Mountaineering
Me at the mountain.
Week 2: Climb for Clean Air – Pain Equal Gain
Week 2 Plan:
Mon: 30 mins Cardio (plus 25lbs weight) + Strength Training
Tues: Strength Training
Wed: 45 mins Cardio (plus 25lbs weight)
Thu: REST day!
Fri: Strength Training
Sat: REST day!
Sun: 3 hour hike with 30lbs weight
Another week that I get to cross of my calendar. Wow. 16 more weeks to go and I am in a whole world of pain this week. It’s a good (really?) pain though, the kinda one that make you do ‘ow-ow-ow’ whenever you get up from your chair or going up the stairs (or down!). You know the ol’ saying about No-Pain-No-Gain? Well, I better gain a whole’ lot cause this week is about a lot of (muscle) pain. This week, I also decided to contact my good ol’ trainer that I love and hate. Weston Williams who train at Outrageously Fit studio is helping me by creating a specific program just for me.
This week is an exhausting week for me and I’m having ‘why in the world that I am doing this again’ moment tonight, but Karen Lopez tweet me this quote that totally lit fire under my behind:
The miracle isn’t that you finished, it’s that you had the courage to start — John Bingham
Thank you Karen. I need to hear that. I’m doing this because I want to help American Lung Association to raise money to find the cure, but most importantly, I’m doing this because life is short, and I need to have a courage to start an adventure. Any adventure. I choose this one, because it so close to my heart and challenge me physically.
The actual:
Monday:
I did the same routine as last Tuesday’s strength training. Check the routine on my Week 1 for Tuesday post here. The only difference this week was I consistently used 10lbs dumbbells on each of the routines and I did pretty somewhat okay (or so I thought) on most of it. Lunges still made my heart rate jump to the roof and I think it always going to be that way and I always going to love and hate that routine no matter what. Keep in mind, this was a day after I went to Little Si, so I was feeling the pain. For cardio, I put 25lbs in my pack and did elliptical machine for 30 minutes after a 10 minutes warm up.
Tuesday:
Today is my assessment day with Weston. Note to self: When your trainer told you that “today, we’re not really going to work out since I’m going to just do an assessment on you, he lied” Oh-my-golly. If this is a no-work-out day, I’m not even sure I want to know what the work-out day look like. After a 10 minute warm-up, we did cross training on all lower, upper and cores. Start with, yes, a triple step-up/squat/lunge. Then we did cores routine that involved some plank, bridges and side oblique crunches (which I suck big time). We ended the day with upper body routine. I don’t even remember what the routine was, however, I do remember one thing. I suck. Again. Upper body strength is my biggest weak link. After the “non-work out” day, Weston told me that he wants to to focus on cores and upper body work out for the next 4 weeks as well as hip exercises. Apparently, my left hip is weaker than my right and it showed from the way I did the squat routine. My cores, well, do I really have to say anything on this? You get it, right? I.have.a.lot.of.work.to.do. The end.
Wednesday:
Long cardio day. I put 25lbs weight inside my pack and I did a hill climb program on the elliptical machine for 5o minutes plus 10 minutes warm up. I walked for total 2.17 miles today and I stayed within my endurance zone (which I’m tellin’ ya – it’s so not easy to do). Thank you Jes for the tweet during the work out. For Erin, who made sure I was up and at the gym. It made me smile and it helps. This is what I love about my circle of friends. They pump you up. They cheer you on. They made this whole journey easier because they are with you every single way, well in spirit.
Thursday
REST Day! Yes. Yes. Yes.
Friday:
If I have one word to sum up this day. It would be ‘Disaster’. Wow. The new routine kick my behind big time. I started with an interval training at elliptical machine with 25lbs backpack in me. Since Weston determine my cardio zone heart rate is 163, I did as much as I can to push my heart rate above 163 for one minute straight and slow down for 3 minutes. I used the interval program on the machine with resistance 8 on the high interval and 4 on the lower for 30 minutes, and that felt like forever! I also did my new strength training routine as designed by Weston, my new trainer. I did routine A, as listed here. Just for the record, whoever invented single legged squat – they were out of their mind since I can’t do that routine for the life of me – so I substituted that with regular squat with 10lbs dumbbell. The hip abduction cable, I have to lower the weight on my left leg to 10lbs since I couldn’t move it but other than that, I did the whole routine (with a lot of grunting and groaning) somewhat okay. Note to self: I did NOT stretch afterwards which gave me a world of pain the next day. Stretching is important and I tend to skip them afterwards since I just want to be done.
