Calling All Hamsters! Week #160 Ending 1-22-06

[CaptainSwab]

Please do all posting here and let the other thread go!

Mission: The VeggieBoards Hamster Club is a group of fitness/health minded vegans and vegetarians who support each other in their endeavors in fitness, diet, and health. Anyone who chooses can post to this thread. There are no dues or fees, just a desire to share our efforts and support one another.



Go Hamsters!!!

:vebo: :bobo: :vebo: :bobo: :vebo:

[CaptainSwab]

30k trail race which ended up being about 19.2 miles according to my GPS.

Holy cow. Can you say hilly? The first 12 miles were straight up hill and then the next three miles were steep down but it was in the middle of a flash flood plain and there were huge boulders. No way you could run down that. I think at one point my GPS said we were moving at a 30min/mile pace.

And the wind.. The forecast called for 20-30mph winds. It was freezing. I am now happily sitting under my eletric blanket. :D

Have a great week hamsters! :hamster:

[broccoli]

That sounds like a tough race, but I bet it was a great experience! Good job! :bobo:

I am still having knee problems. My knee felt perfect today and I ran up and down my hallway before I went out to the trails for a 13 mile run, but not even a minute into the run, it hurt so bad I thought I would cry. :( I go to the doc tomorrow, so I'll ask him about it.

[rainbowmoon]

Broccoli- I'd highly recommend you take a break on account of the knee problems. I didn't take a break when I should have a couple of years ago and my knees are now all but shot- I can do the eliptical and the bike and swim, but I can't run a block and even walking hurts them.
Bottom line: if you need a break, listen to your bod. You can always swim or bike those days to keep your cardio.

[broccoli]

You're right, rainbow moon! I think I'll just go do some pilates in a little while. :)

[annabanana]

Captain, that sounds like a brutal race. It builds character, right? :D The best part always seems to be the recovery after a race or hard run, when you know that you've REALLY earned resting under the warmth of that blanket!

Definitely nurse that knee, broccoli...no use in pushing it too far! I hope the doctor can help you out.

Now it's time to study for exams :brood: , but I ran 6 miles yesterday and 8 miles today :) All work and no play makes for a dull person, right? ...right?! (trying to justify my use of running as a procrastination tool :D )

[broccoli]

Haha, I use running as procrastination too. I ran more during exams week than I have in a long time. Good job! :)

[Shadowlee]

Last night I ran/walked on the treadmill for 50 minutes (about 6km).

A friend of mine just asked me to go in a fun run with her in April - either 5km or 10km. Should be fun and might motivate me to push my running a bit further again. I managed to run 10km last year, but I've dropped back to alternating 5 minutes each of running and walking without really pushing myself any further.

[rainbowmoon]

Uh, today I did 30 minutes of eliptical and leg press (I did 270 lbs., which I'm happy with. Is that good?) and then I did hamstring curls and leg extentions, and abs. It was nice. My cardio is getting redundant, though.

[CaptainSwab]

Does anybody have any good quad stregthening exercises I could use?

One thing I've noticed when I'm at mile 22 of a marathon or running on hilly trails is that it is always my quads that seem to be the deal breaker. I'm wondering if there are any nonrunning exercises I can do to help that.

And yes, tough race but very glad I did it. I had fun too. :D

Shadow, I find racing a great motivator to keep me going. Good luck in training for your April race. :)

[CaptainSwab]

Oh and Broccoli, I would like to echo what Anna and Rainbowmoon have said about resting that knee. Take a couple of days or a week off if you have to. It is better than making it worse!

[annabanana]

Captain, have you tried squats and/or walking lunges? You could also do jump- or step-up-on-the-box plyos, which are pretty self-explanatory. You don't even need a box, really... I like to use a low platform at a park's children's play structure along my running route. Wall sits are also good for quads.

If you want me to elaborate, I can...this is just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head :)

[broccoli]

Today I did a lot of ab work and some arm work. I think I get a lot of endorphins(sp?) from running, because I now feel like crap. :lol:

[Amy323]

Today I did 15 minutes on the treadmill at moderate speed, 20 minutes elliptical moderate speed w/ a resistance of 10, and I did some work on my arms. Tryin' to tone them up a bit!

[rainbowmoon]

Captain- are you working your quads at a health club? I found (when I could run) that just doing the leg press, squats and leg extensions helped a lot. If not, lunges and plyo-box stuff like anna suggested sounds real good, but hard on the knees!
<---is always worrying about knees. Anna, do you find these exercises to be hard on your knees?

[CaptainSwab]

Linz, I don't belong to a health club. I don't think there is even one within 20 miles of where I live if that is even possible living in Southern California. :p What's a plyo-box?

Anna, how many times a week would you reccomend doing things like leg lunges or squats? I don't want it to be so that my legs are too tired to run. Would you do these on off running days or do them after a weekday run?

[wilsonthemany]

Today was decent. I did a 6 mile run and 30 minutes of leg weights

[rainbowmoon]

Captain- A plyo-box sounds nifty, but its really just a large sized box made of wood or plastic that you can use for squats, jumping, ect.
Here are two pictures:

You can look up lots of leg exercises online that you can do with a plyo box. Most of them, from my experience, are hard on the knees- but I have crappy knees, so you might be fine.

[broccoli]

Great job, Amy and Wilsonthemany ( cute dog in the avatar!) !

[annabanana]

Yeah, a plyo box is really nothing special :p Like I said, you could even use just any old platform or solid surface...as long as it's not too low or too high off the ground. 1-2 feet seems pretty effective. So you can do a couple things with this. You can repeatedly step on it, almost like a stairmaster only better and with a more "natural" rhythm (i.e. no machine forcing you up or down). You can jump up and down from the box; this has worked the best in my experience. You can start with 5-10 jumps/steps at a time and build up to as many as you want...at one point I think I was up to 25 per set. It's a LOT harder than it seems, I'll tell you that much. You will be out of breath and feeling the burn!

I'd say about the same thing for lunges and squats, with or without weights. Start with about 10 and do 2 sets, then you could work up to, say, 20 reps and 3 sets or something. Do whatever works best for you.

I think doing plyos, lunges, squats, etc on a rest day would kind of...make it an unrest day. After a run would probably be a good time, in my opinion. But you have to experiment and see what works best for you, as you might find that it's just impossible to do after running. On the other hand, you might find it quite beneficial :) This is all just stuff I know from experience, by no means do I claim to know a lot about exercise physiology. Speaking of which, I don't really find any of these exercises hard on my knees (mine are fickle and sometimes act up for no reason and then get better within days), though I do see how they could be (and probably are). I've actually found lunges to be knee-strengthening but there is certainly a good amount of impact there.

[Mskedi]

I did a measly 15 minutes of cardio, lower body weights for about 25 minutes, and I'm going to stretch before bed.

But it's better than the nothing I did yesterday. :)

My knee only hurt when I did the leg press machine, so I'm going to skip that next time.

[Amy323]

I jogged/ran 3 miles today. . .doesn't sound like much compared to what some of you are doing, but I'm just starting to run! I also worked on the abs a bit.

[wilsonthemany]

Today was a great day! I did the (fairly usual) 6 mile run and an hour of weights (arms/chest/back) and legs/butt

[broccoli]

Good job everyone! Good luck with the running, Amy!

------------------------
Today I'm going to just do 15 mins of upper body work and 20 mins. ab work. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to run again because my knee is feeling great!

[NDvegan85]

:hi:

Sunday: lots of unpacking and so I was too tired to workout
Monday: 1 1/2 mile swim
Tuesday: 45 min bike, 30 min lifting
Wednesday: 1 1/2 mile swim, probably some yoga later tonight