I ran a race in New Jersey in May. Oops!
Goodnight! 🙂
–Melissa
Archive for July, 2011
Pants on Fire
Posted in All Posts, Race on July 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Alright, I know I’ve been terrible at blogging the past few weeks. And I probably will be until August. Tomorrow is my last day of work in July. Then it’s study marathon time. Boo. Hopefully this will be the LAST time I have to dedicate an entire week of my life to studying. Fingers. Crossed.
I can’t even remember the last time I posted. But you can pretty much assume my work outs have been looked like this: lower body strength, cardio, upper body strength, cardio every 4 days, with a rest day thrown in there when I feel like it.
Current favorites include hamstring curls on the stability ball (ouch), chest press (obviously), and skull crushers (make me feel strong).
My cardio days have kind of sucked this week. Monday I just didn’t have it in me to do intervals so I did a 10 minute warm up, 3 miles at a 10 minute pace and a 10 minute cool down. It was nice to just run (something I haven’t done in a while), but a 10 minute pace on the treadmill definitely doesn’t push me like intervals on the treadmill or running outside. Yesterday I just walked on the treadmill at a 4.5 pace for an hour. My legs were really sore (possibly from hamstring curls) and I just felt blaaah. I blame the heat. Maybe?
I know I need to step up my running game again soon. I got an email this week about the course for my 10k in October. I was bummed to see that it’s just the same 5k loop twice, but it’s my first out-of-state race, so I’m excited anyway!
Hopefully I survive the next week…. 😕
–Melissa
2 Mentally Easy Workouts
Posted in 3 miles, All Posts, Strength on July 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Hi! My busy week has been pretty busy, but I’ve gotten in two good workouts anyway.
Yesterday I had to be at work before 8 for a training, and I wanted to study after work. I somehow managed to get to the gym at 6 am for an upper body work out. I benched 115 all by myself and did the rest of my go to upper body work out. I’ve written it out before I think, but here it is again:
10 minutes warm up on the elliptical with the resistance at 10 (out of 20) and the incline at 10 (out of 20)
3 sets of 10 reps of assisted pull ups
1 set of 12 reps of lat pull down
5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6 and 12 reps of chest press (currently I am using 20, 25, 30, 35, and 30 pound plates on each side plus the 45 pound bar for each set, respectively). In between the first four sets I do 4 different ab moves. Tuck crunches, bicycle crunches, regular crunches, and standing obliques with a 35 pound weight. With the last set of 12 I super set it with 12 reps of chest flys
5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6 and 12 reps of shoulder presses with abs in between and super setted with 12 reps of lateral raises.
5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6 and 12 reps of bicep curls with abs in between and super setted with 12 reps of single arm curls.
5 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6 and 12 reps of tricep pulls with abs in between and super setted with 12 reps of skull crushers.
10 minutes of cool down on the elliptical, resistance at 10 and incline at 10
This is easily my favorite workout right now. It’s challenging physically, but mentally I love it because I never get bored! This is my go to workout, but I try to change up a move or 2 every time to keep it interesting. Sometimes I’ll do tricep dips instead of tricep pulls, or front raises instead of lateral raises, or seated row instead of assisted pull ups, bike instead of elliptical, etc, etc. If I’m in a rush sometimes I’ll combine the bicep and triceps and skip the abs on those sets.
The only problem with going to the gym so early is that I was exhausted the rest of the day. By the time I got home I could hardly sit up straight. I ended up lying on the couch “studying” for the night. Not the most productive…
Being up since 5:30 also made it seem like the longest day ever and I kept thinking it wasn’t Monday.
Today I had no energy when my alarm went off and decided to sleep some more and run after work. All day I was dreading my workout. But I ended up at the gym anyway and decided to do an easy version of my run/walk intervals. Instead of 1 minute of running/1 minute of walking I did 1 minute or running/2 minutes of walking. But, I increased my speed for the running since I knew I would have a longer recovery. My slowest running minute was 8.0 and my fastest was 9.0. Including 5 minutes of warm up walking and 5 minutes of cool down walking I did a little over 3.6 miles in 40 minutes. This was a good work out for when you don’t really feel like working out and I felt awesome afterwards.
Tomorrow I know I won’t get to work out for sure, which is a bummer but I knew it was coming. I have to be at a client an hour and a half away at 8:30 am and I have a work happy hour after work. Darn 😉
Kidding!
