The Inception Treadmill Workout

I have updates for you on a few different fronts this morning:

Crossfit

Holy cow, today’s Crossfit workout was a beast!

6 Rounds, for time:
24 KB goblet squats (35, 52)
24 drop lunges (25 lb plate)
24 push ups
400 meter run

It didn’t look bad when I was looking at it, but once I was through the first round, I knew I was in trouble. Once I was through the third round, I thought I might die. Then when I was through the 4th round, I got mad and decided I was going to finish even if I was there all day. That almost happened:

..but I made it through. Don’t let that whole “1st Girl” thing make you think I rocked it — I was the only girl who finished. It was a rough workout. Some people couldn’t finish because they had to leave to get ready for work. I was prepared to be late for work to rock it out. Don’t ever let anyone tell you I’m not determined.

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Running:

On Tuesday evening, when I got home from my treadmill run, I told Zach, “I did the best treadmill workout at the gym just now!!” and, because he’s an amazing fiance, he gave me his full attention and said, “What was it?” (he’s so not interested in running, but he pretends to be and that is because he’s awesome.)

I said, “I did negative splits within negative splits! It was so fun!”  He responded with, “That sounds like Inception!”

And then I explained what negative splits were, because again, he isn’t a runner. In case you don’t know, a negative split is when you run (or bike or swim) each portion of your workout a little faster than the previous one.

Here’s what I did:

It ended up being a sweaty time, and a really fun way to do negative splits. I really liked that I was pushing my pace every mile, but got to back off a little each time I started a new mile. I hope you give it a try!

Speaking of treadmill workouts, I tried Molly’s My Heart’s a Flutter workout last night, and it was pretty rough. It really got my heart rate “fluttering”! I ended up only doing a couple rounds and then just jogging it out for a few. I’ll have to try that one again. Thanks, Molly (check out her blog here.)

This month’s mileage isn’t going as smoothly as January’s. It turns out that I spoke too soon when I said my oral surgery went well, I’ve been in pain ever since! Yesterday was the first day I didn’t feel constant pain 😦

So far in February, I have  22 miles, and 2 weeks left in the month. Can I complete 28 miles in 14 days? Maybe. I’ll give it a shot, but I’ll just remember that spring is coming, which means many more outdoor miles are in my future, so if I don’t make a total 50 this month, it’s not the end of the world.

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Weight Watchers:

A quick Weight Watchers update, mainly because I realized that I mentioned that I was following the plan but I haven’t updated you. I’ve lost a couple pounds, but counting points fell by the wayside after my oral surgery. I couldn’t eat at all for 2 days, and then once I could eat, I didn’t really care how many points my food has as much as I cared if I could eat it without pain, so I took a little break. I gained back a couple ounces, but obviously I’m not worried about it, and now that I’m feeling (mostly) back to normal, I’m back to counting those points! I’ll keep you updated!

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Body Image: 

Did you all hear about this?

Apparently in the last episode of Girls, Lena Dunham has an affair with a hot doctor, played by Patrick Wilson, the hottie you see here:

..and of course, Twitter objected (horrible people should have their Twitter privileges revoked), because, according to said horrible people, Lena Dunham isn’t “hot enough” to score a guy like him:

..and for the “I see why he married her” moment of the day, Wilson’s wife responded:

I want to high-five that lady SO HARD.

Question of the Day:

Tell me about your Valentine! 

Dreary Day

Happy Friday!

Honestly, I didn’t post a blog yesterday because I was feeling a little….blah. I’m still feeling pretty blah, but I have a 5-day-a-week blog goal to stick with! I will try not to impart my bad mood on you.

In fact, I would share why I was in such a bad mood, but I myself can’t put my finger on it. The past few nights I’ve had a lot of trouble falling asleep because I’m in an anxious panic over…pretty much everything. Do you ever just get that feeling that you aren’t getting enough done? Anywho, sleeping poorly leads to not wanting to get out of bed in the morning, and dreary, grey days lead to bad attitudes, and well, here we are!

