Showing posts with label cross training. Show all posts

Weekly Recap!

I absolutely love Amylee's "Weekly RUNdown" that she posts on Mondays, so as usual, instead of thinking up my own clever ideas, I'm going to steal someone else's.  This might not happen every Monday, but since I was particularly lazy about actually writing about my workouts this week, I thought it might be nice to attempt to remember them!  Here goes...

Weekly Recap: December 12th - December 18th

Monday:  A much needed rest day after getting my 5K PR on Sunday!!

Tuesday:  My first fartlek run!  I ended up running for 35 minutes, or a total of 45 minutes if you include a 5 minute warm up walk and a 5 minute cool down walk, and I went 3.62 miles.  My average pace was 12:26, but since it was a fartlek, my pace was really all over the place.  I did feel a little bit like I favored sprinting, and wasn't including slightly longer bursts at a slightly slower than sprinting pace, so that is something I will work on!


Wednesday:  The beginning of Cinderella Boot Camp - yeehaw!  I did HIIT 20 and Ab Ripper X.  Both are really tough workouts, but if I'm going to be back in my skinny jeans (which, by the way, are a gorgeous pair of Joe's jeans that I found in a thrift store) by the time Cinderella opens, I need to get tough.  Especially because I did the math incorrectly (read: was a space cadet and got my days mixed up) and we actually open a week before I thought we did.  So my grand plan of 6 pounds in 6 weeks needs to be accelerated to 6 pounds in 5 weeks.  Possible?  I think so!


Thursday:  Thursdays are tempo days, and the plan was a 5 mile tempo run.  I finished 5.65 miles at an average pace of 12:08 (including walking to warm up and cool down).  It went well, though I struggled to maintain a good pace.  For training purposes, I'm trying to maintain a 10:15 pace for my running intervals during the tempo runs, but it was not happening in this run... I was either running at a 9:45 pace or a 10:30 pace.  I am glad this is not rocket science.


Friday:  Unplanned rest day because the day got away from me!  Too busy shopping for a ball gown for Cinderella to be bothered to exercise.  Sigh.  My life is super hard.


Saturday:  HIIT 25 and random ab work... meaning several of the moves from Ab Ripper X, but only 10 or so reps of each move instead of the 25 reps that Tony demands.  My abs were still slightly sore from Wednesday, so I thought taking it down a notch would be okay.  It was my first time trying HIIT 25, and I have to say, I didn't love it.  I'll give it another chance when I'm more prepared for it (I was stressed on Saturday, and not really feeling the whole exercise thing), but the combos were more complicated, and you're working hard enough that complicated is just frustrating.  I might have to work up to this one by doing HIIT 15 and HIIT 20 some more.


Sunday:  The long run for this week (which is week three of the FIRST training plan) was 10 miles.  I ended up cutting it a little short and doing 9.51 miles at an average pace of 12:29 (with warm up and cool down).  I wanted to complete all ten miles, but I got out the door a little later than planned and the sun went down while I was out running.  When I started the run, it was about 55 degrees and sunny outside, so I wore capris, a tech t-shirt, and sunglasses.  Like a moron.  Needless to say, when the sun went down, so did the temperature, and I was a struggling unit.  By the time I hit 9 miles, it was getting very cold and very dark, so I decided one mile would not make or break me and went home.  Overall, I was extremely happy with the way the run went - since the half marathon in October, the longest run I had done was 6 miles.  There were some tough parts of this run (miles 5 and 6 were mostly uphill and right when the temperature started to drop) but as a whole, it went incredibly well.  It did make me very tired though - I slept 10 hours last night!  Maybe for each mile I run, I need an hour of sleep...
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Apparently I can only take pictures with my thumbs up.

Today's workout:
Power Training (read: Body Pump on crack)
a lot of calories/a very painful hour


I woke up this morning with the intention of going to the rec center with my mom to take a class called Body Fit, which was described as follows on the website: "Define tone and strengthen your muscles with various resistance movements and low impact aerobics, all fitness levels welcome."  Since my problem with my current schedule is lack of strength training (sorry, Chalene, but Sculpt 30 and Tone 30 aren't cutting it for a strength junkie), I thought this would be a great class to check out.  So we went.  And as we waited outside the door of the room, other people started showing up... most in their 60s and 70s.  Suddenly, it looked like "all fitness levels welcome" meant "Jessica will cry as she uses 2 pound weights for squats."  Luckily, my mom is incredibly understanding, and suggested that I try another class that was going on at the same time.  I thought the class was Muscle Plus, which is described as such: " A pound of muscle can burn 30 - 50 extra calories a day, so build up your fat burner! Some light aerobics, but mostly we’ll be stoking your furnace and sleeking up your muscles!"  I like sleeking muscles.  This sounded good to me.

But I was wrong.  I instead walked into Power Training.  " This high intensity, weight lifting based class will help sculpt your entire body.  Adjustable bar bell sets, hand weights, balls, gliders and resistance bands will be used.  Increase balance, core and muscle strength/endurance.  This is not your ordinary class."  I'm not kidding - Body Pump on crack.  It was all of the difficult aspects of Body Pump (high repetitions, 3-5 minutes spent on a single muscle group, 8000 squats) plus other scary things.  Like holding a small squishy ball between your thighs while you do those 8000 squats.  And lunges on slippery discs that some fool called "gliders" to make them sound nicer.



