Still walking

So far so good.  No sore legs either...

Walking challenge

At work we are doing a walking challenge as a "well-being" activity.  The aim is to walk 10,000 steps a day.  I've done these before and they are harder than you might think - time is really the issue.  But this time around I'm going to try as hard as I can to hit the magic number.  We also get credit for other exercise although you don't really get much in the way of credit for going to the gym and throwing weights around...

One of the things I have to think about is my poor old dog.  I don't want him to miss out on his walk but I also don't want to push him too hard - our walks are normally limited to 30 minutes per day in the cool of the day.

Anyway, yesterday was day one and for some reason we had to reset our pedometers at lunchtime and start recording from them - goodbye 2-3,000 steps for me...Never mind, I went pretty hard and when I got home grabbed Barty McFarty and we hit the road doing approx 45 minutes.  He seemed fine although took it easy for the rest of the night.  I ended up on about 7,600 steps for the day.

Today, I set the alarm for o-dark thirty and after a quick brekkie the two of us hit the road again knocking out another 30 minute walk before work.  At work I got around a fair bit and by the time I got home had less than 2,000 steps to go to hit the magical 10k.  Sticking to my plan for the day I got the mower out and mowed my back lawns which got me up to the target.  A bit more wandering around now has me on 11,800 with not long before its time to hit the hay - not a bad effort.

The plan for tomorrow is to do the pre-work walk again.  I'm not sure what I'll do after work - I should go to the gym but whether I'll need a wee walk prior to get my 10k we'll have to see.

So not a bad start but I can see a couple of days coming up soon (motorcycle riding) where it may be hard work.  I'll just have to make a decent effort to get a walk or trip to the gym in...

Just for something to do (other than walking) I might update the blog as the challenge continues (8 weeks of it planned).

Damn car!

On Tuesday night my car decided to blow a radiator hose on the way home.  It must have gone not far from home as the temperature gauge didn't hit the redline and I didn't cook the old girl.

I ordered the replacement hose the next day but due to the dealer stuffing up the order I didn't get the hose until Saturday.  This meant that I rode the V-Strom to work and around (and got hosed on on Thursday) for the rest of the week which was fun but there were a couple of times that I could have used the car...

So, on Saturday afternoon I fitted the new hose.  This was the hardest bit as it takes a bit to get them on over the pipe inlet/outlets.  To do it I had to clean the gunk of the fitting and then lube up the inside of the hose with a bit of detergent.  It was still a mission and I ended up with a good few nicks and scrapes on my fingers and knuckles.

Then I topped up the radiator with fresh coolant and let it sit for a bit.  An hour or so later I came back and checked to see if the level had dropped.  It hadn't so I fired the car up and let it run for a few minutes.  While it was running I checked that the thermostat was working by checking that the return hoses got warm.  All good there so I shut her down and let things settle down again.

After another half an hour or so I checked the coolant level again and as it hadn't moved I went for a short drive to the supermarket and back.  The temperature got up to about normal and the car seemed to behave itself so I guess she's all good now.  I still think I'll keep an eye on the coolant for the next week or so.

Getting back into it

Last night was my first time back at the gym after my holiday (two weeks).  During my holiday I did get some exercise in the form of walking and a few bike rides (only one ride was hard work).

Feeling that my aerobic fitness is not up to scratch and that this probably holds me back a bit when doing weights (getting knackered too easily) I've decided to take things a bit slowly but to try and increase the amount of cardio that I do.

So, last night when I jumped on the exercycle I dropped the resistance slightly (by 1 point) and didn't peddle hard out.  I keep the rpm on the bike in the mid nineties and this got my heart rate up to the mid 130's.  While I normally push a bit harder and only bike for 10 minutes, last night I did 15 minutes.

After the biking I felt pretty good and had covered just under 7.2km.  If I had done it at my normal rate I would have probably got somewhere over 8km.

I then hit the cross-trainer and did my normal cardio routine of 10 minutes on the "cardio" setting.  Here I went a bit harder (more like my normal routine) and cranked out 2km in 10 minutes with my heart rate peaking over the target of 141bpm.  By now I was a sweaty mess and knew I'd done something...

I then hit the weights but didn't manage to get through my whole routine, only lasting about 35 minutes.  Overall, I enjoyed the workout and will back tomorrow night for another go but still with the emphasis on cardio.

Today I concentrated on walking (later in the month we are having a walking challenge at work) and managed to knock out 9,500 steps with the help of mowing the lawns, walking the dog and whatever I managed at work.  It takes a bit of work to hit the target 10,000 per day...