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.

A good week so far.

So far this week has been spectacular. I've actually managed to overcome several hurdles to keep myself on track. So far this week:

I went to the gym on a Sunday. Despite a time crunch to get everything we wanted to get done, done, we managed to keep the gym on the schedule. It was a great way to start my week.

I went to the gym while not feeling 100%. True, I did take Tuesday off due to illness, but on Wednesday when I was feeling mostly better I decided that one day off for sickness was enough.

I upped my distance. In an effort to break the training plateau I've been stuck on for ages, I've made my goal distance based instead of time based. I run until I hit two miles. Next week I'll up it slightly to 2.1 miles. I'm trying to increase my distance slowly enough to avoid injury.

I decided on a starting pace for my training (5.2 mph) and then upped it (to 5.3 mph.) Since my goals are no longer time based (ie run for twenty minutes), I'm free to experiment with different paces within the 2 mile(ish) goal. At 5.2 mph I felt like I could have kept running (for a long while) when I hit the 2 mile goal. So on Wednesday I upped the pace to 5.3 mph. When I raise the distance goal, I'll drop the pace again.


This weekend we're upstate again, and for once I'm not dreading what that's going to do to my exercise regimen. I'm excited, because that means I get to go running with my running buddy again! It also means that my S.O. can go off with his Brother and do serious guy time lifting heavy objects.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for strength training, but I'm more into the running than the lifting right now, and he wants more lifting, so I go running with my running buddy, he goes lifting with his brother, everyone's happy! I'll keep my strength training where it is for now, and change it up again in about a month.

Yay fitness! ^_^

Forward momentum.

So far the week is shaping up well. Went to the gym yesterday, since I won't be able to go tonight. I hopped on the elliptical machine for the first time in ages. I noticed that with the elliptical machines, I get more of a muscle workout and less of a cardiovascular one. My behind was tired by the time I got off, but I wasn't sweating nearly as much as when I run.

I didn't do any strength work, I just cruised on the elliptical machine for half an hour then stretched and went home. It was a major victory in the sense that I really didn't want to go to the gym. I was really tired and in a bad mood and just wanted to stay home and curl up on the couch.

At least today I have a good solid reason for not going to the gym, tonight is the open house for the graduate program I'm looking to get into. If all goes well tonight, this will be the first step in the plan.

I feel like I'm finally starting to move forward again.