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

"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!