Tuesday

Had a personal trainer workout today. Trainer proceeded to make my arms jello-y. As in when I lifted my spoon to my mouth to eat a bowl of cereal afterwards it was hard (but they are fine now). He made me do "Scull Crushers" (triceps) on my back on a bench using a big heavy bar. Yikes! That truly could have crushed my scull. Good thing I wasn't trying that by myself.

I've got the 5 year old signed up for afternoon lessons on the 2 days I don't work. It seems he is going to have hockey either 2 or 3 times each week. Seems like it is going to be both days on the weekends. Yippee! What fun!

I forget what sitting around in a day with no commitments feels like. Crazy!

Workout for tomorrow: 60 minutes on Eliptical.

I have not watched my Heros episode yet or Biggest Loser. I will probably watch Biggest Loser while Eliptical-ing tomorrow. I watched True Blood last night. Boy that show is funny. Blister on Sookie's brother's hand? As if!!!! :)

Check Check

OK. I was supposed to do was run 35 minutes hard. What I did was run 20 but my stomach and my pulsing brain were not happy with me. I wussed by 15 minutes. egads!

Slacker!

Phewsh! That was tough work slacking off. Really!

OK. This weekend was a bit of a disaster on the eating front (understatement) and the excercising front for that matter too. I think the going to work for 6am last week and having 11 lessons/sports activities between the 2 kids in a 7 day period was excessively draining. Thank goodness that will not be happening again anytime soon.

Today is Monday. I am supposed to run 35 minutes hard.

Really, as much as I wrote that love letter to Running a while back, I am out of love right now. It is probably whacked out PMS hormones messing with my brain but lying in my bed sounds like a much better idea than running or any other excercise. Who will prevail I wonder? :) I will blog later tonight to admit to slacking or to log my victory over sloth.

Wednesday, Thursday

Wednesday:

Work again by 6:15am. *ug*. Kiddie hockey at 5pm. Did not do excercise in between. Hubbie strong armed me onto Eliptical at 8pm while he put kids to bed. Thank you hubbie. Got in 630 calories which is good because I took in about 2400 calories due to lack of organization and grazing.

Thursday:

I am physically exausted. I hit snooze until 7:30am. Considering I have to have the kids out the door by 8:15 that is too much snoozing. My body is physically tired. Oh well. This is only for one week. I am supposed to run 4 hills today. Daughter wanted to walk to preschool so now it is 9:35am. I have until about 11 to get the hills done and I don't really have time to do them later unless I do them after dark and it is supposed to be cold and raining then. I guess I could still get it done now but I am torn between that and house stuff (groceries, cleaning). 5 year old has lessons at 2:30 and hockey in the evening again.

Marissa & Angie: My son is doing a 5 day training camp type thing this week. He will normally only have hockey 2 -3 times per week. This week he has it every day for 7 days. Yikes!!! I am just glad he is enjoying it. The training camp is hilarious. There are about 40 kids on the ice at once. I must remember my camera! They break them into 6 groups but initially they play a giant game of freeze tag and there are kids everywhere!

PS Sorry I am behind in my blog commenting. I will catch up soon hopefully but not today or tomorrow :)

Monday & Tuesday

Monday:

Crazy crazy day.
Was at work at 6:15am.
Left work and got a 30 minute hard run in before picking up kids, getting boy's homework done and off to his first hockey practice by 5pm.
After hockey we went to famous drive through restaurant and I succombed to their onion rings.
9pm: did 500 calories on the Elliptical in attemps of counteracting onion rings.

Tuesday:

Ass kicking by personal trainer at his studio.
Maybe some Elliptical later. Hockey again at 5pm.
Being a hockey mom is tiring!

Sunday

I did 1 hour on my bike as planned. Apparently it was about 440 calories. I did a real life video session on my bike trainer. I did not put in a super effort. Right now I am just trying to get my butt used to sitting on a seat for long periods of time again.

I do have the inclination to do an hour on the Elliptical tonight but I don't know if that will fly.

I have to do the following things before that (and I stayed up until 3am yesterday)

1. put kids to bed.
2. tidy up kitchen, dining room, living room.
3. pack 5 year old's snack for kindergarten tomorrow
4. pack a lunch for myself so I don't eat too many calories while at work.

