My Journey to Fit: running babies

I've been back at Planet Fitness for several weeks now, and along with the 30 minute circuit room, Diane and I also hit the 12 minute Ab room, although I can assure you we do not do 12 minutes of ab work in there. We are up to using three of the machines, and they are quite challenging, especially at the end of our workout.

I also have been arriving early to either walk for 30 minutes on the treadmill, or else do a little speedwork on the treadmill...which is dang hard! Sheesh, just a little bit of that and I'm a sweaty mess. Luckily I've discovered what time the air conditioner kicks on (3:47 pm, in case you're wondering) and which treadmill is directly under the blower, so I try to snag that machine on speedwork days. I've also been using the glute machine, which helps strengthen your glutes as well as stretches your hamstrings.

Despite all of this, my dumb hamstring/glute area has been hurting me ever since the first week of the Olympics, when I developed Olympics Butt from sitting, knitting, and watching all the events for too long each evening. It's extra irritating because it's bothering me to run; lately it never relaxes and ends up pulling the entire run to the point where I don't feel like I'm getting a full stride in. I've been doing the hamstring stretches that I learned from my physical therapist back in 2013, but it's not resolving. Not sure what I should try next, but this is literally a pain in the butt.

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On Saturday, our entire group of Renegades showed up to run - even the Renegade babies! I'm sorry I didn't realize that until I started writing this post...you know I'd have gotten a group picture to commemorate it. Andi, Diane, Cary, Logan, and I all ran together. It was warm and humid, and while I thought I'd run five miles, the truth is between the hamstring, heat, and humidity, I was just not feeling it. Diane veered off to get a few extra miles in, while the rest of us headed back to the clubhouse. We finished with 3.65 miles and that was good - it was Cary's first time to run with Logan in the jogging stroller, and she did great, but it was also nice to not overdo just yet.

We finished and of course I had to take a picture of Cary and Logan: