Friday Funday

There is always something so intoxicating about a beautiful Friday morning. Perhaps it’s the illusion of perfect work-free two days designed to do all the fun things that your heart desires. Perhaps for me it’s because it’s my rest day and generally speaking it’s a relief and reward for putting in hard work all week.  It doesn’t really matter it all culminates into a perfect “high” on Friday morning. Of course about the time 3 PM hits on Friday I am just mentally checked out and ready to go home.  But for now I shall bask in my beautiful Friday high and go with it.

Of course tonight I have a pizza and laser tag date. I have never played laser tag before so I am entirely unsure on what exactly this is all like but my nephew’s dad took him a couple weeks ago for the first time and the little boy is obsessed with it now.  Every time I see him he tries to cleverly direct all conversations into the topic of laser tag and our said ability at that moment to go get pizza and play.  Chris & I started feeling bad for him because he’s the only little man in our world, a world primarily dominated by a female influence and therefore some of the more “boy” things get overlooked.  Thus we decided to orchestrate this little shindig tonight.

This is what I know, what I have decided. This past week or two I have been terrible with the eating. I just can’t seem to get a solid handle on my indulging.  Pizza tonight probably doesn’t help too much. But my decision is that I am going to just go with it for the rest of the weekend and then on Monday I am going to tighten the reigns and get myself back into the game mentally.  In all honesty this whole week I’ve struggled with motivation and desire and practically had to force myself to the gym every single night which is really not like me.  There is probably a direct correlation between the shitty food I’ve been eating and my general well-being and desire to workout. I don’t feel as good because of the shit food and therefore working out sounds a lot more awful than it normally would.

Last night I didn’t really want to go either. It happens. But I did go.  I ran my 1.5 miles in under 15 minutes, as I told myself I needed to do for my warm-up.  Then I did what I consider a very light shoulder/bicep day.  Oh it hurt, but it wasn’t crazy anything.  This was the workout:

Overall I think I finished the night with 450 calories burned.  It’s in the range. I like to try if possible to hit 500 calories a night but sometimes that requires a lot of effort.  My heart is pretty strong and it takes a considerable amount of effort to jack my heart rate.  Strength training ususally doesn’t result in too many calories burned for me.  BUT strength training is very important and necessary. 

I am considering at some point in the next couple months buying some personal training sessions at my gym, you know the gym I kind of hate, with a different trainer than Amanda only because Amanda doesn’t work there anymore.   I am lazy or rather I am a product of convenience and although I hate many things about my gym, the number one thing that is has going for it is convenience.  The location and the environment mostly work for me.  I am comfortable there as I’ve spent so many countless hours of my life there.  Sure, some of the other members piss me off. The reality that it is a bodybuilding gym is not lost on me. I see far too many meatheads walking around both male and female and it is annoying.  But it’s not about them, in the end it’s about me.

Anyway, back to some personal training.  I don’t want to sign some big contract but I wouldn’t mind either a 3 month thing or just buying some individual sessions.  As I get closer to my September marathon I don’t think having some professional help would hurt me.  There is one guy at the gym, trainer, who I think is a little more knowledgeable on sports training that might be able to help me out with some stuff. Mainly, some pre and post run stretching and exercises for strength training for running.  And maybe, just maybe some nutrition. I have always been crazy reluctant to any nutritional information because I like to do my own thing.  But I’ve also never had a goal like running a marathon in my mind.

I approached the guy, Bill, last night and just asked him if I could buy individual sessions. I’ve “known” Bill for as long as I’ve been at the gym.  He knows my name, has seen more for a long time work my butt off at the gym.  I’ve had conversations with him, etc.  He was like, yes you can, but it is cheaper to just do like a 3 month contract. Etc.  He started to kind of give me the sell on it but then was like, why? Who did you have in mind? Who wants to train? I was like well I was thinking about it, and he seemed genuinely shocked.  And he said, Why? What do you want to do? What are you looking to work on?

The question stopped me for a moment because I didn’t really know.  I was like well, I don’t entirely know, just that maybe sometimes I would like to get my ass kicked and he said he could definitely do that.  I also told him that in Sept., I was doing a marathon and he said he could help me with that.  Which I kind of believed.  I’ve watched him train others at the gym and he definitely seems more aware of his clients and pays attention to them and always makes them stretch which is something I am not good at all at.  He was like whenever you are ready just come see me.  It was a good conversation and I felt good about it. 

BUT, with all that said I feel guilty.  I cannot tell Amanda about it because I can’t tell her I would buy training from someone else. No it is not my fault that she is not at the gym anymore but still, there is just guilt with it.  We will see.  I’m not quite ready yet for that, but maybe in a month or so, as it gets a little closer.  I am doing a good job on my own and for the most part don’t need daily supervision like some people do, but it doesn’t hurt to have a little extra push every now and then.  I feel a little like something might be lacking from my fitness regime and perhaps a trainer could help me find it.  This guy is older and I think been doing this for a long time so probably has years and years of experience that I could tap into.  Just a thought I am having. But I’m going to take it as a compliment that he didn’t think I was asking about myself, and basically seemed shocked that I would want/need training.  Everyone needs someone to be accountable too.

I’m looking forward to some fun this weekend.  Chris is not feeling well today though. All last night he kept saying he thought he was getting sick. This morning he woke up not feeling well at all, so that is kind of shitty for this weekend.  I might be going to my runs alone. Boo. But whatever happens is what was meant to happen.  Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to or plan on them working out. That is just part of life.