Another week

Rest does the body good, yes?

Okay, it wasn't my intention to rest so much this week. However, sometimes life just dictates such. Or, more precisely, the body has says no, but the mind says yes. This week, the body won.

At the beginning of the week, I awoke with a crick in my neck. Who knows what happened? Slept in a weird way? It became worse two nights later, awakening me until I finally got out of bed (gingerly) and looked online for a remedy. Yes, this is 4am.

Every morning took hours to get to a point that I could function fairly well, when things loosened to some degree. When I needed to look at something to the side of me, by body followed the direction of my head. It's like I had whiplash. Coughing and sneezing hurt. So did walking. Running? Wasn't even gonna try.

Tuesday night, I had to do something active so I went to yoga after my stitch-n-bitch. Glad I did. I think the next morning was slightly better with the neck. Slightly.

Fast forward to Friday. By this point I was tired. Hadn't been sleeping well. After work, I went to the gym to warm up in the steam room (had spent several hours outside in the windy cold for a work event), cool off in the jacuzzi, and dry off in the sauna.

Think it helped my neck? Ha.

Went to 12:30 yoga on Saturday. Had to try. Everything hurt, including down dog. Even child's pose. By the end of the 90 minutes, my neck was vaguely starting to loosen. More steam room, jacuzzi, sauna.

This morning I went for a run since I wasn't in excruciating neck pain. It was so nice to be out. I wore my Shuffle, but didn't power it on. I ran watchless. I didn't map out a route. There wasn't too much traffic, so I didn't have to worry about whipping my neck around to keep on eye on cars. The pull in my groin area seems to have just about healed. All of the unintentional rest was worth it for a 3.5m pain-free run.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4121464

Time to get moving again

After resting Tuesday, Wednesday morning I went to Core then Rebounding class, both subbed by Ruth S. who gave good, specific instruction. Worth getting out of bed. And, yes, hello Mr. Foam Roller afterward.

Friday morning I did Zumba and Core with Tavia. As a bonus, I learned three exercises for the small, underused muscle beneath the shoulder blade.

Saturday morning - spin! Did two of the three shoulder exercises. Saturday afternoon - short, easy run (1.5) in 14:20. Windy, but sunny. And I actually enjoyed the smell of dried, fallen leaves. Nice fall afternoon particularly for someone who dislikes the season.

Last hurrah

Okay, folks, this is it - the final pre-race workout: 6pm spin with Kathryn Z.

She offered heart monitors for use during the class and you know I accepted. Kathryn walked around the room checking monitors which was awesome. She told me various target rates based on my age (25). I moved through various zones, ultimately having a great workout. We had a proper cool down and tons of stretching (I did more later, too). Then we dropped and did push ups for 30 seconds. Isn't nice to be the final class of the night and get extra time with the instructor??

As mentioned, more stretching plus I got busy with my friend, Mr. Foam Roller. Hey, a gal's gotta get a little action on a Friday night, no?

Shower time. Jacuzzi. Sauna. Oh, yeah.

walking all over Harvard Sq

This was stupid. I finally sat down on some steps with my friend. I'd been hoping it'd help, but I think it hurt.

See, I'd already had a sort of longish walk to/from pantry (volunteer gig to hand out food) in the morning.

The positive effects of last night's massage were wearing thin.

Spin then massage

After work I high-tailed it to the gym to grab a 6pm spin class with Jakki. We did hills, hill sprints, flat sprints, and jumps.

I had time to grab a smoothie at Emack which is oh-so-conveniently mere steps from the gym's front door. And, the doors both share the same overhang so no getting soaked in the rain. Not that that mattered considered I was soaked with sweat.

Shower, jacuzzi, steam room, then to help dry off - sauna.

Then massage with Ayata. She has the strength of three men which she used for a while on my groin area. It got really personal, but she was very professional and I never felt uncomfortable, well, except for the pain. She asked if I wanted her to keep going in the area and I said I didn't know what to do because I needed this but it hurt a lot. Ayata instructed me to breath through the pain. I did. Let me tell you when I walked out of there I realized instantly that it was all worthwhile. She'd gotten out the kink.