You know what are evil?  Gliders.  Seriously, these things are Satanic.  There I am, in the middle of what I think will be a traditional strength training workout, lying on the floor on my stomach and doing the breaststroke on the floor with my hands on these little purple discs, pretending that I'm Michael Phelps.  Or was I lying on the floor on my stomach imaging Michael Phelps stroking me?  Either way, it hurt.

There... that hurts less.


Shockingly, I skipped my Turbo Fire workout for the day.  Which is a little sad because it was my favorite workout today (Fire 45 EZ).  But I'm starting to worry a little bit about doing intense cardio exercise all the time... so I took a breather.  Hopefully that means I can get a great run in tomorrow morning and do another HIIT workout afterwards.  Good old HIIT.  I hope they're not lying to me, and that HIIT really does torch calories.  Because I'm not a huge fan.

You know what I am a huge fan of though?  Having my thumbs up in pictures and making ridiculous faces.  I know I do it a lot on pictures for this blog, but I didn't quite realize that it's the only thing I actually do in pictures until the photos from the Liberty Run came in...

Jessica at the start of the race.

Jessica at the end of the race.  Notice any similarities?  Maybe for my next race I'll try just smiling like a normal person.  Maybe.
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Now that I can breathe again, I guess I'll blog.

Yesterday's run:
Half Marathon Training Week Two, Day One
2.87 miles/40:00

Today's workout(s):
ChaLEAN Extreme Burn Circuit One
227 calories/36:42

Turbo Fire HIIT 15
163 calories/16:38


It had been a while since I did a HIIT workout... and by "a while," I mean that the last time I did a HIIT workout and actually wrote about it was in the middle of May.  Nearly two months ago.  And it was cold.  Now it's a gazillion degrees outside all the time.  So HIIT workouts leave me looking a little bit scary.

Yes, I was pointing out the incredible amount of sweat on my chest.  No, I don't know why David still likes me.


But I am getting ahead of myself.  Yesterday's run (since I fell asleep drooling all over myself like a classy lady before I could blog about it) went all right.  I ran in my neighborhood, and honestly, I don't know why I run in my neighborhood.  It just seems like every few weeks or so, my brain goes, "You should just run the neighborhood.  Those hills aren't that bad."  Let's be clear - that's a lie.  Those hills are that bad.  And I'm at an elevation of almost 6,000 feet anyway, so anything more than that and my lungs assume that I've decided to kill myself and they give up.  

Buuuuut... the run went okay anyway.  I'm still kind of wavering about what training plan to follow, or if I'm going to combine aspects of different plans.  My original decision was to follow Hal Higdon's Novice plan, which is a 12 week plan with one long run a week that builds from 3 miles to 10 miles.  But then I started reading Jeff Galloway's Half-Marathon: You Can Do It, in which he kind of suggests doing the bare minimum of running that is possible so as not to overtrain.  I'm big on doing the bare minimum, and I'm really big on not getting injured.  So I think I'm going to adopt one of his ideas - increase the mileage of the long runs every week, but don't necessarily increase the mileage of the shorter runs.  In Hal Higdon's program, the short runs increase from 3 to 5 miles long, whereas all of Galloway's plans keep the short runs consistent - 30 minutes every time.  For some reason, 30 minutes seems a lot less daunting to me than 3 miles, and obviously 5 miles makes me want to die, so I'm going with 30 minutes.  Hence why yesterday's run didn't so much hit the 3 mile mark.

Yesterday's run also wasn't so stellar in the pace department, which is why the HIIT workouts will be making a triumphant return.  HIIT workouts are eeeeeeevil... very sweaty, very intense, very exhausting.  You may be able to tell from the witty title of this blog (it's past my bedtime, it's the best I could do) that HIIT workouts leave me pretty winded.  But they're quick, they torch calories, and most importantly for me right now, they make regular cardio a lot easier.  And I need running to be easier.  Or else we'll be back to this.

And no one wants to witness that again.


My average pace for yesterday's run was almost a 14:00 mile... even with the excuse of walk breaks, that's just not going to cut it.  Especially because two days earlier, I maintained an average page of a 12:00 mile, including regular walk breaks.  My running pace was more like a 10:00 to 11:00 mile.  So, I'm going to destroy myself with HIITs for a couple weeks and see what happens.  And since I'm already getting wishy-washy about my training plan, I'm looking into something that would incorporate a little bit of speedwork too... like this program from Runner's World.  I know I'm not going to become a speed demon overnight, or possibly ever, but I would like to at least get faster than a 14:00 mile.  That's going to make any "slow runs" I'm supposed to do really hilarious.  Should I slow to a 20:00 pace?  I'll have to start getting up at three in the morning just so I can finish my run before McDonald's stops serving breakfast!

Before you judge me, I had a smoothie for breakfast.  Okay... so it was just a blended Sausage McMuffin.  STFU.


Another short run is on the schedule for tomorrow.  Maybe I'll even blog about it on the same day it happens instead of falling asleep on my keyboard.  

No promises.
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It is past my bedtime.

