Post-vacation Reflections

Well, in terms of fitness, thank god my boyfriend went back to Iraq (I mean, I love him and it was my choice but this push to spend as much time as possible together was a serious hit on my exercising). I finally feel free to work out until my hearts content - not like I want to spend every waking moment with him since I'm not going to see him for three months.

I did great the week post-Aruba. When to the gym constantly, worked my ass off and it felt amazing. Then DB came home and given that I was short two days on our time left together, I chose to forego the gym that week.

I ran the 10k on February 1st and came in with an average 8:58 minute mile or something like that. Keeping it under 9 minutes for 6 miles! I hope to do better in the future, however. I want to be running my 5k in March at an 8min/mile. I ran the following Tuesday and possible Thursday, but I can't recall exactly. Either way, I did something at least.

This past Sunday I ran to the grocery store, since I was limited for time and had a ton of work to complete. It was only like two miles, but I tried to make them fast miles.

Monday, yesterday, I went to the gym after work. I learned that my intermediate pilates class is going to be moved from 6:15pm to 4:45pm since not enough people were attending. It's also moving to this tiny little closet-like room rather than the studio and will only be 45min long. I can no longer attend, since I can't leave work early for that. I'm going to have to invest in some Stott videos. She told me to buy only the Advanced series because I was at that level now. Honestly, I don't think that this will improve anything for attendance, but we'll see. Hopefully they'll move the class back to 6:15, although I kind of suspect that she just doesn't want to be there that late.

So I did pilates for 60 minutes last night. Then did my lower body work. I incorporate three sets of multiple types of lunges, high knee sprints and butt kicks. In between sets I do squats - side, plie, jump, regular. I threw in some mountain climbers and a plank at one point also. I think did a up-and-down speed work on the bike for 11 minutes. I tried running on the treadmill, but some asshole was wearing cologne and I didn't last more than 3 minutes before my respiratory system couldn't take it. I ended with a superset of leg ext (63lb x 8) and leg curls (85lb x 8) x4.

I'm a little sore today and I think it'll settle more as the day goes on.

PR + weight gain

It's been both good and bad.

This weekend I ran on a PR on my 5k, which I already talked about in the celebrations thread. 27:15. Not bad given my lack of running recently.

I've been trying supersets in my weight lifting routine. They're very exciting. I feel stronger while I do them and I think I'm seeing greater results - at least in terms of endurance and overall strength. I'm going to probably spruce up the routine. I've only been going to pilates twice a week, however. I'ev been making the muscle conditioning and bootcamp class.

My pull-ups have returned to where they were before the slackfest.

My weight is at 166, which is up from my starvation-nausea episode the week before. My lady problems are fine now, so that's a weight off my mind. I'm slowly working my way back down again though. A pound a week on, a pound per week off.

It's been snowing and icy lately. More to come. Makes it hard to run or want to run. Finances are tight, so no more uber-healthy/expensive food. But the size and all should reduce also. That should help.