Elliptical Lies

So far our luck with racing weather has been dicey at best. Even in Albuquerque where it rarely rains, it sleeted on our last race day. Mind you it's sunny 360 days out of the year there, so that's some pretty bad luck. Then, during my last Charlottesville 10K run itpoured the entire time. The race is normally a picturesque, lovely fall run. Not so in my case. I'd say we are well OVERDUE for perfect race day conditions come Sunday. Right now they are calling for sunny, highs in the upper 60's-low 70's. Let's hope it stays that way.

Last night, I did 90 minutes on the elliptical even though it didn't really equate to what I should have done for our weekend run. It takes some mental power (OK, maybe not so much mental power as TV watching) to make it through. I took a picture of the elliptical to show how insane the calorie calculators on the ellipticals are. I hate how those things always over-calculate. It says I burned 1121 calories. Whatever. I'm guessing 800 or 900 is more like it for the 7.56 miles it says I accomplished. I did it at an easy resistance level of 8 out of 16. Usually, I do the elliptical at a resistance of 12 out of 16 at a quicker pace, but I can only last an hour or so at that level. I've read articles that have shown that these calculators over estimate and the best exercise burn for your time is running or the treadmill followed by the elliptical and walking. Don't get me wrong, the calorie estimators are good motivators, but they aren't realistic.