The week that was – hanging in there

Monday – I dragged my “I don’t want to go to training” butt off the lounge and went to my evening session of Indoor Rowing, (Monday nights at 7pm are getting so hard now it is cold and dark). I was well worth it, after a good warm up we got back on the rower for 6x 30 second intervals as hard and fast as possible, I smashed it. But then my trainer threw another set at me and what do you know I got better again. I guess that’s why I pay him the big bucks.

Tuesday – I went to my gym EnVie and was going to go to the outdoor session but with rain looking imminent I decided to go to “Indoor Gym” as Miss 3 calls it. I decided to carry on with cardio after last night session I wanted to push myself. So after a warm-up on the Crosstrainer and then a warm-up on the tready, I upped the speed and started doing 30 second intervals, my fast 30’s I started at 8kph and then upped it by 0.5 to 1 each time until I cracked 12kph, I did 2 intervals at 12 and then started a slower decline back down. My previous best on the tready was 10.5kph so when I actually got back down to that level it actually felt easy (for 30 seconds anyway). Overall I did 12 intervals and dare I say smashed it again.

Wed – no workout

Thursday – Miss 3 and I had a big day of renovations ahead as the floorboards were being sanded tomorrow. Thankfully I had a salvation in my friend Cindy who came to pick up Miss 3 to take her to a friends house for messy fun day, leaving me free to get things done a lot quicker. I started working at 8am and apart from a few quick breaks throughout the day didn’t stop until about 8pm that night. Repairing floorboards, pulling out tacks and packing the last minute things away. Exhausted.

Friday – No rest for the wicked I was up at 4.45am to carry on moving the last of the furniture etc then headed off to work. We packed up the family and went to stay the weekend at “The Outlaws” so the floors could be sanded.

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Hello Sunrise – I don’t see you often enough.

Saturday – I got up early to drive ½ hour to boxing class (normally only have to do a 1 minute walk), I am pleased I made the effort, I did catch a beautiful sunrise, I was feeling a bit tired and lethargic but managed a half decent class. I popped in to see how my floors were going and they were looking amazing. I headed to a café to have some quality alone time a bite of breakfast and a Skinny Chai Latte, aaah the serenity.

Sunday – we had a great family day at the local Air Show, Wings over Illawarra. I had never been before and it was a pretty good day, things for all ages. Miss 3 of course spotted the kids rides from a mile away. My nemesis favourite Mini Donut van was there but I somehow was not hungry at the time and managed to steer clear.

The finished floorboards, let the painting and decorating begin.

The finished floorboards, let the painting and decorating begin.

So I think a pretty productive week of exercise considering the fact we are mid reno’s and had to move out of home for the weekend and keep some sort of normality in our lives. This week may be different there is so much painting to do and I think I will be using every spare minute, plus tradies coming.

The week that was – getting moving

I have neglected to do a proper weekly wrap for a few weeks, I can attribute this to the fact I have dropped the ball a bit with my training and had not a great deal to report, so I got my head back in the game and managed to get myself moving this week and keep going.

Monday – I returned to my Indoor Rowing PT session and although not feeling entirely motivated I managed to do a workout that inflicted some pain on ye ole muscles the following day.

Tuesday – I tossed up between going on an expedition to IKEA and doing a session at the gym. I needed things from IKEA for our home renovations and being that it is an hour trip each way and about 3 hours to venture around the store it truly was an expedition with Miss 3.5 in tow. So the end result is I ditched a gym session and went shopping.

Sometimes IKEA is the winner.

Sometimes IKEA is the winner.

 

Wednesday – I really wanted to do a workout to make up for yesterday’s shopping trip but work got in the way, I should have no excuses but life does get in the way.

Thursday – Anzac Day I had a call from some friends to say they were at our local Café, so I rounded up the family on the bikes and we headed down and had a drink and a play at the park, then we headed off for a bike ride. Miss 3 was very whingy and I only managed to get about 3k before the whinging drove me mad and I turned around, so a 6k ride was all we did.

Friday – I had a late start at work so headed to the gym to tackle my new weights session, so I did a 10 minute warm up on the Crosstrainer and then managed to do 3 sets of 10 of my new program and even bumped 1 of my weights up.

Saturday – I could feel the pain from yesterday’s weights but I did make an effort to get to a 7am boxing class. I found a good boxing buddy of similar level and fitness which makes a big difference to the class.

Sunday – back to home renovations and moving boxes and boxes of stuff and furniture to rip up carpet in 2 rooms, we managed to get 1 room done entirely and remove all the nails and tacks. We have to get the other room done this week as the floors are being sanded next weekend.

So with 3 good sessions with my gym and PT and lots of incidental exercise I feel like I have got back on track.

My goal for this week is to keep this up and add in that extra session instead of shopping.