Today's workout:
P90X Chest and Back + Ab Ripper X
430 calories/69 hateful minutes and 31 agonizing seconds


This will probably be a delusional post because I'm super tired...


... but D-Money insisted I blog so that he could read it.  Sweet.  But bordering on abusive.


And in case you're wondering, why yes, I am addicted to the vertical strip of pictures that I vainly take of myself on The Mugshot Machine.  I guess it isn't that vain though... I mean, look at what I'm showing you.  If you look closely, you can see the lovely little pooch of fat that gathers next to my armpit when I decide to go off plan for several months and eat a lot of this.

The same roommates that introduced me to Cats 101 (see latest Triple Tangent Tuesday for that gem) referred to that little fat deposit as the "baby vagina."  Call it what you will... it ain't pretty.


Today's workout... um... it was P90X.  What else can you say?  I did a whole lot of pushups and pull-ups.  I'd have to check my worksheet for exact numbers (and it is down two flights of stairs, so that obviously isn't happening) but I'm going to say I did about 8000.  Or at least that's what it felt like.  You know what doesn't feel good?  A whole bunch of pull-ups when you haven't done a single pull-up in months.  Yummy.  And before you start thinking I'm really hardcore, please know that I had a chair in front of me with one leg up on it at all times.  I think my legs are more sore than my back.

The real highlight of this workout was Ab Ripper X.  That workout is Satanic.  Anyone who thinks Lady Gaga is the Anti-Christ is incorrect.  Ab Ripper X is the Anti-Christ.

My girl Gaga is just a little special, that's all.


I think I probably only did about half of Ab Ripper X.  I had to keep taking breaks because I thought I was going to throw up.  That's a delightful feeling, isn't it?  You're going along, having a good workout, and then suddenly... that Cytomax/energy gel/drug of choice is biting you right in the ass.  All was well and I got to keep my breakfast, but I have to admit that I was worn out all day after this workout.  Meh.  Maybe I needed some more cardio to get the blood pumping?  Perhaps on top of my run tomorrow, I'll have a date with my bestie Chalene.  She'll tell me, "Guess what?  You're not tired!"  And I'll cry because I will be tired, and sweaty, and nasty... and she will still be able to kick me in the face with perfect bangs.



This is literally the limit of my mental capacity right now.  I swear I will have more coherent things to say tomorrow after serious amounts of sleep.  For right now, I will just say...

YOU GUYS ROCK AND YOU MADE MY WHOLE DAY!
While I was Skyping with David today (before he became super abusive and really nicely and supportively encouraged me to post tonight... the nerve of him) he informed me that I am now up to EIGHT READERS!  I'm not kidding, I did a happy dance with a huge grin on my face and just about peed my pants.  I know eight isn't a huge number (I'm no Skinny Runner or Hungry Runner Girl), but it's a big deal to me.  Selfishly, I'm excited and flattered that anyone thinks my whining is worthy of attention.  Slightly less selfishly, I know that when I was progressing through my weight loss journey and getting into fitness, it helped me a lot to read about other people and their struggles and triumphs... and if I can help anybody else out there, even if it's just my showing that even a Weight Watchers Lifetime member and Leader makes mistakes, it will make every late night blog post absolutely worth it. So THANK YOU LOVELY READERS!


And now I will pass out.  It will look a lot like that last sleepy picture, but with more drool.  You're welcome.
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It's alive! It's... ALIVE!

Frankenstein?  Maybe?  Kind of?  Okay, so I stop blogging for a few days and suddenly can't come up with any good titles.  Forgive me.  But I'm still alive!  And I felt like a really bad blogger for not posting anything for a few days and taking no nasty sweaty pictures of myself...

This is me feeling bad.  This is also a nasty picture, just not sweaty.  So it's part of the equation.  You're welcome.


But today, after feeling bad about myself all freaking day (more on that later) and thinking I was a blogging failure, I told myself to suck it up and POST SOMETHING ALREADY.


So here I am.  And yes, that is the color that my iSight camera currently thinks I am.  I'm a pretty girl.

So, catching up...
Saturday's run:
Couch to 5K Week Eight, Day One
3.0 miles/42:38

Today's workout:
Bob Harper fail and P90X Shoulders and Arms
494 calories/1:16:21


Saturday's run was another great trail run.  Not a whole lot to say about it - felt great to be outside, and I got out when it was still pretty cool out.  Apparently I'm just a trail runner - looking back on the last few weeks, all the runs that I felt great about were on the trail, and all the runs I felt iffy about were on a path near my house.  So now I'm looking into more trails to run, and possibly even some trail races.  Maybe I should get some trail running shoes?  You know I love a good excuse to buy shoes.

Today's workout was kind of an adventure.  As you know if you've been following my tirades about cross training, I'm kind of stumped on strength training.  I did P90X last summer and loved it, but since I want to focus on training for a half marathon for the next few months, I don't want to restart P90X completely and overtrain.  Plus, I felt I needed a break from it.  So I've been searching for alternatives, and thought I had struck gold when I came across Bob Harper's Pure Burn Super Strength.


