September Challenge: Week 3 Recap

Well, my game face is on and I finally feel like I have made some real headway this week.

• 25 miles/40.2336 km per week – this week was a crazy week, with a very limited amount of time to run over the weekend, I got up early for not just one but two 7am runs. I am not a roll out of bed and into my running gear kinda girl either. I don’t leave the house until all systems are a go, so I am giving myself a big pat on the back for getting up at 6am BOTH days of the weekend, and they were rainy days to boot.  Weekly mileage was 28.76 miles/46.29km, bringing my total mileage for the month to 93.65 miles, I’m so close I can taste it!

• 100 push-ups a day – although they are getting easier to do (I am up to 50 consecutive now) I don’t know why I wait until 9 0′clock every night to do them. I was pleased to find out that I have had a few takers on the challenge, welcome Kimberley and Soraiya…of course Soraiya is doing them from her toes.

• Big progress on my Weight Room Certification this week.  My 12 page exam is complete and has been delivered for marking, three of my five training plans are complete, my evaluation date has been scheduled and little miss push ups from her toes has agreed to be my “client” for my evaluation.

One more week to go!

September Challenge: Week 2 Recap

It’s recap time! Two weeks down and two to go…

• 25 miles/40.2336 km per week  – easy peasy!  The sun was out and knowing that week 3 would be a busy one I decided to take full advantage of it logging a few extra miles.  Weekly mileage was 33.26 miles/53.53km.  Bringing my total to 64.88 miles.

• 100 push-ups a day – I thought on day 10 and 11 that this might become a family affair.  I guess it sort of has, they sure like to remind me to get them done.  I dedicated day 12’s push-ups to Adam Levine and hope that he noticed the gun show coming from row 9 during the Maroon 5 concert. Day 13 almost didn’t happen, but the thought of doing 200 on day 14 was enough for me to suck it up and get ‘er done.

• I finally made some good progress with my Weight Room Certification.  There is still plenty to do, and the clock is tick, tick, ticking.

Back to school…again

For those who spent the first fantastic weekend of October outdoors; enjoying fall’s finest colours and unseasonably warm temperatures…good for you! This is where my head cold and I spent Friday night, all day Saturday and all day Sunday, taking the Weight Trainer Course.

So what did I learn?
• That I had forgotten what most of the names of the muscles were, quads, glutes and hammys were not going to cut it this weekend.
• How to correctly spot (helping someone lift or lower through a portion of an exercise that they can not do by themselves), and that although “banana” is a funny code word for when someone needs help with their lift, it is not always appropriate.
• You should always wipe down a piece of equipment before you use it.
• I draw great stick figures.
• Biff and Mable are great visual names, but Agatha?
• Adidas makes pleather-like workout pants.

All kidding aside, I did learn a lot and thanks to my classmates and instructors, I had a lot of fun learning.

School’s out for summer…officially!

75 multiple choice, 25 true or false and 50 marks short answer…SMF! Yes, a bit of an ugly exam, but it is done. We were given 3 hours to write, I was done in 65 minutes, not sure if that is a good sign or a bad one.

I came home and dropped off my 120 assorted bagels, 8 assorted cream cheese, 6 assorted milks, and 3 large tubs of peanut butter and went for a well-deserved run. I love how people judge look at my shopping cart when I am shopping for a race, I like to comment to anyone who asks (and they do) that I REALLY love bagels.  You should see how they look at me when I do my Costco shop for the race and I have 9 large boxes of Chunks Ahoy cookies and raspberry jam, at Costco I don’t even bother to comment when asked, I just make may way to the cash register quietly with a “what are you looking at?” look on my face.  Come on people, do you really think that I am going to eat 9 large boxes of cookies or 120 bagels?  But even if I was, should you really comment?

1.5 mile test, take 2

For the last nine weeks I have been diligently completing my Lifestyle Logbook for my KPE class. I have to be honest, at times it has been a struggle, it just requires too much information (the time I eat, a list of foods that I eat, food groups, servings, waking heart rate, hours of sleep, activity, duration of activity, heart rate while doing activity, the weather, notes, and overall mood…TMI). So now it is time to put this baby to bed with graphs, charts, summaries, but not before reassessing my overall fitness, including my 1.5 mile test.

Six laps around the track should really not be an issue for a runner such as myself, but sometimes I have been known to put a bit of pressure on myself, today was one of those occasions, as was January 20th (the original 1.5 mile test). After Body Camp I changed into my fastest running outfit (running tights and what I like to call my speed skater top, it is tight and has one of those hoods like the Olympic speed skaters wear, all very cute, all very Lululemon) and drove to the track. Half way there I realized that I had forgotten my mp3 player, there was also a break in the rain, I love my tunes, not a fan of the rain, wanted to beat my time from January, the dilemma…I went with no rain and no tunes, I hoped that I wouldn’t regret it.

My track of choice is at a high school and as luck would have it, several PE classes were also using the track for frisbee football, sitting down and chatting, backpack storage, and there were a few new to walking (not kidding, daycare field trip, I mean track trip) as well. I started my warm-up on the inside lane, it only took a couple of laps of extremely close passes and the fierce look in my eyes (practicing once again for my cover shot on Runners World) before I had claimed my obvious ownership of the inside lane. I stopped for a quick slurp of water, reset my chrono, and I was off. I kept my pace fairly consistent, I knew what I had to do and how it would feel. The only lap that I struggled on was lap four which could have been because I had to dodge the frisbee and three or four slow moving players, come on, what the hell people! I pushed right to the end running so fast that one of my pony tails fell out, that must have been a omen or something because that has never happened before.

So how did I do…I bettered my previous time by 24 seconds (translates into slightly over a 3% improvement) which isn’t bad considering that I have shortened up my long runs since running my 1/2 marathon in March and might be slightly heavier (blaming Easter). Did I miss my music…absolutely!

Back to the grind

Well it is all systems a go around here after my Easter hiatus. Outdoor Body Camps and 5 Peaks Trail Running start this week and Pilates by the Lake next week.

I spent part of this afternoon at one of the local high schools teaching Pilates to an alternative PE class. There are always a few non-believers in the group (usually the boys at the back of the class), I always get a kick out of teaching Pilates style push-ups, oh and I make sure that group in the back has correct form  Pilates style push-ups = pipes of steal, baby!

Tonight is ‘double cardio’ Tuesday, but I think that I may need ‘double cardio until next Tuesday to work off all of my Easter indulgences, maybe I will see you there.