I’m happy to say that my oral surgery went well. I think I’m healing pretty well, but I had some trouble eating for the first couple of days. I’m eating more solid foods now and I couldn’t be happier about that — I do not do well with being hungry! I even managed to go for a run last night after work:

 

As you can probably tell from the photo, I did the Deck of Cards Treadmill Workout again, and it was just as fun as last time. I really like how it’s a completely different workout each time. The weather here was perfect, but once I got done with work and changed into my workout gear, it was still too dark for an outdoor run. Luckily, I think we might just get some of that decent weather back this weekend:

To pump up my bummer of a mood a bit, I’ll look forward to the fact that Zach and I are going to celebrate Valentine’s Day this evening (I’ll be at a concert with some friends next weekend), with a date night I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time: Dinner at home and dessert out! I’m planning on cooking a simple meal of steak, baked potatoes and salad and then we’ll head out to Huntington Prime to have dessert. I’ve heard a lot of great things about the pastry chef at Huntington Prime, so we’re going to save some money by cooking our dinner at home first and then go out for a delicious dessert and drinks.

The other thing I’m really looking forward to is returning to Crossfit on Saturday. I reserved a spot in the 10:00 AM class tomorrow morning, and I’m looking forward to getting back into it.

Question of the Day:
What are you most looking forward to this weekend? 

I’m So Hungry and How to Keep the Treadmill Interesting

….well, I feel ok right now, but yesterday I couldn’t eat anything at all. I had ice cream after my surgery, and then I made a mashed potato for lunch, and topped it with some 7 layer dip I had leftover from the Superbowl  It was really good, but I could only manage a few bites. 😦

Furthermore, Zach and I had scheduled our wedding cake consultation for 5:00 PM yesterday, so sitting in front of a plate of delicious cupcakes in various flavors when you’re starving and can’t eat is a blessing and a curse, I’ll tell you.

I ended up choking down a few cheese ravioli when we got home.

This morning, I was bound and determined to get a filling breakfast, but all I could imagine being able to manage was oatmeal. It took me roughly an hour to eat it, but I got it all down. I didn’t eat at my desk, like I usually do, so I picked this up from Starbucks for a morning snack:

I love these juices so much, but I can’t usually justify the cost. Since I’m recovering from surgery, I thought I would treat myself.

You may be wondering why I’m at work at all. A lot of people are surprised I made it, but I’m actually not in very much pain at all, and I’m barely swollen. I figured it’s not too strenuous to sit at a desk, and to be honest, I’m probably feeling well enough to get in a run this evening. I’ll see how much food I’m able to take in — I wouldn’t want to exercise if I’m not getting enough fuel!

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Speaking of running, I wanted to talk a bit about the treadmill today. I’m constantly looking for ways to spice things up when I’m on the treadmill which will trick me into staying on there longer.

About a week ago, I got the idea to make up these cards and take them with me to the gym:

Which, in theory was a great idea! But, in practice, I ended up picking “Sprint” and “Run Fast” alternately about 5 times in a row, and I threw them with frustration onto the ground, and ended up just starting at 5.0 and increasing my speed a little every quarter of a mile. That worked out fine, but I was still on the lookout for something to spice up my treadmill workout. The problem I have with most treadmill “workouts” is that they are like work. If my recent obsession with Crossfit is any indication, when I’m working out at a gym, I prefer it to be more like playing on the playground than working out. (Speaking of Crossfit, I haven’t been since Friday. I signed up for Saturday’s class this morning, I can’t wait to get back into it!)

So, as usual, Janae at The Hungry Runner Girl saved me. A couple days ago, she posted a few ideas for treadmill workouts, and this one looked too fun to pass up:

It was so much fun, and much better than my measly attempt at a “pick a card” treadmill game. I skipped over the 10’s, because there just isn’t much room at my gym to jump off the treadmill and do anything, haha. I also skipped over a card because I had gotten three “increase incline” cards in a row and once I picked up the next one, I was like, “Oh no.” — but that’s the great thing about this workout. You have 52 cards in a deck, so if you skip one or two, it’s not like you’ll run out of interesting things to do. The very best part of this, is that you pick a card every 5 minutes, do what is on the card and then whatever time is left over, you just go back to a slow jog, so you’re getting lots of recovery even though each card is pretty tough.

