Half marathon of a night workout

Well well Friday we meet again. You are my favorite day of the week. Except Friday afternoon’s at work which ultimately just linger and drag on.  Here I sit at like 11:20 on my Friday and I can honestly say that I am still not fully awake yet. I am beyond exhausted. Like crazy exhausted.  Like if I could still be in bed right now that is in fact exactly where I’d be. Alas, I am here at work. Actually having a pretty busy work morning actually. But soon it’s lunch time which will mean errands to run. I guess it makes the day go by quicker.

Last night did not work out entirely how I had planned. Not really by a long shot actually. It was BRUTAL. It was HARD. It was absolutely idiotic on your 6^th day of working out in a row, but alas sanity has never been my strong suit. I got to the gym a little early because I left work a little early. It happens sometimes and it’s cool.  Amanda was not actually there yet, which mentally threw me off so I decided while she was on her way that I would squeeze in a quick 1 mile run after all. You know, warm up the juices. Nothing too big, nothing too easy, just a solid 10 minute mile.  1 mile, 10 minutes. Done.

We were going to take our spin class which I wanted to try out but in the end it turned out we were too late actually getting to the spin class room. I guess there are only 16 bikes in there and we were just late. Not late to the gym, late to the room. Oops. They have a spin class pretty much every day so I will just have to try and get there earlier in the future. Instead we jumped right into the torturous leg workout Amanda had planned. (We decided that post workout we would take a Zumba style Hip-Hop class for our cardio) and because Amanda needed to go to classes to observe.

Anyway, leg day consisted of this workout, repeated 5 freaking times. Yup, 5 sets of this entire workout.

20 Jump Squats

15 (45 pound) Goblet Squats

20 (30 pound each hand=60 lb) walking lunges with 3 second pulse on each lunge

15 each side (45 lb) single leg deadlifts

30 jumping lunges

15 each side lateral box step ups

20 (80 lb) hip thrusters

20 (185 lb) wide leg squats

15 each side single leg rolls on ball

A total of 9 exercises done 5 times.  This was insanely hard and took almost an hour and a half. I am not joking I was dripping sweat at every turn. My shirt was completely soaked in sweat.  My eyeballs stung of a mixture of sweaty salt water and mascara. Every single exercise prompted my heart rate to shoot up into the 160’s.  It was brutal.  I never would have gone that heavy or done 5 sets. 4 would have been plenty for me. Considering my legs were already pretty fried from working hard on Tuesday night. But somehow I managed thru this entirely ambitious workout.

See photo from the evening of me and Amanda both doing our heavy squats. Yeah, that was pain when you are doing them on very tired legs after doing all of the above mentioned exercises. These photos were taken on set 5 so it was some serious levels of will power and determination fueling me on.

Umm hmm… this was intense. I was already at the brink of exhaustion and then we popped right into a Hip Hop dance class.  We had already discussed the fact that I am a white girl and can’t dance. That Zumba is not and will never be my thing. That this was going to be a miserable attempt at movement but that I’d laugh and give it a go.  It wasn’t actually horrible, but complicated choreographed moves are not my thing. Simple repetitive motions I can handle.  I just kept moving. Keep moving. And at some point as we had to squat down and or bend at all with the legs my legs almost gave out on me. At about 45 minutes into the class there was a slight break between songs and I looked at Amanda and we were both like I’m dying. I was like how much longer? Checked my watch so that I knew it was only another 15 minutes and I’m like, we can do this, but tired here.  So we pushed on. But let me tell you, much like the last 15 minutes of a half marathon, these 15 minutes seemed to drag forever.

When I was finally done for the evening, I had burned damned near 1000 calories and realized I had in fact just been at the gym for almost 2 and a half hours. This is in fact about my half marathon time.  While I might not be running a half this is probably really good training for my half next weekend. Get my body back used to working out for that long.  My heart rate was up. I was working hard the whole time. I burned 1,000 calories.  It was my half marathon of a night workout. 

I was starving. Like crazy starving. Shocking I know.  But alas I ate a banana and when I got home immediately was greeted by Chris and the dogs getting ready to head out for a walk so I threw down my stuff and went with them for a walk.  You know, my body constantly stays in motion.  After the walk, I had a protein bar to hold me over while I took a shower and waited for Chris to return from the grocery store where we got some French fries and turkey burgers for dinner.  I didn’t eat dinner until like 8:30 PM.  I literally did not stop and sit down on the couch until 8:30.  I was up and moving form 5 PM to 8:30 PM. I might be a bit obsessive clearly.   It just happened.

I wrote all this above before lunch, then I had to leave and run errands and now I’m back at 1:30 PM in the afternoon and I ate a delicious sandwich for lunch and feel so satisfied and I think it helped to wake me up.  It was at a local sub shop called Sandwich Express and the bread is fresh daily and amazing and I feel so much better.  Awake even.  FINALLY. 

You know how random things just occur to you, for some crazy reason this morning while driving to work I was thinking about the song God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. I have no idea where I got this thought from but I immediately went to I-Tunes and downloaded it and have been listening to it over and over all morning. Great song. Bizarre to just get a wild hair today.

So I am presently changed into my workout clothes, to go take a Barre class. The official class description is as follows: 

Raise the Barre

The entire body is sculpted from arms to abs to glutes to quads, this total body workout increases balance, stability, posture and flexibility through the combination of exercise adapted from aerobics, Pilates, ballet and toning. Great for all levels of fitness, this dynamic class will offer a fun, fresh challenge.

I am really hoping it is more of the Pilates ballet and toning type where its flexibility and such.  I am not looking for a real workout tonight just some toning etc. Stretching, etc. Active recovery as it’s called. I think I can probably handle it, but we will see.  I have a fairly distinct feeling that if I didn’t go to this class I’d just go home and eat and be bored so I might as well give it a try.

I’ve had a really successful workout week that’s for sure. Pretty intense so far. It’s nice to not push myself tonight though, as this weekend I’m not sure what’s totally in store. Either way, my beautiful new workout journal is awesome and I’m having a good time actually writing in it.  Here’s my first page complete.

Now it’s time to chill a little this afternoon and just relax the rest of the day away, hopefully.  Have a wonderful fabulous weekend!

2:30 PM Update:  There is no class tonight. It has been cancelled and here I sit all pretty in my workout clothes with no class to take. Oh well, guess that means the universe is trying to intervene on my behalf and tell me to go home.  Even in my cute workout clothes. Whatever, they are more comfortable than work clothes so I guess it's all good.