45 Minute Treadmill Workout!!!!

Yes, you read that right. I did a 45 minute treadmill workout.

As I'm sure all our readers know, our workouts have suffered in October. Jobs and whatnot have hurt us, but both girlfriend and I have slacked slightly. In any event, we haven't kept up. And I vow to change that. It started today.

I was going to run in Billings until I couldn't run anymore, but it was cold outside. Too cold to run. So instead, I slunked over to the treadmill and fired it up. I did the whole thing at 3.5 and 6.1, with the exception being the final sprint.

It was kind of sad to see myself struggle with it, but the bottom line is, I made it. I got through it. Go me.

Yeah...

I'm sure you all read girlfriend's post and noticed she mentioned how we haven't been blogging much. It's simple. We're not working out much. And even when I do work out, I feel it's a worthless workout and I didn't get anything out of it.

Take Fargo the other day. I wanted to do a 25 minute treadmill workout. I only did 20. And it wasn't a good 20. It was bad. I felt worthless.

Yesterday I sat around the house all day. ALL DAY. I walked to get the mail and that's about it. Why, you ask? Because I'm sitting reserve. I can't just go to the gym for 2 hours. I have to have my phone handy. And i have to be ready if I get called into work. It's not good. I actually had to ask scheduling yesterday if I could just leave the house and go on my run yesterday. They said yeah, no problem, but good luck getting a 2 hour window break.

As girlfriend alluded to in her blog, there's just not enough hours in a day.

So anyway, I think this is a good time to set my goals for November, and really, there's only one.

RUN!

Yes, you are reading that right. Run. That is my goal for November. Girlfriend and I are doing a 4 mile run on Thanksgiving day. And I am NOT going to do shitty in this run. Not after PRing in my last 5K. I refuse to let that feeling die. So my goal in November is to RUN.

Not only that, but I have a triathlon in June and haven't really been doing what I should be doing. :-(

I dunno. Maybe I'm not cut out for this fit and healthy lifestyle.

Work Is Not an Excuse.

Really. Honestly.

You may have noticed a major drop off in blog posts here at Inspiration Stardust Dreams. Brandon should have had one from a few days ago when he worked out in Fargo, but my last blog post is the last time I worked out.

I have three jobs right now. I'm blogging right before the start of my second phase at work (though this one's unpaid). I've already put in an 8 hour day. I've been at this job for 30 minutes and will be here for at least another three hours. At least. In theory, I SHOULD head to a bar/club to see two of my friends whom I haven't seen in at least two months, probably longer. However, I have to be back at work tomorrow for another 8 hour shift ... and another 6 hours unless boyfriend isn't flying in which case he gets three of them.

Most days I work one job only and part of a second (writing) so it's not quite as bad as my weekends seem to be, but ugh. The downside to all of this? Two pretty important things start falling by the wayside - exercising and my diet.

The lack of blog posts here demonstrate my lack of exercise (really, it's horrible), but since I don't yammer on about what I eat all that much, it's not quite as noticeable.

But I notice it.

I notice that I haven't been finding time to eat or, more accurately, eat well. Take Thursday. Thursday was supposed to be an "off day" to spend writing my column and going to an Air Force football game with Brandon. Then Brandon gets called in to fly. Then I get called in to take over a closing shift at another store. It gets to 3:30, about when I need to leave to go work, and I realize all I've had that day has been an egg and a nugget meal and salad at Chick-fil-a. I get to work a little early and eat a piece of reduced-fat banana chocolate chip coffee cake and it gets me through my shift.

I get home to eat ... and the kitchen is a mess from the family dinner. I instantly lose my appetite, clean up the kitchen, and crawl upstairs where I fall asleep pretty soon.

Come Friday morning, I wake up at 6am and get to work 20 minutes late at 6:20. Thanks to me not eating anything in, oh, 14 hours, my body rebels on me and I lose all color in my face, almost pass out at the register and go dry-heave in the bathroom. After I almost pass out for the second time, I plead to get my break early and eat some oatmeal to survive the shift.

