Here is a video of me running. I didn’t want to tell you that I finished my goal without a little bit of proof. The pace that you see me running in this video is the pace that I ran throughout my whole mile. The majority of the difficulty from my run came from having to doge ruts and roots to avoid twisting my ankle because one fall or slip up would take too much time and result in me not making the set time. So the whole time that that I was running I had to look ahead and pick my lines on where I was going to and not going to run.
The majority of this week I am working on my Genius Hour presentation. I am working in Google Slides and that is what I am going to use to present. I have used Slides Go to find a unique layout to embed in my presentation so it doesn’t look so basic. The theme that I found is simple but also relates to running. I plan to hit on the highs and lows during my presentation so that it is spanned out over the twelve weeks and can covers a little bit of everything in the six to eight minutes that I have been allotted. I am excited to see how everyone else's projects went and how they went about achieving their goals. I am also interested to see what troubles other people went through and how they got over them. Over the span of these twelve weeks I was able to put my mind to something and achieve the goal I set for myself which feels really good.
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This week I planned to achieve the goal that I set for myself during this semester. It has been a long process of work and dedication throughout the twelve weeks. I started seeing lots of improvement every time that I ran. This was because I made a schedule and stuck to it. Making a routine was one of the most beneficial things that I did throughout these few weeks because it got me into a habit of working out and running, and doing this I was able to work until I was capable of achieving my goal.
On Monday of this week I set out to run the loop that I have laid out for myself. Before starting I made sure to thoroughly stretch my legs and ankles so that they would be ready to go. On this day I started out with a pace that was a little too slow to get me where I needed to be. Around the 0.90 mile I started to slow down a bit and I finished my mile in a manner of 7:51. On this day It was around 85 degrees and the heat was beating down on me the whole time. This time did fit the standard of my goal but I knew that I could push myself a little harder. The next day on Tuesday It was a bit cooler and there was a nice breeze, so the conditions were better from the get go. I made sure to stretch and then started my run off at a faster pace and pushed myself to hold it through the whole mile. After I was done with this run I was pretty exhausted and I didn’t even notice how much time I managed to shave off. After looking at my watch I noticed that I ran the mile in 7:40, which was a big relief and it blew my goal out of the water. The day following my last blog post I got determined to really push my self so that I can achieve my goal. I have laid out a cross country trail to run during the rest of the weeks. This trail consists of no straight sections as you are going up and down the whole time. The worst part about this trail is that their is a long uphill at the end, and when I get to this part my legs are usually tired and this just makes it worse. The loop that I have is about 0.45 miles long, so to get my full mile in I have to run a little bit over two laps. I have thought about changing the track and cutting out the last uphill so my goal would be easier to complete, but I have decided not to do that as it is healthy to have to push yourself.
Since last Tuesday I have ran four times on my cross country loop, on Thursday I ran a 8:20 mile, last Friday I ran 8:16, on Monday I ran a 8:12, and Tuesday I ran a 8:09. Over the span of these runs I was able to consistently shave off time. I have been pushing myself a little harder and harder each time, escpecialley towards the end where I would usually slack off. As I have continued to run it has gotten significantly hotter and hotter each day, this is pretty rough on me as it looks like I have hopped out of the shower when I finish running. If I stick to my plan and workout and run like I have been doing I should definitely be able to achieve my goal this semester, although it may be close as this goal is harder to achieve than I first thought. With around three weeks left on our journey we are in the final stretch of Genius Hour. It has been a long journey so far but I have been putting in the work and am seeing the progress every week. It has been difficult to stick to my work out plan as it is feeling repetitive and is getting tiring, but I am continuing to push myself towards my goal. When I started this project I thought that I would have this goal wrapped up in a matter of no time, but cross country is a lot more different when it comes to running. The kind of trails that I will be working on running will push me to run harder than I thought I would have to in the first place. I am currently working on a layout of trails that I can run in the near future to test my cross country running ability. The trails that I will conjugate into a loop will definitely fall short of a mile but I have no problem repetitively running the trails. I am excited to see where I am in the up coming weeks as I have been working out a lot recently to help push me towards my end goal.
