Enabling Fitness

health and fitness information | the diary of an athlete

Category: Health Mythbuster

  • Health Mythbuster

Can you “catch a cold” from exercising in the cold?

By stephanie 22 Feb, 2017

I’ve heard this one time and time, again. “Ah, I better not go outside to exercise today, I might catch a cold.” or “You could get sick if you exercise in the cold!” NO. These are statements which are not true. Before I get into why, let’s talk about how I suspect this myth started:

Read More
exercise illness
  • Health Mythbuster

So you decided to go on a diet…

By stephanie 2 Feb, 2017

​Diets don’t work. I realize that being overweight or obese sucks. I truly truly get it. I’ve lived it.  Please remember that all popular diets are exactly that. A diet’s safety is not related to its effectiveness. If you take a shortcut, expect it to come back to you later in life. Unless, that shortcut

Read More
diet nutrition weight loss
  • About
  • Blog
Facebook
Facebook
fb-share-icon
Instagram
LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Share

Categories

  • Health Mythbuster
  • Product Reviews/Guides
  • Races & Events
  • Recipes
  • Science

Recent Posts

  • T1D and Sports: Riding the Ups and Downs of Blood Glucose
  • Outcome vs. Behaviour
  • People-first language
  • ViaCyte trial for Type 1 Diabetes
  • Spartan Beast – Montana 2018

enablingfitness

#XcSkiing in the winter, #TrailRunning in the summer. #LiftHeavy year round. #ClinicalExercisePhysiologist in the #okanagan. #Political advocate. #t1d

Stephanie Hendy 💖💛💙
It's been a fun and hard two weeks of #running. M It's been a fun and hard two weeks of #running. 
My #TrailRuns have been fun, my #RoadRuns have been hard! Mostly because just like cycling, I can't stand the need for constant propulsion on flat terrain. I LIKE hills because then I have something to conquer and then something to coast down, after! Nothing brings me more joy than bombing down a #mountain, letting gravity do the work and the reward for having chugged up that hill. Which is also why I would hate doing an event that is ALL climbing: all grunt with no reward, no thanks. 

However, road runs are great for building #strength and are easier to track performance gains, because there are fewer variables to impact one's experience. They have a purpose in #training. And road races can be fun because they attract more racers and spectators. Trail races can often be a little lackluster, even if the course is amazing, why would I pay someone to run alone and not get the exciting vibe of random people cheering me on? That's another tangent...

I am getting nervous about cross country ski season approaching, as I feel so behind where I wanted to be in my #fitness for this time of the year. I have made great strides in the past month which has kept me happy and motivated but I feel less #fit now than I felt this time last year. My @garminfitness Connect tells me my estimated VO2max is 35 mL O2/kg/min whereas it was 39 this time last year. 

My trainer was bold and asked me what performance metric I felt I needed to feel like I was where I wanted to be: I said I need to be able to run 10 km in 1 hour. 
Which to me is heroic because I have NEVER ever been that fast. Even in my fittest year (2017), the fastest I could run 10k was around 1h20m. I did a speed test on Thursday, and I ran 10k in 1h30m. I walked a whole kilometre waiting for my #BloodSugar to rise midway. If my glucose was stable, could I have maintained the pace I started out with?

Of course it's all about controlling variables and managing #t1d is always another factor in my training but it's not a new factor. But increasing my speed that quickly feels near impossible. 

Pics are from my #trail run yesterday.

#PerformanceGains #TrainingGoals
Since my last post, my mood toward my own #trainin Since my last post, my mood toward my own #training has improved. My trainer changed some things with my program and nutrition, and I feel on an upswing again. 

This week, I finally invested in a new pair of #runners. I got a new pair of #TrailRunners last year which are wonderful, but are more appropriate for mud/dirt than gravel. I have needed new road runners for a while, so I decided to buy another pair of #trail runners. Ones that had a less aggressive lug pattern, and ones that would feel amazing on gravel and road. As I run more trail than road, but some routes include both! The last 3 photos are of the shoes. I got them at @kintecfootwear #VernonBC - I am so happy we finally have a location here!! 

I took the new shoes for a #run yesterday morning. I wanted to do 10km, so I ran two laps of the "Enduro" loop at #KalPark again. I last #ran this route end of May this year. At that time, I was in the mud-favouring shoes, but I also had forgotten my socks and developed wicked blisters under my arches. 
This time, I remembered all the things I needed, and had a wonderful time!! The shoes were perfect, my body and brain were happy, and I had just enough fuel to keep my #BloodSugars okay. 

I miss doing #TrailRaces. I signed up for zero this summer because I really didn't see the point in paying to finish dead last. It's not a fun race to be out on the course all alone. I do that during my training for free! But having a race locks in accountability. While I don't struggle with consistent Saturday morning runs, my midweek runs haven't been great. Though that's been a combination of factors like smoke from forest fires and after work appointments, and other reasons. Having a race to be prepared for helps me stay on track.

In realizing that cross country ski season starts in 2 months, plus having the new shoes, perhaps I already have all I need to stay consistent with my runs. Plus as it cools down, hopefully the forest fires will dissipate, too. I'm not ready for the seasons to transition, but setting new #fitness #goals would help. 

#GetOutside #NorthOkanagan #OkanaganLove #TrailRunner #TrainForLife #TrainingGoals
Not going to lie, it's been a rough few weeks. I Not going to lie, it's been a rough few weeks. 

I have been heavy #resistance #training 4 days a week since the end of March, combined with #running 2 days a week in the same time frame. 

Both of which felt amazing until the start of July. 

What happened?
- I have been mentally exhausted from trying to solve a #BloodSugar riddle that happens only during the week
- I have time for this post right now because I'm sitting in the changeroom waiting for my sugar to take effect just so I can START my #gym #workout
- I have made TONS of insulin adjustments and can't figure it out
- I feel like I am making constant adjustments for hormones depending on the time of my cycle, despite eating the same few things at the same time of day
- I feel I am becoming deconditioned with my cardio, which makes it harder for me to get out and do it
- I have no problems with motivation to get to the gym, but I have been really struggling to get out for cardio on my own 
- there has been lots of forest fire smoke where I have been which limits outdoor #workouts
- I am not where I wanted to be with my #fitness progress which just makes me more nervous about upcoming cross country ski season
- I can't "afford" to miss workouts in terms of fitness or blood sugar management and my mind is going to dark places comparing myself to others, or even former versions of myself

I hired a good trainer to ensure I don't bail when it gets uncomfortable. But it's also hard to muster encouragement when I feel like I have been steadily working at improving my fitness since 2017 with little to no gains. 

The photos are of:
- deer I saw last week on one of my #runs, which I ended up walking back because my blood sugar dropped so fast
- photos from these new treadmills at my gym where I got to run a segment of the Chicago Marathon (and wow is road running boring, but I was surprised at how well I did during that run) as well as in Utah trail running 
- riding my #bicycle to a nearby golf course when I could muster motivation for another trail run alone
- an energy packet I tried, it was peanut butter, chocolate, and honey, and didn't do terribly
- my bench press that I sent to my trainer for feedback
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Tags

5K 2016 2017 2018 Alberta behaviour biomechanics British Columbia diabetes diet dinner exercise femsport fitness flexibility fun run gluten-free goals half marathon health illness low-fodmap low-glycemic MEC race montana motivation nutrition obstacle course race ocr Ontario posture psychology quickandyummy road race running savoury seattle Spartan strength trail race type1diabetes vancouver viacyte Washington weight loss

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Powered by WordPress | Tecblogger by Themepoints.