With 85 reviews and an overall rating of 4.5 stars on Amazon, I thought this was a great idea.  It's advertised as an hour long full body strength routine, and people LOVE IT.  The Amazon reviews regularly say that it's a tough, but great workout, that it delivers great results, that Bob Harper is awesome... the reviews that won me over were from people who had done P90X and said that this workout was better and harder.

These people were all either lying through their teeth or total morons.

I hate this workout.  I got through 15 minutes of it before I was so irritated that I turned it off, apologized profusely for ever doubting P90X, and fell back into the supportive, rippling arms of this man.

You know the Bob Harper workout is annoying if I immediately saw Tony-loudmouth-Horton as refreshing.


Seriously.  Don't buy that Bob Harper workout.  And if you do want to buy it, buy it off of me.  Please.  Because I spent $15 on it at Barnes and Noble, and since I made the mistake of opening it, now I'm stuck with trying to peddle it on eBay.  I don't know why it got so many great reviews.  It's a chaotic workout - he gives you zero time to change weights, and maybe I'm just weird, but I like a different weight for squats, bicep curls, and shoulder presses.  My manly legs can handle more weight than my girly biceps.  But you don't have a spare second to change weights.  And good heavens, the editing of this thing!  If it was going for an Oscar, it might have a chance, but as a workout, it's crazy.  No joke, less than 15 minutes in, one of the girls on the side is grunting and grimacing, and they keep doing freeze frame shots of her scary faces in black and white.  I haven't seen overacting that bad since Tom Cruise went crazy on Oprah's couch.


But I digress.  So I did the P90X workout.  And felt like I was kind of going through the motions.  I burned about 400 calories, so it's not like I was wasting my time, I'm just kind of looking for something new.  

Which leads me to my question for the day:

Has anybody tried BodyRock?  Love it?  Hate it?  Indifferent?
I've seen her videos on YouTube before and came across the website this weekend for some reason and I'm intrigued.  I mean, who wouldn't be, look at that girl!  She's crazy hot!  I'd be okay with looking like that in a bikini, let's be honest.

Remember to tune in tomorrow for Triple Tangent Tuesday!  And I've still got a post I'm working on about the scale, which I plan on getting up tomorrow... I was newly inspired to finish it after reading this post from Cely at Running Off the Reese's.  

Sleep tight, fellow bloggers!
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Happy National Running Day!

How many miles did you choose to celebrate with?  I decided to celebrate by... not running at all.  Um...

But I love you guys and sent everybody good running vibes all day!


Today's workout:
Fire 45 EZ (new to class option)
514 calories/54:30


I freaking love Turbo Fire.  I need to remember that amazing feeling I get during every cool down when I'm getting all grumpy pants about working out.  And I'm a big fan of burning 500+ calories in one workout because let's face it, I love me some eating.

Wednesday is technically a rest day for Turbo Fire, but since I haven't been following the specified schedule for a while now, I thought it would be better to do what felt good than stress over it.  After all, I spent most of my morning stressed out about exercise - I worked myself into an emotional frenzy, convinced that the only way I could be successful and get these irritating 10 pounds off was to be doing Body Pump again.  Please disregard the fact that I made more changes to my body in 3 months of P90X than in several months of doing Body Pump regularly... and that my muscles tend to respond far faster to high weight/low rep strength training than the low weight/high rep training of Body Pump.  So when my completely reasonable and not crazy emotional mom tried to gently suggest that maybe I should not drop $250 on a membership to a gym I didn't even want to belong to just so I could go to a class that I liked two years ago (with a different instructor and different people in the group, obviously)... I kind of lost it and spent several hours moping around.  I'll admit it.  It was a pouty princess moment.

By the by, Ms. Hilton's new show The World According to Paris debuted tonight.  I watched about 3 minutes of it out of a morbid curiosity.  Oh, how I wish I could have those minutes back.


So after I whined and moped and pouted (I swear, you guys, I am not always such a big baby about everything), I thought to myself, "Hey, self... pull it together.  So you made a promise that you'd do Power Pairs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a month, who cares?  Isn't it more important to get in a workout that you'll be happy with and excited about than to slave through some half-assed strength training just so you can whine about how much it sucked on your blog?"

I speak kindly to myself, I know.

Thus, Power Pairs was out and Turbo Fire was in.  And I have to brag a little... I was planning on doing Fire 30 just as a little quickie workout, but I have been wanting to try Fire 45 EZ because of one song in it.  A selection of the lyrics are as follows... ahem... "I'm a bad girl, break me like the law."  I can work with that.  So I tried it, and guess what, it might be my new favorite Turbo Fire workout!  It was an absolute blast, and despite not feeling energetic at the beginning, I managed to stay pretty pumped through the whole thing.  Now if I can just get that kind of energy to stick with me through tomorrow's run...
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Fun giveaway!

This is just a quickie post to let you guys know about a giveaway going on over at Daily Vitamin F!  Kiley has an adorable blog - seriously, if you need a break from my sarcasm and whining, check her out.  While I'm complaining about my addiction to cake, she's posting about how much she's loving June already.  Adorable.

Her giveaway is also adorable - she makes shirts that say "running sucks" in custom color combos, completely to order, and she's giving away two of them!  You can choose from a crazy array of colors for both the shirt and the text.

See?  It's adorable!


