iFit March The Sun & Sand Challenge: Beginner Playa Carrillo Interval Walk, Costa Rica Walking Series- John Peel

Today is Tuesday and I did this walk today. They announced the March iFit Challenge! It was The Sun and Sand Challenge. They offered a beginner and an intermediate option. They have them for the treadmill and strength with beginner and intermediate. There is also a challenge for rowing machines, but it's just one difficulty level. I'm totally thinking about trying the beginner strength too since it's Yoga and I've been wanting to do yoga again. I would get two magnets for the month and I would alternate them so it would be Yoga one day and the walking the next day. I might have to double up towards the end of the month if I miss any days. We shall see what I decide. 

So I picked the beginner workout for the treadmill because no way was I going to survive the intermediate one. This one is 12 workouts that are supposed to be done three per week for four weeks. I'm afraid of this series, and I thought about not doing it since I'll have to adjust so much, but I was hoping to push myself to see what I can do. Without the challenge, I'm just going to do all the easy walks to get them done. 

It started out easy enough at about 2.2 MPH. Then it was 2.4 I think. There were only four speed rounds. They were two minutes each and they were supposed to be 3.2 MPH. That sounded crazy scary. I usually do 3.0 as my max. Sometimes, I'll do a push at the end of a workout and go up to 3.1 or even 3.2, but it's at the end and it's for like 30 seconds max. Two minutes of 3.2 sounded scary! 

I did the first round okay with a little tenderness in my shins. There were four minute recovery rounds though so I knew I was good. I did the second speed around at 3.2 and survived. My breathing was okay and my heart rate wasn't too terribly crazy, but my legs were on fire. My shins were killing me and my glutes were sore too. At the end of the second speed round, I thought it was best to not do 3.2 for the third round. I did 3.0 instead. It felt a lot better. The fourth one I did at 3.0 as well up until the last 10 seconds or so and I went to 3.2. I survived this workout. I did modify it, but I did more than I expected that I would. Tomorrow will be a recovery day with the shins though. They are tender. My glutes are also tender. I walked to the mailbox and really felt them. 

I liked this walk. I like John Peel. I've done other workouts of his. All I can find in my notes is the Niagara series, but I thought I did others with him. I can't find them though. Maybe I'm just so used to seeing his name all over the iFit Facebook group. He's awesome. Everyone loves him. He even joins in on the conversations. I'm not including a screen shot of what the walk should have been since I only adjusted two things and they were minor adjustments. I'm glad this was a flat walk. I would not have survived incline. 

Oh! My Apple Watch March Challenge has posted! I spent forever yesterday trying to figure it out. I never got it to pop up, but today it did! My March Challenge is to close my Move ring 11 times for the month. There is also something that I need to do on my birthday to get the thing for International Women's Day! How fun! A medal for my birthday. And I got the email to order my magnet for the iFit Trainer Meet and Greet Flash Challenge Twist thing. Which reminds me that I think I need to go back in there and see if I actually finished it. I was trying to work and order it at the same time. Shhhhhhhh don't tell my boss! 

My Walk

iFit Trainer Meet and Greet Temae Beach Fartlek Run, Moorea, French Polynesia Elyse Miller

Today is Wednesday and I did this walk on Monday. This was part of the iFit Trainer Meet and Greet Challenge. If I do all 8 of them in the month of February, I get a magnet. LOL. Yes the magnet is my motivation. Although, I'm only doing this because I joined the challenge in error and I can't bring myself to just skip them. 

Most of them have been runs, but I'm just walking them. This trainer was actually new to me. The first few were with people I had seen before, but after I got through that, they have been new to me. I was not a huge fan of this workout or the trainer. She was running on the side of the road. It was a busyish road and the side was pretty narrow. She also looked like she was running on uneven ground. She kept saying she almost stepped on a crab. She was way too chipper for me. She did a lot of, "Let's go, let's go, let's go." She also chanted, "Come on, come on, come on." 

My grid is a bit weird because I was apparently too slow hitting the buttons so it looks like I went down to like 2.0 a few times. This was an interval walk. There were three rounds of four intervals. I think I did 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 and 3 for my work for the first one and then 2.8, 2.9, 3.0 and 3.0 for the second and then 2.5, 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8. We were going uphill at 7% incline during the last section. I wasn't going to be going too fast during that mess. 

