Travel Day

I was in Tuscaloosa at a conference on Monday and Tuesday. I'm glad I chose to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn because it had a much better gym than what I'm used to at Marriott. They had a treadmill, stationary bike, and a cross trainer. They also had some weights. I decided to just bike. I wanted to just do somewhat of a recovery ride. I set it on random and off I went. There wasn't much too taxing even on the hilly part. I kept checking my heart rate on the bike and the highest I ever saw it was 132 bpm. That is good. I only rode for 25 minutes. It was a perfect recovery ride. Like I said in an earlier post I have been reading "Chi Running" by Danny Dreyer. I am getting further into and trying to catch on. His technique is to use more gravity than muscles. It really makes sense. The main difference is your posture. It says that you need to be bent over from the ankles and for your stride to never be in front of your head. I decided to give it a try on the treadmill. I was just going to run a mile trying my new technique out. I started out really slow to see if I could even do it. I mean really slow (12:00 min/mile) It seemed to really work. In the book he says that you can run your normal loop using his technique and expend only 30% of your energy of what you do using your own technique. It really seemed easier but then again I was running 12 minute miles. I bumped up the speed to 9 minute miles. Again, very easy. It said in the middle of your run to revert back to your old style and notice the difference. I did and I really slowed down like it said I would. Maybe this will work for me because like I have said before I really struggle with my run. The last half mile I ran 7:30 a mile. When I was done I wasn't out of breath or anything. I wasn't tired at all. This is sweet. I hope it is always this easy. I'm going to try it outside and see how it goes then. I hope all goes well.

Even though I was on the road I did pretty good eating. Monday for breakfast I had a bagel and some oatmeal with blueberries. Midmorning snack I had a powerbar and for lunch a powerbar, some peanuts and an apple. I even did okay for supper. I had some chicken and steak fajitas with some beans and rice. Not great but not too bad.