Days 229-231: Fitting in the Working Out

DAY 229
A fun and exciting Tuesday night meant 5 hours of sleep before I had to get up and go to work. I was so tired, I didn’t want to work out. But I brought my gym bag with me just in case.

Of course, I ended up going at lunch. I decided, though, to ride the bike since I was so tired. Plus, I needed to read my book club book (The Book Thief) before Friday’s meeting. Most of my workout clothes were dirty, but I packed a pair of shorts I used to wear for indoor soccer. They are so much bigger on me than they used to be! That was a great feeling.

I forgot a ponytail tie. Ugh. But luckily I had my BondiBand and it helped hold my hair back. I sweated it out on the bike for about 35 minutes or 11-1/2 miles.

DAY 230
Thursday, I had my usuall Phone Buddy duties during my lunch hour. The plan on Thursday’s is to run after work or after T Junior goes to bed.

I did not feel like pushing the BOB and I’m still a little nervous about running in the dark at night, so I skipped my run, saving it for Friday morning instead. Daylight Saving Time is in a week. I will be happy to run in the evenings then.

I did my strength routine after work while I fended off T Junior. First, he tried climbing on top of me while I did crunches on Mr. Bouncy. Then, when I was down on all fours doing fire hydrants and kickbacks, he was lining toys on my back like I was a table. I added some wall sits in the routine and there he was right next to me with his back against the wall demanding I help him. I have no idea how to explain to him how to do wall sits, so I just told him he was doing a good.

3 sets of 35 crunches on the exercise ball = 105
arms: 3 sets of 15 lifts each continuously: bicep curls, butterflies, rowing, overhead extensions
3 15-second wall sits
6 sets of 10 alternating leg lunges
3 continuous sets of 10 curtsies on each leg
more legs: 3 continuous sets of 15 each: kick backs, fire hydrants and leg lifts

Later, I sat him on the exercise ball and bounced it and rolled it around. We laughed and laughed.

DAY 231
Guess what? I ended up pushing the BOB anyway. Mr. T is taking bagpipe lessons at a new time. Friday morning was the first one and he didn’t know how long it would take him to get there — especially during rush hour. So, he got up early and left early. That meant that I had to take T Junior running after his breakfast.

It turned out to be a pretty nice run on the trail right by my house. It’s dirt and gravel, but it’s packed, so it’s not all bad.

On the first half of the run, we passed about 10 different women going in the opposite direction. Wow, I thought, there are a lot of people out running today.

The lake was gorgeous. It was sunny and cool, but not cold. I was admiring the view when I noticed something different.

Outside the lodge, there’s a grass hill and I could see people running up and down, up and down. Hill repeats! Then it occurred to me all those women I’d seen were probably part of whatever was going on there.

You can’t really see them because my phone makes everything appear farther than it is, but you can see the hill to the left of the lodge.

On the second half of the run, we passed the women again and I thought about asking what group they are a part of. But they looked like they were concentrating so hard on their running and I didn’t want to disrupt them.

Plus, none of them were pushing jogging strollers.

3/5/10 – 3.02 Miles – 32:07
Average pace: 10:38
Mile 1: 10:19
Mile 2: 10:31
Mile 3: 11:02

I’ve always sworn the way out is slightly downhill, which means the way back is slightly uphill. The entire way. According to AJ II, where I join the trail it’s at 550 feet above sea level. Then, it descends to 477 feet (appears to be the lowest) just before my turn-around spot at 1.5 miles.

I knew it!