Tuesday: The Sequel

I thought he was kind of underrated...but then again, I slept through the original 3. Start throwing rocks now. 

So the thing about Tuesdays is that invariably what seems like the beginnings of a laughably bad day invariably turn out to be a cosmic warning sign.  A "go back to bed while you still can!" from the universe, if you will.

To recap, this was the warning sign:

12:01 AM: the fat kitty peed in the demon kitty's litterbox one too many times. The demon kitty started walking around with her paws at her crotch, but not going into her litterbox. Husband noticed this and frantically started cleaning her litterbox. As he was cleaning, they made eye contact and she peed...on the floor.  Right in front of him. He, obviously, gets mad and cleans it up but goes to bed cranky.

6:30 AM: my alarm goes off and I hit snooze once.

6:39 AM: alarm goes off again, I turn it off and get up.

7:00 AM: my other alarm goes off and hubs hits snooze.

7:09 AM: I come back into the room to find hubs beating my alarm clock with his fists trying to "get that thing to shut the he!! up!"

7:14 AM: The demon kitty pukes down the side of hubs's desk and I get to clean it up.  Proof that I'm not a mother: kitty puke (even without actual content) makes me gag.  A lot.

7:15 AM: I leave the house and leave a note instead of saying goodbye, because I know better than to wake sleeping monsters unnecessarily. At this point, I'm just as cranky.

8:00 AM: At the gym, I realize I have no clean underwear for after my workout.

8:55 AM: I decide, in my sweat-induced post-workout stupor, that going to Target sweaty and showering at work would be the best choice.

9:25 AM: I finally make it out of Target after about 20 minutes of explaining basic marketing concepts to the cashier.

9:35 AM: I dash into the shower at work to find that the definition of "adequate water flow" is not universal. Decide to hose down with body spray and make a day of it.

So that was the precursor.  The laughably bad part.  The part that really wasn't the end of the world, but was frustrating enough at the time to warrant a little foot stamping.

Then, last night, I went back to the gym.  I noticed something was a little off on my elbow, but it felt like a bruise...no big shock, I'm a klutz.

As the workout progressed though, it got worse.  By the time I got home (I decided pushups were maybe not going to do me any favors, so I tried to minimize how much stress I put on that elbow), it was bad enough that just flexing it hurt.  Awesome. After doing some poking around, it feels like the dips are the culprit, with pushups as an accomplice.  Sooo...I didn't do my pushups today, and I'm going to maybe sit out the dips for a while.  It feels a little better today, but joint pain makes me nervous.

In other news, this morning I went and got a TB test.

In 2 days, I'll know if I've been exposed or not.  I won't lie, a small part of me is a little nervous that I'll fail (I need this for some hospital work I want to do).  I don't know when the last time I got tested was, but I'm sure it was before I went to Brazil, so who knows.

Map of deaths per 100000 in a year or something, caused by TB. 

So that's today. No workout today, since I woke up slightly late and didn't have time to cram it in before getting stabbed at the hospital.  Maybe I'll do a DVD when I get home tonight...or maybe I'll just wallow in self-pity again. Who knows.

I'm also still a little cranky today. This weather is killing me.

How about you? What makes you cranky? When you're cranky, what makes it better/worse? 

This Week

Here are all my excuses for why I don't want to work out this week (let alone today):

• It's rainy and 49 degrees out.  Hi May, I'm pretty sure you're an honorary summer month so let's get with the program, huh? 
• It's supposed to top out at 61 this week, and rain every. single. day. 
• I'm starting hospital volunteer hours this week, Monday and Wednesday after work...that's when they had available. Figures those are my two key workout days.
• Wednesday and Friday mornings are taken up with trips to the hospital to prove I don't have TB...don't worry, they require that to volunteer.  I don't have TB. I hope. 
• It's really just gross out. 
• With Monday and Wednesday night out of the question, Thursday is the only spin class I can definitely make it to this week (and for the next few weeks). Tuesday I might be able to make it to if I don't need to go to another strength class for an observational beatdown. 