And... I am trying to get to work for the un-godly hour of 6am. Seriously, I have trouble getting out of bed by 6:30 so getting up at 5am is going to be a stretch especially since I stayed up until 3am watching TV last night.

So.... I would like to Elliptical to burn up some calories. Chances of doing so are slim. However, True Blood is on tonight and I would like to watch that so why not watch while Elliptical-ing?

Scheduled for tomorrow is a 30 minute run at a hard effort. I'm going to try to do that right when I get home before I go pick up the kidlets. 5 year old has his first ever hockey practice tomorrow right at dinner-time (thus trying to get away from work early). Tomorrow is going to be a loooooong day.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.............. fun times!

Saturday

Today was scheduled as 40 minute 'adventure' run. I ended up going to a park downtown and running the D-Fir trail. That was a crazy trail! It is single track with some stairs thrown in. I did walk many of the steep stairs and 2/3 of one giant hill. For some reason in my head I thought that if I ran 40 minutes it would only take me 20 minutes to walk back on the flat pathyway below. Huh? Ya, I know, pretty silly. It was a loooooooooooooong walk back. I ran the entire thing one way and then walked back for what seemed like an eternity.

I did wear my HRM.

Run: 41 minutes - 518 calories
Walk: 50 minutes - 350 calories.

Lots of calories burned for sure. It was nice in there. I should walk it sometime. It would be a great workout even walking.

Friday

Easy calorie burn on the Elliptical: 635 calories

Strength training routine at home.

Pair 1
Pushups + 3 times up and down stairs

Pair 2
Lunge with knee drive
Reverse flies

Pair 3
Wall squats
Shoulder press on ball

Pair 4
Standing hammer
Dips

Knee up crunches
Reverse crunches


This routine was one that trainer had me do and I wrote it down. It seems a little short to me.

Tomorrow: 40 minute run in morning.

Biggest Loser Blog Edition

Fatinah has joined this challenge. You may want to too. Check it out.


http://biggestloserblogedition.blogspot.com/


I will not be joining because I have banned myself from joining real challenges. Mainly because I do OK the first week or two and then explode. It just is not good for my mojo :)

Thursday

I think I finally have my 'new' routine nailed down with respect to which days to work etc. I thought I would hate it since I am not working 3 days in a row like I used to but it turns out that every day I work is like a Friday because I don't have to work the next day.

My oldest is now in kindergarten every day in the morning. My littlest is in preschool Tuesday and Thursday mornings. So Tuesday I meet my trainer at 9:30 and Thursday I have a chance to run in the morning. The only challenge will be to do weights /core on my own on Fridays after work.

So, it is 12:24pm and I have already done my run. Yippeee! I did a 15 minute slow easy warmup run then ran 3 hills (each take about 2minutes 40 seconds). I decided to wear my HRM but only turn it on for the hills. I was surprised that my average was only 165 since I am gasping for air by the end of it. My max was 180. I did not do a cool down since I was worried about getting home

I also walked the kids both ways to school again today instead of driving. Each trip is about a mile of walking. I'm thinking of getting the pedometer that Little Sheree told me about but first I have to find the comment that she left telling me which one it is. Hahahaha.

Wednesday

Did my scheduled 20 minute 'hard' run .

Husband says I need some 'Amber-ification'. That means pushing myself hard like Amber does.

I ran with my heart rate monitor but did not really look at it while running. My average was 161 bpm. I think that is a decent effort. I also think I could have pushed harder but that is OK.

I'm also going to do some 'extra cardio' tonightby walking on the Elliptical after the kids go to bed. I'm trying to finish off season 2 of Heros before Season 3 starts next Monday so I will stay on there for at least one episode (44 minutes).

This Week's Plan

So much for enjoying not having a plan. I have an 8K race which is 4K straight uphill (mountain) and 4K downhill in 6 weeks. I want to be stronger for that because right now I'm a weak little kitten and I don't want that hill to kick my ass.

Therefore Coach/husband has given me a 6 week plan.