Saturday:
Long Cardio Day. If you notice on the plan that I listed above, this is NOT listed as the day that I’m doing anything, but my trainer changed my plan around and told me that I need to do long cardio this day, so I dragged my behind off the couch, dropped my girls to the day care for a couple hours and hopped on the treadmill. I did not put any weight on me since the objective of today is endurance training. I need to be on my endurance zone based on my heart rate which is 134 and I was VERY VERY hard to keep it on that zone. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t even sweating! I felt like I want to do more, run a little bit faster, increase the cross-ramp higher, but that made my heart rate jump – so I had to slow down. After 20 minutes being frustated, I finally got it. I started sweating and able to keep my heart rate on that zone and really understand what it means to do an endurance cardio training. I walked on 2% ramp, about 3.7mph speed for an hour.
Sunday:
West Tiger Mountain Summit
I choose West Tiger Mountain as today’s training hike. With total elevation gain of 2,042 feet (start at 480 feet, summit at 2522 feet), I know that I would have a good work out for me. I haven’t been on this trail for 7 years, but this trail was not a strange trail for me. This was one of my favorite. We were at the trail head around 6:30am and pretty much the only car on the upper parking lot. I paced myself really well for the entire hike. Slow, but steady. Too slow for what I’m used too – but I kept my heart rate on my endurance zone (or hover around it), and I wasn’t struggling at all. For those who’s been to this trail know that you are facing with steep trail from the get go for pretty much 2/3 of the way, and get a bit of flat area, and nothing but steep trail. With 25lbs pack on my back, I thought I did really well. About half mile from the top, it started snowing! It’s a combination between hale and snow and I was COLD. I didn’t want to stop and put my hard shell since I knew the summit is 15 minutes away, so I started to walk faster which totally screw my pace. I was a bit struggling in the last 5 minutes, but I knew why. My impatience got the best of me! We reached the top short of 2 hours (1 hours 54 minutes to be exact) and I made a mistake by taking my glove off so I can tweet from there. Big no no. My hand was immediately numb since my gloves was wet from the sweat so when I put my gloves back in, it made it even colder! Anyway, an hour and 16 minutes later – I was back in the warm car. Big thank you for those who tweet me during my hike. You guys made me laugh and it help on the motivation department. It really did.
Week 1: Climb for Clean Air – It’s a start
Week 1 Plan:
Mon: Rest
Tues: 30 mins cardio + strength training
Wed: Rest
Thu: 45 mins cardio
Fri: Strength training
Sat: Rest
Sun: 2 hours hike, 20lbs weight on the pack, low elevation gain
How it actually went down:
I suck. Let me just start by saying that. Yes, yes I know. My slate is clean and I’m not comparing myself with my old-self. Got it. It still really irritates the world out of me. I need to learn to be patient with myself and a be a little forgiving.
Tuesday:
I started with a 10 minutes warm up on the treadmill, no incline, and just run at 4.0 mph. Enough to get my juices flowing while I was listening Pump It from Black Eyed Pea. Then I did my strength training. I did dead lifts with 5lbs in each hand (which totally kicked my behind), Push Ups (a girly version of), Step ups and Lunges with 5lbs on each hand, Snow Shovelers with a 10lbs weight to simulate a shovel, Lateral Pull-downs with 40lbs, and Standing Calf Raises. I did 10 reps of each exercise, 2 sets total. My heart rate shot up to 172 (my max heart rate is 187, so that’s above my high zone) and I got a bit dizzy during dead lift. Yes. Out. Of. Shape. I have to keep reminding myself that this is my baseline and I need to pace myself.
I ended the training day by doing 30 minutes of cardio on an elliptical machine, cross ramp at level 10, 8 on the resistance scale. I had a hard time maintaining my heart rate within endurance zone (for me, it max out on 152) and I was going over all the time, but overall, I feel I did really well on the cardio.
Note: I went to climber meeting. It was nice to meet the other climbers and listen to Mark, our awesome trainer/guide for his tips/tricks. Laura, our event coordinator, wanted me to share my stories of why I climb to remind everybody on why are we doing this since we can easily loose focus with all the training and equipment. So I did. It was pretty good. Turns out, one of the gals in this years climb team was on the same 2005 climb team I was involved with before. In 2005 she had a different summit day and rope team, but we shared many memories. Small world.
