Printemps Weather?!

So yes, as you can see from the forecast for this week Saskatoon is expected to have above freezing temperatures (US readers will note that the temperatures are in Celsius--and that yes, although it was 8:31am when I grabbed the screenshot, it was still dark outside).  As Jasmine told me this morning, the human race had a good run.

At any rate, I don't think it's the end of days just because it's not utterly freezing in Saskatchewan right now... or maybe it is?

This week I have not run even a step.  The reason?  Because I noticed some weakness in my hamstring last time out.  This weakness caused pain in my already tight calves.  I've selected/redesigned my 18 week training program with the idea that I'm going to miss at least a few days, and probably a few weeks while training.  Obviously no one plans to get injured, but it's probably still a good idea to add some extra time to the training plan for situations where some minor rest come in handy.

After resting Sunday and Monday, I focused on my core and leg muscles yesterday.  For some added fun I used two 5lb weight straps, which I wrapped around my lower legs near my ankle.  In some cases I put both straps on the same leg.  Here's a breakdown of what I did and why.

Squats: 50
Lunges: 20
Jumping Squats: 10
Bridges: 50
Push-ups: 30
Crunches: 10
Sidelying Leg Raises: 40
[Unidentified supine alternate leg raises]: 80


The muscle that got the most emphasis here was the transverse abdominis.  Given that it helps to stabilize the pelvis, the reasons for doing this should be fairly obvious to anyone who has been reading this blog.   You'll notice I did only 10 crunches.  That may seem like an odd number, but I stopped at 10 because I felt that the work I was doing with the other core exercises was fatiguing my muscles already.  Additionally I did only 30 push-ups because I wanted to use my energy on strengthening my core.  Obviously I can do push-ups today--perhaps between 70 and 100.

Bridges and Jumping Squats are new additions.  For the latter I'm not too sure if I'll be doing those again in the near future because getting back into the starting position after completing a rep appears to require some repositioning--this, in and of itself, suggests I ought to get into better conditioning before I use this particular exercise.

I felt that the workout went pretty well.  I can tell you right now that I feel pretty good right now (i.e. the next morning) and do not absolutely need any more recovery time.

My nutrition has been heavy on the protein this week.  I'm eating fewer calories than normal and am starting to cut out processed sugars (yes, I had a Coffee Crisp yesterday).  I'm going to add more carbs to my diet as my training progresses.  The added glycogen will really come in handy.