TUESDAY

When the alarm went off early on Tuesday morning, I didn’t hear any thunder or rain so I actually thought the weather was okay. I figured I would just sleep a few minutes. Within a few minutes Sam texted me to ask what I thought about the weather. I checked the radar and it looked like it was only slightly raining at that moment, but the radar was showing a larger band of heavy rain moving into the area. We decided to pass on the morning run and I went back to bed for a little while longer. After work, I went home and changed and headed directly to the gym. In hindsight, we probably could have ran outside, but the sky was teasing us with the threat of storms all afternoon/evening so we decided to play it safe. I was also in a bit of a rush because Gabby was to start swim again so I had to go to the gym by myself.  Today’s workout was 4.5 miles and my goal is for Tuesdays to be speed session days.   I decided to run at 6mph for the first ½ mile and then I ran intervals. I would run at 7mph for .10 mile and then run a .20 recovery at 6mph. It actually felt really good!   I never got bored because I was always looking for the next interval. This really helped to keep my mind occupied. I was planning to run the last ½ mile at 6mph to cool down, but I was feeling too good so I just slowly decreased my speed each .10 mile for the last ½ mile. I finished the workout feeling great. 4.5 miles completed!! And my average pace was 9:33, which is speedy for me 🙂  Sam made it to the gym right as I completed my workout. She had a great and super speedy workout as well!  Congratulations, Sam!  You seriously rocked that workout!

I felt so good that I rewarded myself with a big bowl (or possibly 2) of Cap’n Crunch for dinner (I never claimed to make healthy meal choices…I will work on this some day)!

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday night, Sam and I went to body pump for an hour of strength training in with my favorite instructor. I also began my core challenge again. My OCD struggled with this. I couldn’t decide if I should start the challenge again from Day 1 (But on the 12^th of the month?!?). Do I wait until next month to start over?!?  Why do I overthink these things? I finally decided (with the help of Sam) that I could just pop back into the challenge right where it was. I believe I missed 5 days in a row, but its not like I didn’t work out on those days, so I’m going to try to finish out the month. I just hope I remember each night.

THURSDAY

Sam and I woke up early on Thursday to get our 4 mile run in. I struggle with what to eat on these early morning runs. I am usually rushing out the door because I wait until the last minute to get out of bed and am rushing to get outside. This morning, I tried to eat a banana but the bananas were over-ripe so after one bite, I had to throw it away. So I decided to have a piece of toast with some peanut butter but only ate about half of it before it was time to go. We met outside around 5:30 and hit the road. We ran the hills today without stopping at all and kept a pretty good pace along the way. There were definitely moments that I struggled and I don’t think I’ll ever truly be an early morning runner, but I was still very happy with our effort. I am sitting at swim with Gabby, but I will do my core challenge when I get home this evening.

GETTING OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE

I have been really interested lately in trying a new workout. One of the problems I face is that since I don’t live in a big city, a lot of the trendy new workouts are not easily accessible. I was recently reading about a group in DC that meets up early in the morning each week (Friday’s, I believe) to do various exercises together each week. They make it fun and always vary the workouts. And it’s FREE! How awesome is that? I wish there was something fun like this closer to my home. I suppose I could try to organize something like this, but I doubt that ever happens. I am also interested in trying a barre workout. The closest place I have found that offers this class is Annapolis (admittedly, I haven’t searched very hard). Sam and I are going to hopefully give it a try one day. I also think aerial fitness classes seem like a ton of fun. I would definitely love to try something like that one day. I plan to try hot yoga soon. We do have a studio nearby that offers that, so I should be able to check that one off the list pretty easily. I’d like to start trying something different at least once a month. Another obstacle I face is that I love the workouts I already do, so it may be hard to find the time to fit something else into the schedule. But I am going to try!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you ever tried a workout that was outside of your comfort zone? What was it and did you like it?