Weekly Workout Wround Up

May 9 - May 15

May 9

5.5 miles. Could have been better. But it's done and that's okay by me.

May 10

Nothing! Well, unless you could sitting outside drinking way more beers than I should on a Tuesday night. My brother and I went to the Cubs vs Cardinals game. Perfect night to watch the Cubs lose.

May 11

5x2:00 @ 5K effort with warm-up and cool-down for a total of 3.43 miles. I kind of miss our two mile warm up in the dark that we did over the winter. Running in circles around the track doesn't give you quite the same feeling.

May 12

Nothing again. After work I presented to a class of computer science graduate students and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was eat dinner and sit on the couch. So I did.

May 13

A triumphant return to weight lifting! Okay, maybe not triumphant but it felt good to do it. My left quad/adductor area doesn't love strength training yet so I hope I didn't overdo it.

I moved onto Workout A of Stage 2 of the New Rules of Lifting for Women. Stage 2, Workout A consists of:

2x10 Front squat/push press
2x10 Step Ups
2x10 Dumbbell one point row
2x10 Static lunge w/rear foot elevated
2x10 Push Ups
2x60 sec Planks
2x10 Horizontal Wood Chop

I had my PT show me how to do a plank without cheating and DAMN those are hard. I was dripping sweat and grunting by the end of the second 60 second rep. Whew.

I also had to make a modification to the horizontal wood chop since I don't have a cable machine in my basement. I laid on my back on the floor, knees bent, feet on the floor and moved a 10 pound plate from side to side. Probably not as good of a workout as the cable machine would give but it's better than nothing.

May 14

Normally I would run long on Saturday morning but when my alarm went off at 6 AM I looked out the sliding glass door in our bedroom and watched the wind whipping the leaves on the trees around. The sky was gray and I knew it was chilly outside. If I'd had a race to run or even a goal race coming up I'd have dragged myself out there. But instead I turned off my alarm and crawled back into bed.

That doesn't mean I was a total slacker, though. Instead of running I went to yoga! I hadn't been to this yoga class for over six weeks. It felt good to stretch although it also felt harder than it used to.

May 15

Another gross, windy, cold, rain day. Instead of running (or biking!) I decided to get in another strength training session. I went to the gym and did Workout B of Stage 2 of NROLW:

3x10 Box Deadlifts
2x10 Bulgarian Squat
2x10 Underhand grip lat pulldown
2x10 Reverse lunge from box w/forward reach
2x10 Dumbbell prone Cuban snatch
2x10 Swiss ball crunch
2x10 Reverse crunch
2x10 Lateral flexion (couldn't find a good demo of this, sorry)
2x60 seconds Prone Cobra

This particular workout also calls for a 15 minute interval session. I chose to do mine on the stationary bike although I followed the exact wording in the book and I think I could have pushed myself much harder. The book recommended a warm up w/3 minutes at Level 1 on the bike and 2 minutes of Level 2 then 3x1 minute intervals at Level 4 with 2 minutes at Level 1 in between. I forgot that this portion of the book kind of assumes you don't have a good cardio base. Next time I think I'll punch the levels up a bit.

And then after all that I spent some time stretching. My left hip flexor/quad area was still tight afterward, though. I took the weekend off running to rest it and then stupidly used while lifting. I shall confess all my sins to my PT next week, I promise.

Total weekly mileage: 8.93
Total strength training sessions: 2
Total yoga classes: 1