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.