That story is an extreme example of what's been happening, but the rest of the reality isn't too far off. I haven't been eating a lot ... in part because I'm not working out, I'm sure. But I think part of it is also because of that, I feel ridiculously fat even though, in all actuality, I'm probably losing (muscle) weight.

Today ended up being another day where I didn't eat all that much going on. Did NOT want to get out of bed for work so barely had time to cook myself an egg before I walked out the door to be at work. Ate an oatmeal on my break. A quarter-pound of turkey breast and some fruit salad from the King Soopers' deli for lunch.

All of that, plus an 8 hour day are what I ran 1.34 miles in 14 minutes on. That was my worst time in over a month for running. Not that I can really blame my body for the performance it put in - I really hadn't fueled it for a workout at all.

Still, I know that I can't use work as an excuse. I just can't. I know I can find some way to balance all of this, some how. I can't keep letting my health suffer ... because if I do, I know I'll get the Sickness of Death this year and it'll incapacitate me for a week ... which we all know just CAN NOT happen thanks to my schedule.

Blah.

Intense lifting

After a decent run yesterday, I really didn't want to lose the feeling of adrenaline that was crawling through me...since it hasn't been here for awhile...

So we went to the gym. And it was good. Girlfriend's blog describes what we did (really people, have you figured out that I'm REALLY lazy, at least in the blogging sense? ;-p)

In any event, I'm rowing with more weight than ever before, I leg pressed really well, and my calves are killing me, which is exactly what I was looking for. So I consider that a good session! :-)

Another run tomorrow?

Intense Lift

This job thing is making working out next to impossible. Yesterday, after getting not much sleep, I worked from 8am-4:30pm (though officially didn't leave work until 4:45pm), got home at 5pm ... and had one hour to unwind a little, change, eat and do whatever else before leaving to go to job #2 where I was at until 11:40pm.

Yeah. That leaves time for working out.

Anyway, since I'm off today as well as the boy (yay!), we went to the gym for a quick, intense lifting session. Seriously, we were there for about 20 minutes. After the typical B&T warm-up, we did:

- 3/10 incline leg press
- 3/10 standing calf raises
- 3/10 seated rows
- 3/10 tricep extensions (standing ones with the rope attachment of the cable machine)

We upped the weight each set so the last reps were basically to failure ... especially on the two arm ones. The last set of 10 tricep extensions for me should read set of 7. Boo.

Oh well, just a quick session to blast before DATE NIGHT!!!! Though we still spend a decent quantity of time together, we feel like we don't spend any quality time together anymore thanks to various jobs and crap, so we want to change that. Thus, date night. Neither of us are doing any work today, too, even though I most definitely could.

Cardioooo tomorrow.

A Fall Run

Well, I guess running outside could be considered rejuvination, right?

After my Vikings lost by a touchdown, I hydrated and went for a run. It's what I would consider my standard run. 2.25 miles. I did it in 21:38. My main concentration was pacing. I want to make each mile faster than the last one. I looked at my graph on nike+ and found out that yes, I sped up pretty consistently as the run went on.

The best part about the whole thing is that I felt really good when it was all done. I wasn't hurting like I have been as of late. I certainly don't want to say I'm back to where I was weeks ago, but we're on the right track. Which is the most important thing.

Hopefully gym tomorrow. And then I'd like to run again on Tuesday.

Deja Vu ...

... and not the good kind, either. After I got off work, Brandon and I headed down to the park to do some agility drills outside. If you've ever played organized hockey or football or perhaps even basketball, you'd probably recognize the box/cone drills we did.

To start off, we did a small jog around the softball/baseball backstop and stretched out. Then, we set four cones in a box and did box drills. If I remember all the ones we did correctly, we did:

- straight, shuffle, straight, shuffle
- straight, backward, straight, backward
(add extra cone in middle of box)
- start at middle cone and loop around all outlying cones
- start at middle cone, run to each cone, facing forward each time

We then took the middle cone back out and did a forward/backward x type thing. All of that crap took about 20 minutes. We stopped after that because:
A.) it was tough. H.I.I.T. in the house (technically) and that shiznit wears you out
B.) we are so not the people/athletes we were either in high school or college
C.) we still feel ass out of shape. Boo.

