Week 3 Down

Well, I'm done with week three. Yesterday's cardio workout killed me! I woke up SUPER sore. Even with foam rolling (which SEVERELY hurts me by the way), my muscles were super tight.

Today's strength routine actually went pretty quickly, and we followed it with probably 45 minutes or so of stretching and foam rolling. It helped but not as much as I'd hoped. Once I got home I did take a nice long hot bath, followed by stretching. That helped the most. I've been able to walk around without wincing.

Next week is the last week in phase one, then we switch the workout up a level, and the diet changes a little bit. I'm looking forward to the change, and all the laughter it brings trying to do the new exercises.

On the diet end of things, I had been sugar free until dinner tonight. We had friends over, and they brought cinnamon rolls. They looked SO good! I was really depressed until I remembered that the rules for the plan I'm following include splurging (not binge) up to 10% of the time. I had my cinnamon roll, and it actually completely satisfied me! I stopped with one! That is something I usually do not do. I have no leftover cravings for anything else. It's such a great thing. Maybe my hourly prayers for strength and self-control are helping. :)

The Bonk

Day 4

5:00 am came a lot earlier than I planned. I slept terrible, I was up all night tossing and turning. When that alarm went off I thought I was going to die, but I was on such a roll, I didn't want to stop now. Bootcamp was exhausting. Really, it was about as hard as the first day I went about a year ago. I couldn't get my legs to do anything they were SO spent. I worked as hard as I could, it was pathetic by any measure and I was sincerely happy when it was over.

My second workout for the day was a run. 1 mile warm up, 4 miles at tempo, 1 mile cool down. As I got ready to go, I could hardly touch my toes I was so sore. There was no way I could physically finish this run. I layed on the floor and actually started to drift off. Then I remembered what an ultra-marathoner I interviewed told me, "Any fool can go all-out, the really hard thing is knowing when to hold back." I made the decision to skip the run. I focused on recovery. Had a lean protein filled dinner, a smoothie, stretched out, took a hot mud bath (that's a whole other subject haha) did some STM on my legs and went to bed early.

It wasn't what I planned for the day, but one more hard thing down!

Operation Swim

Day 3

Ok, so confession time. I haven't been swimming in over a year. I stopped at the request of my chiropractor to give him some time to fix my shoulder. I'm bad at taking professional advice but the part where he said, "Let me fix it now so you don't have to get a new one when you're 40" really got my attention. He worked on it, I did my exercises and it started feeling a lot better, I just never got back the motivation get back in the pool, I guess. Really, there was no reason to since I couldn't race with my ankle. All that aside... today's workout involved joining my coach's triathlon class.

1 hour group ride (with WICKED fast people on superior bikes) and a swim involving 300 warm up, 500 drills, 8 x 25 sprint/50 smooth focus on form, 300 pull, 300 cool down. Not a really hard swim workout but I knew my fitness level couldn't possibly be up to par. So here we go.

The group ride almost killed me. It was an easy 12 miles, but after my climb yesterday I was sucking wind trying to hold it at 24mph at the back of the pack. Focus went out the window and it was all about not being left behind. I think it's OK to experience a bit of panic now and then even if it's the fear of looking like a wuss. I hung in there and made it back to the pool for swimming. At this point, you're probably thinking that my hard thing for the day is getting back in the pool. Sadly, no. It was getting up the courage to cram my fat butt into a swim suit and walk from the locker room to the pool in front of 25 toned, well tanned triathletes who knew what I looked like two years ago. Deep breath and I did it. Thankfully, my trainer had the sense to throw me back in the slow lane (thank heaven) and I started swimming. I actually started smiling. It felt amazing. I wondered to myself what I was so worried about. Overall, the swim went well and thanks to my lack of fitness, I was a bit late finishing up so there were, like, two athletes left when I got out of the pool.

One more hard thing down!!

Intervals

Well, today was interval training/cardio day. It was actually really fun. Hard workout, but felt great in the end. Some of the exercises were really funny. Funny because we had a very hard time doing them. Here's a link to one of the exercises we really struggled with... picture me doing it. I'm still laughing about it. Below is the picture of what we attempted to do.

Anyway, all in all it was a fun morning. Tomorrow back to the strength training. Only one more week and we switch it up to the next stage of exercises. They look hard. :)

Update?

Well, thanks to Jen, hopefully this blog will become active again.

I've been kind of slacking off the last six months or so. After my feet/leg injuries, I gave up on running. I started doing other stuff but not enough.

I've had other health issues which now seem to be under control...at least as in control as can be. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia (which we've suspected I've had for years), but it has gotten so bad I'm actually on medication for it. I was using that as an excuse to not work as hard...and that has paid off in no weight loss (imagine that!) and no progress.

I've been doing "The Female Body Breakthrough" with a friend of mine. We've been doing the workouts regularly for three weeks now. This week we are adding a interval day. That is tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to that. The last time I tried intervals I ended up pushing myself too hard (something I tend to do) and had a MASSIVE asthma attack that took two days to recover from. (Woops.)