In other, much more self-absorbed news, I woke up and thought "Gross, it's a weight training day."  When did this happen?!  I used to love weight training!  And then it hit me - I really miss Body Pump.  I miss Body Pump so much I'm considered joining a 24 Hour Fitness.  And I hate gyms.  Someone help me.
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Oh hai there Blogger... I can essplain...

Please forgive my absence - as I talked about here, long distance sucks.  But it sucks a lot less when my awesome boyfriend comes to visit, and so I tend to just drop everything and kiss him as much as is humanely possible for a few days.  It didn't leave a lot of time for blogging.  It also didn't leave a lot of time for working out, so... this was interesting today...

Today's workout (and the first one since my last post on Thursday!):
Powers Pairs x3 and section one of Beginner Yogilates
289 calories/49:04


Today's workout = um, YIKES.  I got about halfway through Power Pairs and thought I was going to die, but I made myself finish getting through it three times.  This is why taking several days off of exercise and clean eating is not a good idea.  Some day I will remember that.  But I got distracted by Grizzly Adams here...


A far more accurate depiction of our actual personalities.  Please just ignore the hair in these pictures - we both could use a haircut.  And you know... maybe a brush.


But he had to leave this morning (insert lots of crying and whining and sad faces here) so it was back to work for me.  I ordered Yogilates last week on an impulse, and decided to try it today.  It's split into three  different sections, and I was so wiped out from Power Pairs that I only made it through the first section, but so far I like it.  It is very beginner though, so I may need to move up to the intermediate version soon, and use the beginner one for off days.  If I get my mojo back in full force this week (please, please, please) then I may do a review of the whole DVD.  But I suppose I should ask...

Are any of my five wonderful readers interested in workout DVD reviews? 
I'm a big DVD girl for exercise because I look scary when I work out and don't really want other people to see me that much.  Plus, I'm slightly intimidated by gyms, and I get bored and tend to take the easy way out when I'm completely on my own (i.e. just doing machines and such at gyms) - classes and DVDs where someone is telling me what to do work well for me.  It's hard enough for me to make myself exercise, if I have to think on top of exercising, I'm out.  

That's about all I've got for today.  I would love to tell you all about the fun adventures that David and I went on during his visit, but mostly we just spent a lot of time cuddling and telling each other how much we'd miss one another.  We're that gross couple that no one likes, really.
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Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back!

Today's workout:
182 calories/25:59 


I GOT TO SEE DAVID TODAY!

It was a lot like this.  Only without the thug to the left.


A little backstory on us to explain why I was so excited to see him... David and I met through a mutual friend (read: were pushed into social situations together repeatedly by my awesome friend Joan who knew we both liked each other) in college.  We started dating in August of 2009, and were together from then until May 2010... when things got complicated.  First, we were apart (but still in a relationship) for a month, and then spent a couple more months in the same place again until I went back to Florida to be a Jungle Cruise Skipper in August 2010... and yes, I was away from him for our one year anniversary and felt terrible, but he arranged for an awesome surprise for me that made it much more bearable.  So, from August 2010 to January 2011, we were living in separate states.  Then I finally came home, and we had a few more weeks together before he left the state again.  So we've been back in a long distance relationship for about 4 months now, and unfortunately, we'll be staying that way until March 2012.  Oy.  By the time we celebrate our two year anniversary this August (I can't believe how fast that is coming up), we'll have spent more of our relationship apart than together.

Anyway, THAT is why I am so thrilled that I got to see him today!  He actually got here last night, but because of all the late night tech rehearsals for Godspell, I couldn't see him until this morning.  I did force myself into doing my workout this morning anyway because I made the promise to do Power Pairs three days a week, and I'm sticking to it!  I was proud of that, but it was a little rough.  I always think I can exercise on an empty stomach and it simply doesn't work for me.  I did have some Cytomax, but it wasn't enough.  I only did the circuit twice, and I didn't do any extra ab work.  But honestly, I'm just so proud that I did the workout at all.  It's hard sacrificing the time with D-Money since I only get him for a few days at a time.  Pity, party of one, your table is now ready...

And funny enough, as I was about to write this, I started thinking maybe I'd leave out any information about my workout because I was feeling so crappy about it... and I jumped over to Hungry Runner Girl, and of course Janae has posted a fantastic entry about getting over a bad workout.  I am constantly amazed at how interconnected we all are.  Janae has no idea who I am (despite the fact that I stalk her blog 50 times a day), but if I decided to contact her, I would already have something in common with her - "You have terrible workouts?  Oh, please, I have THE WORST workouts!"  I am often very grateful to other bloggers, simply because it's nice to know I'm not alone when I have horrendous workouts and hit the wall 5 minutes in.

But I digress.  Once I'd finished my workout, shoved a banana in my face, showered, and made myself presentable, I drove over to meet him and we had a really lovely day.  Breakfast at one of our favorite places (LE PEEP!) and then just hanging around.  We did go to another favorite spot later in the day - the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse.  It's an absolutely gorgeous teahouse, with hand-carved and hand-painted detailing.  I got jealous when another girl was taking pictures and then started fussing about how I'm a terrible blogger because I never remember my camera.  Good old David looks at me like I'm slightly crazy (which I am, so it's reasonable) and reminds me that I have a phone that takes pretty decent pictures.  So I stopped whining.  At least about that.  I never really stop whining, please.



