Sunday, May 29, 2011

Days 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84

Woah - looks like I'm getting lazy in my ole age! A week since I updated last? The good news is that it's only with my blogging that I've been lazy. Exercise is still going according to plan (ish).

Day 79 was a planned rest day :)

Day 80 my buddy and I did 5ks at 5am and loved it as usual. We're still surviving the heat - long may it continue! After school, I headed over and did an hour or so of weights.

Day 81 was a not planned rest day but I was too pooped to muster up any energy ... Coffee after school and a relaxing dinner at home won over exercise... I figured I'd make up for it over the weekend :)

Day 82 I did 10ks at Safa Park at 5am. It was a gorgeous, cool morning - 25 degrees with a breeze. Such conditions really would have been more conducive to 20ks ... unlike the sweat-fest of the previous week. I loved my 10ks cos it was a short(er,) totally do-able run. I just did it and felt great after!

Later that day I went to the gym and did an hour of weights. The bosu and fitball are my new best friends. They sure add a high degree of challenge to all weight exercises.

Day 83 I did 50 laps of the pool. I hadn't been swimming for a couple of weeks, so it felt good to be back in the pool.

Day 84 I did a post work yoga session. Loved it. As always.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Day 76, 77, 78

Day 76 after my mega 20k run, I decided that I would take it a little easy! I woke up feeling good - just a little tightness in my legs, but other than that, ok. I headed to the gym in the afternoon and did 30 mins of arm weights, followed by a great yoga class. My muscles thanked me for that one!

Day 77 I also went to yoga. It is honestly the best way to keep my muscles from getting too tight. (Along with my foam roller!)

Day 78 I got outta bed at 4.50am and did 30 mins on the bike - a nice change from running :)

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Days 70-76

Wow - what a week it was!

Day 70 I intended to go to yoga after school but fell into a deep sleep coma and missed it!

Day 71 I did 30 mins on the bike before school. I enjoyed the change of pace from running!

Day 72 I lazed about.

Day 73 My buddy and I ran 5 ks before school.

Day 74 was a rest day. My three days of no exercise this week actually had a purpose ... I was saving my energy ready for the BIG ONE on Day 75 :)

Day 75 I did 20ks! Even as I type that I can't quite believe it. I woke up at 3.30 am and was running in the pitch black by 4.20am. It was a hot, humid morning with zero breeze. Given these yucky conditions I didn't know if I'd manage to do the 18-20ks I wanted to do. But I had my secret weapons. For the first time ever I had some "Gu" energy chomps. I popped one of those babies every 3 ks and I don't know if they worked or not, but at least I felt like they gave me an energy burst. I also had a few sips of Gatorade every 3ks or so. (Again a first for me). As I had not run that far before I was a little concerned about how my body would deal with the extreme amount of exercise and THE HEAT. Oh boy it was a hot one. I therefore decided that Gu and Gatorade were the way to go!

I felt great for the first 3 laps (10.2ks) and it was at that point that I thought I probably had this run in the bag. Lap 4 (up to 13.6ks) was the biggest mental hurdle for me and I knew if I could succesfully complete that one then I would be fine. I ran Lap 4 really well and felt great. Into Lap 5 (up to 17ks) I started to think of reaching 20ks and it went by pretty quickly. I also had a quote going through my head that Estee Lauder said ... something along the lines of "When I thought I couldn't keep going, I did not give up. My success is based on persistence, not good luck". Lap 6 (the last one) was a killer! All of a sudden my legs were so heavy and I felt like I was barely going forward. A nice man (who had also been running since 4.20am!) passed me (going the opposite way!!) and gave me some lovely words of encouragement. I thought ... just don't stop! I then walked about 1.5ks at the end and I am not joking when I say that even walking was very gruelling! I was looking at my legs willing them to keep moving!!! I wanted to walk to get all the lactic acid moving. I didn't time myself but I think the run took me over 2 and half hours ... now that is a damn long time to run for (in case you were wondering!!).

All in all I was very proud of myself, but oddly enough I did not even feel as proud of myself as after I did 17s a few weeks ago. I think I was just so exhausted at the end that I couldn't even muster up any emotion!!! I now reflect back on my 20ks with wonder and can't believe it was actually me who went that far! I am glad it's done.

I thought that would be the end of my long runs for a while (until it cools down again) but now I am feeling an odd compulsion to do another 20k run in a few weeks! We'll see :)

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Day 67, 68,69

Day 67 was a rest day.

Day 68 I ran 12ks - I felt good until about the 10k mark and then the last 2 ks were really hard. I was hoping to do more ... but never fear, there's always next week. And I'm still very proud of my 12ks.

Day 69 I had a lot of penance to do. Last night I drank a bottle of wine. Seriously. It went down like water and tasted so good. I can't quite believe I drank that much. And felt fine.

In my 100 day challenge I have hardly touched alcohol, so I really thought last night's consumption would hit me hard. Lucky for me it didn't! Along with the bottle of wine, I also had a rather large amount of choc. Again, I've barely touched the stuff in 70 days, so I'm not quite sure where last night's frenzy came come. I really haven't even been missing it or craving it that much.

