Stellar Workouts + 5K Speed Test!
Nigel, as a baby puppy, captures how intense my workouts have been this week- and how awesome!
I had a surprise six miler yesterday.
During that run, I decided I wanted to make my Wednesday runs my speed work day and focus on the 5K distance.
It doesn’t tax me as much as my five miler speed tests, allowing me to aggressively keep increasing my weekend long runs which I run at a fast pace (rather than a slower pace as recommended by some books).
Today, I went out on my first 5K speed test and finished it in 28 minutes. When I came home, I checked my Garmin data and apparently, this is my 5K P.R.! It’s only a little over a nine minute pace and it’s my starting point.
I paired my run immediately with a Hot Power Fusion yoga class - I haven’t taken these since I’ve mostly been doing the C2’s but it was nice to have some aggressive flows.
Hot yoga and running, goes together like a PB&J sandwich!
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What I’m really proud of though is my strength training this week.
Today and on Monday, I adapted my yoga routine along with the Tough Mudder strength training routine and created a routine I really enjoyed doing!
On Tuesday, I worked on my pull-ups and planks.
I have no pull-up strength but I read in a book that pull-up hangs, where you hang from a pull-up bar with your knees bent, are a great way to build strength. Women might need to build up to a 2 minute hang before they can do five perfect pull-ups!
I finally feel like my Abs Fitness Streak was working for me and allowing me to integrate more strength training into my regimen.
It’s a mental game - yes, strength training isn’t as fun as running or hot yoga for me, but doing these routines without rest gets me going!
My training journal is available here! Hope everyone is having a good training week!
I Don’t Know Who You Think You Are, But Before This Night is Through
Thursday was an exciting day around these parts!
John won a pro bono achievement award at this job - achievement meaning he won the case. :D Eleven other colleagues also won an award for their pro bono wins. They had a ceremony and got a neat plaque and time piece.
John’s modest but I’m not - it was an asylum case and he saved the lives of the woman and her unborn child by winning it for her. I hope he gets more chances to work pro-bono cases like this one - everyone deserves good advocacy.
He also looked sezy in his work clothes. My Mad Man. ;D
After my delish lunch, I didn’t get to eat for another seven hours so I was FAMISHED and made this yummy dinner. Since I was going to a super late hot yoga class, I kept it light with roasted veggies: zucchini, red onion, cherry tomatoes, one small turnip, cremini mushrooms with sea salt and cayenne pepper.
I would have licked this plate if Nigel didn’t beat me to it.
I wanted to see John when he finally got home and because today Thursday was a run day an early morning or evening class didn’t happen - I ended up at an 8:45pm (!) C2 hot yoga class with my favorite teacher.
She doesn’t pull punches and I am able to do about 25% of the full poses in her class. It’s humbling and so good for my practice because so many of the gains I’ve made have been because of her.
I’ve been delinquent in posting these but the IOnlyWearDresses 365 Abs Fitness Streak continues! Between the increasing mileage and five to six hours of hot yoga, I’m doing baby routines but hopefully I’ll be kicking it up next week!
Hope you are having a fabulous Friday!
Rest Day Sunday
Today is a rest day. I’m not good with rest days.
…but I’ve earned one. :D
I may or may not go to a Core Restore Yin Yoga class but I might just unwind on my mat at home.
That is, if someone understood how mat sharing works.
I am pretty proud of John and me - 42 days into the New Year and our fitness streak is still going. I haven’t missed a day and John is only behind one!
I haven’t posted the last few abs routines because they’ve been the same Ab Ripper sequence from P90X.
I’ve increased the reps from 5 to 6 but with the hot yoga classes and increased mileage, my body is not handling much else - including the Tough Mudder workout!
My goal in the next week is to increase the reps and get comfortable with a 1:30 plank!
Hope you are all having a great Sunday with the ones you love!
Tough Mudder Inspired Abs + Eat All the Healthy Things!
Prettiest smoothie ever! My breakfast was a raspberry and blackberry smoothie with unsweetened almond milk, a container of Chobani plain Greek 0%, and half a banana.
I made a picnic lunch to go with a sliced pear, a whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and blackberry preserves and a low-fat pepper jack cheese stick!
Workouts
I ran a three miler today with some good numbers - two miles at a 9:43 pace exact, a half mile at a 9:26, and the last half mile at a 9:10 pace. Three miles in 29:30. No knee pain beeches!
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Yesterday’s ab workout was a repeat of Routine 30 but today’s workout is a standout. One of my goals for February is to commit to the weights and commit to a focused abs routine that I can build on.
We have plans to do a Tough Mudder race this year but we haven’t finalized which one - but I remembered their awesome training plan available here!
You can find descriptions for all the moves here - they are intense for me and I had to skip using weights for some of them. I’m looking forward to seeing where I will be with the entire Tough Mudder workout by the end of the month!
Working it Out, Playing Catch-Up!
Monday’s workout was a simple C1 Hot Yoga class - I was silly and forgot my towel! It was a nice relaxing class and I need to do more of these to get my body used to the volume of yoga I’m demanding from it.
I’m also playing catch-up with posting our fitness streak workouts! Our routines are all over the place and I am very impressed we have been able to keep our streak up. In February though, I would like to focus these workouts and have each day build on the previous one!
Popeye Power
Tonight was perfect. We were home in the early evening, I got to fix our living areas before John came home, put the fire on to warm up the house, and prep the kitchen to cook after our workouts. Let’s rewind shall we?
Lunch was a bowl of cello spinach dressed with balsamic vinegar, black pepper, oregano, and a sprinkle of sea salt. Popeye power people.
