Run happy!

I wanted to work on long hill repeats, so this is what I mapped ahead of time:

I know it’s not much of a hill compared to what some of y’all run, but it’s one of the longest I have access to on a safe enough road.

Run it 4 times and you end up with this:

Today I learned that long hill repeats are harder than short ones and that This amount of elevation change is not bad interspersed throughout a run but tough when it’s all at once. I was mostly trying to keep a fairly consistent pace, so didn’t push it with the speed.

Also, there was a man out for a walk down the hill and back up once and saw me nearing the top of my first repeat. He asked me how I managed to run all the way up the hill, and I managed to huff out “practice” and a smile. (I was wearing my new “Run Happy” shirt, after all.)  

christwalk:

Today I turn 30. Three years ago I was headed down a spiraling road leading to a uncertain future. At 360 pounds, I was at a major tipping point. Something had to change, I had to change. It wouldn’t be until two months after I turned 27 that I finally woke up.

Three years ago… I had high blood pressure. Had no energy and was depressed. Couldn’t walk a mile. Wore size 52 pants and 4XL shirts, couldn’t shop anywhere that didn’t have a big n tall section. Couldn’t do the things I wanted to do.  

Now… Just recently finished my first marathon. Training for my first triathlon in June. Weigh 195 pounds. Size 34 pants and large shirts. Can do things with my family that I couldn’t do before. Enjoy being outside. One of the greatest things is now I can pretty much do anything I want, if I set my mind to it. I now have confidence in myself, really for the first time. If I set a goal, I can achieve it. I pray that I can take what I’ve learned about myself over the past 3 years and continue to use it to push myself harder for family and myself.

Can’t wait to see what the next 30 brings…  All is know is that I am going to keep pressing on toward the goal and NOT GIVE UP!!!

Ben is one of the most inspiring people of tumblr. Happy, happy birthday!

Run in all the colors!

No, I’m not waving. I’m showing 5 fingers for the 5 mile goal I met today!

I had planned on hill repeats, but it felt so good outside that I decided to give this goal a shot, and I killed it!

I think my next running goal will be 7 miles in an hour. That’s basically holding this pace for another 2 miles.

The fun thing about running so few official races is that you get to make up whatever kind of goals you want.

All right, I need to get cleaned up for church, so I’ll see y’all tomorrow!

how2runfast:

I recently read the new book, Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself by Rich Roll. In the book, Rich Roll, a former entertainment lawyer, describes his rapid midlife transformation from an overweight alcoholic into a…

This was just a smile for the camera. I was not feeling good:

The pain is pretty sharp and poked me some tonight while I was trying to mop.  

Please, please, please be gone by Wednesday when I run again.

My tiny, crooked pig tails.  I forgot to pack things to use for putting my hair up, so I had to work with what I had.

After I got home, I restarted week 1 of 100 push ups. Jeremy’s actually starting on week 3. He got his done, too.

I mixed it up with some abs. My push up sets were 10/12/7/7/9. I do them with my hands on the desk because of my wrist.

In between each set and after the last I did abs with the stability ball.

My first thought was to match all the moves with the push up reps, so for the first round I did 10 ball passes, 10 double reverse crunches, 10 side planks with the ball between my feet (each side), and 10 side leg lifts with the ball between my feet.

My shoulder was hurting, so I switched it up for the other rounds. Rounds 2,3, & 4 matched the push ups with ball passes and something I kind of made up where I held the stability ball with my legs between my thighs & calves and like doing a reverse crunch. Then I put my hand behind my hand and twisted from left to right imagining trying to bring my shoulder to my opposite knee. 1 twist each direction was 1 rep.

The last round I did as many of each of those as I could. I did 12 ball passes before my form got bad and 30 twists.

Total that makes 45 push ups and 154 ab reps.

I’ll do mine on the desk & he’ll do real ones.

He was talking about how he wants to get stronger, but he forgets. He also said that he knows that when people have others helping them, they do better and that I have my “tumblr buddies” but he doesn’t have anyone but me to remind him.

He also said he probably won’t run with me much because he’s afraid he’ll get skinnier.

I did day 1 on Monday, but when my allergies got really bad, all the sneezing made my back hurt, so I didn’t do it any more this week. I’ll start over with him this Monday.

Since I was able to do 15 in my classroom, I started on level 3:

10

12

7

7

max-12

total= 48

plus the 15 I did at school makes 63. I’m really going to be feeling it tomorrow.

note: These are push ups with my hands on a desk because my wrist does not allow me to do full push ups.  I do bring my chest to the desk for full range of motion.

That’s all the exercise I did today because my back has been hurting a little/ feeling weird and I don’t want to take any chances.

Yesterday’s run

So I have 39 seconds to shave off for my goal.  Totally doable in just over 3 months.

**********************

Our field trip today went really well. We didn’t have any trouble from kids, even the high schoolers, and it was cloudy most of the day, so it didn’t get hot until we were nearly done.

I brought a carrot, an apple, beef jerky, and a flatout wrap spread with caramel almond butter for lunch instead of buying the stuff at the exhibition.

Welcome to the ride.  Please introduce yourselves here or in my ask.

In fit news, I did 21 push ups yesterday- 10 on the cubbies at school and 11 on the desk at home.  That was all I did because it really was a rest day. I wanted to get some of these modified push ups in, though, because I think that they’re actually helping my wrist feel better.