Body Express & Spin

30 min Body Express w/ Tara
It's been a while since I've taken one of her Body classes and I forgot how sucky hard they are.
.killer lunges off bench and back up to a knee lift on bench w/ two risers on ea. end
.shoulder pulls (okay, I forget what they're called, but it's this: foot on bench, lean on quad while other hand holds weight, keep shoulders square while bending elbow and pulling weight alongside body up to hip-ish height, elbow around shoulder height/maybe above, extend arm back down to start position)
.tri kickbacks
.pushups
.squats
.dead lifts
.upright rows
.preacher curl
.overhead press
.chest curls with knees above hips, shins perp to floor
.single arm chest curls w/ same as above
.butt bench kisses
.side skates
.upper crunches w/ knees above hips
.upper crunches w/ ankles above hips, add lower crunch at same time
.that's about it

45 spin w/ Tara
A bunch of bikes were out-of-commission - sits or handle bars were off (wtf?) I grabbed a bike in the front row (my preference), adjusted everything (this takes a couple of minutes), and hopped on. Got one foot clamped in and went to do the same on the other. Um, yo, where's the strap? I need the strap. Ugh. Quick move to another bike, repeat set-up procedure. By now I've missed the four-minute warm up. Which is great because we're going right into a hill. (Totally facetious. This'd be like sprinting from the start of a marathon.) No problem, though; I can power through this. Sprinting? Increase resistance? I got it. One more sprint puts me over the edge and I nearly die. I collapse onto the handlebars momentarily and get back in the game. I'm well aware that my energy can affect the energy of the room (front row, remember? Oh, and I'm directly in front of the instructor which is annoying - where I'm I supposed to look? Her boobs are directly in my gaze, and I don't play in that field, so I settle for a slightly askew gaze.) Her playlist rocked and I managed the rest of the class.

Tons of stretching. Got friendly with the foam roller and discovered a new dealio for my back that totally rocked. I need a FR for home - my ITB and back will thank me profusely.

If I were savvy, I'd order one right now while I'm thinking of it. But I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

walk in the woods

Hey, isn't this my day of rest??

What I thought was going to be a stroll through the woods turned into an energetically-paced walk - some of it uphill (or was it uphill both ways??). 1.5 hours of this.

So much for a rest day.

spin

6am hour-long spin class which at times I thought would never end (a ten-minute hill - what??), but Lori kept us motivated with her encouragement and rockin' playlist.

Then, a half dozen pull-ups followed by the penguin walk with the band.

My fav part? Stretching.

Just becase the sun can rise later, doesn't mean I can. Sigh.

I MUST go to bed earlier. There is no way 11:00pm (okay, later, actually) cuts it when I'm supposed to be out of the house before 6. Oye.

After telling myself that I had to just get up and put gym clothes on, then I could go back to bed, I, of course went to the gym.

Rebounding class was fun but tough - Maria gives a good class. I skipped the two water breaks - hey, if I can run for an hour without water, I can get through a 45-min class without water. Then I did some quick bi's, tri's, and quads, followed by a ton of stretching.

My love/hate relationship with the foam roller was in full swing this morning. If you use a foam roller, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

quim

aka quick gym.

10 hard minutes on the Arc Trainer, followed by a three-minute cool down.

Then my two favorite leg machines. Quad presses and leg extensions. The usual stuff on both, plus some single-leg work on the leg extension using my left leg which needs some extra attention.

Followed by plenty of stretching.

Done.

Hello, and there's my ass!

I thought it'd be a swell idea to do some strength training today. And what better time than late this afternoon since I was short on time after my run this morning? A 45-minute Bosu Challenge seemed ideal. Ideal, I tell you.

Enter my ass. OMG. Hello! I have one. It hurts. We did some butt stuff. I mean, plenty of fucking butt stuff.

I can only hope all of the butt moves will help with my running. Like the trainer said, I need to fire up my glutes to help propel me.

Consider them fired. And now they're hired.