Diggity-D-Dawg enjoying some chai.

He wanted to be in the picture with my sparkling tea - this stuff is the best.  I swear they put drugs in it, but they assure me it's only Sprite, lemonade, and iced tea.  I don't know what made it bright pink today, but I was okay with it.


Then we walked around the farmer's market, and snagged some dumplings...

This, but add spicy peanut sauce.  So.  Darn.  Good.


And then I was lame and left him to go to rehearsal.  Boo.  But I'm going to get up and go for my run in the morning, and then stalk him again tomorrow.  As much as long distance sucks (and it really, REALLY sucks sometimes)... it's so awesome when you get to see the other person again that it almost makes up for it.

That being said, I am really excited to live in the same state as that cute boy again.  After all, for option number seven on "How to overcome an awful workout," Janae said "Kiss a hottie.  That makes everything better and you will forget all about your bad workout."

I'd say it worked :)
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Boring, party of one, your table is now ready.

Today's workout:
Power Pairs (three times through circuit), Ab Burner on Nike Training Club app
347 calories/53:23

This is not destined to be the most thrilling of all blog entries.  Forgive me.  If you actually have the patience to read my blog regularly, you'll probably learn that I'm not a super exciting person.  Weird, yes.  Snarky, yes.  Exciting?  Ehhhhhh.

As you may be able to tell from my workout updates, I've fallen off the Turbo Fire bandwagon.  And by that I mean... I jumped off.  Willingly.  The whole 5 Day Inferno thing really wasn't working out for me... as much as I love feeling completely compromised and exhausted from my exercise, and freaking out the entire cast of my show by nearly blacking out in rehearsal... I decided maybe the madness needed to stop.  Plus, I knew the only reason that I was doing the 5 Day Inferno was so I could lose some quick pounds and inches before Godspell opens, and truth be told, that goes against how I feel about weight loss.  I try to ignore it sometimes because it's irritating, but Weight Watchers really has taught me that healthy, sustainable, and slow weight loss is really the best plan.  So I'm slightly chubby for Godspell... who cares?  As long as I hit the notes (please?) then I should be okay.

Shameless self promotion.


I've also decided to take a little breather on Turbo Fire to figure out exactly how it's going to fit into my schedule.  I have really enjoyed the workouts and I do want to increase the amount of cardio I'm doing, but first and foremost, I want to successfully complete my half marathon training.  I committed to that before I committed to Turbo Fire, and in the long run, it's more important to me.  And since I'd like to run my first half marathon injury-free, I know I need to be careful about overtraining... and Turbo Fire could definitely cause some of that.  I'm still figuring it out.  

In the meantime, I have decided through all of my logical reasoning (read: whining about it incessantly to anyone who will even pretend to listen) that the reason I've been feeling and looking all mushy and pudgy is because I went from constant strength training (good ol' P90X) to pretty much no strength training.  Yup.  That's the reason. 

These have nothing to do with it.

Neither do these.

Or this.  That's a single serving, right?


Regardless of my newfound love for binge eating (delightful), I do think that I have been missing strength training.  So I'm making a commitment, and hoping that posting it here where a whole five people might read it will keep me accountable: I will do the Power Pairs workout three times a week for the next four weeks... so until June 17th.  In addition, I will do some sort of ab routine on those days, whether it's the Ab Burner workout from the NTC app (which is AWESOME, if you have an iPhone, go download it right now), Ab Ripper X from P90X, or something else entirely.  It may mean busting out my VHS of 8 Minute Abs.  

I think a four week commitment is long enough to get some results and make strength training a stable part of my routine again, but short enough so that I can keep my eye on a goal and not get frustrated.  I'm looking at tomorrow as kind of a fresh start, and am going to take some measurements and work on cleaning up my eating this week.

Okay, I know... snoozeville.  I will stop being boring as soon as I announce that I lead my very first Weight Watchers meeting this morning!  I have been nervous about it for pretty much the entire week, but it went so smoothly.  The members were delightful - so nice and so accepting of me, even though I'm replacing a long-time leader at that meeting.  And the two receptionists were absolute lifesavers.  They quickly realized that I essentially have no idea what I'm doing and were very patient with me.  I'm actually excited to lead this meeting again next week, and to see the members progress!  I feel more comfortable now that it's "my" meeting and I'm not in training or subbing.  I absolutely cannot wait to help these members - I think it's going to be a great meeting.  

Dreams come true, kids... dreams come true!
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EZ my hiney.

Today's Turbo Fire workout:
Fire 55 EZ
1:02:19

This really is shaping up to be my least favorite workout in the whole Turbo Fire system.  It's just SO DARN LONG.  I got used to working out for an hour or more 6 days a week with P90X, but with the resistance workouts in P90X (and most of them are resistance workouts), there is a good amount of downtime.  Not true in Turbo Fire - in that hour, you're pretty much busting it every minute.  And by the end, I kind of wonder if I'm really getting anything out of it or just banging my head against a wall.  But I got through it and I'm glad - nearly 600 calories torched.  Yeehaw!

