Getting Back to The Gym After a Vacation

This is a reminder to myself to be patient. :)

It is hard to get back to your fitness routine if it has been interrupted by something like an illness or a long vacation. Although my vacation was far from long, it was just long enough to make me miss my gym, the people there, and my weights. It just isn't the same working out at the Hilton! I am still on island time which means everything takes on average 30 minutes longer than it normally would and it drives me nuts. I am a perfectionist, so I expect a lot out of myself and I thought that I would bounce back a whole lot quicker. To help accelerate the process of getting back in the groove of a fast paced life of a fitness addict, I made sure that I concentrate on my scheduling and list making skills.

While in the airport on Sunday I made a list of everything that I needed to do this week, organized my calendar, made the necessary lists, and made sure that I had all of my planning and strategy tools available to me when I got home. On Monday I planned and organized the rest of my week by writing workouts and cooking. Yesterday  I was catching up with everything that I missed and today I am back on normal schedule. Phew! That only took a couple of days, no wonder I was stressed and anxious!

Let's talk about training! Yesterday I trained upper body and a little bit of abs, today is my run training day, then legs on Thursday, whole body/ cardio on Friday, and run training with my wonderful coach early Saturday morning. I am very excited about that last part. I haven't had official run training since the end of December and I missed it so much! I am almost giddy, I am that excited to run with Nicki again.

I am hoping that by the end of the week I will have some free time to garden and redecorate my office. There is so much to do!

6 Ps of Success.

I am still pretty sick, but today was a planned rest day anyway. As usual, every Sunday is my planning, packing, and shopping day. On Sundays I make sure that I am prepped for the rest of the week. After all, Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. It also prevents emotional eating, slipping off your diet, skipping on workouts, and bending your schedule during the week.  I am not  advocating inflexibility, but you are less likely to make excuses if you have a clear plan of action.  So, get to planning and if you slip, make sure that you built in a fail safe. 

Allergies? Cold? Weight lifting? Crossfit?

Although I am not too sure if I am having a really bad case of allergies or if I am beginning to get sick. Regardless, I pushed through my cardio today just in case it is allergies. I regret nothing! Well, maybe I regret that I only had 20 minutes... Either way, it is so unfair to feel this under the weather just days before my race. If I don't feel absolutely horrible tomorrow, I have a date with Murph and hopefully some sore back muscles afterwards. I guess when lifting doesn't get you sore, turn to crossfit! I have high hopes for you, Murph! Don't let me down!

All I Need is 20 Minutes to Feel Human Again.

In the last few days my workout times have been all over the road. I am a person of routine and consistency, I got my body use to having a natural boost of endorphins in the morning and having to work out at night have turned me into a grumpy, stressed, mean girl. I am making it an effort to get my workouts back on normal morning schedule. Even if it means getting to the gym at 5 am.  

That being said, I don’t know what I would have done to the world today if it had been for my 20 minutes of cardio this evening. I wish I had the time for a full 45, but 20 is all I had to spare. I guess you have to get it in where you can, right?

No More Doubting!!!

Oh, I really should kick all this doubting out of my life for good. My legs are sore today! Yay! I went out to the gym and hit the treadmill for some speed work on an incline. My legs began to feel weak 15 minutes into my intervals, but I finished strong. I can’t wait to be able to run outside! All this pollen is really getting to me today.

Legs.

I had a hard time getting it in gear this morning. I haven’t been sleeping well for the past couple of weeks, now I have trouble waking up. Apparently, I sleep muted my alarms this morning which made me later for my workout. Not to fear, I went to the gym anyway.

You know that saying “you don’t know what you have ‘til it’s gone”? Yeah… Today was the day when I wished I had a person spotting me.  Turns out that I have beastly legs and in order for them to burn out, I have to squat heavy, heavy weight. It scares me. I am afraid of dropping it. After I went through my leg workout (didn’t stop, lifted through the fear, you know the drill) I realized that I could still run around, squat a bunch, and probably go out and run a mile. Plus, I somehow managed to finish faster then I planned (that one is still beyond me. I know I didn’t skip anything). So, instead of giving up and going home, I decided that I am going to do additional 100 25lb squats and hopefully the sheer quantity will get my legs to failure. It didn’t. I will rethink this workout tomorrow morning after I determine how sore I am. If I am not, I got a killer stadium routine that will guarantee to make me run faster and set my quads on fire (fingers crossed).

In the land of rock hard abs today we also reached a wall. I spent a few reps doing weighted incline sit ups with a medicine ball, then captains chair knee raises, then straight leg raises. My arms gave out before my abs did. I had that happen before after heavy lifting and normally I would do something that does not include the use of my arms. Today, however, I was completely blank and could come up with anything.  I need to make sure that I write a backup program to compensate for unexpected body part failure.