Difficult week

This week…has not been great, sadly.  A combination of pushing myself too hard at the gym (I’m a silly girl), the impending end of semester and a 24 hour nausea-dizzy thing meant that yesterday I got home from the shops, cut myself a large piece of hedgehog slice and crawled into bed to watch a few hours of Toddlers and Tiaras.

Yep.

I think my brain had just had enough.  Enough calorie counting, enough with the exercise programs, enough with the study, enough with restricting myself…ENOUGH.  So it collapsed in on itself and I ate hedgehog and did no study.

Today was a little better (still too sore to go the gym, so I’ll leave my next workout for next Monday).  I managed 3 gym sessions this week, and I’ll be working on the weekend (which means a 20 minute ride both ways to work), plus cycling to class and work during the week…yeah, I think my exercise will be okay.  And I’ve managed to do some study (slooooowly working my way through a Grammar assignment which will hopefully be mostly done by the end of the night), but…it’s slow going at the moment.

And I’m terrified of hopping on the scales on Monday.

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Week 8 ahoy!

This morning’s run was the hardest run that I have done to date!  Which, considering I’ve only been running for 2-3 months, isn’t really saying a lot.  Doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard!

And it was hard.

Why?

Well, for two (maybe even three!) reasons:

1. It was hot.  Oz Weather (you lying jerk!) told me it was about 26C outside.  I’ve been in 26C, and I’ve been in 30C, and I know which one it felt like in the sun!

2. It was windy.  Sort of a warm-ish wind that was kind of nice at times, but when it was a strong head-wind almost pushing me backwards wasn’t quite as nice.

(And 3. I did W8D1 for the first time, so I was tacking an extra 3 minutes on the end of the run that I hadn’t done before).

So it wasn’t my most inspiring run.  According to the program, it was certainly my slowest (which I had suspected due to the fact that I was being overtaken by ants).  And for the second half of it I just wanted to collapse on the ground and mope.  But!  I didn’t.  I finished it and, my God, was I happy when it was over!  I took my heart rate (175bpm) and stumbled over to the nearest drinking fountain to drench myself in the couple of mls of water it manage to spurt out every 10 seconds (refreshing!).

In other running news, I have signed up for not one but TWO (2!) 5K races this year.  First one is in April at my usual stomping grounds (home advantage!), second one is in July and is my attempt at fundraising (I’ve chosen the Peter Mac centre to support).  So now I have goal!  Two goals.  Three goals, if you count losing weight as a goal.  Which I do.  So that makes three.

Have been struggling lately at my inability to lose any weight, but that’s something for another day.

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Week 6

This morning was a bit of a disappointing start to my exercise week following all the positivity I was feeling on the weekend and yesterday!

Why?

Unfortunately, dear friends, boot camp did not go as well as it could have.  I should have realised from the first warm-up exercises when my legs were feeling achey that it wasn’t going to be a very high-powered day for me, but nevertheless, I pushed on.

(Only 4.5 hours of sleep definitely didn’t help!)

For some reason, for every exercise we did, my legs simply said:

Honestly, I was so close to this

Bear crawls up a hill?  How hard could that be?

It turns out, very.

Sprinting after bear crawls?

Backwards bear crawls?

Lunging?

Squatting?

More sprinting?

Legs on fire!  Hurting before they should have been.  Words could not express how frustrated I was that my body was just not responding in the way that I knew it could and that I was coming up a very definite last in every race.  Finally had something of a mini-teary (privately!) out of pure frustration.

But, but, regardless of all that, I didn’t quit, I didn’t leave, and I didn’t give up.  Damned if I was going to stop!  So I kept pushing it all the way until the final exercise and decided that if nothing else, today was an incentive to work even harder.

I talked to JJ about it afterwards and apparently sometimes this just happens.  For some reason or another, there are days where your muscles refuse to co-operate.  It could be that you’ve pushed it too hard a few days before, that you haven’t eaten properly or that you just haven’t slept enough and your body isn’t rejuvenated and ready to go.

In any case, chalking it all down to experience.  At least I exercised, right?  It all helps!

Friday will be BETTER!  I know it!

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Week 5

Back to routine with boot camp this morning!  Yet another circuit (which are quite fun!) involving the flying fox (the most fun) and burpees (the least fun).  Not to mention pushing cars.  Also, lunge jumps.  So many lunge jumps.  Then some more burpees (whyyyy?).

Then got home and OM NOM NOM MUESLI BAR (not ideal, but I don’t have any milk so my options are limited).

Definitely feeling fitter than I was a few weeks ago, which means I’m heading in the right direction.  The challenge will be when boot camp finishes and I just have my own exercises, but I’ll think about that closer to when the time comes (which, handily, is during exams).  Mostly now just focusing on studying, working and trying to eat well (which is going well for the most part despite OM NOM CRUMPETS every now and then).

In unrelated news, I encountered the scariest manga/comic I have ever read the other day.  Actually may never recover.

Verrrrry tempted to link it on FB just for giggles, except I’m too scared to actually find it.  CHICKEN.

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Week 5

Well!  I changed the ruler on the side to a probably more achievable goal weight…which isn’t the endpoint but rather somewhere in the middle.  So when I lose the next 3kg (and I will, mark my words, I will!) it will feel like a massive accomplishment, rather than a non-event.

And massive accomplishments keep you going!

This week has started with a run in the rain =)  Well, drizzle.  It was very half-hearted rain.  I’ve found that while I run or whatever, I come up with half-hearted inspirational comments (read: platitudes) to convince myself to keep going and not stop and curl up and wail that it’s all too hard.

You know the things.  Along the lines of, ‘If it doesn’t hurt (as in burn, muscles on fire, heart racing hurt) then you’re not doing it right.’  And that something being hard isn’t a reason to stop; that’s the reason to keep going.

I know.  I know.  Really?

But, surprisingly, in my muscles on fire burning state, it actually works.  Being stubborn helps, too.

So now I’m taking a moment or two to drink my SLM shake thing (I know, it just keeps getting worse!  I’m like some sort of gym junkie, only not in a gym) before getting ready for work.

That’s right, kids, got up at 7AM to exercise for an hour before 9 hours of work.  Bloody dedicated!

Tomorrow, abs, in the spirit of boot camp not being on due to a horse race.

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