Lately I have been running a lot.  I had begun to train for a half-marathon, but have put that on hold for the time being.  I had a heel injury that led to some blood work, that led to some results that say that I may be doing more damage to my body than good by doing so much cardio & endurance training.  So, that left me in quite a quandary.  I had discovered that I loved to run.  It was such an outlet, a stress reliever.  Plus, I was excited to train and run in a race.  However, after doing some reading & researching, I made the decision to put the race on hold for now and back off on my cardio a bit.  I started to read about the PACE program by Dr. Al Sears, MD.  This program was very hard to wrap my mind around at first.  All the information on cardio & aerobics that I had ever been taught or read about was blown out the window.  High intensity intervals with periods of recovery are much better for your body.  Endurance training shrinks your muscles to make you more efficient, your heart is one of those muscles, as are your lungs.  Smaller lungs mean loss of  lung power.  Dr. Sears found that Dr. Dean Ward uncovered clinical evidence connecting the loss of lung power to aging and that lung capacity is the key indicator to how long you will live!  Fascinating stuff, really. 

So, my workout at the gym this AM consisted of an interval session that last roughly 26 minutes, including warm-up & recovery periods.  I think I was more worn out from that than I get from running for 7 miles!  As far as mileage goes, I only logged a total of 3.5, that includes my cool-down walk.  30 minutes.  I then headed to the free weights and did some are work and also used my own body weight to do dips, push-ups & ab work. 

Now, for those of you who know how high-strung I am, I can’t believe I am saying this, but I have started to “practice” Yoga and am really, really enjoying it.  I haven’t ventured outside of my house yet to practice to save myself a lot of embarrassment.  I have been using yogadownloads.com and I just discovered Dave Farmar and the podcasts that I hope to try out tomorrow AM.  What inspired this you ask?  Well, first, the need to stretch.  The running makes for tight leg muscles.  Secondly, Tina at Carrots N Cake is doing a 31-Day Yoga Challenge and I thought this was a great way to learn some yoga, stretch my body and possibly learn some new ways to relieve stress & learn some new relaxation techniques.   I am excited!  It is a new challenge for me, a sort of goal, if you will.  If I do all 31 days, great.  If not, no biggie, it is a great place for me to start.  So far, so good.  I have done 3 days of yoga.  Yesterday was a short, 15 minute session, but tomorrow AM will be a longer 30 -45 minute session as it is a day off from the gym and I want to wake up refreshed and start the day with a great positive attitude. 

My overall goal is to be healthy so that I can be around for my kids & family for a long time to come.  🙂