Welcome to Readers’ Workouts, our weekly gathering of bookish folks doing active things. How was exercise for you in the past week? What are your plans for the coming week? Link your post below (feel free to grab the logo) or tell your story in the comments. Don’t forget to visit the links to offer encouragement and support to other participants!
My strained muscle from last week healed quickly, but my exercise mojo didn’t return as fast. I’m working on a plan to get it going again in February. One piece of that plan is the 12K Challenge on Team Kickin’ It run by Sheila of Book Journey. The idea is to go (run, walk, elliptical, whatever) 1 kilometer in February, 2 kilometers in March, working up to 12K in January 2014. She has some variations for people who need less or more.
I probably fall in the “more” category since even this month when my exercise isn’t nearly meeting my goals, I rarely miss walking at least 30 minutes. Still, 12K is a good distance for me as a long-term goal. So, rather than take the “more” option, I’m going to play a slightly different game with myself for the first few months while the challenge is too easy for me.
The Game On Diet that I reviewed over the weekend (Book Review: The Game On Diet by Krista Vernoff and Az Ferguson) had material about High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) including a method for doing it on the treadmill. So, for February, once a week, I’ll do a 3K walk with the middle 1K as a HIIT workout. In March, I’ll make it 4K with 2K of HIIT in the middle and in April, I’ll move up to 5K with 3K of HIIT in the middle. That might be as much as I need so I’ll probably stick at that level. By then I could start a separate workout on the treadmill that is about distance and will increase with the rest of the group doing the 12K Challenge.
Are any of you doing the 12K Challenge? How is your exercise this week?