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to try and find the balance between working hard and killing myself. (I really don't want to freak out my workout partner by having a major asthma attack.)

I like Jen's goal of doing something hard everyday. For me that is following a diet. I am a sugar addict. I know it, and honestly, I don't want to break the habit too terribly bad. (Pathetic, huh.) I know that to loose the fat I want/need to loose, I have to break the habit. So, that is my daily/hourly/minute "hard". Follow a healthy diet. I did manage to do it for one week. During that week, I lost nine pounds, and was able to make it through my workouts without too much of a struggle. It's amazing how much a healthy diet affects your body. Too bad I didn't stick to it.

That's my goal. Follow my diet. I have been logging my food (even the bad food I eat). My new goal is to continue logging and start eating correctly. I've made it through today with no refined sugars, and eating every 3-4 hours. Wahoo! One day down, the rest of my life to go!

Giving up is not an option, but I reserve the right to cry

Day 2

My alarm went off at 5:00 am for bootcamp. As far as I was concerned this morning, getting out of bed was hard enough to count for my one hard thing. We did a TON of lifting with barbells today (squats, walking lunges, sumo squats, dead lifts, clean and jerk etc) and cardio between sets. It was tough and I was convinced I was in the clear for the rest of the day. I got home, turned on cartoons for the kids and crashed for an hour. I'm not completely proud of this, but I did feel a lot better when I woke up.

Later, I realized that I still had another workout scheduled for the day and remembered my goal. "Do something hard every day"

Next workout was a 1:50 brick. I had a 1:20 bike and 30min run right after. I decided that biking up South Fork Canyon and running the trail would fit the 'hard' qualification. I decided to do it regardless of how long it took me. Taking it easy on the approach was just what I needed to get up the canyon. For my mental training, I only allowed myself positive thoughts. "You can do this. You've got it, Jen. etc" I also focused again on the task at hand ONLY. "The hill I'm climbing is the only one I need to think about." For my physical focus, I concentrated on smooth circles and relaxing any muscle that was not currently engaged. I also worked on getting used to sipping water more frequently (one of my issues). Before I knew it, I was at the top and fumbling to get my running shoes on. I could barely stand, my legs were shaking so bad. Tying my laces was hilarious. I had to concentrate to get my fingers to work, I'm glad no one was up there to see me. Once they were on, I started up the trail. Yes, UP the trail. It was brutal. It just kept climbing and climbing- it was insane. I kept up with the positive thoughts and concentrated again on letting my legs relax and swing from my hip. It was more of a slogging jog I'd say, but I finally reached a little meadow where it evened out, I felt like a champion. Going back down was even more of a challenge. My legs were wasted and non responsive. I'm lucky I didn't eat dirt. I got back to my bike and there were a few female cyclists resting. I sad "Hi." but only got blank stares as I put my cycling gear back on. I'm not really sure why, but cyclist are so strange anyway, as a rule I don't ponder too much on the subject.

Heading back was AMAZING!! Once I hit the lower canyon trail, I heard someone changing gears behind me and glanced back. I decided that if he was going to pass me it was going to be because I was too slow, not because I gave up. I put the pedal down and tried to hold it at 25mph. I kept waiting for him to pass but he stayed steady as I plowed through road crossings, over bridges, around longboarders etc. I'm not usually this reckless but I was sure he was going to pass me any second. When I got to the turn off for the parking lot, I turned around and he had stopped to get his car. He had a huge smile on his face and threw me a "hang loose" sign and yelled "See ya!" Success. I finished my ride home and collapsed on the living room floor. 30 miles. Not a whole lot of distance, but that was HARD. Mission accomplished. I'm pretty sure tomorrow's hard thing will be getting my body out of bed.

We're baaaaack

Ok, I've been in a terrible funk lately, so I'm hoping that this blog will give me some motivation! My trainer gave us a challenge this week to do something hard every day. I've taken the challenge and so far so good. Here's how it's going so far:

Day 1

My workout for tonight is a 15 min warm up, 3 x 1mile sprint with 1 min rest (walk) between, 1 x 1/2 mile sprint, 15 min cool down.

I finished reading "Born to Run" a few days ago and I have to say, I think it's a load of crap for the most part. While I do believe that there are those born with running in their DNA (the Tarahumara Indians for example), I think in reality I was born for hard labor NOT running. I'm cool with it, someone has to haul rocks out of the field and lift cars off small children. Sadly, there's not as much interest in finding a hidden tribe of rock haulers. That being said, I really don't like running. It hurts. I have found that trails seem to hold my interest a lot better than the endless pounding the road provides, but either way, I'm not fast by any stretch of the imagination. All of this rambling means that my workout tonight was REALLY hard for me. Once I set my mind to get it done though, I found great satisfaction in finishing.

Tonight, my mental focus was to concentrate on the set I'm currently doing. I wasn't going to think about how far I'd gone or how much more I had to do. The physical focus was to relax my legs and allow them to swivel at the hip. This really helped to conserve energy. I wasn't fast, but was able to increase my speed slightly with each set. I followed up the workout with a Muscle Milk Light and a great big smoothie. One hard thing down.