Anyway, I decided not to beat myself up over it - we all need a little treat from time to time. Right? RIGHT?!??!?

Instead, I decided I would take a proactive approach to my over-consumption. So I hit the gym. Three times.

Session 1 I swam 50 laps.
Session 2 I did a good weights workout using the bosu and fitball.
Session 3 I went to yoga.

Last night's sins now erased! At least that's what I'm hoping for :)

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Today ...

Today I'm feeling ...

...pooped at the end of a week of loooong and busy days at school.

...healthy from my beloved green smoothies and healthy way of eating

...excited about my run tomorrow. I'm going to attempt a BIG one!

...proud of the fact that I am now 60+ days into my 100 day challenge and still going strong.

...anticpation about settling in on the couch tonight with the latest book I'm reading ... Shantaram. I'm about 70 pages in and loving it.

...calm

...balanced

...happy

All of the above makes for a smiling Michelle!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Day 65, 66

Day 65 I went to the gym after school and pumped some iron! Te he! It's been a looooong time since I've done weights. It felt good to be back at it. I gave a decent go of it and ended up doing about 40-50 mins of weights. Yes my arms were like jelly afterwards. Yes my arms are sore today. I really am going to try and do weights once a week. I've let it slide a little as I've been doing lots of yoga which I figure is a strength workout ... but I really should do weights too.

Day 66 my buddy and I did our 5k run before school. It's getting w.a.r.m out now but we soldiered on and in the end, it was a great run!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Day 63,64

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to exercise we go :) It's never ending this business of keeping fit!

Day 63 I went to hot, stinky, sweat-dripping-off-the-tip-of-my-nose yoga. And it's not even Bikram yoga. I can't even begin to imagine how hot I would get doing that!

Day 64 I rose and shone my way down to the treadmill to do a sweaty 5ks of fast intervals. There seems to be a great deal of sweat involved in all my workouts at the moment.

I read that watermelon is great for replenishing fluids after sweaty workouts, so this morning I made a watermelon / lettuce / alfalfa smoothie. It was pretty good but not my fave ... I think I might have needed a whole lot more watermelon. I put in about 1 cup...I'm thinking I probably needed about 3 cups. I love sneaking alfalfa into my smoothies ... an extra hit of green!

The only thing I am lamenting about the smoothies is that we can't readily buy kale or spinach of any kind here. That means I'm left to rotate my way through the many types of lettuce available. I'm becoming quite the lettuce conoisseur I must say! If you saw our shopping basket on any given day, you would think we had a lettuce fetish. With two of us drinking smoothies, we go through a crazy amount of greens! Still, could be worse things to fill your shopping basket with I guess!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Day 60, 61, 62

Day 60 I was kinda pooped after a busy week at school. We headed out for coffee after school and I kinda thought I didn't have it in me to exercise. But then we got home and I decided that really there is nothing better for me than to exercise when I'm feeling so tired, so it was off to the pool I went. It was crazy-Arab-men hour at the pool. Aside from that, I enjoyed my swim! And of course, I felt great for the rest of the evening.

Day 61 I got up and headed off to Safa Park at 5.20am. Not bad for the first day of the weekend! I had a planned a shorter run so that's what I did - 3 laps / 10.2 ks. I love that 10.2ks now qualifies as a short run :)

Day 62 I'll head to yoga this evening.

What a blissful weekend of relaxation, hanging by the pool, going out for dinner and exercise it's been!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Days 57,58,59

Day 57 was a rest day.

Day 58 I did a HARD interval run on the treadmill before school. I ran fast and felt good!

Day 59 my buddy and I did our 5k loop. It was a beautiful morning and I am so thankful that it's not yet too hot to run outside! I certainly wouldn't run during the middle of the day as we've been hitting the high 30 degree mark, but running early in the morning is still quite pleasant! Long may it continue!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Day 56

Yesterday I ended up going to yoga to stretch out my post-17k-legs. My legs loved it!


Today after school I trundled off to the pool to swim some laps. The pool's been closed for renovations for about a month, so it was sooooo nice to just walk across the road to the gym and jump into the pool. I loved it and felt so good afterwards. A perfect end to what was a fairly long and tedious day at school.

You may recall that I set myself some running goals at the start of my challenge. Upon achieving each goal, I was gonna reward myself with a little something! So, as it goes these have been my rewards for doing things I never thought possible!

12k run - I pod shuffle
14k run - Day Spa with a friend
16k run - which actually was a 17k run - New makeover and makeup from MAC! I had fun yesterday being 'made over'. I ended up buying new foundation, blush and 2 eye shadows. The lady taught me some great new tips, so I gave them a burl this morning. I liked the look and how natural the makeup looks!

I love having my little rewards to keep me going! Although I must say that actually just achieving the goals is motivation enough! I look back at my 12k goal and feel so proud of how far I have come. Honestly, in my very overweight and very unhealthy days, never in a million years would I have thought I would be able to run 17ks. I really like who I have become - a healthy, focused individual who exercises for kicks rather than stuffing my face with whatever food is near! Well, most of the time anyway!