The Sickness Takes over.

Oh man has this been an off week. I managed to do Yoga every day for five days strait last week, took the weekend off, then started this week sick. The kind of sick where you feel ok as long as you're sitting still. I thought I was ok on Monday and did my yoga anyways. I made it through the "hard" yoga series, and then crashed hard. Tuesday I had a whole new slew of issues that basically prevented me from breathing through my nose, or very well at all, and so decided that yoga would most likely be a bad idea, and trying to run was right out. I'm feeling mostly better today, so I'm going to attempt Yoga again today, although I'll be breathing all wrong since I'm still having issues with my nose.

The frustrating part is that I feel mostly ok, I just can't breathe, and breathing is kinda key to exercising.

So I'm giving myself a partial pass on this week, with the caveat that I need to exercise where I can, and eat as well as possible. As soon as I can, I need to get back to the gym. I'm hoping that's before the end of this week.

I hate how I sound like a broken record lately...I miss having a gym routine.

Relaxing into the pose

My S.O. is very sick right now, and super overworked, which has resulted in a distinct lack of gym time. As in, I havn't been to the gym to run at all yet this week. I'm compensating by an over abundance of Yoga.

I did the "hard" yoga program again today, and, with heavy modification, managed to finish the entire program. My arms are shaking and I am, surprisingly, covered in sweat. I am noticing a distinct lack in my upper body strength while doing yoga. Running has done wonders for my lower body strength, I can hold a tree pose for ages now, but put me in plank and it's my arms, not my abs, that give out first.

I'm hoping to get my running back on track soon. I really miss my running buddy...

Moving through the poses.

Oh man. I just finished as much of the Trainers Edge DVD as I could. I got a little further than last week, but not much. Mostly I was just able to hold the positions better, and not use as many mods. I really need to work on my upper body strength.

Last week was a semi success. I only ran twice, but I managed four days of yoga. Also, Friday, my second run, was really long (for me.) I got to the gym before my S.O. and jumped on the treadmill. I hit 20 minutes before he showed, so I walked for a couple minutes, then started running again. Around 10 minutes into the second run, I walked again for a couple minutes, then ran again for 5 minutes before calling it and doing my cool down.

I did some ab work and some stretching before rewarding myself with a sit in the steam room. Man I love the steam room.

Today is an "off day" as far as the gym's concerned, so it's a "hard yoga" day. Tomorrow it's "easy yoga" and running.

Once again i'm modifying my "plan", and giving myself another week to settle into this routine before adding in the push-up and sit-up challenges in. I'm just too tired out from the "yard yoga" to do good form push-ups (although there *are* push-ups in the yoga routine.)

Mid-Week Pause

Today is a rest day I suppose. I didn't plan it, but occasionally I do need to get out and have a social life, and that derailed my normal "do yoga at lunch time" plan.

This week has been going a lot better, fitness wise, than the last couple. I got back to the gym and ran a solid two miles on the treadmill yesterday, after doing my now standard lunch time yoga.

I attempted to start the 100 push-up and 200 sit-up challenges, and decided that I'll try again next week. Just doing the yoga and running is enough of a challenge this week.

It feels good to be "back to it" with the fitness. Now I just need to keep the ball rolling, and not let myself slide again!

Trying new yoga videos and getting started on my "plan"

As part of my new re-commitment to my health and wellness, I've recently decided to make a "yoga break" part of my day. When I break for lunch I do a yoga video before I eat. Because of some technical issues, I've had to turn to Netflix for some streaming yoga videos. So far I've tried two: Crunch: Candlelight Yoga and The Trainer's Edge: Long & Lean Yoga.

These two videos were the two opposite ends of the Yoga spectrum. Candlelight Yoga was all about deep stretches, and relaxation. It was a very gentle practice, great for stretching on those days that I actually get myself to the gym but not hard enough to count as a full workout. Long & Lean Yoga was intense. So intense in fact that I only made it half way through the hour long video. By the point where I called it, my arms were shaking and I could barely hold the "resting" pose: Downward Facing Dog. This one counts as a full workout, too much I think to do on days when I plan to run.

So now I have a plan. Once a week I'm going to do Long & Lean, and the rest of the days I'm going to stick to Candlelight Yoga. I think I should be able to get through the whole Long & Lean video by the end of the month. This is all in addition to my normal plan to do the 100 push up challenge, the 200 sit up challenge, and the C25K all at the same time. This plan got pushed back a week due to unexpected overworkedness.

Perhaps I'm taking on too much. I think I'll be OK, if I think of it as all one plan, instead of a bunch of different ones. Consider this week one, day one.

Children are great personal trainers!

This weekend I learned something interesting, children are a workout. We were visiting friends that live in Maine, and they have two kids. I spent a good deal of the weekend running, lifting, tossing, and playing. I gave airplane rides, ran up and down a hill just to run, chased, raced, carried, and was a living jungle gym. All in all, I believe that just keeping up with active kids counts as a workout.

Other than that, I've been a horrible slacker as far as fitness goes. Once again I find myself struggling to get myself back on track. Hopefully I'll have a better progress report later in the week.

Running when I don't want to.

Yesterday was the first day I've been to the gym this week. But I'm not stressing it, Because I didn't want to go, but I did. I didn't want to run, but I did. I didn't want to do strength, but I did.

After a weekend upstate, where scheduling and sickness conspired against me and my running buddy (at least enough to keep us from running!), a weekend filled with tasty home baked goods and many fun times out and about with friends and family, I faced the gym yesterday with something akin to dread.

The conversation in my head went something like this:
"I'm tired, and it's cold outside. I want to stay home. Can't we just stay home?"
"No, we havn't been running all week. We have to go."
"But I'm tired."
"Ok," I said to myself, "We'll go to the gym and just run for a bit. We won't even run very hard. Is that ok?" I reluctantly agreed.

Once I was there, and on the treadmill, I set it to 5.2 without thinking. I didn't give myself a chance to think about it I just ran. True, I stopped at 20 minutes, but I ran.

The stretching mats were full of people so me and the S.O. split up, he headed for the weight machines, while I squeezed myself into a spot that opened up, and did my crunches and stretched for a good long while.

After a while I got bored and wandered over to do my strength routine (Prisoner squats, hammer curl/shoulder press, french press, repeat sets.) When I finished those, my S.O. was in the middle of his ab routine, so, bored, I started adding in more leg work. Apparently boredom at the gym is my friend. I added in knee strikes, chair squats and side squats before deciding I was pushing my luck. I did still need to walk home.

My body is sore and tired today. And I'm happy about it. I've also decided that I'm happier when I'm doing a training "plan" than just winging it, so I'm going to try and work out a plan that works for me. I'm thinking of doing the 100 push up challenge, the 200 sit up challenge, and the C25K all at the same time. It's a bit ambitious of a plan, so we'll see if I actually do it.