Monday’s Deck of Cards Treadmill Run

I only had 30 minutes to spend on the treadmill on Monday, because Zach and I had plans, but I managed to get a pretty good workout in. I definitely would have kept picking cards if I had the time!

Question of the Day:
What do you do to keep yourself from getting bored at the gym? 

Brrr!

Hello, winter. 

I took this from the relative warmth of my office. It’s freezing out there! It snowed a bunch overnight, and there is ice everywhere. Do. Not. Like. What is it with winter not showing up until well after Christmas? I want snow in December!

I had planned to try out a new treadmill workout this morning to share with you all, but I just didn’t feel like trudging to the gym in the dark in the snow. Sorry! I think I’ll try to get a quick run in before Crossfit tonight. Maybe not the best idea, but I’ve got to log those miles! Speaking of logging miles, I’m ready to unveil my fun new mileage counter graphic that I made:

In order to complete 600 miles in 2013, I will need to run at least 50 miles each month. I run just a touch over in January. February is a short month, so I’m definitely going to need to get those miles in. My hope is that I’ll be logging more miles when the nice weather appears, slow down a bit in the dog days of summer, and then pick it back up again in Fall. Running outdoors in spring and fall is probably my favorite thing ever, so hopefully I can cover a few extra to carry me through the dreaded treadmill weather (like today!).

I realized that while I made some New Year’s resolutions early last month, I didn’t really cover monthly goals. That’s something I’d like to talk about today. I think making smaller, more attainable goals helps you achieve your long term goals. So let’s get to my February Goals, shall we?

Run 50 miles. Pretty predictable, huh?

Attend Crossfit 2x/week. My original NY resolution mentioned strength training 3x a week. Crossfit fits into the strength training genre, so this will work out nicely for me. I’ve definitely noticed some new muscle definition that I didn’t have before I did the Jamie Eason LiveFit Trainer, and I’m glad that my strength training is evolving. I’d like to keep that going.

Stick with counting Weight Watchers points for the full month of February. This is going fairly well. However, I have noticed that some of my regular eats haven’t been fitting into my alotted Weight Watchers points very well, so I’ve needed to find some substitutions. For example, the microwave english muffin came into play again this morning:

…and that’s not to say that a regular english muffin wouldn’t fit into my daily points, but I didn’t have any, and this has less points than two slices of whole wheat bread, and more protein, so it’s a better fit for me right now. This one turned out better than my last one, and it’s so easy to make.

Complete 4 books this month. My goal is to read 50 books this year. Last month, I finished 6, so I guess my goal is to read over 50 books this year! Last year I was able to finish 36, and I read so many great books that I wanted to surpass that this year.

Do a little cleaning each day throughout the week. This one is huge. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving housecleaning until the weekend. While that’s a good plan in theory, because I’m not at work, in practice it’s kind of a bummer that I have so much to do on the weekends. If I would just keep up with the small bits of cleaning, I could just focus on the big things, like cleaning the floors, scrubbing the bathroom and dusting on the weekends.

Write 5 blog posts a week. Preferably Monday – Friday. I’ve been pretty good about this so far, so I’m sure I can reach this goal.

…I think that’s enough to focus on for this short month!

Question of the day:
Do you set monthly goals for yourself? 

Christmas is in the Air!

Despite still fighting this stupid head cold, I popped out of bed this morning to hit the gym. With the addition of cardio to the LiveFit Trainer, my gym sessions have become about an hour-90 minutes long, so I have to get to the gym as soon as it opens at 6:00 AM.

Here’s what I did today:

I am running out of ways to share my workouts with you in a creative manner. Even I’m getting bored of showing you similar workouts over and over again. This LiveFit Trainer is effective, and I like it, but it’s pretty repetitive. I used to be the girl who liked to switch it up a lot (I still am!) so I’ll be glad in a week when I get to start doing HIIT and different exercises.

When I got to the cardio portion of my workout, I did not feel like running. I’m still feeling under the weather and just didn’t feel like wheezing through a run. So I walked hills and made up a pretty fun workout (if I do say so myself!):

*If I weren’t having IT Band pain, I would have done the run intervals with a 1.0 incline.

