13-14 miles over the weekend . . .

Our cycling mileage has definitely gone way down now. We're hoping we might get in 10-12 miles today--still waiting to see if the weather holds out.

Ok, so if we might get in 10-12 miles today, why am I crowing (in this entry's title) about having done 13-14 miles over the whole weekend? Well, here's why: because we didn't do that on the bike. We walked 13-14 miles--about 6.5 on Sat. and about 7.5 on Sun. We even carried packs and hauled home a few groceries on those trips.

Granted, there's nothing "sexy" about that kind of workout. But you still feel it, and I have no doubts whatever that it is a good fitness activity. After all, walking's been nearly the sole form of human fitness activities from the dawn of human history--which, as some would tell us, began when man "left the trees."

So, we're back to mixing in some walking now that the weather's not too favorable for cycling. And we love it. I recommend you give it a try.

Instead of jumping in your car to drive to your local fitness center, why not walk, then cut your workout a little short? Or even replace your cardio workout altogether with a good, long walk--and do some errands along the way to convince yourself that fitness and practicality don't have to be polar opposites.

I could go on a good, long rant about that, i.e., about segregating fitness from other life activities, something done in isolation from them--some sort of fitness purist attitude, I suppose. But, maybe I'll rant some other time.

Try walking! We have, and we love it!

New phase begins soon

We'll be ending our alternate modified P90X phase soon. We started it back in May, I think, as a new experiment in changing up our routine over the course of the year. It was intended to allow us to focus more on cycling, and a little less on the upper-body strength training we do to augment that.

Alt-Mod-P90X was to last for as long as we could put in decent mileage on the bike outdoors, and that time is pretty much here. The daylight hours have shortened considerably, so that limits riding time. Though the weather so far has been fairly mild--and we got in some nice, shorter rides this past week, there have been periods when we've had to resort to the stationary bikes indoors. All that spells the impending end of this Alt-Mod-P90X phase for this year, and back to one of our other, twice-weekly upper-body workout routines.

I wanted to make the change this week, but I got really sick last weekend. I'm still recovering. So we're taking a week off before beginning the new phase--it'll start next week. At that point, we'll go back to our modified Power90 phase.

I continue to think about ways in which we might further vary our upper-body strength training. I've considered kettlebells, but no immediate plans for that--other than a huge design improvement in the equipment that I'd like to make (soft instead of hard kettlebells). Maybe I'll post some details about that plan later.

Other than that, what I'd really like to try is some basic heavy lifting--something along the lines of geriatric power-lifting. It looks interesting and various things I've read recommend incorporating heavy weights. Problem is, the equipment. I don't want to buy a whole bunch of weight to keep around: I'd certainly only use it for a very small part of the year--and maybe not even every year. Likewise, I'm not too hot on paying to use the weights elsewhere. Having an (admittedly modest) exercise facility right in the building where you live kind of spoils you: no expense, no travel time to and from the gym, etc.

So those remain abstract ideas for now. I'd like to try them, but it's gotta fit into our schedule and budget, and at the moment I can't see how it would. And we've got something that seems to work pretty well for now.