Workouts

YOu can see the Idaho Center long/lat up hear the top of that ridge.  The blue line is a dirt bike trail that's too long to use for a day hike.  The creek down in the canyon at the bottom of the photo is where we start and we hike up that obvious drainage, gaining maybe 3,000 feet in 2-3 miles.  It's a steep hike but it's definitely the most direct route.

'Tis the season for workin' out. We're planning to hike to the geographical center of Idaho on either July 29th or July 30th. As we've said, there's hardly any time remaining to get shape for such a hike. We've been sedentary for quite some time and Happy Hour hath taken its toll.

 SO far, so good with the workouts. We're doing the football stadium steps every morning. Yesterday we switched from street clothes to our hiking rig. We're staring with a 20 pound pack and will work up to a 35 pound pack. We're wearing our hiking boots and clothes and using our two hiking sticks on the steps as well (with rubber tips, of course). You can really work up a sweat FAST carrying weight up steep steps. We do laps in the stadium. Once up and once down is a lap. We quit we we feel our heart rate is maxed out and then do a cool down and go home and hang up our sweaty hiking clothes to dry in the hot sun.

 Next is the lap swimming in the city pool. We don't count the laps or pay attention to our lap times--only total elapsed "swim time." Right now we're doing 45 minutes and hope to work up to an hour perhaps this week.

 Finally, today we added the dreaded treadmill. Susun got a pass for me at The Apple Athletic Club and I dutifully logged 45 minutes on the moving belt this afternoon. Apple's treadmills are light years better than the ones I used at SNAP Fitness last year. They give you complete data on your workout. You can even upload the data to a USB drive and mess around with it on your computer. Today's first treadmill varied between a 5 and 8 percent grade and the final data was:

Elapsed Time: 45:13
Distance: 2.17 miles
Elevation Gain: 651 feet
Avg. Speed: 2.88 mph
Time per mile: 20:47
Avg. heart rate: 115 Pretty cool.

Now if only they would embed sensors in the stadium and the swimming pool!
Here's pix of the stadium:

 Many of the younger users run these steps without breaking much of a sweat.  NOT ME!

The steps really don't look like much until you are facing them from the bottom looking up.

 Yep, when you're at the bottom looking up--
One step at a time definitely rings true here.

Taking a break between laps at the bottom of the stadium.