Not the greatest training week at the beginning, but I stepped it up towards the end. I had a minor pity party the first half of the week and a meltdown on Wednesday, but picked myself back up and kept going. Nothing spectacular to speak of.
Now, for the highlight of the week…your World Champion New England Patriots!!! Yeah baby!!! Such an intense, exciting game. I watched at a friend’s house with a few people and we were all standing up for the last 10-15 min of the game screaming at every little thing. It was mayhem. At least when we know we’ve lost, we can still lose like men. That fight that the Seahawks started at the end was just completely unnecessary and only made them look disgraceful. Awesome game. Awesome, awesome game.
Nothing else to speak of, so in honor of our Super Bowl victory, I’m going to share the Imagine Dragons song, Warriors. It’s part of a hype-up video released right before the game and I think they did an awesome job with it. I get goosebumps every time I’ve watched it.
Thursday – 50 min Run/Walk & 1 hr Unleashed obstacle class
Friday – Normal rest day
As you can see, I sucked this week in terms of motivation. Tara had the week off since it was school vacation and I found it very difficult to get out of bed on strength days. Oddly enough, on running days it was easy. Running is getting better with minimal pain afterwards so I’m hopeful it will continue on that route while I keep up with my stretching from the chiro and weekly visits with her. It feels so good to be able to do it again. And an update on the new shoes – they’re breaking in pretty well. I still get that slight hotspot over that same toe but not as bad.
I think my reluctance to go do my strength exercises could be because it’s time for a switch-up. I feel bored with them. When I’m doing them, I’m not…but then I think about it and I think I need a new routine soon.
Last night’s class at Unleashed was crazy. For the first time, Kevin had us do the obstacles after getting fatigued (instead of rotating station to station or mixing things up). For instance, he had us do box jumps and then go over and climb the walls. Of course, in my case, it’s more like do the jumps, attempt the wall, fall off the wall and then roll under the wall, the next wall and then bear crawl under the third wall. I did get higher though, so my progress continues there. I’ve met some really nice people there, too, and decided to join the New England Spahtens Facebook group in hopes of meeting even more obstacle race lovers. Some of the friends I’ve made at Unleashed are members (including our trainer, Kevin) so I’m already one step ahead.
Tara and I had a nice anniversary on Tuesday. I took the day off at the last minute and went to Middletown to visit her grandmother, grandmother’s best friend and her aunt. We all went out to lunch at the Portsmouth Publick House which had really good food, but it took like an hour to get our lunch. This normally wouldn’t matter if a place was jamming, but the restaurant was literally half empty and we went during a massive snowstorm…so we don’t get it. So we got to spend some quality time with good people and good food and then come and shovel yet again. I give up, Winter – you win.
Today’s song, because I’m feeling so good about running and my class last night, is going to be another Imagine Dragons song.
Wednesday – Back/Bicep – all 3 sets of 12-15 plus 15 min Yoga
Machine assisted pull-up – 140 lb, “Good Mornings” – 30 lb, Cable seated row – 45 lb, Flexed Bicep Curl – 20 lb, Dumbbell Incline Bench Curl – 17.5 lb, Cable Standing One Arm Bicep Curl – 10 lb
Thursday – 35 min run/walk, 1 hr Obstacle Class @ Unleashed
Friday – rest
Or a blog in this case…
I call that a decent week! Kept up with my walk/run plan and it has moved up to 2 min run/2 min walk and I believe it will change again on Saturday. My plan for that day is to combine Saturday and Sunday’s workouts so that I can get in some #megsmiles on Saturday since that’s not a current normal running day on my schedule right now. I’ll then take Sunday as an extra rest day and just enjoy watching my Patriots play and maybe get some stuff done around the house.
Last night I had my third obstacle class at Unleashed and it was a doozy! I worked up a huge sweat and loved every minute of it. I love that each time I’ve done the class it’s a little different. The first time I think we had 11 obstacles, then last Thursday was 12 and last night was 13! And our warm-up was just running laps around the gym this time – no burpees! Yay!!
I think I did pretty well last night, at least with the wall. This time, I got high enough to see over it, but still can’t quite get my leg up over the top. I don’t have enough confidence or strength for that yet. At least it felt good to notice that progress as before I was just staring at the wood. I also climbed a bit higher on the rope ladder and cargo net, but until my grip strengthens some more I’m not comfortable going higher without a pad beneath me (and neither of those things has one under it).
As good as that felt, my left shoulder is definitely NOT feeling well today. It stiffened up a bit last night before bed, but I took some ibuprofen and figured rest might help but it feels worse this morning. I tried reaching higher to climb instead of closer to my body and I think I tweaked something by doing that, especially since it’s my left shoulder that hurts which is my weaker side.
Last night, this is how the obstacles went (from where I started in the rotation): Rope wall climb (this is a 12 ft wall), the monkey rope (as I call it), Muscle up on Rings (go to around 6:30 in video), Kettlebell hoist, Cargo net climb, Rope ladder climb, Pull-ups (or in my case, hang from the bar for like 5 seconds at a time), Sandbag carry over plyoboxes, Sled push, Weight bag drag and pull, Sled pull and then my nemesis, the 6 ft wall. There is also an 8 ft wall that is part of that rotation with the 6 ft wall that if you get over one, you do the next, but please…I’m still working on the 6 ft wall.
Before we get to my musical selection for this week, here’s a quick registered race update for my #14in2014:
Don't blink. Just run. 