Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Wednesday Workout Update

Sunday: The alarm went off at 6:00 am - remind me again...what the hell am I doing, getting up this early? Running? Whose stupid idea was this?!? I even had to sneak into the park - the gates were still locked at 6:45 am...apparently normal people do not have the need to go to the park so darn early.

Still, Ricky Bobby and I set off at 6:49 am, and ran for 1 hour and five minutes. My goal at this point is distance, not time - although when I had a tenth of a mile left, I sprinted, pretending I was running toward the finish line. Guess what I found out? A tenth of a mile is a long way to sprint, especially at the end of a long run! Which reminds me, I need to download the theme from Rocky for my long runs. How long did I run, you may be wondering...well, after getting this comment "...either that or I dare you to do another 5 this weekend..." on the last WWU post, I took Helen's DARE and ran with it - and I'm proud to say that another five mile run is in the books!

I called Jeff over to keep me company on the last mile...I was dying, mentally. He rode his bike alongside me while I ran, chatting about I don't know what...but it kept me going. At one point he was ahead of me by maybe 10 feet, and I pretended that there was a rope tied from his bike to my waist and he was pulling me, then I remembered how when I was a kid, a boy named Bruce tied one end of a rope to a car's bumper, wrapped the other end around his wrist, and had someone (probably one of his older brothers) tow him while he rode his skateboard. Broke both his arms doing that. Bruce was a daredevil and as a result, seemed like he always had a cast on some part of his body. Then I wondered about his brother Matt - he was my age and we were buddies growing up in our sailing club. I should check him out on Facebook. Matt and Bruce were part of a family of five boys and there was someone for every age in our sailing club - the littlest brother, Chuckie, was pals with my brother. Oh wait, I'm almost at five miles! That was a nice mental vacation!

And that's how I got through the last mile of my five mile run. Whatever works, right?

Newest statue in "my" park - a Revolutionary War patriot...strangely enough, wearing sunglasses ;)

Monday: Although I was a little worried coming into this workout after running five miles (have I mentioned that enough yet?), I did ok. Hit all the machines in cardio, plus some ball slams and mountain climbers. In the gym, we practiced our form - squats were the biggie, with a pvc pipe that Brad had numbered levels next to the cage. The lower your squat, the higher the number of points. We had to hit 300 points. Oh, and we had the bar with weights on our shoulders, just to make it more challenging fun. Jenny went first and knocked out her 300 points in just 12 squats - girlfriend hit 25 every time! I was next - um, I think I hit 25 once or twice, but it was mainly 10's for me...that was a lot of squats! We rotated around the gym doing other isolation exercises until it was time to do the squats again. Of course, Brad added extra weight to the bar, and once again it took me a while to hit not 300 points, but 350 - he upped that as well! All in all, not a bad workout.

Tuesday: Up at the crack of dawn again. Met Jenny at 7 am for our run. We were slower than molasses - don't know what was up with us, other than being a bit sore from Monday's workout. I wore my new Camelbak backpack (bought for the amazing price of $20 - a local store was discontinuing them) filled with VitaCoco coconut/pineapple water. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't bother me to have this on my back while running, and it worked out really well to take sips at every mile. Only thing is that I think I drank too much - I poured in two containers of the coconut water, which was 23 oz. - and I drained the entire thing! That seems like a lot of fluid for a four mile run (notice how I buried that in here...we wanted to do five miles, but it wasn't happening). Runners, what do you think? I had a bit of a stomach-ache right at the end of mile four, but I think that was due to the cup of coffee I drank before we started our run. Is nearly 6 oz. of fluid per mile a lot? Keep in mind that it was 82 degrees and of course, humid as hell.

Wednesday: Spent the entire hour in the gym doing the Filthy Teammate workout...yes, Brad expanded on the standard Filthy Fifty by having us team up to do a combined total of 200 reps per exercise. Plus he threw some new ones in there for us...things that looked deceivingly easy (and fun) but ended up being a killer.

Michelle and I were teammates ("the Chelles") - we did thrusters with a 45 lb. bar, chest presses with 15 lb. dumb bells, calf raises on the leg press with 225 lbs., T-bar rows with 10 lbs., hip pops (where you have a rubber tube around both ankles and pop one leg out to the side), these crazy crunches involving a 6 lbs. weighted ball - hard to describe - it looked simple enough but ended up being a killer, and tricep hops (not really the name but I've blocked it out) - this looked fun when Brad demonstrated it, but holy crap, it was hard! He has this cage contraption that is mostly used for ab work, but in this instance, he put a Bosu ball under it (for us shorties...the tall people didn't need it). You stood on the Bosu ball, put your hands on the bars and jumped up, held yourself in a locked elbow position for one second, and then back down. Up and down...my triceps got a workout and then some! Michelle and I did 100 reps each of every exercise except for the tricep hops - somehow she had gotten ahead of me, so Brad had us split the last 50 - she did 25 of them while I did 50 tricep dips. I can tell you right now that I won't be lifting my arms above my head later on today, and it's not looking good to wash my hair tomorrow morning, lol!

