Running with Pixie Dust

Today's workout:

323 calories/35:00

+

Ab Ripper X

125 calories/17:35

I've been doing a lot of cleaning lately.  I hate cleaning.  I suck at it and it makes me super grumpy.  When I post things like this...

... I'm really not kidding.  I have way too much stuff.  I had way too much stuff back in high school, and then I left half of that stuff at home before I went to college, and probably tripled my amount of stuff through college.  And let's not even talk about the two semesters spent in Florida and my constant desire to blow my paychecks at the Orlando outlet malls.  Let's just say I have a whole lot of stuff.  And one of my goals for 2011 was to get rid of most of it.  Welp.  Here we are, halfway through November, and I've barely made a dent in the decluttering that needs to be done.  Thus... lots of cleaning lately.

I woke up this morning and cleaning sounded really gross just like it does every other day, so I decided to browse blogs instead for some new workout ideas.  I kept going back and forth about what I was going to do for workouts for a while... I stick with my routine much better when I have a goal in mind, or when I'm using some sort of "system."  That's a big part of why I love some of the Beachbody products, like P90X (and yes, I am completely twitterpated over P90X2) and TurboFire - they have set schedules, so I don't have to think about what workout I'm going to do that day.  If I'm given too much freedom and can just decide on a workout for the day, I will most likely choose lifting the fork to my mouth.  Specific plans for running have also helped me... I never would have started running without Couch to 5K and the half marathon training plan that I used, even though I ended up tweaking it, kept me on track.  But I've been in a bit of a limbo lately.  I'm a little burned out on TurboFire, so while I can see doing it as a supplemental workout, I don't want to start a whole new round of it.  Plus, I want to keep my running up, perhaps even training for another half. 

That being said, I feel like this year has been all about cardio, and I'm really missing strength training... to the point that I considered doing another round of P90X.  I must be in serious deprivation if I miss TOny Horton.  Well... that, and I patently refuse to see this on my heart rate monitor ever again, even if I've got several runs logged on my Garmin:

Lately, I've been seeing more and more information about CrossFit and I admit that I've been intrigued.  At first, I thought CrossFit looked interesting, but way too hardcore and elite for me.  Then one of my running idols started doing it, and since I consider her to be an athletic but normal person, I started thinking maybe it was worth a shot.  The only thing that I continually struggle with, though, is the money.  I don't have the gear or space to do a lot of the workouts, but most of the "affiliates" that I've looked into are absurdly expensive... we're talking a minimum of $100 a month.  I love an intense workout, but paying someone $100 or more a month to watch me sweat a lot and weep openly seems a little ridiculous.  

So I turned to another blogger that motivates me: the lovely Katie at Yes, I Want Cake (who is in such good shape she can have that cake).  Her blog was actually the first place I ever heard of CrossFit, and she's so hardcore that does it in her own garage.  Note to self: suck up to David a whole lot until he builds me my own hardcore CrossFit gym.  Anyway, between drooling over these waffles that she made and cooing at pictures of her adorable baby, I saw a mention of something called the 480 Workout.  So I checked it out.  And now my arms are making it very clear that they will never forgive me for this.

The workout seems simple enough - it's made of basic moves and through the workout, you build up the number of reps.  Easy, right?  

This workout rocked me.  I'm glad I did it, and I hate to say it, but I actually enjoyed it.  My only complaint was that it was pretty tough on the wrists - lots of pushups and burpees, which tend to bother my wrists.  So it probably won't become a 3-times-a-week workout for me, but I think it will be fun to do every so often and see if I can improve my time.  I will have to throw out today's time though (which was actually 25:37, because I warmed up for 7 minutes and then cooled down until 35:00) because it wasn't until I was explaining the workout to David that I realized I'd completely skipped the second set of 10 reps of each exercise.  Oops.  So, actually, I did the 400 Workout today.  It was still super hard.  Damn.

I added Ab Ripper X on at the end because I felt like I needed some more ab work.  And obviously I missed Tony Horton's beautiful face.  I'd forgotten how evil that workout is.  I love it, though, and I'm thinking that unlike the 480 Workout, I really should bring Ab Ripper X back into a 3-times-a-week rotation.  

I'm feeling pretty hardcore now, having completed that beast of a workout, even if I did leave 80 reps out (oops).  Maybe I'll even try some of the CrossFit workouts that don't require so much gear.  Or maybe I'll finally bite the bullet, buy myself a sandbag and an adorable pink GymBoss timer, and try to keep up with this girl.