyed finding unexpected things in the woods when I was hiking. One day I found a couple of orchids, and there's a kind of fungus whose name escapes me that is deathly white and looks like pipes (it's not the destroying angel mushroom). It's kinda cool, it breaks a lot of the "rules" relating to plants but every once in a while I find one. I'm still hoping to find some cool mushrooms - a friend of mine knows a spot where he gathers up huge numbers of chanterelle mushrooms but the forest is a big place and I never found anything as interesting as a chanterelle.

It has water fountain gardens, a huge conservatory with plants, water features, an organ museum, lots of prairie area and woods to wander in, and so much more. I'll message you the name.

 

[tango]

Hard run today, my watch finally stopped suggesting I do recovery runs and proposed a hard threshold-level run. Three threshold intervals today, I managed the first one without any trouble, the second one was hard although I maintained the suggested pace, and the third one was more than I could manage. I completed it but couldn't maintain the pace up the last part, when it went up quite a steep hill. But I completed it, even if I had to slack on the pace a little towards the end. The run ended up being a little over 5.5 miles.

Then my wife wanted to go for a walk at a local nature trail, and it seems that we chalked up another 5 miles of walking around the lake. That wasn't breaking any speed records at all, just covering the distance and soaking up some sun.

 

[Lamb]

It was foggy in the morning, so I skipped church and when it cleared up we went for a 4 mile hike.

 

[Lamb]

Why do I seem to get a better workout and see results from a flatter ground than a hillier hike?

 

[tango]

Why do I seem to get a better workout and see results from a flatter ground than a hillier hike?

It depends what you mean by a better workout and seeing results.

Hills are probably better for working your CV system but will naturally result in having to work harder to cover less ground more slowly.