I did it!

So the other day when as I was riding the subway to work, I read in my new Women\'s Health Magazine about way to pick up your pace in cardio workouts. I’m not one to really feel “the need for speed” if you know what I mean. But lately, I’ve found that the only way to really gain anything from my workouts is by really challenging myself. After running my third marathon in June, I began to get bored running at my usual pace for long periods of time. While slow and steady may win the race sometimes, it will not help zip up my skinny jeans.

Running the marathon

I’ve always known that the body is a master adapter. Once it gets used to a routine it becomes more efficient in “helping” you and using less energy. For the longest time I wondered why, if I ran for an hour at a 6.0 pace, I wasn’t seeing any changes in my body. Then, one day… like 2 years later…I decided to try interval training. This meant just switching it up and running quick sprints in between my even tempo pace. And I saw a difference right away!! Bottom line, it’s always good to change things up every now and then!

Anyway, today I tried what is called tempos. The magazine said, “if there’s one workout worth adding to your routine, most coaches would say it should be tempos (maintaining a comfortably hard pace for a sustained period of time).” They also called tempos “the little black dress of running,” meaning that they are classic and benefit everyone. Well, that’s all it took for me to be on board!

The workout goes as follows:
Run a 10 minute warm-up.
Increase your pace and hold it for 15-20 minutes.
Finish with a 10 minute cool down.

If 15-20 min. is too hard, do 5 min. at a time, repeating till you get to 20.
What you want to keep in mind with this when you pick up the pace for the 15-20 min. you want to be at your “happy pace.” So on a scale of 1-10 (1 easy, 10 hard) you want to be at about a 7 or 8.

For my workout tonight it looked liked this:
10 min – 6.5 pace
15 min – 8.0 pace
5 min. – incline walking at 15.0
5 min – 7.0 run

I was so happy that I did this!! Because last time I tried it didn’t go so well. I rounded out my workout with 15 min. on the elliptical, some weights, and my favorite ab workout.

This ab workout always kills me, I don’t know why…it’s fine the first time through, but they want you to do it 3 times through! By the 3rd time I could care less about a flat stomach and just want to roll into a little ball and cry like a baby. I guess that is exaggerating – but it’s rough. Don’t let their cuteness fool you.

Also! Before I sign off – I want to post a picture of my tofu and brussel sprout dinner last night. It ended up being SO tasty too! Ian actually wasn’t here for this dinner because he worked late, but he tried some cold tofu today and agreed that it wasn’t awful 🙂 mission accomplished! haha. Although I don’t see tofu in his near future.

Brussel Sprouts and Tofu

All I did with the tofu was pan fry it with a little olive oil, then cook it on medium low heat for about 20 min. I added garlic powder, salt and some teriyaki sauce. I had to keep flipping the pieces of tofu so they wouldn’t brown too much – but I wanted them to be a little crispy. Yum!

Ok, off to enjoy some dinner … and yes it is 10 o’clock already… welcome to life in New York! Well, mine and Ian’s life anyway 🙂