More of the same..

Despite my best intentions to work out at lunch and during the evening, meetings cropped up, resulting in my having to do resistance training and cardio in the evening. Goofing around online and just basically veg'ing out resulted in my starting the workouts later than planned. However, by midnight I was finished, showered, and sleeping. :) All is well with the world!

I had a great lower body workout that I can somewhat feel today, though not as badly as the upper body felt the day prior.

Then I ran. On the treadmill. Again. Just over 2 miles in just under 34 minutes. Go me!

Two a Day??

Today turned out to be really nice, despite a small diversion in the form of my doggies busting through our fence and hanging out in the neighbors' backyard with their dog. It's a good thing all the dogs know each other (and the people) or we could have had a problem. My darling rottie looks a bit scarier than she actually is. As it turned out, the female half of the neighbor couple thought the dogs were so cute, she suggested that we get them out together for playdates soon. Too funny!

So, workout stuff... resistance training in the form of the first workout from the Muscle Audio Professor series today at lunch. Nothing too harsh, just upper body (chest/shoulders, lats, biceps, triceps). Tonight after the kids went to bed, I ran for 40 minutes on the treadmill. I still don't get the difference in running outdoors versus on my treadmill. I always heard outdoors was supposed to be tougher. It usually has been for me since I suck at keeping an even pace. BUT, there just has to be something screwy about my treadmill since it thinks I only ran 2.4 miles in 40 minutes. I did a 5k on the track in 39 minutes just a couple weeks ago, so what the heck is wrong with that picture?

This is frustrating; however, I did still enjoy the run. Even if I was slower than I ever thought possible!

The weekend

This was a crappy weekend. Joel's return flights got all screwed up, so instead of arriving back in Houston at 8:00 ish, he wasn't home until past 2:00 a.m. That meant we didn't ride on Saturday morning. We switched the sitter to Sunday morning, and upon waking and finding out it was in the low 30s, we canceled that ride also.

I feel like a fat bum. I swear I've got a freaking food hangover, and I got NO exercise this weekend.

Oh, and to top things off, Girl Scout cookies arrived this week. Hunter sold over 200 boxes, so my dining room looks like a distribution center right now. I'm so close to taking the boxes we ordered in to the office and setting them up at the coffee bar so I don't have them in the house for temptation. That's hardly fair to the kids who don't have my binge issues, but it would sure make life easier for me.

On a better note, I really enjoyed working out at lunch with V this week. I intend to continue, as much as practical. Maybe getting in two workouts a day - one short one at lunch - will help fight off the extra calories I can't seem to help but consume.

Now, about running.. I'm supposed to do a 10k on Saturday. I'm thinking of dropping back to the 5k so I can still run and not be concerned about keeling over at the end. Any thoughts?

Off to feed the family then do the Brownie meeting. Go Girl Scouts! :)

whew!

Today's workouts (yes, there were 2!) kicked my bum today. I'm also convinced now that my treadmill is calibrated incorrectly and that I'm actually running faster than it says. At least that's how it seems after running on the 'mill at work!

I walk/ran 2 miles at lunch today. Mostly I walked it, but it was at a decent pace. This evening, I put the bike up on the trainer and began pedaling again.

I'm beat... more to follow tomorrow! Happy Valentines' Day, everyone!

Running again

Today was a good day. My legs were super sore, and sitting down was quite uncomfortable (boy, could I feel those sit bones!), but it just felt great to feel my muscles again!! I woke up early enough to do some ab work, then immediately (this evenign) after getting the kids bathed, I ran on the treadmill for a bit. My legs felt good, although not as strong as I'd like. That will come in time. At least that's what I tell myself It's been two weeks since I've run, so I can't complain much. Tomorrow I'll run another 2 miles at lunch, then during the evening I'll spend some time on the spin bike.

I finally found the courage to submit my name to the guy putting together our company team for the Texas Independence Relay. At this point, it seems I'd be the fifth runner showing an interest, but we've got plenty of time to add a few more. He's hoping for eight in total. In order to do this, I'll have to be prepared to run five legs of 5-miles each over a 2-day period in early March of 2008. I think that's plenty of time to train for it, and hopefully the conditioning benefits of the cycling will work to my advantage.

Back to work for me. I've got stuff to finish before I drag myself into bed.

Today's Workout

8 Minute Abs

10 Minutes Stretching

Running - 2 miles, treadmill

First Training Ride for BP MS150

My cold of the past few weeks turned into something more closely resembling a bronchial and/or upper respiratory infection, resulting in my having to work from home 3 out of 5 days of the week leading up to the Rockets Run. In the spirit of not making myself worse since the weather was still cold & wet, I stayed home and slept all day instead of running. I was able to return to work last week, and yesterday, I rode in my first training ride for the BP MS150.

It was so cold outside. Standing around waiting for the start, I had about 30 minutes of questioning whether or not I should even be there. Joel had picked up some leggings and shoe covers/warmers for me in San Francisco, and I'm so thankful he did! Now I just need to find one of those funky bright windbreakers. Maybe a scarf/neckwarmer of sorts too... or maybe I need to just suck it up and ride.

The ride itself was great. Standing around waiting to begin was not so great, but that's to be expected when you have 100+ folks going out of the same location. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't so cold, I think. The cold, combined with the fact that I was terrified I wouldn't be able to finish because I'm so out of shape, made it all seem worse than it really was.

We started shortly after 8:00 a.m. with the "slow" group, and that was fine except for getting behind a couple of very unsure/unsteady riders. There seemed to be little reason to the slowing/stopping and even less communication of the fact that they were going to do it. On a few occasions, it was almost as though they didn't realize there were people behind them. We were able to pass them and got on a stretch of road where we could ride at our own pace, which was still, admittedly, very slow.

At one point, Joel took off ahead of me and I was left to ride by myself. This wasn't a bad thing, though. I was pedaling along and had time to think about my fear before starting the ride, my hesitance to even do it (remember how I procrastinate and avoid things since I know I can't be perfect? perfect example here!), and my crummy attitude working up to the ride because of all of the above. What I realized as I kept spinning was that I was enjoying the ride, my body felt good doing it, and I have still been allowing my fears to keep me from doing things that are good for me, as well as fun. It was time to make a decision that was long overdue.

I decided to quit being a quitter.

It felt good.

Yesterday's ride was just at 26 miles.

Next weekend we have the option to ride 29.5 or 41 miles. I'm planning to continue doing the shorter rides. I'm told what I should do is to spin at relatively high rpm's to build my cardio-endurance, with a balance of resistance training to build muscle.

Looking forward to next week!

Today's workout

30 minutes Pilates

30 minutes Core Training/Stretching

45 minutes Spinerval 4.0 Muscle Breakdown