Ok, mostly it's just the weather that's making me want to curl up with a blanket and a book and junk food. And the warped schedule. So to combat those excuses, here's the plan of attack: 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Pushups, Dips, Situps, Squats PM: DVD of some kind after hospital	8:15 AM: FIT (training) 5:30 PM: Spin/Strength 6:30 PM: Pilates 8:00 PM: Biggest Loser treadmill run/walk	AM: Maybe a workout? DVD? Pushups, Dips, Situps, Squats PM: DVD of some kind after hospital	5:30 PM: Spin	AM: Workout DVD? Pushups, Dips, Situps, Squats Cleaning the house for guests!	Pirates 4	TBD - maybe a solo spin or something

I have an old friend coming into town this weekend to see POTC 4 (yes, that's a legit reason to drive 4 hours), so workouts from Friday to Sunday may be suspended or modified. I think screaming at the top of my lungs and jumping up and down when Jack Sparrow makes his screen debut should count as a workout, but that's just me.

Next week should be a little better, though next weekEND is Memorial Day and who knows what that'll bring. At the very least,

In other news, I did my dips and squats, and I have proof.

 Holy bajezus this is an unflattering picture. I've never thought my feet looked like clown feet and my elbows were ugly before, but this picture proved I should.

 Geesh.  This shirt is supposed to be my "sexy work" shirt.  I swear it looks better from the front!

 Proof?

 The camera was still on time delay, taking 5 pictures, so I modeled it out. The other 3 were worse than this, if you can believe it. Not a good picture day.

 Squats! Not sure what I'm looking at.

Look, ma! No head!


Ummm so yeah. Not going to take more work pictures until I don't look so...muffin-toppy. Sheesh. Maybe tomorrow I'll check the mirror on the way out the door.

Profile: Power Hills, the 60 minute edition

I finally got to teach again on Sunday, hooray!  Now the next time I'm scheduled to teach is...July.  Sigh. I'm hoping folks will start needing/wanting subs soon, since school's about to be out. We'll see.

In any case, I used a tried and true favorite profile with a new playlist (which I whipped up at 6:30 AM Sunday...class was at 8:30).  It got rave reviews, in spite of Judas being on there...I was a little nervous about playing that one, even though it's in the top 40, because it could be controversial.  But then I figured hey...it's 8:30 AM on a Sunday. If folks are here, they're not at church, so it probably won't matter. I got half a dozen people coming up to me afterward, beaming that they LOVED the class.  Folks, I can't tell you how much this means.  If you like a class, tell the instructor.  At the very least, it'll help you get more of what you like.  For me, it's like the universe knows when I'm feeling iffy about a class, and that's when the most people come up and compliment it.  Go figure.


In any case, here's the profile, with playlist:

The first song is from the ending credits of Thor.  It's a pretty sweet song...quiet at first, then it builds. It would be a good song for a "redemption" themed ride, I think.

Danza Kuduro was from the Fast Five soundtrack. Horrible horrible movie, but it was in Rio, so the soundtrack was fun.

I'm still embarrassingly hooked on Ke$ha (which I ALWAYS type "Ke$sha" first and read as "Ke dollar sign ha" courtesy of Glee) and Hey Baby, so those showed up as well.

The great part of teaching Sundays is that, since I've never actually been to the class before, I'd never seen anyone in there (except the friend who came just because I was teaching...thanks Liz! :-D).

In any case, it was a good ride. Everyone worked hard but was still smiling at the end.  Success.

I did my pushups this morning.  I'm repeating week 2 because last week I couldn't do normal pushups...I'd done them all girly style, so this week I'm doing them like a man.  Or something like that.



Pushups:

Set 1	9
Set 2	11
Set 3	8
Set 4	8
Set le max	11

I'm also restarting the dips and situps challenge, since last week was kind of a waste for both. I think I'll add the squats challenge in as well, so look for pictures later today.

Also, there will be pictures of office workouts that YOU can do, no matter what kind of privacy concerns your office presents, coming soon. Promise.  :-D

FIT, More Pics, and Working out in high heels

Just got to work after my first training session with Sharon, who's teaching me the ins and outs of FIT/Strength class instruction.  I had no idea it would really be like marching band with weights!  Guess I'd better shed this "white girl got no rhythm" image of mine, and fast, if I want to keep up with this.  Eep. I'm super pumped to check out powermusic.com and their clickmix.com affiliate though. Maybe I'll have a review up on that shortly.

