Tag: gym

Wednesday (day 3)

I’d planned for my gym schedule to be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, but I went this morning instead of tomorrow. I’m having dinner with work people tonight and I am pretty sure I’ll want to “sleep in” (you know, til 6:30) tomorrow morning.

My Achilles tendon (or something at the back of my left ankle) was a little sore yesterday so I decided to cross train today. My gym got some of those old-school stair climbers (like tiny escalators) so I spent a bit of time on that (14 minutes climbing stairs is a long time!) and then did some strength training, then got on the elliptical for a little while (booorrrring) and then more strength training.

Okay, enough of that. Other things I’ve been meaning to write about:

– 2/3 of the boys had their first sleepover last week! Big milestone, and especially since Miles actually made it through the night. I was pretty shocked. Linus chose not to stay, though. It was kind of fun having one kid. It was very quiet.

– I’m reading this book right now. It’s set in Baton Rouge, and it takes place in 1991, when the main character is 16. I grew up in Baton Rouge, and I was 16 in 1991, so it’s kind of fascinating. Some of the setting is fictional, but enough of it is not to keep me enthralled.

When people ask me if I’m from here (New Orleans), I always have a hard time answering. Baton Rouge is a totally different world from New Orleans, and it’s so hard to describe. But this book nailed it.

You have to understand. When people think of Louisiana, they think exclusively of New Orleans. We are okay with that. New Orleans has the culture, the allure. They are The Big Easy. The Crescent City. The Birthplace of Jazz. The people of Baton Rouge don’t even have accents. Our parades, when compared to New Orleans, are amateur hour. Even our most raucous bars close at two o’clock in the morning. Theirs don’t close down at all. So, whenever people in Baton Rouge feel wild, we drive the sixty miles to New Orleans. We stay in upscale hotels and spend gobs of money. We drink beer on the street and make bad decisions. We take wrong turns at intersections and feel perpetually lost, and when we wake up in the morning, regretful and satisfied, we go back home saying, “It’s a fun place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

From My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh

Well, I guess I did decide to live here, but growing up, I never had any desire to. Anyway, if you’re looking for a good read, I recommend you pick this up. (Even though I haven’t finished it yet.)

– I ended up signing up for that race on Sunday. I really really hope it’s cool and overcast. Hmmph.

– Last week, I got a box from HelloFresh. It’s one of those companies that’s cropping up that sends you the ingredients for meals and the recipe cards, and all you have to do is put them together. I got three meals, two of which were excellent (the third was good, but not outstanding.) We had a pasta bolognese one night, squash with quinoa another night, and chicken and potatoes another night. (The first two were the excellent ones.) (No, the boys didn’t eat this.) (Actually, George didn’t eat the squash one either. More for me!)

Anyway, I loved that I can make these again, because none of the ingredients were particularly unusual. It wasn’t like I’d have to buy from that company, you know? Just some more meal ideas.

If you want to try it and get $40 off your first box, you can use this referral code: R7KT4K (Yeah, it’s not cheap, but great for special meals, and the portion sizes mean you have enough for leftovers.)

Tuesday, March 10

I suppose I could come up with better post titles, but I really don’t want to name them all “DIY Bootcamp Day 2.” What if I manage to keep up with this for an extended period of time? I don’t want to have DIY Bootcamp Day 273.” Well, I mean, I do, but I don’t, if you know what I mean.

Anyway. Got to bed earlier last night, so was definitely a bit more well-rested (though was in the middle of a weird dream about miniscule bunnies in a balloon and my friend Lindsay and the zoo when the alarm went off) and this time managed a bit over 3 miles in 35 minutes.

My friend Heather is trying to convince me to do the Shamrock Run on Sunday (I’ve done it for the past two years, ever since it started, and part of me does like the idea of doing a race every year from the beginning) but I don’t know if I can run the whole thing (it’s 8K which is very nearly 5 miles, and maybe I can if I run slow enough, but it’s also mid-March and it could be warm and humid) but I have to decide today because the price goes up $15 tomorrow.

Also, you may have noticed I left out any mention of strength training. Well, I did a set of tricep somethings, but then I decided maybe I could do my arm stuff at home. So if anyone has a source of an arm routine that I can do at home that doesn’t involve the floor, I’m all ears.

In other, non-fitness news, Oliver and I had some one-on-one time at IHOP last night (every time I want to write iHop, good lord) which was super sweet and fun. We rode the bus (I mean, we sat on the same side of the booth, which in my opinion is only acceptable for parents and children) and ate pancakes. Well, Oliver ate the shit out of some chicken and waffles AND a short stack. So now I know how to fatten that kid up. I very virtuously only ate 2/3 of my Harvest Nut ‘n’ Grain waffles.

Oh, one last thing. If you blog (regularly or not) can you fill out this very short survey for me? Thanks!

Fitness accountability

I’ve been rather lax lately in my gym attendance. Ironically, part of it is because I got that treadmill that I walk on when working. I suppose I feel like that’s enough exercise. Of course it’s not. Then again, I haven’t been walking a ton either, so really it just comes down to laziness.

I thought about joining a bootcamp that meets at 5:30 on weekday mornings, but why should I shell out a bunch of money when I already belong to a gym?

Instead, I’m going to commit to going to the gym early in the morning (5:30 am) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. And I’m going to bore you all to death by posting afterwards, so I can be accountable to someone other than myself.

And I need a plan for when I’m at the gym. While I know I won’t be working as hard as I would be if I were participating in a fitness boot camp, I do need to make sure I don’t totally slack off. My main goal here is to not feel like a blobby sloth when we go to England in June.

I also want to do the Rocketchix triathlon again in July. Remembering I’ll be wearing black spandex again is a powerful motivator.

I’ll start with 35 minutes of cardio (3 mile run, more than likely) and then spend 15 minutes doing strength training. I should probably do more strength training, but I get bored easily. My gym has a 12 minute abs circuit, which would be a good use of my time, but no one uses it properly and it’s kind of infuriating. Hmm.Okay, so look out for my first post tomorrow! And I apologize in advance for the super boring posts.