It's sad to think you've come so far when something like this happens and you realize that no, you still have so far yet to go.

Weightlifting and Agility

Sweet, two workouts in one day!

Ok, here's the skinny. While girlfriend was at work, I felt an urge to go to the gym. And get some lifting in. So I did. I blasted my arms hardcore. It felt great. I did seated row, triceps, curls, and shoulder presses. I was gonna do more, but I was feeling good enough, so I left on a high note.

Then this afternoon when girlfriend got back, we went down to the park for agility drills. That was one of our goals this month; it works out because we're outside and happy, plus we are working on something that will help our endurance + fat burning.

We warmed up with a light jog and then stretched. Then we started the drills. Girlfriend will review the drills in her blog.

Bottom line is, I'm out of shape, still.

Went for a run

Since I haven't gone running in A LONG TIME, I knew that I needed to get a run in and start getting back what I had.

Girlfriend and I decided to take a run to the bank. A SLOOOOOW run. Basically just to get us back into it. No worries about time, anything like that. Just a chance to get back into it. And get back into it we did. I ran a 1.84 mile in 18:24 for a 10:00 minute pace. Not too shabby, actually.

Gym tomorrow. Turkey Trot the day of Thanksgiving, so I have some work to do.

Decent Run

Didn't end up working out yesterday due to some emotional stuff up in here, but did manage a run today. I had to go to the bank to deposit a paycheck (yay money!) so we originally decided to run there, deposit the dough and run back home.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

We were hoping on taking the run slow since, you know, we haven't run in about two weeks, but we still managed a 10:00 mile on the nose by doing 1.84 miles in 18:24. Boyfriend also said my running form looked really good, so yay. :)

Since we probably pushed it a bit (i subconsciously sped up any time i started to hear boyfriend right behind me), we decided not to run back home, so we took the shorter (1.6 mi) route and walked it.

Something tomorrow evening after work and I finish my column.

FINALLY! MADE IT BACK TO THE GYM!

Yes, it's been awhile, so forgive me for being slightly giddy that I made the gym, even though they have screwed up my account...grrrrrrr....

Anyways, we warmed up on the bike then stretched for awhile. Felt good to stretch. Goddamn did it feel good to stretch. Then we did lat pull downs, 3 sets of 10. Those hurt a bit...could tell I haven't lifted in awhile. We then did some curls, 2x10, which kind of frustrated me, because my arms were coming along SO nicely up until this minor derailment. BOOOOOO! We finished it up with some hammer strength chest presses. 1 set of 45's, 1 set of 35's, and 1 set of 20's. I could only do 9 of the 20 lb weight, which FRUSTRATED ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We then did some functional lifting. Started off with some sit ups on a ball using a medicine ball. Followed this up with jump squats while holding a medicine ball, then did a wall sit passing a ball back and forth. Closed out with torso twists and some stability exercises.

All in all, a good session, and hopefully back for more soon.

T Actually Lifted?!?!?!?!

Yes, actually, I did. CRAZY I KNOW. Didn't end up having time to run in Minneapolis - a severely screwed up sleep schedule will do that to you, but I did do about 30 minutes of Wii Fit on the boyfriend's parents' Wii. What what.

Anyway, in the midst of all this rainy crap that's going on here, Brandon and I went over to 24 to go lift and start crackin' on those October goals of ours (functional lifting, for a reminder). We started off with some non-functional lifting with some lat pulldowns, bicep curls and chest presses on the Hammer Strength machines ... after warming up and stretching, of course.

From there, we moved to some more functional-type stuff:
- Crunches on a swiss ball, adding in a medicine ball toss
- Squat jumps with a medicine ball (crouch and EXPLODE!)
- Wall sits passing a medicine ball back and forth
- Back-to-back torso twists passing a medicine ball back and forth
- Bosu medicine ball tosses

Should be good enough for today. No cardio, but we'll work on that.

