Friday means rest, finally.

It is Friday!  I love Friday’s! Friday’s rock! Friday’s are my rest day and that is always oh so enjoyable.  There are bad elements to rest days as well, like the idea that I inevitably end up eating too much.  But I also have always been a firm believer in the idea that your body needs to be thrown off kilter a little bit from time to time. THUS, a few crappy eating days are good for you. Do you like my logic? Perhaps this is just a way to justify some of my eating.  But seriously, I have thought a lot about this whole running a half marathon thing and the calorie burn vs. the excessive hunger and I have sincerely come up with the idea that there is simply something flawed in the mathematical equation of it all.

Yes, reasonably I know that running for 2 hrs. 15 minutes clearly burns around 1,300-1,500 calories for me depending on my effort and the course and the hills etc.  BUT that steady stated high heat rate calorie burn for over 2 hours has to result in more output than that.  That there must be hidden things that are going on in my body that I can’t see.  I know this is true.  My crazy vomity feelings post run can attribute to that.  Clearly the body is doing all sorts of inside work that a simple heart rate monitor does not accurately track.  Because for the life of me, no matter how hard I try, post run, even when I eat “healthy” good filling foods I can never get full enough.  I may burn 1,300 calories but I simply cannot get away without eating an extra like 2,500 calories post run.  I have come to accept this is a reality and acceptable really because I just know there is more to it.  My body is hungry. It needs to eat and I am going to feed it.  Calorie input be damned. 

Anyway.  Let’s back up and talk about last night.  It was my day 6 and all day I was seriously seriously questioning why on earth I’d agree to a personal training session.  It was a dumb idea for sure.  But hey, at least it’s done.  So I got to the gym and I honestly didn’t want to run. Not even 1 mile to warm up.  That’s how you know I pushed the running to an extreme this week.  I was like nah, don’t need to do any running so I’m not going to. Best to give these very tired ass legs 2 days break before my half.  This doesn’t mean I didn’t end up doing other things.

I went into class, boot camp class and it was evil.  Actually I knew it was evil before I went in  because Amanda texted me the workout.  Because she was sadistically proud of it.

It read, 3 different levels, pick your level.

Level 1 = 9 reps

Level 2 = 15 reps

Level 3 = 21 reps

Guess which level Amanda expected me to do?  Not much of a guess.  So then are the rounds of exercises that you had to complete the desired amount of reps of.

Round 1

Pushups (21 total)

Mountain climbers (42 total) each leg you know

Goblet Squats (21 total)

And then 10 sprints outside. Yup, I ran!

Round repeated 2 times 

Round 2

Bearcrawls (21 total)

 (Can I just stop and talk about bearcrawls for a moment they don’t seem like they’d be all that hard and yet this was single handedly the worst most horrific item on the list.  This is literally a crawl on all 4’s on the ground from one side of the room to the next.  Ass up in the air, crawling on your hands and feet) And 21 freaking times back and forth was TOO much!  It hurt, it made me drip sweat all over that floor!)

Walking lunges with plate overhead (42 total)

Broad jump 21 total (Literally a stand in place and jump forward on both legs spread out!)

6 sprints outside.

Round repeated 2 times

Round 3

Double crunches (21 total)

Spider plans (30 total)

Russian Twists (21 total)

4 sprints outside.

Round repeated 2 times

This entire class took 30 minutes and I was so sweaty it wasn’t even funny.  Actually let me tell you how this went down. Amanda was explaining to the class that there were levels and you could decide how many you wanted to do based on your fitness. And then she said, so pick your level, everyone except Emily I expect Emily to do 21 with me.  She said, Emily you have no choice.  I said I didn’t figure.  And let me tell you, we once again were the only 2 people in the class who did level 3.  Apparently I had zero choice in the matter.

After this sweat session which clearly did involve some running, ahhh… I had about ½ an hour to wait before my training session.  I lingered around a bit and then finally settled on a nice mild pace on the stair climber.  I didn’t intentionally kill myself.  But I was moving.  I ended up doing 20 minutes on that thing and then it was time for training.  I am not going to lie, by this point I was pretty dead. I was tired. I was drained. Day 6 after doing that crazy class and then 20 minutes on the climber and now I was supposed to lift. God help me.  HEAVY.

As I knew would be the case we bench pressed heavy.  And yes, she did put 45 pound plates on there, so of course a total of 135 pounds.  Fortunately I didn’t have to do too many reps of those.  But I did have to do a lot of reps of 115 pounds, and even more reps of 95 pounds and then a crazy amount of 65 pound ones.  Progression down.  And it is brutal. By the time you get to 65 pounds it feels like 135 pounds.  It feels like your chest is tearing apart.  Is that a good thing?  I’m not entirely sure. 

Then we did triceps.  Triceps dips where my feet are elevated in the air and she puts a freaking 45 pounds plate on my lap and makes me dip up and down.  My arms give out.  Of course they give out.  She wouldn’t have it any other way.  If they didn’t give out on their own she’d make me do more until they did.  It’s kind of how she rolls.  Then I had to do incline chest presses.  My body was so dead.  I don’t honestly think I did heavy enough or as many reps as she would have liked but at this point everything was pretty much spent on me.  Seriously crazy spent.  I did more. Mind you I did a bunch of exercises about 3 rounds of them.  It was enough.  I was tired. I was done. I ended up burning 500 calories and going home. THANK GOD.

 And with that my workout week finally came to a much needed end. I worked exceedingly hard this week.  I pretty much killed it and now I’m exhausted.  I am actually incredibly proud of all of my efforts this week honestly.  I am just in my zone right now and everything is clicking so well. I love it all.  I love this life.  I love being fit and active and healthy.  I love running! I love myself.  What else can I say really.  Things are good. 

So today I get to rest and let my body recover a little bit. It will thank me for it.  And tomorrow I don’t work out all day long because at 6 PM I am running a half marathon. This will be different and interesting.  Fortunately the weather is looking really good at this point in time.  The high for the day is supposed to be 75.  That means in the evening it will be just about perfect running conditions so I like that. Of course though it is a whole night run and I’m not sure how my energy levels are going to be. It’s a whole different ballgame running at night.  I have no expectation of my time. It could be really shitty.  But we will see. It’s still a half and I’m still looking forward to it and excited.  And when I am done I get to go home and pretty much go to bed which is awesome!

I don’t have any plans for Sunday. I am sure I will come up with something though. I ALWAYS do. And because I have found that this is one of the most exciting things right now in my world, making these little picture collages, here are all of the little photos I put together yesterday on Instagram.  And this morning’s photo too.

 

 

 My hair is entirely not cooperating with me yesterday or today. Some days my hair is amazing and on point and then it’s been flat and lifeless for 2 days and that sucks.  I know, petty things for sure.  Whatever.  I’m still a girl you know.