My main “entree” was two Morning Star “sausage patties” and a whole wheat roti.
My afternoon snack was a banana and a tablespoon of peanut butter.
This is what I came home to - do you see that tongue? Now I notice all the time that some puppies sleep with the tongues out!
Tongue-hance! Seriously, that smoosh face kills me every time.
Today’s Workouts:
My first workout was a 60 minute Hot Yoga Sculpt class in the morning with my p.r. in crow.
After John came home, we went for a 5K run - completed in 30 minutes with no knee pain! I have been able to run three days in a row for a total of seven miles with no knee pain! Weekend long run and four runs a week, here I come!
And because my abs are screaming at me - we did a yoga inspired abs workout to stretch out the core which felt wonderful!
Off to make dinner!
Yeah Look At That Puppy
Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle, Yeah!
Today’s first workout was a C2 hot yoga class at Core Power. I love the class and it’s nice to challenge myself with more advanced moves like side hurdler.
Since I’m nowhere close to doing it (apart from sliding my arm under my hammies), it’s a humbling experience.
I also can’t shake the feeling that I dislike the teacher. I like to think because of this I have a lot more to learn from her but do you just have a teacher who talks too much while she leads? It was still a great class but I just couldn’t “settle” into it.
My second workout was a simple 1 mile run completed in 9:51. ”Sorry so slow!” said my body! :D My main goal is to keep building to a four run week so I low-balled it today with the hope that I can long-ball it tomorrow. Yes, I just made up the phrase long-ball.
I fueled my workout with a Chocolate Cherry clif shot because I would like to get my tummy used to a high level of caffeine races over ten miles. Chocolate flavors seem to be my enemy though!
We started to realize that our abs were probably constantly sore because we keep doing planks every day (on top of what I do in hot yoga class) - and then I chanced upon this little routine, the Ab Ripper from P90X. (Check it out, there are little pictures!)
Hope you all had a good day! I’m off to bed!
Foxes Under the Bed
I tossed and turned and woke up late because I was dreaming so much last night. There was a fox in my dream and this morning I remembered how I used to make my father check underneath my bed for a family of foxes.
He would get on his hands and knees and use an umbrella to chase them out. Three months of this and my mother had enough - she suggested I be weaned off this behavior. The next morning my parents found me sleeping in my sister’s bed because I refused to sleep above the family of foxes.
Breakfast was a bowl of chai tea oats and a clementine.
And a lovely cup of coffee with a quarter cup of unsweetened almond milk!
Our fitness streak is tough - between hot yoga, running, and our daily abs workout, my abs are constantly sore. We try to have “pulse” days but I think we need more yoga abs stretching workout for “rest workouts”. They won’t interrupt our streak and will provide some relief to our sore abs!
365 Days of Abs Routines: Routine 19 of 365
Whew! We almost went to bed missing our streak but we remembered! Today’s abs workout was a yoga inspired. The eagle crunches are my favorite!
10 Eagle Arm Crunches
10 Eagle Leg Crunches
12 Full Eagle Crunches
Plank with knee twists - as many as possible in one minute:
Assume plank position and bring knee to opposing elbow!
Wide Arm push-ups (as many as possible in one minute:
Forearm plank, hold for one minute.
Half Moon, L+R
Sit-Ups: 50! I can finally do fifty straight sit-ups but it takes some effort!
Death by Plank and Kicking Our Asanas on Date Night!
Breakfast was a hot coffee with a cup of unsweetened almond milk and a teaspoon of Splenda! Fuel for my first hot yoga class of the day, a C2! It was a toughie doing it two days in a row and my left knee acted up a bit - but no stabbing pain!
Lunch was a veggie falafel footling from Subway which I ate as two meals - I get my bread pulled out and all the veggies.
We had two great abs routines. On Thursday, John picked the following:
Routine 12 of 365:
Sit-Ups, 50 (I can do 40 straight, John does 50)
Bicycle Crunches 25 each
Plank 30 seconds
Toe Touches 20
Sit-up pulses, 1 minute
Sit-up pulses, 1 minute
Bicycle Crunches, 25 each!
Sit-Ups, 50
Routine 13 of 36: This was my routine and it was Death by Plank!!!
Plank 45 seconds
Bicycle Crunches, 25 each.
Plank 1 Minute!
Butterfly Sit-Ups, 25 reps.
Plank 1 minute!
Parallel Shins sit-ups, 25 reps.
Plank 1 minute!
Side Plank - each side, three breaths!
The highlight of today was the arrival of my new super yoga mat - the Manduka Black Mat Pro! I was silly and bought it from my studio but it’s much cheaper on Amazon. The mat lives up to the hype, it’s amazingly thick without being plush and feels really solid underfoot.
Our date night tonight was a hot yoga class with John - he let me enjoy the mat while he used a regular one, but a surprise Valentine’s Gift might be arriving early for someone!
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{John looked like this - except male, six feet tall, and wearing a t-shirt from a recent race!}
I met John at the studio and I was so excited because I’ve been wanting to have a hot yoga date and I haven’t had a two-in-one class day in a long time!
We took a C1 which was perfect after my challenging C2. I love watching John in hot yoga - he is so strong that his chatarungas are perfect and he can kick ass on the arm balances. Me, I still do sexy push-ups! :D
Today, John held crow pose three times: 20, 25, and 30 seconds each!
I was able to hold one for ten whole breaths! Holla yogis!
Now we’re off to an Indian meal feast for our marathon dinner! Happy Friday!
