My fitness achievements have been pretty non-existent the past few weeks. Except for the Wii and some tennis a few weeks ago, I have been pretty lazy. I did sign up for a 5k toward the end of October (the same one I did last year), but even that has not motivated me to be very active because I keep saying it is only 5k. It was only four years ago that a 5k race was my goal race. How far I have come.
I read a lot of running blogs and a lot of general blogs where people talk about their fitness. A lot of people have been talking about doing the Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred DVD. Dawn wrote that even her armpits hurt the day after her first workout, but then Zoot was “pleasantly surprised to find myself not-to-sore today” so I thought maybe it would not be so bad, as long as I used smaller weights.
I just finished level one, using 2 pound weights and my arms are already sore. It is not even tomorrow yet. As I am writing this post, I have not even showered yet (and I need to after that workout) because my arms are too tired to lift up to wash my hair. (I just re-read Dawn’s post and realized that she had the same problem of not being able to wash her hair. I had forgotten that part.)
I knew that my fitness level had dropped, especially my arms which have never been that strong, but this is a bit sad. I should also say that besides being a good workout, I liked the DVD because it did three circuits of strength, cardio, and abs. The variety was nice and it got me through the strength parts knowing the cardio was coming.
This week’s schedule is a bit scaled back, I imagine in preparation for our 10 miler this Saturday. Instead of 30 minute and 40 minute runs, we have 20 minute easy runs. It took me almost as long to get ready (sunscreen, body glide, etc) as it did to run 20 minutes.For cross-training yesterday, I played Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Wii. For those you who doubt that the Wii is cross-training, you should try it. I was dancing and shaking my booty and fake running for 40 minutes. That is a whole TEN minutes more than I needed to. I am a fitness machine.
On Sunday, my husband suggested we go to movies. When we saw that the movie we wanted to see was playing at the cheap local theater (a rarity), we decided to walk there. Although it is only 2 miles away, it felt much farther, I think because we were rather hungry. On the way there I said “Whose idea was this?” He blamed the cat, saying it was his suggestion, having scratched the plan out in the cat litter. I am not sure I believe him.
After some food and an enjoyable film (Hot Fuzz), we walked back home. By this time it was very warm and we had far too warm of clothing on. We made it back home and laid around the rest of the day because we were exhausted.
You can see my training schedule by clicking on the “training schedule” link at the top of the page. I am not happy with the days that they have things scheduled on, so I am in the process of trying to figure out how to move it around. I believe that as long as I am not running all my days in a row, I should be okay. I was thinking of having my run days be M, T, Th, and Sat. Or maybe M, T, F, Sat. I am not sure if the key is to do the same thing every week, or just to make sure that I am getting it all in. Because I spent about three hours walking today at the Illinois Railway Museum, that is going to count as my cross-training for the week.
Today for my cross-training I did 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer and then brought out the hand weights to do some strength training. The weights had a considerable layer of dust on them and I don’t recall the last time I used them. The benefit of slacking off is that the weights did their job. Just imagine: if I had kept up with my strength training, they would be too light and I would have had to buy new heavier ones!
Since I am really just a 10 year-old trapped in the body of an almost-thirty year-old, I bought myself this frog incentive chart to help with my training. I am going to make each line in the left column represent one week of training. The spaces along the top will be for each mid-week run, the long run, cross-training, and maybe something to do with water intake and nutrition. Each time I complete a task, I will reward myself with one of the cute frog stickers, which are called “hop-to-it frogs.” What things do you do to motivate yourself to stay on an exercise or training plan?