Here is what I have to do for this week:

Wednesday: 20 minute run (hard effort, no slacking)
Thursday: 4 hills (running)
Friday: Do total body weight/core routine sans trainer.
Saturday: 40 minute 'Adventure Run'. No neighborhood. Go somewhere cool and cross-country-ish if possible.
Sunday: Bike

Game on!

Tuesday

Well... for some strange reason I did not ride my bike yesterday. Well really there is no strange reason, I just did not do it. I was lazy and did not want to do it after 8pm when my first opportunity arose. Instead I went to my room and watched a cheesy made for TV disaster movie about a flood.

Today I had a trainer session. The 3 year old was home because her nose was stuffy and running (preschool says don't come if your kid has cooties). It was pretty good. Since I have dropped down to once a week I must really make an effort to a second strength workout in one either Thursday or Friday. 15 kneeling pushups has become hard so he suggested I do them every other day.

As some extra 'excercise' I walked the 5 year old to and from school (usually I drive). Actually on the way to pick him up I ran pushing the 36 pound 3 year old in a stoller. It was only a 5 minute run but hey, that was 5 minutes that I could have been sitting on my butt in my car burning up gas.

This afternoon is round 2 of taking the 5 year old to afternoon skating lessons. Last week resulted in him lying on the floor, skates and helmet on, clinging to my leg near the door to the ice. Fun times. Hopefully today goes better. At 5 years old I thought he was past that kind of thing. Why was he doing that? Well he told me he did not like the teacher. What didn't he like? He did not like the colour of her hair (white) and how she talked. To be fair she is a gruff old babe who is pretty blunt. She does not exactly appeal to young children. His previous skating teacher was a bubbly 18 year old guy so when you are expecting that and get gruff-lady well maybe that is cause to be alarmed and lie on the floor. I don't know. I can't remember being 5 all that well. I do remember at that age I refused to go to school the day that we had a field trip to the police station. I was afraid they would lock me in the jail. I bet one of my older siblings put that idea into my head. But alas... I digress.

Thanks for reading bloggers! Bye for now!

Monday

Hmm... what to do... what to do...

I am not on a workout schedule right now which is kind of nice. My training for my half ironman triathlon will start during the first week of November leaving me kind of 'free' right now to do what I want.

Anyways... Saturday I did half an hour of Elliptical while watching episode 1 of season 2 of Heroes on DVD. Since then I have watched a bunch more episodes while not excercising (bad girl). Sunday I took the kids on an outing in the morning until early afternoon. Ms. Nickiechickie called me up at 5:30pm to see if I had done my 'long' run yet. I had not and so we met up to do our 'long' run.

Our long run was 45 minutes straight. I had very negative thoughts in my head the whole way because seriously, it was a struggle. Boy oh boy it it ever easy to lose fitness FAST. I have an uphill battle ahead of me to get me to comfortably do the half-iron next June. My, oh my!!! Part of me wishes that I had not signed up but Hello! I did sign up so enough snivelling already.

Maybe I should get on my bike today. That is what I will do. I will bike today.

Personal trainer tomorrow.

I like what Angie posted about the BL eating plan. It seems pretty simple except for having protein at every meal and snack. Sheesh! That is a lot of protein-eating and would require being organized to have said protein on hand for consumption. Hmmm.

Thursday

Dino had to bail on our hill run but Nick and I met up anyways. We both had sore legs from our various lunges and squats and other excercises that we'd been doing this week so we decided to skip hills and just run for 30 minutes instead.

It was a balmy 16 degrees which felt downright summer like. We ran after dark and had a good old time yapping about this and that. I did not even start my watch. I am kind of anti-gadget right now. I have not been watching my heart rate, calories burned or distance. My Garmin is lying neglected, battery dead on the top of my dresser. It is nice not to worry about my stats.

In the back of my mind a little voice is crying out "Why, oh why did you sign up for that half Ironman??" Shut up little voice. It is 8 months away. Surely I will be ready by then... :)

PS. Sarah Sundae: Yep, my legs are still hurting. Not sure if it is from the tough workout my personal trainer made me do Monday, or me doing my own workout yesterday at home on legs that were not fully recovered but lowering myself to sit in my desk chair and walking down stairs is pretty stiff and a little bit owie. Just a little bit, not a lot. Honestly I like that kind of owie. Makes me think I'm doing something right.

