Workout Recap - Running on July 23rd (and day 2 of 31-day challenge!)

I'm still keeping with the running! Last night I completed my second treadmill interval workout. I really like doing them, it makes the time go by so quickly. It also is helping me develop a better stride while running at a faster pace.

I again mostly followed a treadmill workout from Fit Sugar, and just made a few changes.

One thing I did last night was use a heart rate monitor for the first time. Someone in my lab brought hers in for me to borrow, and I was really interested to try it out. I was curious how it would match up to the treadmill, for estimated number of calories burned. I was also interested in seeing what my heart rate got up to, and how long it took to go back to a resting state.

The number of calories burned was pretty similar to what I saw on the treadmill screen. I did my running first, and then the 31-day challenge exercises, and I meant to stop the recording and start a new one, so I could see the two separately. I accidentally hit pause and then continue, so it's all one recording. I checked close to the end of the treadmill workout, and it the heart rate monitor had me at about 30 calories less than the treadmill did. This could be due to the difference in bodyweight - I put in all of my information into the heart rate monitor, but just left the default 150lbs on the treadmill. (I weigh a little less than that.)

I'm going to continue to use the heart rate monitor as a way to keep track of how hard I'm working each workout. I still don't know how accurate it is in terms of calculating calories burned, at least in using the measure of calorie as something we can compare to calories we consume. In other words, I'm not going to use a readout of 655 calories burned as an excuse to eat 655 calories worth of food. But knowing that running for 45 minutes and doing floor exercises for another 15 minutes can burn around 655 calories, I'm probably slacking if the next time I do something similar, I see a much lower output. Although in the long run I should eventually see a lower output, since the hope is that the same exercise wouldn't require as much effort, and my heart rate shouldn't be as high. Here's hoping.

FYI about the workout - not counting the walking at the beginning and end, you will run just about 3.5 miles in the 36 minutes of intervals, which is an average pace of 5.83mph or 10:17 minutes per mile. I burned just about 500 calories in the total treadmill workout.

Pictures of the heart monitor report:

 

 

To be "in zone" you have to be between 65% and 85% of your maximum heart rate, which is calculated solely based on your age. I'm 27, so my max heart rate is 193, making my range 125-165. I was only below the range during the first few minutes while I was walking, then clearly spent most of my time over the range. I didn't go too far over though, since my average was 161. 

31-Day Challenge

I forgot to write down how many dips I was supposed to do, and just made a guess while at the gym. I ended up doing 8 instead of 6! 

For the crunches, I did 25 traditional (feet up, shins parallel to the ground), 25 bicycles (left+right = 1), and 25 V-ups