Off to shower, grab food and scorekeep for me!

Playing Hockey

Right. Today we worked out twice, technically...the first workout was just us dinking around in the park, throwing a softball and enjoying ourselves until Mr. Crankypants Dickhead Coach kicked us off the field so little 4 year olds could pretend like they were athletes and kick around a soccer ball...we just moved over and did our thing still. As girlfriend alluded to in her post, it's a month of rejuvination and enjoyment for us, so that's what we are doing.

Part of that rejuvination includes playing hockey, and that's what we did tonight. I played pretty well given that there were about 6 skaters aside and I really haven't played much hockey in the past month. I scored two nice goals and made quite a few plays out there. Not too bad. But unfortunately tonight, there were some issues with some players.

T and I are considered "regulars" at this drop in. People there know us, like us, and have fun when we are out there. We are both good players, we get along well with others on the ice and quite frankly, we belong out there. There are some players that when we skate with them we click like we've been playing together for a long time. But every now and then, a player comes along and treats drop in like it's his own show.

See, drop in is fun. Or supposed to be. Tonight there was a dude on our team who was just a ridiculous showboater; a cocky fuck who just thought he was the greatest. He passed very rarely and made excuses every time. The other guys we play with, they are nice fellas. But they were losing patience. Eventually it boiled over and the guy that pretty much runs drop in told Mr. Showboat to not come back. This of course led to some yelling and I finally had enough and got off the ice. I vented to a guy we now call Green Eggs (his name is Sam) and he likes girlfriend a LOT!

Anyway, I want to play some more, and plan on doing so.

Fun and Hockey

Even though over here, the two are mutually exclusive. For the most part. We won't go into how I basically ended up crying after every single game I played in college.

ANYWAY.

Geez, I've been going on tangents over here a lot, haven't I?

And there was another one. Crap. Well, today was a double workout day technically,though the first one was us basically just goofing off in the park throwing a softball around and, in my case, attempting to hit it (and attempting to pitch it to brandon). Still, one of the goals for the month is rejuvenation, and playing softball in the park (and trying not to kill the mini soccer girls) was pretty damn fun because really, I equate rejuvenation with FUN in many respects. Maybe working out has become a marginal grind lately and maybe that's why I haven't felt like doing anything in a while. Maybe having fun with what I do is just what I need. We'll see.

Later tonight (okay, last night, since it's almost 1am), we played some hockey - another goal and something we haven't done in a while. It was a pretty empty skate - five a side with one or two on the bench (depending on the side) ... which meant that T was a laaaazy defenseman. Oh well, when a skate has fewer people, it's generally more laid back and I generally have a lot more fun then. That, and I'm of the firm belief that I play better when I don't care. ;)

Brandon had an issue with one of the players on our "team," but I'll let him blog about that.

Now, to shower and stay up all night (okay, three hours) writing so we can catch an ass-early flight to Minnesota. Brandon's college roommate is getting married so we're heading on out. Expect at least A blog from each of us as we're planning on running at least once. Probably not tomorrow due to lack of sleep, but we'll see.

T's Goal Recaps

Sprague Lake; Rocky Mountain National Park

Yay, it's fall!

First things first, haven't worked out today. I won't, either, unless you count running up ... 6 flights of stairs twice so far and at least once more at CC. Silly work.

So, September review:

General Goals:
- Skirt Chaser 5K and the Autumn Color Run
- core, cycling and general cardio
- MAYBE looking into hockey leagues
- run Red Rocks
Personally:
- H.I.I.T. training for cardio
- general focus on upping the strength training
- flexibility

I ran both the SkirtChaser and the Autumn Color Run, so check. Core? Check. Cycling? FAIL. General cardio? Half-check - didn't do as much as I probably should have. When I wasn't running a race or running outside, all other cardio I did was H.I.I.T. training, so check! It probably helped with my awesome time in the Autumn Color Run, too, so yay. Didn't strength train as much as I wanted to, so half-check there, but check on flexibility.