Thursday:
Long Cardio day. I decided to take it up a notch. I put a couple 10lbs dumbbell’s inside my pack so I could add 20lbs to it and wore it through the workout. I started walkmeter and streamed Vertical Limit on my iPad2 (what better movie to motivate me than this one, right) out of Netfix. I started with a 10 minute warm up on a treadmill, set with 2% elevation grade for 2mph. Then I upped the grade to 12% for 45 minutes. Initially, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything – or at least my heart rate monitor seemed to fail to show me accurate results, so I bumped it up to a 15% grade and boy, was I wrong. Note to self – check heart rate monitor and make sure it was working before your work out! Goes to the point to check your gear before your climb. Above 12k feet on the side of a mountain is no place to discover that your gear is faulty. I was huffing and puffing on the 15% after only a few steps so I quickly brought it back down to 12% and stayed there. Overall, I did quite all right. After 5 minutes of cool down, my heart rate returned back to somewhat normal.
Friday:
Started out with a ten minute run on the treadmill as a warm up and boy, did I get warm! After the warm up I started the strength workout with a rear-foot-elevated squat hanging onto a 5lbs dumbbell in each hand. Thanks to u-tube and an iPad in the gym or else I would have no idea how to actually do this. I did okay on this, and was able to maintain my posture even though my heart rate quickly went to the roof. I could feel every muscle of mine scream in pain, but I know I did this one okay. Second one is a One-leg Deadlift and I have two-word for this. I suck. I can’t balance myself, let alone to go down with an extra 5lbs dumbbell in each hand. Quickly, I got frustrated and was a little discouraged when I wasn’t able to do a complete set without stumbling all over the place. Yes I know, patience… patience… patience. It just the beginning. Next one was One-arm Bent-over Rows. I did these with 10lbs dumbbells and did okay, followed by an overhead press with the same pair of 10lbs weights while sitting on a balancing ball instead of weight bench or standing up. Next one was a seated medicine-ball twist with a 4lbs medicine ball (yes, I know – baby medicine ball) and this one kicked my behind. It just seems so easy, but oh-my-golly, this work my cores like no tomorrow. Well, maybe like no rear-foot-elevated squat is supposed too. I ended up the set with dumbbell shrugs hanging onto a 20lbs dumbbell in each hand. I did 10 reps – 2 sets for each of the exercises and then went to work.
Sunday:
- Me at the top of Little Si.
I decided to go to Little Si Mountain. With a 1,576 ft summit and a 1,100ft elevation gain, about 2.3miles one-way, I thought this would be a good Sunday afternoon hike. I packed 25lbs of weight in my backpack. It’s all water weight so I can rid them at the top to preserve my knee on the descent. It was raining and I was slightly cold so I put my fleece vest and wear my hard shell on top of my inside layer. I started music on my iPhone, started my Walkmeter and off I went. For those who never been to Little Si – the first 10 minutes is like a wake up call. It was steep, really steep and rocky trail. My heart got a good work out right off the bat but then the trail was really flat. I did really well and pace myself until about an hour when I thought we were in the last switchback. I noticed the trail became a really steep again and my heart rate went to the roof. I had to slow down and finally stopped for a minute to take a sip of water. I got really frustrated since I had a hard time getting my heart rate stabilized and had to walk really slow. All in all – I think I did okay. Note to self: Put gaiter on. The trail was wet and muddy and I had no gaiter on me. Good thing was the rain wasn’t really bad and I was able to keep my socks dry. Every hiker know that wet socks are hiker worst nightmare. I got up there in 1:15 mins. Not to shabby, I think. And no, I am not comparing this with my old-self. Let me say it again. Not too shabby for someone who just started training this week. At the top, it was cold and windy so we only stay for 10 minutes or so and head back down. We got down in 1:05mins with no weight on my backpack.
Fundraising Note:
I sent out my fundraising email out this week to all of my contacts. Big shout out to Brent Ozar (Blog | Twitter) for announcing it out on Twitter and Facebook for me AND generously donate to my cause as well to Robert Davis (Blog | Twitter) for including the link to my fundraising page on his slide deck during his presentation on SQL Saturday 68 at Olympia and asked everybody to support my cause. Because of you guys, I raise total $375.00 this week alone. From the bottom of my heart, thank YOU!
Update: Jen McCown started a ‘Get Hawt Friday’ (read her post here) and it’s a way to post your progress and make it accountable to public (just like what I did here). So here’s my contribution for Get Hawt Friday#001. It’s a summary from my week 1 (I publish mine every Sunday, so I will link that to your series on Friday). Love the idea!