Wednesday.

Leggies are still sore from trainer on Monday.

Managed to do some strength and core working out at home tonight at 8:45pm no less. Hubbie put the kiddies to bed. Thanks Hubbie! Video taped it for G2C since I had promised to make an excercise video.

Anywhooo... Supposed to go run hills tomorow with Dino and Nick. Wonder what my legs will think about that.... Hahaha.

Have a good one bloggers!

Dear Running,

(noon on Tuesday)

Dear Running,

I'm sorry I always abandon you when life gets bumpy. I'm sorry that I get wrapped up in wanting to run farther and faster and get discouraged when that does not happen.

I need to remember that you are not just about burning away unwanted extra inches from my middle. You are about being outside and enjoying my surroundings and enjoying being able to do it.

Today my life is busy. I will have two hungry kids waiting for me after work who need my time and attention but after they go to bed I *will* go runing. I will not worry about how far or how fast I go. I might get soaked in the rain, but I will run, because I like to run and because I like making myself stronger.

I will prevail over energy vampires and post 8pm zombie-ness.

I will run.

Once I press "Publish Post" I won't have a choice :)

Love,
Sparky

Edit:

8:50pm. Mission accomplished. My legs were dead from trainer workout yesterday. I was wearing a very loud jacket borrowed from husband. It was 8 degrees C / 46 degrees F but no rain. No music in my ears. It was quiet and dark outside and I was not scared of the dark. I'm glad I went.

Trainer workout

Well, I finally had my first workout with my trainer in about 3 or 4 weeks. He is now exclusively operating out of his new studio which is a 15 minute drive in good traffic.

The workout was good and probably harder since he has machines not just the free weights that we use at my house.

I have gone down to 1 day a week only for a couple of different reasons but mostly because now that both kids are going to school my shedule is a little annoying.

Anyways... it was nice to workout with him again. He said I would be hurting tomorrow. I hate when he says that because it is almost always true.

Full Body Friday

So I said I would do Elliptical and strength today.

I've got the strength part done and probably too much. As I mentioned yesterday we had 2 trees cut down. Both everygreens and one of them a MOTHER of a tree. Diameter of probably 3 feet or more (and over 40 years old according to the growth rings).

Anyways, we had two separate guys come to the door after work asking us if the wood was up for grabs. We planned on keeping the wood. Husband has left for 2 days so guess who decided to move the wood so that people would stop coming to the door to ask about it.

When I tried to lift one of the big pieces into the wheel barrow there was no way. I'm guessing the big pieces were over a hundred pounds. Anyways. I did manage to man handle them onto our small moving dolly. It was crazy that I was even moving those things and my back is kind of complaining. I hope I didn't hurt myself. The amount of wood I moved was truly crazy.

Thursday

Well, I got it half done. I got my 30 minute run in but did not do my strength workout. My kid-free time got eaten up by the guy that showed up to take down a couple of the trees in my yard. Oh well. Then we have been running around doing things until now (9pm) and now I have to run to the grocery store so the kids have milk and bread tomorrow.

I am working tomorrow. Husband is travelling tomorrow. I will aim to Elliptical and do weights. I will have to get right on that after work though. By the time I fight the kids into their peaceful slumbers I am a zombie. Damn energy vampires! :) Bless their little hearts!

Hmmm... I just realized that it will be really hard to run this weekend given that husband will be away. Darn!

Thanks Terry

Thanks Terry for you comment today on my last post. It really made me laugh. I had to call my husband over to read it.

Tomorrow is the first day of kindergarten for my baby boy. (who is now 4 feet tall!!!). It is also the first day of pre-school for my littlest one. Thats right folks. Tomorrow I will have 2 hours of kid free time in which to excercise. Woo Hoo. I switched my work days around so that I could take the kids to school instead of my mom doing it tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will run for half an hour, then do a weight workout at home.

No housework or yardwork while the kids are gone... it is going to be me time! I'll report back when I do it!

Thanks for checking up on me! A demain!