Today I’m planning to run 5 miles. Now that I’ve knocked out the 25 min. 5K and the 7 min. mile off my 30by30 list, the only running goal (besides 360 miles- I’m up to 160 with 3 1/2 months to go) left is to run 5 miles under 43 min. I don’t expect to do that today because it’s back in the 80s and I’m still working on acclimating to the heat. 

Tomorrow we have a field trip to the Battle of Selma exhibition, so I’ll be outside on my feet all day. In the evening, I’ll most likely do abs, arms, and possibly legs depending on how tired my feet are.

Saturday we plan to go canoeing. It’s the first time I’ll be wearing my new wetsuit. The air may be warm, but the river is still cold.  Then I’ll go for a run in the afternoon/evening. Distance will depend on how much energy I have left.

abitofsilliness:

“It’s really pretty simple.  Fitness should be fun and enjoyable.  If someone finds what they like, can commit to, stick with and have some excitement and passion about - and it works for them - tell me what’s wrong or bad about that?”

Well said. I really appreciate this whole article! (And turbogirl!)

warrior-fitness:

I don’t get it. Seriously, I really don’t. Maybe it’s because I’ve been exposed to and have tried so many different forms of both. Maybe it’s because I’m a trainer and have educated myself about as many ways to eat and get/stay fit as possible. Maybe it’s because I approach…

To: All those who have degraded Zumba as a legitimate way to get fit, argued that everyone should run or lift heavy, or implied that anyone who doesn’t eat paleo/vegan/IIFYM is unhealthy/ignorant/cruel.

24. Tape measure

What’s up, calves that keep growing? I know it’s because I’ve changed my running form. My calves are sore a lot.

I know it’s not Gun Show Thursday until tomorrow.  These are from Monday, and will serve to mark progress now that I’ve learned a way I can do push ups.

Also, this is most likely my last post of the day. Y’all have a good evening!

Playing catch up with the fitness photo challenge

no day 19 (treat) since I was just plain eating unhealthily, not treating myself.

Here’s 20. Where you work out: various parks, my classroom, my back yard, and in my house. Obviously, these are not all from the 20th. In fact, none of them are since I didn’t work out that day.

CrossFit

I got a little turned around downtown, so instead of getting there a little early like I planned, I ended up getting there right before 10. The box (or Boneyard, as they call it) is right by the train-tracks, and is some kind of old storage building with those bid sliding doors on either end.

The best view of the boneyard swiped from the facebook page.

The box was kind of a mess because they’re redoing some things to get ready for some kind of challenge. there were some stacks of plywood in the doorway.

I had to fill out the paperwork first. Then the coach, Greg, introduced himself and had us introduce ourselves and give some fitness background and how we heard about CrossFit.  There were just 3 of us- a guy, another woman (also a teacher), and myself- plus a guy that came with her who already Crossfitted.

We started with a 400 run  at an easy (for me) pace and stuck together since he was showing us the route- out and back down the street. Then he taught us some of the stretches/mobility moves they do.

Then he went through and taught us the proper motion for squats, lunges, push ups, sit ups, ring rows, and kettlebell swings.

• squats- I learned that I have been squatting correctly. Yay for learning from the internet. I really wasn’t sure since I’d never had anyone check my form before.  We probably did around 10 in all, but I didn’t count.
• lunges- we did forward, backward, and walking lunges. Once again, I had been doing them correctly. Yay.
• Push ups- Greg told me to try wall push ups to see if the angle and decreased weight on my wrist would work.  I was able to do them on the wall. They hurt, but it was more a stretching/ working kind of hurt. I think I did around 5.
• sit ups- They were butterfly sit ups with the ab mat, arms going from touching the floor while laying down to touching your toes when sitting. I wish I knew where to get an abmat, but it’s probably more than I’d actually spend since I’m a cheap-o.
• ring rows- He had us do a few from farther back and then move our feet closer to center where it was harder. I could only do 3 from center, and the other girl could do at least 4. She is tiny (I probably had at least 3 inches and 20 pounds on her), so that could be it, or she could just be stronger. My gun shows may look halfway decent, but I really don’t have good upper body strength.
• kettlebell swings- We didn’t actually get to use the kettlebells. She just practiced the movement. It was tricky to do it right. I kept pulling from my arms too soon instead of letting the hip motion do most of the work.  Jeremy said he’ll make me a kettlebell.

Then we had to listen to the “spiel” about CrossFit. I really wish I could do it, but there’s no way it’s something we could afford. 

Saturday’s Workout

Since we didn’t do much at CrossFit, I came up with a little workout to do at home.

I jumped with the speed rope for 1 min, then did 5 wall push ups, and repeated 10 times.  I tried to work on double unders, something I haven’t done in months. I strung 2 one time. I was able to do 1 every time I tried, but couldn’t do more than that any other time.  After 50 push ups, even if they were wall ones, my triceps were so sore Sunday.

Monday’s Workout

15 v-ups

20 (each side) moderately fast bicycle crunches

5 push ups on our desk

15 squats (20 lb)

x3

The push ups on the desk didn’t hurt my wrist at all! I think it’s because my wrist didn’t really have to be bent to do them.

And yesterday and today, my wrist hurt only very little. yayayayay