The Week That Was # 1

So my first week of this part of my journey has gone pretty well exercise wise.

Monday Morning I went for an early(ish) morning swim, I don’t do 5am like these Olympians but I was able to drop Miss 2.75 off at Daycare at 7.15am and be at the pool by 7.30. I have managed to find myself a swim coach, he hasn’t asked for payment (yet) so I have been lucky. He just gives me some drills to do and leaves me to my own devices and I see him about once month and then practice my drills once (or twice if I can make it) a week. Otherwise I would just plod out 1k get out and go to work. So my warm up was 300m which I did in 8.10, this is the distance I have to do for the Triathlon in Oct so my goal is to get this a bit quicker.

Monday Night at 7pm I saw my personal trainer Ian at Pioneer Fitness and I asked if I could do some Benchmarks that I saw on Shannan Ponton’s 8 week Challenge.*

Pic with Shannan Ponton from The Biggest Loser Australia, so devestated the only shot I got was blurry.

*Sidenote I am a huge fan of The Biggest Loser Australia trainers, Shannan Ponton, Michelle Bridges and The Commando and follow all of them on Facebook.

I started with a 10 minute warm up on the rower and then did a slight variation of the benchmark drills which consisted of:

1klm run                                                                             7min 13 sec
Sit ups in 60 sec (full wrist to knee, not crunches)             25
Push ups in 60 seconds (knees)                                        28
Burpees in 60 seconds                                                      11 (these things are hell)
Concept 2 Rowing Machine 2 minutes                              526m (previous best for this time was 505m)

My aim is to do these again in 8 weeks’ time and see my improvement.

Tuesday Evening I attended my first Contours Woonona class, I joined Contours a week ago because they are going through a revamp and will be re-opening in 1.5 weeks as EnVie Fitness. With the revamp comes childcare and a lot more classes, something that appealed to me more than the current Contours format. With the studio being closed for the revamp classes are currently being run outdoors and in School Halls and Surf Clubs. I went to a Tabata class, as a newbie I wanted to know what I was getting myself into, so I asked the question on Contours Facebook Page, what is Tabata, the reply Tabata is high-intensity interval training session using alternating periods of short intense exercise with less-intense recovery periods. It’s a short intense workout – lots of fun! Alex :)”

Thanks Alex, but “Tabata” and “Fun” are two words that should not be used in the same sentence. You do 8 consecutive sets of the same exercise 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 second rest, so by the time you get to the last couple of sets your muscles are exhausted. It was about 15 mins of fun (ie the first 3 sets of each exercise) and then 30 minutes of hell. Exercises consisted of squats, lunges, push-ups both normal and biceps, crunches etc etc, most of these whilst holding weights above your heads or doing arm weights in conjunction with the other exercises. Will I go back, of course, from all the Googling I did to research this post Tabata it is a great calorie burner in a short space of time.

Wednesday morning, with aching muscles from previous night’s class, I rested. I did head back to my personal trainer in the evening for session of Indoor rowing, spin bike, weights, running and then a Rowing relay with my 3 training buddies. A rowing relay is a 2000m race with each person rowing 500m and then changing over as fast as possible.

Thursday Afternoon I headed to a Contours Boxing class, another 45 minutes of hell. The girls in this class who have been coming for a long time were boxing at a blistering pace, putting my speed to shame, arms were so tired after this so I guess it was “Mission Accomplished”.

Friday had a full day of rest. Well as much rest as you can have with a toddler and a full working day. For those who don’t know me or I haven’t caught up with lately, I am currently working Mon, Wed and Friday.

Saturday had a lazy morning in PJ’s playing with Miss 2.75 and then felt a tiny urge to go for a jalk (jog/walk); I could have sooooo easily stayed on the lounge. But I dragged myself out and it was a glorious winter day and had a distance in my head of 6k. So after a little walk to warm up I hit the button on my Runkeeper and hit the pavement.  I made the 3k fairly easily at 4k I wanted to stop, 5k really really wanted to stop, but I made the 6k at a very slow pace, but jogged the whole way. (Definitely would not have called it a run).

Sunday (today) – a very well deserved day of rest from exercise, although we did have a hectic day of family Birthdays. My nephew’s 9th Birthday for lunch and then in the opposite direction with The Outlaws (aka an affectionate name for hubby’s family) birthday celebrations with a really nice family dinner and a very rare occasion that everyone managed to attend. I ate waaaay too much food today.

So to wrap up the week I think my exercise was pretty good and I will try to do a similar amount next week, but my food has let me down. Next weeks’ challenge is to log all my food in My Fitness Pal, I know when I do this it makes me accountable and stop mindless eating and for all my friends on My Fitness Pal, yes I am going to open up my privacy settings on my food diary so you can see how good (I hope) I am going to be, haha. If you want to follow along my user name is mrzcracker.