First though, pictures.

Yesterday was another damage control day, so I did my pushups in the morning with Nick and then dips in the conference room (not the full round though...still couldn't do them with good form so I bailed rather than attempt injury).  No situps though because I'm lame. Literally, I can't walk straight.

Pushups:

Set 1	10
Set 2	12
Set 3	9
Set 4	9
Set le max	13

Yes, those are heels I'm wearing. This is proof that, on occasion, I can get gussied up if the moment is right. Today, the moment is not right. Yesterday, the moment was.

 Good form, even in fancy clothes. No excuses, guys.

This was sad little me, waiting for Sharon to arrive this morning.  Ok, I actually wasn't sad at all. I just felt a little dwarfed by the room.

 Zoomed in.

 We have lots of equipment.  LOTS. This is only half of one studio.

Yay weights. They smell like weights, look like weights, and hurt like weights. Must be weights.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On to more epic things, the professional pictures from Tough Mudder are back!  I'm a little annoyed that I had to sift through 20k+ pictures to find even these few of myself, but whatevs...they caught me jumping off the plank, which is really all I wanted.

 Oh right, that girl and her ankle.

 Again.

So what happened here is one of these guys (I think the one in blue shorts) came barreling around the corner and WIPED HER OUT.  Like, flat on her face, wiped out. So they took over and helped her to the finish while Julie and I tackled the wires on our own.

I'm not crying, I had a massive brain freeze from the icy water. Ouch.

And now...the plank!!

No turning back now...

Scream started here (note open mouth).

Continued, but you can't see my mouth.  You can finally see Julie though, who, because she was gracious enough to hold my hand on this one, ended up being blocked by my massive pinkness.

Mouth still open, scream still happening.

Landing gear down, still screaming.

COLD! Quick gasp before we went under!

And that's it. There's at least one more floating around of me with my bear face on, coming out from under the barbed wire, but I have to find it again.

"Rest" Days

After an inadvertent Race Day ride last night (oops) and a quick mile run, today has been declared a "rest" day. Tomorrow too, since Sunday is Tough Mudder. I say "rest" because it is still pushups day. And dips and situps. But I haven't done the latter two yet.

I did, however, finish making my shirt for TM.

 Front ^ Back v

Get it? Because the race is on Sunday, which is Mother's Day, and the race is the Tough Mudder and...and...c'mon, it's funny! And I used my best cursive with a Sharpie on a techwick shirt, which is NOT easy! Anyway, it's hot pink so I'll be easy to spot in the pictures.

Multitasking Pics

So these are all pretty much terrible, but hey...considering the obstacles of self-photography, I'd say they're acceptable  Any blurriness is due to my hyperspeed workout moves. I'm just that fast.

The first time I tried to get pics of this, my shirt was halfway up my stomach. Oops.

The ficus is proof that it's an office. Everywhere is a gym if you want it to be. (Friendly reminder: I was both waiting for stuff to download and on my lunch break, so this doesn't count as slacking, thankyouverymuch.)

As I mentioned, legs on couch is way harder than it sounds. That table was not a fan of me by the end of this.

Also, dips make my butt look HUGE. Or maybe it's the camera angle (ha, almost wrote "camera angel").  Who knows. Definitely not my butt's fault though. For more awesome "workout at work" pics, go check out my partner in crime on the opposite coast, Rose. Or, even better, upload your own pics!

In other news, I'm now a Star Level 2 Spin Instructor! Go me!

Today's workout is going to be simple.  No strength stuff today...I want to be functional by Sunday. Spin tonight with the hubs, then maybe a slow run if I'm feeling like it. We'll see.

Oh! Speaking of Sunday! I nearly forgot! Tough Mudder posted preview pics of the course! Here are a few gems to give you an idea of what's headed for us:

Oh look...there's still snow on the ground. Gulp.

Just looking at these gave me bruised shins. Yikes.

So when I was young and impressionable, I caught the scary part of some variant of "The Blob", where two hot young things were asleep on a platform not unlike this one, and The Blob managed to ooze its way up the arm of the sleeping beauty and then suffocate her. Then the manbeauty jumped into the water and tried to outswim it. And then it cut to commercials and my mom came home and I don't know if he made it. Bottom line is, I don't like dark water. This seemingly innocent obstacle literally makes me nauseous to look at. Horrifying. And cold.