–Melissa
Another Week, Another Race
Posted in 3 miles, All Posts, Race, Short Run, Strength on July 10, 2011| 2 Comments »
Since I’ve been pretty busy lately it’s much easier to post once or twice with a recap of the whole or half week. So that’s what I’m going with until I have more time! Since Wednesday here’s what has gone down:
Thursday: Upper body workout. Guess who bench pressed 115 pounds?! Me! I ran into Mom at the gym and she gave me a spot. I might have chickened out otherwise but I didn’t even need much help and I did 10 reps! Woo hoo! I also did assisted pull ups/ lat pull down, shoulder press/ lateral raises, bicep curls/ one armed curls and tricep pull downs/ skull crushers. I think this might be my favorite workout right now.
Friday: Spinning class. I hadn’t spun in a long time. I had been thinking about going to my favorite teacher’s class for weeks, but I kept missing it. I finally made it this week and it was great.
Saturday: Lower body workout. Not much different here except I changed my regular lunges to a combination of regular, reverse and side lunges. I try to keep things interesting 😉
Today: Treadmill intervals. I warmed up for 10 minutes of walking at an incline (5 minutes at 4.0 and 5 minutes at 4.5). Then I did 20 minutes of 1 minute at 4.0 and 1 minute at 8.0 at a 1.0 incline. Then I cooled down for 10 minutes of walking (5 minutes at 4.0 and 5 minutes at 4.5) at a smaller incline than the warm up. I was drenched when it was over!
I usually make sure to take one rest day per week but I didn’t take one this week for 2 reasons. 1. I was feeling great and didn’t think I needed one and 2. I have a very busy week coming up and might need more than 1 or 2 days off if things get too overwhelming. Hopefully this won’t happen!
I also signed up for another race! I get about a million deal saving emails everyday. Most of the time I delete them right away because they are for things that I don’t want or need or they have fine print that I have learned to read carefully! (One time I got a deal for a restaurant and you could only use it on certain nights and I ended up having to go to a mediocre restaurant on my street 3 times to use the stupid thing!!!) Anyway, one caught my eye for a Scavenger Hunt Dash for super cheap for 2 people. I texted my friend Becca and asked if she would be interested and she said yes, so on October 1 we will be doing the Philadelphia Scavenger Hunt Dash! There isn’t a set course because you are basically just running around the city but the FAQ on the website estimates it’s about 5 miles. I don’t really care, I just think it will be fun!
Game face is on for this week!!!
–Melissa
Tricep Aches and a Headache
Posted in 3 miles, All Posts, Strength on July 6, 2011| 1 Comment »
Monday I ran (3 miles of HIIT).
Tuesday I did legs.
Today I ran (3 miles of walk/sprint intervals). I have the worst DOMS! It wasn’t just in my legs though! I didn’t even do upper body yesterday but I guess because I hold weights while I do squats/lunges/etc. my triceps were SO sore today.
Keeping this short tonight because I spent hours on the phone with the customer service for my CPA study software. Such a headache. I can’t wait until this all behind me!!!!!!!!
–Melissa
Workout Recap
Posted in 3 miles, All Posts, Dad, Outdoors, Strength on July 3, 2011| 1 Comment »
Oops, totally forgot to blog the last week. Here’s what I did:
Wednesday: Upper body weights. With a fun warm up where I did 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 reps of different moves and then 10 minutes of running on the treadmill. Followed by my usual upper body work out, which was good as usual.
Thursday: Rest. I went to Sips again on Wednesday night, work was not fun on Thursday, a rest day was SO necessary.
Friday: Lower body weights. I had off of work for the long weekend and changed it up a bit from my usual lower body routine since I had the luxury of taking my time. It was nice to be able to take my time. Then I headed down the shore to spend a couple days with my best friend.
Saturday: 3 mile run + 1 mile of intervals. I really didn’t feel like running at all, but my friend was going out for a run so I decided to go also. She’s much faster than me and training for a race so we ran separately so that I wouldn’t hold her back. I ran 3 miles at a 9:30 pace (I love boardwalk running) and then did a mile of walk/sprint intervals. Then I cooled down with a bit more walking and just as I was getting back to our starting point my friend ran right by me. Good timing! Then we spent the day getting our nails done and relaxing on the beach. Perfect.
Sunday: Upper body. Back in Philly I headed to the gym this morning before a coffee date with a friend who was in town. I lifted 110 and it didn’t feel too hard, I’m going to try 115 sometime this week! Look out Mom! Then I met up with my friend and later spent the afternoon studying.
Tomorrow is the 4th! I’m going to play working out by ear. I will either bike or run (possibly on the treadmill). Then I’m going to study for a bit and then enjoy the day outside with a friend and see the concert and fireworks on the Parkway! I loved doing this with Dad every year. It won’t be the same.
Happy July 4th!
–Melissa
Running In The Real World 