Weight Training and Ice Skating Class 3 – Aug 26, 2008

In the morning, I did some weight training. I am going to keep track of the exercises that I am doing from the next time on. I am also reading a book on how to do the exercises for the various parts of the body. "The Book of Muscle" . This is a good source of how to do the warm up for the strength training, the specific exercises for the various parts of the body and it also gives a regimen to follow for the upper body. The best part is the pictorial representation for each exercise. I will post some excerpts from the book in the future !

The ice skating training in the evening was great ! I was able to skate on the ice fluently. It's amazing what 3 classes can do to your expertise level. Of course, it helps to have a great instructor. I have not been doing much a practice other than during and after the class and that's just once a week. I am thinking of buying some roller blades to do my own training on the road J

Gym Work out and Ice Skating Class 2 [ Aug-19-2008]

Went to the Gym in morning. Did some core workout, strength training on chest, biceps and back. One of things that I want to do is to have a list of exercises and the reps to do and the order in which to do. Hopefully, I will get this in place in the near future. Strength training is a good supplement to the hard running routines. Make sure you don't overdo the strength training and thus getting injured which might affect your running routine.

Today was the second class of skating in the Galleria rink. It was fun to be able to use both the legs comfortably for the skating and doing the different routines. I still have difficulty using my left leg for pushing and gliding through the ice and I fell down 4 times trying to do that J But I got better towards the last 30 minutes. The training starts with the instructor telling us different routines for 30 minutes and then we practicing it ourselves for the next one hour. The trick is to come back to the rink on non-training days and still practice ! I haven't done that in two weeks. I am hoping to come during this weekend to practice. Let's see how that goes. Ice skating is a little hard on your legs, if you don't know the right technique of doing it. I still think it can be considered as a cross training since you need move on your legs for the most part with the knee bent. Any exercise that you do where you move for an hour or more can be considered as cross training. If you have never done Ice skating, I would definitely recommend it. If you have done it in the past, you know how much fun it is !

Ice Skating Today (July-24-2008)!

We, the TEAM-ASHA, train for the marathon only on Monday's and Wednesday's and go for long runs on Saturday's. One of the volunteers was generous to give out some guest passes to the Ice Skating rink at Galleria. It was supposed to be a fun trip but ended up being a good cross training session for all of us.

Six of us from Irving ASHA team reached the rink around 8 pm. Although I had done the Ice skating thing only once before in my life, about two years back in the same place, I was nervous at first. It helped that we had a couple in the ASHA team (the couple who donated the guest passes) who were taking classes in the rink. They gave some good advice to get started. I also met an AID volunteer/ friend at the rink, who has been taking classes at the rink. This dude also offered some valuable suggestions on how to skate on Ice.

Following all the advice and falling multiple times, I was able to skate around decently for a beginner. We did this for about an hour. I sweated profusely in the rink and my legs were sore by the time I was done. We were so excited by this that 5 of us who came there signed up for taking classes starting in August. I am really looking forward to the classes !

It was all good fun with a great bunch of people. Again, a special thanks to the couple who gave us the guest passes to the rink !