What a crazy workout week...I am going to try and force myself to get up early on Friday morning and go for a quick one mile run in my neighborhood, just to get a speedy mile in. I feel like I need to redeem myself for such a slow run on Tuesday. This would be a first for me - running before I go to work. Hopefully now that I've put it out here, I will actually do it. We'll see. :)

22 comments:

  1. Hhmmm, I didnt know that Forst Grant sold sun glasses way back in the Revolutionary War days, what do you know.

    Pretending there is a rope tied to you, I use that mental trick. When I am walking I fix my gaze on an object off in tehdistance, e.g. a street lamp pole, and mentally tie that rope to it and pull myself to it. Why it works I don't know, but my arms get more into the rythmn of my walk when I do so and i move my butt faster. Visualization is a great trick!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like you had a good workout week.. I would be wore out. Have a great day.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hooray for another 5 miler! The Rocky music does wanders for me when I am working out. Of course, Rocky is my all-time most favorite movie in the whole wide world but still...it should help :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. LOL, I'm the same way, my mind completely wanders when I'm running. Sometimes I try to track back as to how I got on a particular train of thought and let me tell you, it is bizarre.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Always love workout weds. Thanks for your sweet comment the other day. You're the best!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Having a tough mental game is almost as important as bring the physical one. Great job with the mental vacation and the rope imagery.

    Again, girl, you make me feel tired and old just be reading what you are doing! Awesome....5 miles - woo hoo!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Maybe theyre googles? I don't know wht he'd be wearing gogles. We'll call that artistic licsence.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You are such an inspiration to me with your running. Honestly, I think about you all the time when I am trying to run. And I think about a finish line and people being there to cheer me on when I am trying to get just a little more running in.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Too much work! I like that photo of you and your cool boyfriend.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good grief, Shelley! You're a machine! *applause* You are doing so awesome. Congrats on that 5-miler. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm impressed by your 5 miles! Haven't managed more than three yet myself. I've promised myself that I'll try for 4 on Friday. Yikes.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hooray for 5 miles!!

    As for hydrating, I don't think 24 ounces is an unreasonable amount for 4 miles. I think it is all in how you drink it. If you sip a lot, you will do much better than lots of big gulps, which cause sloshing and return of said beverage. I drink probably 1/2 cup for each mile or so, and then a bunch when I am done.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love the way you told your stories,, it drew me in and I felt like I was right there with you.

    ReplyDelete
  14. It always boggles my mind how hard your gym workouts are! I've always hated tricep dips :(

    Glad the "chelles" kicked butt!

    And that was nice of Jeff to help you the last part of your run - such a great hubby!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Great story about Chuckie and the broken arms. Don't you love those mental vacations in the midst of a run?
    I often take miles to plan a blog and a FB status.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Great workouts. I especially appreciate your runs. 5 miles feels righteous, doesn't it?! I like to mix mine up. At my age I don't think I want to run long every time, so I alternate longer (5-6) and shorter (3-4) runs. Like you, I think it's smart to mix in lifting or biking or other cardio activities. Good luck on your fast 1 miler. OH, and in answer to your initial question (was it rhetorical??)--you were up that early because it's slightly less horrible, weather-wise to run before the heat and humidity do their best to do you in.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I don't know how much drinking is too much, I think it depends on a person. What I do know is that you have to drink before you get thirsty. If it didn't bother you, I wouldn't worry about it.

    I had to laugh about Bruce and Matt :)

    At my first 10K I knew what time I was about to finish and I made a playlist for that run. The last song was the Rocky theme and it gave me wings. Now my ipod is on shuffle but every time this one comes up it makes me run harder :)

    Great workouts Shelley!

    ReplyDelete
  18. You just inspire the heck out of me with all that running!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Whatever gets you through the run is right - sometimes the only thing that keeps me moving is knowing that I'm going to post abot it, and I want to post about how I FINISHED the run, not QUIT on the run. :)

    Jealous about the camelback...seriously am debating on getting one!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Sunglasses on that dude? Totally awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  21. I snuck into blogland specifically to read your WW post. Those mental pictures? AKA hallucinations from running for so damn long. HA! I knew you could do it. And you should do it again and again and again.... you get my point. Pretty soon 5 will be a mid-length run for you and not your long run. You are absolutely right not to worry about speed - just get the distance in. You need to get those legs used to turning over and over and over for that 10K. I drink 8 oz. for every 2-2.5 miles when it's hottish so for my long run this week, I'll be taking all four of the Fuel Belt bottles. I'd rather have extra than not enough.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hey Shelley,

    I'd love to pick your brain about how you run your contests. I've never done this on my blog, but I would love to start. Could you send me a message on my blog or track me down on Facebook perhaps?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are now moderated to prevent spammers from leaving, well, spam - but rest assured that as soon as I read a real comment, I will publish it. So please, comment away, even though the blog is officially closed. Thanks!