Right? Yeah-ah-ah!

So I blipped out for a bit. Here's my counts:

Wednesday 6/16

1 bowl cereal and black coffee (100+150+0=250)
Peach (100)
Cheese and veggie sandwich with milk (2*100+100+50+50+150=550)
2 string cheese and crackers (2*60+130=250)
2 bowls chicken noodle soup (2*300=600)
Gel dessert (40)

250+100+550+250+600+40=1790

Thursday 6/17

2 scrambled eggs, 1 toast with cream cheese, and black coffee (150+100+50=300)
String cheese (60)
Milk chocolate protein shake, cheese, and crackers (150+150+100+100=500)
Orange (100)
Home-mixed yogurt (100+50=150)
Milk (150)
1 bowl chicken noodle soup (300)
1/4 Danish squash with butter and brown sugar (100+100+50=250)

300+60+500+100+150+150+300+250=1810

Still hovering around 1800 pretty easily. On Wednesday I lifted weights for the first time! Since all the exercise I've ever done my whole life, essentially, is in the legs (biking, walking, and running), my strength training is going to be just on my abs and arms, and maybe some stuff for the back and chest once I get in the swing of it more. I did some bicep curls, which were easy with 5-pound weights and not hard with 8-pound weights, and didn't leave any soreness. Then I mostly did tricep exercises, which were challenging even with just 5-pound weights and left a little soreness later. So I might bump the bicep stuff up to 10 pounds today and will stick with 5 pounds for triceps until it gets easier. My arm strength is pathetic, I can't even do one proper push-up and I can't even REMEMBER being able to do a pull-up although I might have when I was really little. For the abs I'm just doing crunches - for now, 1 set of 10 regular sit ups and 1 set of 10 of the kind where you twist to the side and point your elbow at your opposite knee, alternating sides. It's kind of disappointing that 10 is all I can take right now, because in middle school when they did fitness testing I went all the way up to 50 easily, which is where their scale maxes out so they just cut you off after that.

Then yesterday I went to the TRACK and did a TRACK WORKOUT for the first time since last summer (because my college doesn't have a track - now that I'm living off campus it makes more sense to hop over to the nearest high school). When I started running last January (when I was at a different college) I learned from a friend who had done track and cross-country for a long time in high school, so he knew his shit. I put together this workout that I like a lot, although the specific numbers vary sometimes, I'm going to denote it 16/2x4/4x1/4 for this particular one. This means:

4 laps (1600 m) of warm up jog
2 "400s" (1 lap each) non-consecutively, at the max speed I can maintain for a whole lap
4 "eggshells", which are 100-m sprints followed by 100-m rest walk
1 lap (400 m) of cool down jog

So basically the idea is (number of iterations)x(meters/100) for each type of exercise. Obviously, you don't have to do a whole mile of warm-up, I just felt like it. Basically, warming up I start comfortable (no matter how slow that is), gradually speed up until what is comfortable for my body matches what my mind believes is a reasonable springy jogging speed, and then maintain that for a bit. A half mile would usually be sufficient for that. You can do as many 400s and as many eggshells as you feel like as long as you continue to be able to do them. 1 lap is really the minimum for a cool down. In between each of these there is walking, but I don't count that as far as exercise that matters. Most of time it's 1 lap because it's convenient, except that the eggshells are already defined as 100 m sprint and 100 m walk, which is also convenient because you get 2 to a lap.

Anyway, I LOVE track because it's flat and well measured and goes in a circle so you can structure and anticipate your workout very precisely without worrying if you'll fizzle out further from home than you meant to be or hit an unexpected hill or something. It makes it so you can basically work to the max without overshooting it. And it feels SO good, the flood of endorphins afterward. You can just sit there, stretching which also feels amazing, or not, and just think mmm everything's groovy.