elliptical workout

Total Distance So Far: 145.0 miles

Wednesdays are supposed to be timed runs according to our workout schedule. I'm, however, not really supposed to be doing anything high-impact between group runs, so I'm banished to the fitness center machines for now.

This was my first time to the fitness center when there was a free elliptical machine. Our fitness center only has 2 of them, and they are a popular device as they provide a decent aerobic workout with low to no impact. The way it achieves this is there are 2 footpads that are cleverly fixed on an elliptical track. A workout motion on an elliptical is something of a combination of a bicycle pedal motion, and a running stride. Your feet never leave the foot pads.

My personal problem with them is I have trouble maintaining my balance on them, and always nearly fall off. Plus there is the added element of feeling like a weirdo, being the girl that is flailing around on the elliptical machine, nearly falling off. No one else seems to have this problem. I must be unique.

Since my feet are a little sore today from my 2 games of indoor soccer last night (shhhh... don't tell anyone I'm still playing soccer this much. Or, um... it's low-impact indoor soccer, yeah!) I wasn't sure how comfortable the elliptical would be, but to my surprise it was very comfortable.

After about 20 minutes on the device I stopped lurching about at strange angles and got more into the rhythm of the machine... however I still had to hold on to the handle bars to keep my balance.

The NICE thing about the elliptical is I learned I'm able to read a book while using it. This helps the time go by wonderfully, as I've got a nice backlog of reading I'm trying to catch up on... not the least of which is Harry Potter book 7... DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS IN IT, I'VE YET TO CRACK IT OPEN.

Anyway, I comfortably worked up a good sweat in my 40 minute workout, and the display informed me that my workout was the equivalent of traveling 3.52 miles (if I were pounding pavement I would expect to go 4 miles in that timeframe, so clearly the elliptical doesn't provide you with an equivalent workout as straight up unreconstructed running). I'm supposed to do a 35 minute timed workout tomorrow... altho I'm thinking of doing 40 minutes again, and in the future pumping my 40 minute workout up to maybe 50 minutes?

The interesting thing was stepping off the machine. My legs felt exercised.... which was rather pleasant. However, I also noticed that my feet were still sore. You see, I didn't feel my feet at all while I was on the elliptical, so that tells me that EVEN WITH unhappy feet, I can get a workout on the elliptical. That's good to know!!