Overall? Not bad.

Now, let's repost October's Goals:
- maybe a 5K
- enjoyment outside - REJUVENATION
- hockey
- agility
Personally:
- endurance for cardio; stamina
- functional strength training

I'm extremely unsure on whether a 5K will happen this month or not, but I'm thinking succeeding this month will be better than last.

A review of goals for both September and October

Ok, so here comes the much anticipated goal reviewing. As you all know, girlfriend and I established goals for two months to keep us on track. I'm training for a triathlon next year and also trying to just get in better shape.

Here's September goals:

SEPTEMBER GENERAL GOALS
- Skirt Chaser 5K and maybe Autumn Color 5K
- Core, cycling, and general cardio
- Run Red Rocks

SEPTEMBER PERSONAL GOALS (MINE)
- Endurance for cardio (treadmill workout, hill sprints, etc)
- Core strengthening
- CONSISTENCY (week to week)

I did both the Skirtchaser 5K and the Autumn Color 5K, each time setting a better PR. Goal, check. I did a lot of lifting focusing on my core. Goal, check. I did quite a bit of running + a few treadmill workouts. Goal, check.

I didn't cycle once. Fail. I didn't run Red Rocks. Fail.

My endurance can speak for itself with two PR's in 5K's! My core I believe is stronger. And the consistency thing went pretty well.

So overall, I would say September was a success.

October...not off to a great start. I've been sick for a little while (boo). And been pretty busy unfortunately. But I will review the goals here.

OCTOBER GENERAL GOALS
- Maybe a 5K
- Enjoyment outside (October is probably our favorite month)
- More hockey

OCTOBER PERSONAL GOALS (MINE)
- Intense weight training
- flexibility
- agility

Doubt the 5K is gonna happen, but that's ok. It's not something I was planning on. More hockey...I'll try. I need to put 45 bucks aside for ice time. And enjoyment outside has been happening. Thankfully.

I need to hit the gym for the weights. It's not too late to get started for sure.

A quick run yesterday

So on Thursday, I got really sick. Don't know why, but ended up not being able to hold any food down and feeling very weak. Naturally, working out took a back seat to feeling better.

Yesterday I was feeling almost all better so the girlfriend and I went for a run. Nothing too big or exciting, just a 1.25 miler. I did it in 12:22 for a pace of nearly 10:00 but I didn't care. I just wanted to get back into it.

In other workout news, since I haven't been to the gym in awhile, I can feel my muscles atrophying real quick, so I have to get back to lifting. And soon. Hopefully today. And I PROMISE I will post my goals later. And my recap of September. I promise. :)

Post from Work (job #1)

Job number one, of course, being the one that really doesn't pay me despite the hours I put into it ... and being the one that makes me feel like I'm actually utilizing my degree. Yep, I'm sitting here blogging from the Air Force Academy campus right before an exhibition hockey game.

However, that's not why I'm here. I'm here to say I FINALLY WORKED OUT AGAIN! YAY! It took me a week thanks to my various jobs and a sick Brandon (mmrraa :(), but I finally got out and ran today.

Funny, when you consider I'm actually working all three of my jobs today.

ANYWAY, did a short run of 1.23 miles (gotta ease back into it, yo) which ended up being a quite painful 1.23 miles, in 11:59 for a 9:44.55 mile. Not bad, considering I haven't ran - or done anything - in a week. I'll take it.

Reviewing of September goals and October goal posting tomorrow.

I promise.

Workout in Fargo

Yesterday I was in Fargo on a trip, so I decided to do a high intensity treadmill workout. It was only 20 minutes, but I had the incline cranked up to 4.5. First 5 minutes was 6.2, second was 6.4, third was 5.8, and the final sprint was increased every 30 seconds, eventually at 11.0

Also, I'll review my goals later tonight. I'm on 3 hours of sleep.