This week I have worked out everyday and have progressively upped the difficulty of my different workouts so that I can be pushing my self harder. I have added more workouts to my routine that focuses on my legs and have also upped the amount of reps that I have to do. Doing this will give me the extra strength I need so that I can complete my goal. I finally learned my lesson this week when I recorded my run. When I get home from school I usually eat a meal consisting of a type of meat and protein yogurt. I do this because I am hungry and eat a lot every day, but doing this interfered with my run once again as I didn't learn my lesson from before. I am not the type of person to sit back and relax, I like to be on
the go all the time. So after eating I wasted no time getting to running. Before running I did my organized stretches that I will randomly do in a random order thinking that it will help. First I do calf stretches, and then I follow that up by stretching my ankles. I stretch my ankles by simply rolling them in circles, and then I do open the gates. Opening the gate stretches are where you are standing straight up, you lift one leg up right in front of you, and then you pull that leg around to your side and put it back down. You do these stretches by alternating the legs back and forth for about fifteen reps on each leg. My run for this week started out good as I started out strong and at a good pace. Around the 0.30 mile marker my stomach started to cramp because of my earlier decisions. I wasn't going to stop running because I needed to deal with my mistakes and push through them. Running with a stomach cramp isn't the funnest thing and it will slow you down a lot. I pushed through until I got to a mile and decided to call it quits for the day. I have been working out every day for the past two weeks and I am starting to see results. My arms and legs are getting stronger and I am getting in better shape every time that I work out. I am excited to see my progress throughout this challenge as I am working towards my end goal. For this week I was wanting to run a few miles on a regular track to get another progress check for how I am doing. I have been working out more and extra hard to help push me towards my goal. This week it poured rain on the days available for me to run, so I will have to reschedule my blog post about running for next week. While it was raining I sat down and made a little at home workout routine.
I wanted to make a routine that would make me push harder while working out, and I have stuck to this new routine throughout this week and I am already starting to see improvements. To start my workout routine I row on level fourteen for around 1,500 meters. When doing this, I row at a fast pace so that I don't have time to lolly gag and take rests. Doing this is a good start to my workout routine because it hits your legs, back, and arms, all at once. After rowing I do a set of push ups, they are simple but It is just something else to throw in since I don't have many resources to work with. After that I do a one minute wall sit to work on my legs more. Next I hit a set of ten butterfly curls which really work your arms out. After that I do lunges and curl on the way back up to hit a little bit of arm and legs. Then I hit a set of what I call, "Cave Man Curls." For these curls you have to almost be in a squatting position but not as low as you would fully go for a squat. Then you lean forward a little bit and extend your arm towards the ground at about a 45 degree angle. When in position you bring your arms straight back to where your elbows go behind your back, then return to your original position. This works on your arms and shoulders. After doing that I do a set of squats with the weights that I have. Next I do another one minute wall sit, and by the time that is over my legs are feeling it. Now were in the final stretch and I do ten more butterfly curls, twenty push back curls, and ten more squats with curls to finish up. We are halfway there to being done with our Genius Hour project, so I should be halfway complete with my goal. After running a mile the other week I learned a lot. I learned how I need to prepare myself to run so I won't get cramps which will be useful for the long runs that I will be doing in the future. I have started to increase the difficulty of my workouts so that they will be tougher and will also benefit me more. Instead of just rowing around 2,000 meters and calling it a day, I have planned out a more intense workout, but still not that intense as I am doing it at my house with limited supplies. I have bumped up the difficulty on the rowing machine again and have started rowing for a longer time and more meters. As you can see in the picture, I rowed 2,500 meters on that day. After finishing up rowing I transitioned to the second part of my workout. I do weighted lunges and squats to help with my legs. Then I do regular bicep curls and butterfly curls to help with my arms. If you don't know what butterfly curls are, they are where you have weights in both of your hands and you fully extend your arms to the sides of your body. Then at a slow place you keep your arms steady and at a level height and you bring your arms in until they meet in the middle, and your arms should be pointed out straight away from you and the waits are touching. Finally you slowly bring your arms back to where they are pointing straight out from your sides again and you have officially done one rep. This is a good way to work on your arms and build muscle while having little resources. This week I had scheduled to run a few miles in one run, but it didn't go as planned. I still have some things to learn about running. After getting home from school I had some chores to do which wore me out, but that is no excuse. I messed up shortly after this which made my run non-enjoyable.