Also when I was younger, a British friend told me that she'd once seen a man do a belly flop off a high dive into a pool, and his stomach had split open. In retrospect, she might have been making that up. But I've still never been off a high dive. Bungee jumping, yes. High dive, no. Another fear to conquer with cold, dark water. At least with a few dozen other people in the water, I'm not likely to be the only one to die on impact.

I'm not sure what obstacle this is, but by the time I run Sunday it'll be cold, muddy, and fun as hell to slide down. Let's hope we're not supposed to run *up* it.

This may be where we're washing off after the race, I don't know. Looks cold.

And of course, "IT".  This innocent little thing is going to be

This. Live wires dangling, waiting for you to come all soaking wet so they can zap you with 10,000 volts of fun.

All that said, every time I look at this picture I'm humbled and realize that I'm lucky to be physically capable of even considering entering an event like this.

I still don't like dark water though.

Multitasking Pro

In order to test some stuff I'm working on at work, I needed to download a whole mess of files...of course, that takes more than an hour to do, so in the meantime I'm multitasking!

Pushups (done this morning with the hubs):

Set 1	6
Set 2	8
Set 3	6
Set 4	6
Set le max	9

For the pushups, I reverted to column 2 for now. I'd rather be doing fewer real pushups than more girly pushups. Gotta man up sometime.

Situps:

Set 1	15
Set 2	18
Set 3	10
Set 4	10
Set le max	20

I could probably do more, but a) I'm still a little wobbly from yesterday and b) I'm so used to doing just crunches that I forget to come all the way up half the time and wind up wasting energy on crap situps. Argh.

Dips:

Set 1	15 (2 too many oops)
Set 2	15
Set 3	9
Set 4	9
Set le max	15 (I stopped because I was starting to sweat, which is suspicious in a meat locker office.)

The last 4 sets were actually with my feet up on the couch (not as lazy as it sounds), so they were even harder. Dips are the devil, but man I can feel them working stuff.

I have pictures of this as well, but I left them on my work laptop so I'll have to post them tomorrow.  They need some post-processing (mostly commentary on form and how ham-hock-esque my tush looks while doing dips. yikes.)

However, because no post is complete without something incriminating personal and pictorial, I give you my recent obsession:

Bath and Body Works scents. Ah. Mai. Gawd. Each one of those shower gels (the two on the right are new as of tonight) has a corresponding bottle of body spray and lotion in my room. 3 of them also have mini bottles of body spray and lotion for my gym bag. One even has a mini bottle of soap. It's sick, I know, but at least I smell good. Inconsistent, maybe, but good. I got them because:
Carried Away smells like cotton candy and makes me think of fairs and summer dresses.
Dark Kiss is sultry and makes me think of long black dresses.
Dancing Waters smells clean and refreshing and makes me think of jumping into a cool river on a hot summer day.
Secret Wonderland makes me think of a forest made of candy. But not in a creepy way, more like in a high-fashion way. It's sweet, but also kind of sultry.
Country Chic makes me think of gingham and fields of flowers. Maybe that's just the label. I know I love that one though.

I also got a small bottle of Citrus something or other body spray tonight too. It smelled better than my gym socks, so it was worth $3. Don't judge. Used to be I had this many different bottles of shampoo in my shower at once too...then I got married and that was just silly found the shampoo that worked best for me and stuck with it, more or less. Maybe that's what's happening here...I'm just trying to find my smell.

How about you? What's your semi-embarrassing obsession? 

Quick Rehash

Overall, a good night. I completed everything I set out to do, and then some.

Strength class: check
Pilates: check
Watch Biggest Loser on the treadmill: check - ran/walked 5.1 miles in about 57 minutes. Boom.
Situps max out: check...but after pilates/strength/running, so I ended up at about 25 and just felt miserable so I stopped.
Dips max out: check. While waiting for something to get done at work, I did 32. Not great, but you have no idea how much my arms hate me right now.
Squats max out: not check. Oh sweet baby jeebus not check. I can barely walk right now. I think I've done about 400 squats in the past 24 hours...does that count? I think I'll start the squats thing next week.  Oy.

