Exercising

Well, this marks the beginning of the third week of my exercise plan, and I feel like I can finally blog about it now.  I'm always hesitant to write down plans like this, lest I fail to do them and then feel guilty about them, but after two weeks of sticking to it, I feel confident that I'll keep it up, at least for a while.

So, near the end of October, Tim and I are planning to go to California with some new friends we've met.  We're going to go for only about 3 days and... climb Mt. Whitney! 

I don't know if you've heard of Mt. Whitney, but it's the tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states, a giant 14,508 feet.  I've wanted to do it ever since cousin David did it and I learned that you can get to the summit without any special equipment.

But if I'm going to get to the top, I'm going to have to deal with some seriously high altitude, and I don't want to get altitude sickness.  Now, there's no way to control it or to prevent it 100%, but you can improve your chances of success by getting in really good shape.

So that's the plan: get in really good shape.  I've been exercising about 45 minutes to an hour about 5 times/week.  I've been trying to mix cardio and weight-training, so that I will have both strong lungs and strong muscles for mountain climbing.  My workouts look something like this:

• stretches
• 25 minutes cardio (elliptical machine on hill setting, stationary bike)
• 10-15 tricep pull-downs at 130 lbs (this is working towards a chin-up; I will do one eventually!)
• 5-10 lateral pull-downs at 130 lbs
• 20-25 squats with 20-30 lbs
• 100 crunches 
• 20 incline sit-ups 
• 20 push-ups
• more stretches

Eventually, I'm hoping to step up my workout to 35 minutes of cardio, pull-downs at 150 lbs, squats at 40 lbs, and incline sit-ups with weights.  I'm also going to start practicing with my backpack as soon as I buy one so that I can get used to the weight.

The workouts have been going pretty well so far.  Having a purpose and an end goal have made it much easier to muster up the willpower to keep doing them.  I can't say that I really feel great at the end of a workout.  I know exercise is supposed to give you more energy, and daily small amounts of exercise do give me energy, but this regimen combined with biking into and around town has mostly been wearing me out.  I can only hope that after a few more weeks my body will adjust and I won't get as tired.  We'll see.