The Seven-Minute Workout: Too Good to Be True?

First things first, so sorry to neglect you, dear blog. The end-of-the-year madness has finally started to calm down at work, so my brain no longer feels the need to shut itself down and run screaming from a computer at 7:30 each evening. I hope to never leave the blog so high-and-dry again. Please forgive me, WordPress. I promise our honeymoon phase is not over yet.

With my Mondays & Wednesdays spent at the yoga studio, I usually go to the gym on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Atlanta had some seriously gorgeous weather yesterday, and I just couldn’t bring myself to stay inside, running on a treadmill like a hamster. When I got home from work, I laced up my shoes and took the dogs for a quick 2-mile walk, wondering what else I could do to make myself feel less guilty about missing a workout. While walking back home, I remembered a New York Times tweet I had seen about a new, super effective seven-minute endurance workout that had appeared in a recent issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal. My interest was piqued.

Hey, thanks, New York Times!

With 12 basic exercises that use only  body weight, a chair and a wall, scientists claim the routine routine fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort – a combination of a long run and strength training – in about seven minutes of steady discomfort. The payoff? The benefits of prolonged endurance training in much less time.

Run For Your Lives!

Although I’m still focusing mainly on strength training and rehabbing my knees, next Saturday’s Warrior Dash marks my return to pounding the pavement. 2013 is going by so fast that I nearly forgot my mom and I are running a 15k in six weeks! Time to get my brain back into the training game with the quickness!

What better way to do that than registering for a fun race?

Courtesy of Times of News

Peachtree Take Two

This morning I received confirmation that on July 4th I’ll be participating in the world’s largest 10k for the second year in a row, along with 60,000 other folks. Where my fellow Peachtree runners at?

Post-13.1 Blues

As I sit here with my Sunday morning coffee and gloomy Pandora station, I can’t help but think that this time last week my morning looked a little more like this:

After such an exciting Sunday, my energy levels tanked this week. Although I took Monday off to recover (great decision), this work week was a busy one; I didn’t get home until 9:00 on a few nights, and both Friday and Saturday night I was asleep on the couch embarrassingly early. I missed out on my regular yoga classes due to the late work nights, and I only managed to make it to the gym once. Also not helping? The weather going from blissfully spring-like to reminiscent of February: cold, grey, and rainy.

This sudden change in ‘tude begs the question: how do you beat the post-race blues?

Chondromalaciwha?

Admittedly, I had been putting off seeing my longtime doctor, but last week I finally visited paid her a visit to ask about the knee pain that has been plaguing me off and on since late January. I explained that I had severely scaled back my weekly mileage, but I still felt discomfort in that left knee during and after runs, especially when going downhill or down stairs. She tested my reflexes and immediately had me lay my left leg flat, took my kneecap in between her fingers, and gave it a nice painful jiggle before declaring, “I know what’s wrong!”