Funny thing is, I'm not really tired...just sore beyond all reason. I drove home thinking "maybe I'll pop in one of the new BL DVDs I just got.

Did I not mention that I'm a BL junkie?  Guess what. I am.

Then I got home and went to get out of the car and nearly decided to sleep in the driveway, to avoid the walk to the house (10 feet and 2 stairs). Tomorrow may be an easy day.

Also, I won't lie...those A&P flashcards have me a little spooked about the class...but it doesn't start until June, so I've got a little time to make my preemptive strike.

In any case, bed time. Tomorrow morning is another pushups day (whimper) and the first day of dips, situps, and maybe squats. We'll see.

What'd you do today?

Post-FIT Hangover

I think FIT must stand for Frickin' Insane Training. The woman who teaches Monday nights is a nut.  She just keeps going like it's nothing (seriously I'm not sure she even sweats!) while the rest of us are flopped on the ground convulsing from jumprope allergies. And I'm supposed to be training to teaching this class.  Oy.  All I can think right now is that I want to get on a bike and spin this yuck out before class tonight.  Not sure if I'll do spin or strength (*whimper*) tonight, but pilates is definitely on the menu.

Because FIT was so nasty last night, I never did my max out tests for squats.  I have no real excuse for not doing the dips or situps tests though. Guess I'll be doing those tonight so I can start training for those tomorrow.

Also, I'm going to put this out there now...I'm not working out on Saturday. I'm not wimping out, I just want to make sure I survive Tough Mudder, and I'll need time to get my outfit ready anyway. Mom, don't worry...you'll be able to see me in the pictures.  :-D

So the plan for tonight (I like clean summaries, and I'm a little blurry today, so this is more for me than for you):

Spin or Strength, depending on how early I can get there
Pilates
Max out test for dips, squats, situps.

Rose over at Eat, Drink and Be Meiri said she'd join in on the challenge yesterday, and Heather over at View From the Shoe said she'd join today, so we're practically a mob here.


How about you? Are you in? 


Bonus points if you send pics!

Well that was fast

So a few different blogs I follow (of course I can only find one right now...) have decided to do the hundred pushup challenge. One girl (whose post I can't find for the life of me) posted pics of her newly-chiseled arms, and I decided that was enough to convince me to join in on the game.

Turns out, the guy also developed training directions for doing 200 squats, 150 dips, and 200 situps. So, naturally, I'm adding those to the list as well. Monday, Wednesday, Friday are now going to be my strength training mornings, since I'm not quite convinced I'll be able to get up early enough to motivate myself to run.

Last night I did the initial test and managed to eek out 13 pushups (which in retrospect may have been with crap form). This morning, Nick and I did Day 1, and he did MUCH better than I did...but he's also a boy, so I'm not too warped about it.  :-P  My sets:

Set 1: 12
Set 2: 7 (supposed to be 10, couldn't do it)
Set 3: 7
Set 4: 7
Max Set: 11

The last 3 sets were knee pushups.  I may have to repeat this week, I dunno. We'll see how Wednesday goes.

Tonight (or sometime today) I'll do the initial tests for other stuff and report back.

In other news, this is the preliminary workout schedule.  I know what you're thinking, there aren't any rest days built in...but the fact is, I don't take consistent rest days...I take them, but not on the same day each week.  Usually I take 2 or 3 actually, throughout the week.  So I'm going to have a plan for every day of the week, so I have some idea for what to do if I switch around my rest days. The unmovable (read: days I'm usually good about working out) days are M, T, W. The other 4 tend to depend a lot more on my mood and whether I'm teaching or not. Also this is my "shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars" plan...I've never run a full hour and a half in my life, and probably won't start today. But if I aim for that, maybe I'll run 45 minutes, you know?

As many of you know, I'm a Biggest Loser junkie.  I know I know, there are infinite contraindications on there, and a billion moves made for TV that shouldn't actually ever be done...but what can I say? It's inspiring and motivating.  To that end, I'm also tacking on the Biggest Loser 11 Finale Challenge, to add to the number of successes (or failures, who knows) for this month. Here's hoping I look half as good as the contestants, come finale night!