So today was my official start of the 5 Day Inferno Plan, and my official realization of "Hey, following this nutrition plan might prove to be somewhat suicidal."  I followed it almost exactly for the first two meals - I say "almost" because I don't believe you can call a breakfast sandwich a breakfast sandwich if there ain't no cheese on it.  But somehow I don't think my Weight Watchers cheese slice will kill me.  I do have a few problems with the nutrition plan, though - it's a 1,200 calories-a-day plan, which sounds like plenty except that I burned 582 calories with my workout today.  Considering my breakfast was only about 400 calories, I was completely running on fumes by the end of the workout, so no wonder I felt wiped out... plus, I almost passed out tonight at rehearsal for Godspell, which I believe was a desperate cry for calories from my body.  So I gave it cookie dough.

The other problem is that each day includes a Shakeology shake, something I do not own and kind of waver on.  I have thought seriously about buying Shakeology, because I love smoothies, and I like things that make it easier for me to be healthy so that I don't have to think about it.  I suck at thinking.  But good ol' Beachbody ain't free.  A bag of Shakeology costs $120, and has about 30 servings in it, so each shake is about $4.  Sure, it's cheaper than a meal out and comparable to my beloved Starbucks soy Chai, but I guess I'm not convinced enough of its miraculous abilities to really be willing to cough up that amount of money.  Maybe when I'm rich and famous I'll be to Shakeology what Madonna was to Kabbalah.



I still didn't take my before pictures today... oops.  I wanted to have my mom take them because I fail at using the self timer, but she's the only person I'm willing to pose for wearing a bikini.  My poor mom.  Our schedules didn't line up though, so no pictures.  I think it will work out all right in the end - I have a feeling I'll be as pale tomorrow as I am today.

Since I have no glamorous photos of myself to round out the awkwardness of this post, I will instead show you the woman that keeps me going in the Turbo Fire workouts.  Well, besides Chalene, who is adorably positive and bubbly.  She tells me over and over again that I'm not tired... I am working on listening.  But this is her friend and fitness buddy Monica...

How absurdly cute is this girl?!

And yes, these are pictures of my TV.  I am a creeper.


Please notice that Monica is super fit - look at her arms in that top picture!  I wish I could have snapped a picture of her abs though, because they are ridiculous.  And they are especially ridiculous because Monica has had triplets.  Um.  Her stomach is flatter and sexier than mine and I haven't had any of them there chillen.  

So when I turn into a wuss in the middle of a workout, I look at her.


Okay... I can't leave you without at least a few shots of my beautiful face.  Mostly because I showered today and want to show off my clean hair before I get it all sweaty tomorrow.  And probably leave it that way until Sunday.  Erm.

Stoned.

Waving... goodnight, lovelies!
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Cytomax for the win.

Today's run:
Couch to 5K Week Four, Day Three
2.26 miles/31:07

Today's Turbo Fire workout:
Fire 30
44:55

My run today was AWESOME.  No kidding, best run I've had in a very long time.  But I'll get back to that.

Really, my whole day was pretty great.  I went to my Weight Watchers meeting this morning - even though I'm in maintenance now, and I work for the company and get the information directly from them, I really like going to the meeting that I lost weight at.  It helps keep me accountable and it's something that I really enjoy as "me" time.  Plus, it gives me an excuse to check out the amazing farmer's market in Boulder.  And by that I mean, enjoy the breakfast of champions:

These dumplings are incredible.  A Saturday morning summer tradition for me.


Then I went off to a local running store in search of cross trainers... Turbo Fire is very high impact and while I don't want to use my current running shoes for it, I can't really wear my beaten down ones either and except to still have knees when I'm done.  It was nice to go to this store though, since it is where I had my gait analyzed and was fitted for my first pair of running shoes for my first round of Couch to 5K - it brought back good memories.  While I was there, I found a fabulous top that I fell in love with (not so much in love with the price tag), and the perfect shorts for my Home Run for the Homeless 5K tomorrow...


HAHAHAHAHA!

Luckily for you (or unluckily, depending on your point of view), I have a sense of humor...


These things are terrifyingly short.  For your sake, don't zoom in on the cellulite.

I should be on America's Next Top Model.  But not for hand modeling, clearly.  For manly calf modeling.


Inspired by seeing that much leg in the morning, I came home determined to run, even if it was a little toasty outside.

I decided to drive to a nice flat path only a few minutes from my house because the hills in my neighborhood have just been awful for me lately, and while part of me says suck it up and get through them, the other part of me thinks I'm setting myself up for failure.  So we went flat today, and I think it made all the difference in the world.  And in case it sounds like I'm just whining about tiny hills... today, according to my Garmin, I had an elevation gain of 79 feet and an elevation loss of 81 feet.  Tuesday?  Elevation gain of 205 feet, elevation loss of 202.  Gross.

I also got a chance to try two new things today: Cytomax in Cool Citrus and this gem:


Now I know 2 miles really isn't that long to go without water, but it's getting hot out, and I want to get used to having water with me for long runs.  And I did pretty much polish off those 22 ounces easily. I put the Cytomax in that bottle and drank it during the run, and I swear it made a huge difference.  I didn't feel like I worked as hard, yet I burned more calories than I have in my recent runs, and at the end of the workout, even though I pushed hard through the last interval, I felt like I could have kept running.  I haven't felt like that in several runs, so I'm sold.  Cytomax is my new friend.