I felt good during the 3.0 MPH sections. I was pretty surprised. None of them lasted too terribly long though. My back hurt a little bit, but my feet didn't go numb so that was good. I don't have much else to say about this other than, I won't be looking for more workouts from this trainer which seems to be what I keep saying about these people. I much prefer them to talk about the area and not focus on the workout, but it's hard with interval walks to be able to do that. They're also running so it's harder for them to focus on giving me a lecture on the local history. 

Oh well. I'm running out of time so I'm going to wrap this up. I got out of work late and my computer took like 10 minutes to turn on. I still have two other posts to write, but those will wait, again. Oh I did try to find this workout to show what she did with it, but I could not find it.  

My Walk

iFit 2 Mile Challenge Cilgwyn, Wales

Today was Sunday. It was two days after Christmas. It was day three of my vacation. This was a forced vacation as part of the recovery efforts at work. They forced us to take a week for Christmas week or New Year's week. I took New Year's week so Christmas was my first day and it will go through a week from today. Since I don't have to work, I'm forcing myself to do 2 mile walks and I'm playing with my Gym Boss Interval Timer in the process. 

I picked this walk since it was supposed to be in the 300ish range for elevation gain, but according to the grid, I only did 193 feet which is odd. I also find it odd that it says I started this walk going 1 MPH, but I know I was doing 2.2 MPH. Not sure how that got wonky. Yesterday, I did the Marseille, France 2 Mile Walk from the same iFit 2 Mile challenge. I thought I was going to be super sore today since my right calf was killing me yesterday. I played around with my spikey laundry balls on my calf yesterday and it felt a bit better, but I still thought it would hurt today. It didn't do too badly. 

Since this hike had some elevation gain and since the one yesterday kinda kicked my ass, I decided to use 2 minutes of work and 1 minute of rest for the intervals and I started with 2.4 MPH for the work and 2.2 for the rest. I then bumped the work up to 2.5 and then 2.6. Once I got done with the downhill section, I went back to 2.5. I even did one at 2.4 again. I kept the rest ones at 2.2 MPH. There was a small incline section in the beginning and then a rather large hill at the end. I did 12 intervals, but I think I should have upped it to 13. I'll probably do that for future hikes. The last interval just ended too soon and I wasn't in the mood to reset it since I wanted to make sure I could survive the big hill at the end. 

If you look at the pink line on the grid, you'll see that I had some issues getting the second digit pressed for 2.5 or 2.2 and ended up dipping down to 2.0 for brief periods of time. I can't complain. At least it doesn't  make me hit the up arrow to get to the numbers I want. I like the nice short cut of being able to just hit the 2 twice if I wanted 2.5 or 2 then 5 for 2.5. I just need to get faster at it. 

My back didn't really hurt on this walk which was amazing. However, my feet did go numb about halfway through. They came back during some of the rest intervals, but kept going more numb during the work intervals. By the time I was done though, they were okay again. It took a full three minutes into the cooldown to get my breathing back into the 120s. 

I learned that my black leggings are not cut out for the treadmill. They just don't pull up far enough into the crotch. I don't know what it is, but they just hang down slightly too low and I ended up with some pain on my inner thigh of my right leg. I kept trying to pull them up, but it just wasn't working. It still hurts and was burning when I was in the shower. This is really going to suck if I can't walk on the treadmill for a couple of days while this heals. One time, I wore the wrong sweatpants for the treadmill and they had holes in the inner thigh. I thought I could power through, but I got this horrid chafing and I had to skip the treadmill for a few days. I tried with better sweatpants and it was too rough. I ended up having to wear my jean shorts for a couple days because I'm a slow healer. I hate wearing jeans on the treadmill, but they were the only thing with fabric that wouldn't irritate the rash. I do not want to relive that again. 

So anyway, I really like the interval stuff since it really takes my mind off the fact that I'm on the treadmill and don't want to be on it. I didn't even really focus on the whole 1/4 of the way down, 1/3 of the way done, etc.......I mainly focused on the number of intervals left. That was rather refreshing. I think I might have found something that works to help with the treadmill boredom. Having YouTube playing also helps, but I need to find a new channel since I seem to be stuck on Eric Church and it's not like Pandora that rotates. I get the same songs in the same order every day and I need some new material. 

Okay that's it for now. I closed the vent in this room since I'll be off for a week and I'd prefer to walk in the cold. I forgot to put on a sweatshirt before coming in here so now I'm freezing! I kept the door closed since hubby was listening to death metal and it's way too heavy for me. I came in here pretty much just to have some quiet time. 

My Hike

What it should have been