After finishing up my work around 6:45, I went inside and ate dinner, this is where I made my mistake. I was hungry so I wasn't properly thinking about how eating before a run or drinking a lot would affect me, and it sure did. Around about the 0.4 mile marker I started to get cramps around my abdomen. This affected my run a lot by slowing my time down a vast amount. I pushed to get through at least a mile before turning around and running back to my house. This week I learned a lot about how to properly get ready for a run as I haven't thought about that too much before this week or during my previous runs. Running this week also put more attention on where I need to focus working out more. When working out in the morning or evenings I usually do workouts that hit a little bit on every major part of my body but never specifically work on one place. I need to focus more on building my calves. Doing this will help me conquer the downhills and mostly uphills when it comes to running cross country. I will have to do some research and figure out what will benefit me the most when working out so that I know I won't be wasting any time. We are a third of the way to being finished with our Genius Hour project and along with getting closer to achieving my goal I am seeing this benefit me in other ways. This week I have worked out on Monday morning for fifteen minutes before school and rowed about 2,000 meters, and I also worked out on Wednesday morning for only around eight minutes but during these eight minutes I went full blast and didn't stop and I rowed about 2,500 meters.
Rowing is a great workout to work most of your body. Rowing works the upper body, lower back, and shoulder muscles, and legs. Doing this workout in the mornings helps build muscle and also works on cardio. I have seen that after these two continues weeks of working out I am starting to see results. Along with rowing I have rode every evening for around two hours. During this time I am pushing myself to the limits and practicing hard. When I ride I wear my smart watch and record my time and mileage. After finishing the ride, my watch gives me an estimate on how many calories that I have burned. I don't know how accurate it is but it seems to be pretty persist. Every evening doing this I supposedly burn around 700 calories. For the following week I would like to run a flat mile or multiple miles to see where I am placing in how long it takes me to run a mile at one mile, two miles, and maybe even three miles. Doing this would be a good marker to show where I am at and my capabilities of achieving my goal, and it would also show if I need to be pushing harder or if I can keep going at my same pace. Over the previous weekend of week two I had my first race of the NCHSA season on 3/6/2022. At these races there are two events, a 12:00 race and a 3:00 race. These two different races consist of different riders.
The 12:00 race consist of Pro riders that race for a purse, AA riders which are a step below pro, A riders which is a step below AA, and B class which is a step below A. This race consists of faster riders and that leads to you having to push yourself harder to do good. The 3:00 race includes classes lower than B and the track is easier and the race is also shorter. The 12:00 race that I take part in last over two hours, and in these two hours you are pushing yourself to ride hard and stay consistent throughout the whole race. This is physically demanding on your whole body and racing these races you need to be in good shape. As I am running to achieve my goal of a cross country mile in less than eight minutes, this is tremendously helping me get in better shape cardio wise. On the Monday after the race I didn't work out because I had to re-cooperate from the day before, and since I usually work out on Monday and then every other day I skipped Tuesday to get back on track (I may have been being lazy). On Wednesday I rowed in the afternoon and then I also rowed Thursday morning. Thursday morning I rowed around 2,300 meter in around 13 minutes, but this time I turned up the difficulty on the machine. Turning up the difficulty just makes the rope that you pull have more tension so that it is more difficult. You can see the image above for more information. |
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