Cardio – bane of my existence

Okay, I have a confession here. I read a couple of blogs where women did triathlons. Last winter I was bored out of my skull, sick and tired of walking on the “dreadmill” or the elliptical. I needed something to give my mindless hamster-like cardio routine meaning. Other people did it, so I figured I could too. And so I went forth and trained for a triathlon. The purpose wasn’t to complete a triathlon (although I did). The whole point of this exercise was to add variety and purpose to my cardio workouts. Which it did. Naturally, I had to actually do the triathlon at the end, otherwise I could just quit.


Well, that’s the point of the marathon too. Although I have to say it’s a little nearer and dearer to my heart than the triathlon was. It sounds more daunting I guess *lol*. But I needed some motivation to actually run more – to do more cardio. So, imagine my feelings when, confessing my routine of late to my trainer, she confirmed my suspicions: I’ve slacked off on my cardio. How is such a thing possible while training for a marathon? Here’s the scoop:

I am following the Galloway training program for beginning runners. (You can check out his web site if you want the specifics). In a nutshell, he has you run 3 days a week, 2 short and one long (which I’ve been doing). Then for 3 other days you are supposed to be doing 30-40 minutes of walking or some other form of low impact cross training (biking, swimming, elliptical etc). He does say you can sub 1 day of upper body weight training for one XT session. That still leaves me missing a couple of cardio workouts. I’m lifting 3 days a week, doing yoga once a week, running 3 times, but lately that’s been it. No biking or swimming. Just the occasional walk here at the office.

So, this week I’ve gotta re-focus and work on getting in more cardio. I plan to swim after weights on Wednesday & Thursday. Just when I think I’ve got a handle on something, it seems like I lose control. ALways juggling - thats me.