It was a fun way to keep alert on the treadmill and not get bored. Plus, even though I wasn’t running, I felt like I got a great workout.

Do you like my winter-themed graphics? I’m really starting to get into the Christmas spirit. This morning at work, a group of 2nd and 3rd graders came into the library where I work to sing Christmas Carols:

They were so cute! I absolutely loved listening to their carols. Adorable!

Today was also our office Christmas Luncheon. We all bring in a potluck dish to share:

Oh man. So much yummy food. I didn’t go too overboard, and I only had one dessert. So far! My favorite thing in the world is the veggie pizza that people make, that is like a biscuit crust topped with cream cheese and cut up, raw veggies. It’s so good! I had two slices!

I’m getting really excited also because tomorrow is my last day of work before the holidays! Tomorrow night, a bunch of friends will meet up and go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday (because Zach and I will be in Pittsburgh on Christmas Day, and everyone will be with their families anyway!), and Friday is Zach and Courtney’s Dad’s wedding! Then on Saturday morning, Zach and I will head to Pittsburgh to see my family! I haven’t seen them in almost a year, which makes me almost cry every time I think about it, but I’m very, very, very excited to see everyone soon!

Question of the Day:
Will you be travelling for the holidays this year? 

 

Extra Sleep = Extra Exercise

I get up at 5:15 in the morning, Monday through Friday, even on rest days. I’m a firm believer that if you wake up at the exact same time every morning, you’ll never have trouble getting out of bed and to the gym.

Yesterday, I broke my rule. I just did not want to get out of bed! I woke up with my alarm, but I just laid there, reading on my Kindle and drifting in and out of sleep for two hours!

I guess I just needed the extra sleep, but when I don’t get up and work out or at least get some housework done, I feel…blah for the rest of the day. So when I got home from work, I was determined to do something productive. So, I put on my workout clothes and went to the gym. I got on the treadmill and did a really hardcore HIIT run for about 20 minutes:

*Typically, my warm up speed starts at 4.0 and goes up from there until I get to about 6.0

I’m telling you what, I was out of breath and very sweaty when I was done with this. I hope you’ll try it! If you do, let me know in the comments below.

After the gym, I made the most delicious dinner: Morrocan Chicken and a simple salad with cucumbers (homegrown, thanks to my friends Shane and Susie), tomatoes, kale, green leaf lettuce and sunflower seeds. I poured Sriracha all over the chicken and Pomegranate Vinaigrette on the salad. It was so good! The sauce for the chicken was so delicious I wanted to drink it.

Not my photo! Photo credit: Whole Living Magazine

I used this recipe  for the chicken. I made a few changes, however: I didn’t use raisins because I’m not really a fan, I didn’t have any white wine so I used cooking sherry, I served it over rice rather than quinoa (because I’m out of quinoa) and I added garam masala because it’s my favorite spice blend. This was a keeper for sure! You should try it. That photo above isn’t mine. I forgot my phone at home today, so my photos are MIA for now. But mine looked quite like that, except the whole dutch oven thing. I really need a dutch oven. I had to cook mine in my cast-iron skillet with aluminum foil covering it.

Keeping up the momentum, this morning I was ready to go when my alarm went off. I decided to hit the pool this morning, for the first time in almost 2 years! I really have slacked off on my swimming workouts, but I think after this morning’s great swim, I’m going to try to add it in instead of a run once a week. Here is what I did:

*The typical pool is 25 meters in length. Olympic sized pools are 50 meters in length.

I swam 900 meters, which is roughly equal to one half of a mile:

Gotta love Google conversions

There is a poster on the wall in the pool area of my gym that says swimming 1/4 of a mile is equal to running one mile. I wonder what that means? Calorie burn? Time? I’m not really sure. I guess I’ll Google it when I’m done with this post and let you know tomorrow!

After I changed out of my suit, I hit the weight room for a few sets of chest and arm exercises (bench press, incline bench press, push ups, barbell tricep extension and hammer curls). I’d say that the little bit of extra sleep I got yesterday morning went a long way!

Question for the day:
How do you know if you need some extra sleep?