An old challenge

Back on 4/2, I went to the gym in the evening for my first solo workout. I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on a recumbent bike. I went 1.5 miles and 4.5 miles respectively. I also said that I would try it again at the end of the program and report my progress. I did that today.

Before I tell you my time, I'll chase a few rabbit trails. When I started this program, I thought I would spend all of my time on the treadmill and the bike because those machines were the most familiar to me. As the season progressed, I stopped using the bike (probably by week 3) and the treadmill (because I started running outside instead). I gave them up because I wanted better, more intense workouts. When I tried my repeat today, I actually did 30 minutes on the stepper as a warm-up before moving to the bike. That probably cost me some time, but I was okay with that. I wanted to burn calories more than I wanted to improve my time on the bike.

I've also been really sore this week. I've been sore ever since I ran that 13.8 miles four days ago. I realize now that I could have seriously injured myself and I'm very fortunate that I didn't. I pushed myself too hard with too little preparation and wound up needlessly beating myself up. My knees have been really tender and it wasn't until today that I felt comfortable giving them a test. I'll be okay, but I realize that I dodged a bullet on this. Let this be a warning! Push yourself but recognize your limits. You've got to be smart too.

Anyway ... my numbers on the challenge were 6.75 miles on the bike and 2.8 miles on the treadmill. Could I have done better? Yes. I'm not really that disappointed though ... that first workout only burned 380 total calories. Today, I burned 1240 counting the stepper and 720 without it. It feels pretty good to know that I can step into a gym and burn that many calories in a workout. My take-away from this little experiment is that I've become a much more capable and efficient fat-burning machine.