Friday to a half

It is finally Friday. I love Friday’s.  But Friday afternoons are the worst. They are the worst because for me anyway they just drag on and on and on.  Nothing like the expectation or excitement of being off for the weekend.  Kind of makes hours 2 PM – 5 PM a real bear.  Anyway, it’s Friday!!! Yippee Skippy and a whole lot of other fun things.

I’m going to back up for a second and say last night I didn’t want to go to the gym.  Of course.  But it wasn’t awful.   I was going to take boot camp class and once that little bit of torture was done I was pretty much free to just call it a night.  That was my plan. Day 6 in a row my friends and any effort is better than no effort.  They can’t all be crazy amazing ones you know.  So here’s the run down from last night.

I also really figured out why I love making these little collages. It’s because it lets out my inner designer girl whose been missing for a while and doesn’t get far enough opportunity to be creative so putting these little pics together allows me a tiny amount of design fun.  Anyway, I got to the gym, did a 1 mile warm up run and then headed into class.

The workout plan was written on the mirror as you might be able to slightly see in this photograph. It was this:

30 battle rope swings
40 ball slams
20 box jumps
20 bosu ball crunches
50 mountain climbers on sliders
30 bicycle crunches
20 jump lunges
20 squats with a hammer curl
80 jumping jacks

The plan was supposed to be get thru a minimum of 3 rounds of these exercises in the allotted time. At first I was like yeah right.  But turned out that if you keep moving and keep your heart rate up that this was quite do-able.  I ended up doing 5 entire rounds of everything.  I was actually feeling pretty good and sweaty.  And the final result was a 435 calorie burn.  Not the best thing I’ve ever done but for a day 6 I am fully going to take it.  On a couple reps I substituted shoulder presses for the hammer curls because honestly my biceps are in so freaking much pain right now that I can’t even stand it.  STILL. From Tuesday. I think it’s equivalent to you can use your muscles over and over but unless you are consistently like frying them out to this level every time you put in an exceptionally hard workout they get REALLY agitated and it takes them an unusually long time to recover.  The only time I ever feel this level of bicep pain is with Amanda. No one else can seem to force me to lift heavy enough for enough reps to get them this enflamed. They HURT.  I sure hope at some point the pain subsides a bit. I mean, realistically I know it will but right now, just wow.

Anyway, hmm…. What else…. I took this photo yesterday.

Yeah, I’m a picture whore. Oh well. Guess there are worse things. Actually, I wish I had taken more photos throughout my entire journey. I wish I actually had more fat photos. That’s sad but true. We actually never really have enough you know.  Because I hated the camera and wanted to avoid it at all costs and now I desperately search for those photos as some sort of proof of the existence I used to live.  I even wish I had documented more photos of myself when I had lost the weight but before I started strength training.  As lame as it sounds I wish I had photos of me flexing with my nonexistent muscles so that I could compare now.  So yes I presently take a lot of photos but I hope someday they all will be worthwhile.

Today I rest and therefore I hope I don’t binge eat.  I actually have been doing so marvelous on my food. I haven’t had a binge in many days. Like I don’t even think I binged at all last weekend which is crazy rare. I think my last official eat all the food was 21^st.  I know, not that long ago, but a long time for me. Almost 2 weeks.  So today I rest and pray that everything eases up a little or loosens up and the break from intentional calorie burning movement is good for my soul.

Tomorrow I run. It’s going to be terribly early.  I think I have to wake up at 4:30 AM. Leave the house by 5 AM. Drive the 60-75 minutes to the race location.  Arrive between 6 and 6:15, pick up the race packet and then run at 6:50 AM.  13.1 miles that is.  But in typical fashion for me I’m very excited to do this.  It’s been a whole 2 week since I’ve ran a half and my body is aching to get out there for another torturous round.  Last year at the conclusion of this race I almost passed out. It was the heat. Which is still going to be an issue this year.  We will see. But at the end of the day I get a pretty new medal and we all know I really am all about the bling!

Actually this weekend starts the first of 5 weekends in a row of running half marathons.  This feels pretty ambitious but also something I know I can accomplish.  But it just sounds like a lot when you are about to start the first 1.  Marathon training at its best. Run all the races. Run all the miles.  You know how that goes.  I’m pretty certain by the time Maui hits there will be really not a lot more I could have done to prepare myself for my marathon and that is a good feeling.  I mean it’s going to be hard as hell and I’m scared as hell but putting in all the work makes me feel a little more confident in my abilities.  I can do this.

I woke up feeling fairly thin today. I know, that’s a weird statement. But some days you just feel smaller than others. I’m not in as good of a mood as I was yesterday as a whole but I feel smaller.  Not sure which is better honestly.  Anyway. Here’s this morning. Just because.

I’m really hoping that my 4^th of July plans can avoid crazy over binging on food. I think we are going to go to my aunt and uncles annual BBQ which means a bevy of unhealthy tempting options.  I don’t mind having a treat or two, especially since I will have ran a half in the morning but I just don’t want to eat and eat and eat. Must try and avoid that. But if it happens, it happens.  What can a girl really do?  Okay, I guess that’s about all for right now.  Potentially I could come back later and talk about something that’s been formulating in my brain for a while.  Honestly I might come talk about it because as I said at the top of this post, I tend to get real bored Friday afternoons.