I also made another new friend on my run, which let's be honest, is part of why it was so awesome.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of my new friend, but it was a soaking wet chocolate Labrador who bounded towards me every time he saw me.  Which was twice.  Really - bounded.  Dragging his owner along behind him.  His owner said that he never reacts to people like this, but he really seemed to like me.  I said he obviously knew that I loved chocolate Labs.  Which I do.

Come on, how could you resist this face?!


I got home, had some lunch, and then threw myself right into Turbo Fire.  Of the three I've done so far, Fire 30 is definitely my favorite.  It's full of really fun combos, and it's a good length of time - the hour long class I did yesterday was awfully long for high intensity and high impact work.  But today's was great.  It made me sweat more than Lindsay Lohan in court.


Awkward "check out my sweaty collarbone" face.  Hot.


You really should see how badly matched I was today, though, it's splendid.  There is a reason that I mostly work out in the privacy of my own home.

The top = deep purple.  The shorts = black with orange stripes on the side.  The shoes = turquoise.  The face = inexcusable.


Somebody is going to nominate me for What Not To Wear if I keep posting things like this.  That picture also shows the cross trainers that I bought today... and that I will be taking back sometime this week.  Sad day.  I liked them okay in the store - if I was being completely honest, I'd say that I mostly bought them out of desperation.  I have really struggled to find cross trainers in stores that I can try on, versus buying them blindly online based on reviews.  I looked at Dick's, and they really only had Nike, which I've never had great luck with.  These were Asics, and since I like their running shoes, and since the woman who showed them to me assured me that they would provide great lateral stability and support for high impact movement, I trusted them.  Mistake.  Apparently "great lateral stability" and "support for high impact movement" means shaky ankles and sore soles 5 minutes into the workout.  Now accepting any and all suggestions for good cross trainers!
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Recovery drink fail.

Today's Turbo Fire workout:
Fire 55 EZ
1:12:35

First of all, the idea of this as "EZ" is laughable.  Let's clear that up right now.  I again did the "New to Class" version where Chalene breaks down the moves, which was relatively essential in this workout because the combos were ridiculous.  And never ending.  Another reason why it was not easy.  Mainly it wasn't easy because it's an hour of nonstop crazy.  In just over an hour (including stretch), I burned 667 calories.  Seriously?!  No complaints here, really.  Means more food for me.  

And speaking of food... or things that pretend to be food... I had my first adventure with a real grown-up recovery drink today!  On Tuesday, I posted that I'd ordered Fluid Recovery Drink (in Chocolate Wave because if I'm using 3 PointsPlus values on something, it better be chocolate).  In shocking news to everyone, however, I got impatient.  And it turns out that a store nearby carries the stuff.  So I went down there fat, dumb, and happy to get some single serving packets of Fluid in the two other flavors, Berry Treasure and Tropical Escape, so that I could try them post Turbo Fire.  I decided on Berry Treasure as today's adventure.

Here is how I looked and felt post-workout and pre-recovery drink (only not fuzzy, thanks iPhone, you're a jerk)...



And here is how I looked and felt after a few sips...

I'm sad because of all the things I've lost in my triple chins.


I'm relatively concerned about all the people who reviewed it because they must not have taste buds.  Someone should notify them immediately.  But really... all kidding aside, this stuff was DISGUSTING. I couldn't even finish it.  I made it exactly as instructed, using about 16 ounces of water, and I probably made it through half.  Maybe.  It smelled weird, it tasted gross... it really was the whole package.  Actually, at one point, I considered that maybe the package would taste better...

It did, actually.


So now I'm feeling a little dumb for buying a whole container of it without trying it first.  I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that I'm just not a fan of Berry Treasure, and that Tropical Escape and Chocolate Wave might be better.  I'm planning on trying Tropical Escape tomorrow if I can bear it, and Chocolate Wave should be here Monday.  If all else fails, it looks like I'm back to fruit smoothies and chocolate milk... there are worse fates in the world.

Speaking of food (again), I have two new addictions.  The first is an obsession with putting whipped cream on everything.  This is starting to really get out of hand.  But see for yourselves here.

I know the correct response to seeing this bowl of delightful mixed berries should be "Oh, yum!  Mixed berries!"  But doesn't it look so much better...


Now?!!!


Really, this is getting out of hand.  I bought the jumbo can of Reddi-Whip tonight because I have been running through the regular cans too quickly.

The other new addiction is... wait for it... No Pudge Brownies.  




I'm relatively sure I'm the last Weight Watchers member ever to try these, but I'm so glad I did.  They are delightful!  The exact opposite of Fluid Berry Treasure - these completely made up for that mishap.  I made them with Fage 0% plain yogurt, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a little bit of egg whites just to make the batter less powdery.  I'm madly in love.  Sorry David... 

Someday he will probably kill me for the pictures that I use in this blog.


But he's used to things like this.  I once left him for a buttermilk biscuit.  It's not a moment I'm particularly proud of... but it was a really good biscuit, kids.

Now my food baby and I will go to sleep.  Hopefully I don't go into labor in the night... I'm too tired for that nonsense.

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