Week 0: Climb For Clean Air – Baselining
I wasn’t going to write anything from the previous week since I didn’t really have a plan. Sorta. Just spur of the moment and a commitment to do the climb but when I really thought about it, I actually did have (somewhat of a plan)
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Cardio, 30 minutes
Wednesday: Cardio, 30 minutes
Thursday: Cardio, 30 minutes
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Short Hike
The actual:
Just a bit background here to get everybody in the same page. I. am. out. of . shape. There. I said it. I am starting fresh and not comparing myself to my old-self who summited Mt. Rainier 6 years ago. I haven’t been in the gym for a very long time and the last time I was out hiking, well, let just say, it’s been way too long.
Tuesday:
I was at the gym at 6am. Hopped on elliptical machine for 30 minutes. Resistance 6, Incline 6. I stayed on 80% of Max HR (or tried to) but needed to slow down since I was panting a lot. People, this is what happens when you are back in the gym for the first time in.. err.. years?
Wednesday:
Back at the gym at 6am. I was at the elliptical machine again for another 30 minutes for same resistance and incline, which is still 6. Still struggled with trying to be in the endurance zone. Oh. To be noted, I watched the entire video of Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) on Wait Stats on my iPad the entire time I was doing my exercise. Not sure why I picked that one. Maybe the topic. Or the Richard Simmons. Or the leg. Either one, it worked. 30 minutes gone by just like that.
Thursday:
I was dilly-dally and didn’t get to the gym until 7am. Decided on stair climbing machine for 30 minutes, resistance 4. This one get my heart rate going like no tomorrow and I had a hard time keeping it in the zone. I can’t even focus on any video or music since I was panting too much. Definitely needed some performance tuning on this area
Sunday:
Hiking, Everyone?
It was a cold day and I was one nudge away from just keeping my behind at the couch but I wasn’t going to be the one that said it first. So after I scrambled around and tried to dig out the hiking gear from the bin, we drove to Rattlesnake Ledge Trail.
It was cold, so I had 4 layers on me. I had my sleeveless underneath my long-sleeve hiking shirt, soft jacket plus a hard shell. Yes. I went all out. Result. Overheated Yanni. Not good.
I paced myself really well for the first 30 minutes which exactly at the end of the second switchback of the trail, then I started to feel my heartbeat was beating a wee bit faster than I want it to be. I slowed down a bit, tried to get my breathing under control and kept on walking. We got to the top of the ledge within 57 minutes.
Things to noted:
1. I didn’t strap my backpack correctly. I’m paying for it now since my shoulder is kinda achy
2. My right boot lace wasn’t tie properly. Yes, that’s right. My ankle is paying for it now
3. I wasn’t stopping at all to take a sip of water, even when I knew I needed one.
4. My pace was too fast for the first 30 minutes which cause me to have to slow down in the second 30 minutes.
Conclusion:
I gathered some baselining (borrowing this term from Erin Stellato (blog | twitter) post about baselining and performance tuning for my training to find out that I have a lot of tuning to do. My statistics are out of date, my index need some serious tuning, and my query need some serious rewrite. Good grief, this is going to be a lot of work! Maybe I should hire a consultant to climb the mountain for me?
I have exciting week ahead me. Stay tuned for the next update.
Journey to 14,411 feet start today
Mount Rainier
Jes Borland (Blog|Twitter) inspired me with her public commitment with her training for her first half marathon on her blog here. She posted her plan and how it actually went down every week, good or bad. I was initially just look at her running posts for some play list idea for my run/walk/hike, I ended up reading her entire series and admire her even more. I found myself cheering for her even louder, before she even start her race and I realize that this is exactly what I need to do.
So Jes – thank you for inspiring me. No, no – I’m not going to run any half-marathon or even 5k anytime soon, but I will be joining another 71 climber to trek Mount Rainier National Park and attempt to reach its summit during 2 days journey. This effort organized by American Lung Association under Climb for Clean Air event, a great fund-raising event to raise awareness for clean air and variety of lung disease that affect so many lives, including mine.
You can find my fund-raising page here.
In the next few months, I will be posting my progress weekly. My training plan and how the week goes. I was hoping that I can look back and see my own progress as the time goes and have as many as supporters along the way since this is definitely not just your usual walk in the park.
So there. The journey start today. I’ll be posting my progress every Sunday.
Wish me luck.