Tag Archives: strength training

Can I Get a High Five?

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Can I get a high five?? (Or eat my camera? Same thing.)

It’s barely 10am, I had nowhere to be that required me to be up early, but I’ve already run 6 miles (I tweeted that I ran 5, but I realized that I messed up my Garmin again, so it’s 6!) and lifted. Yesterday, I was just not feeling running alone today, so I tweeted to see if anyone wanted to run today, and my girl Ashley said she did. She ran over here and met me at 6:45am, and we ran to the river.

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We split after a little after a mile, and I continued running downtown. I got to 2.5, and I just couldn’t stomach turning around and running the same 2.5 miles again, so I just kept running down until I got to my old ‘hood and went to the Equinox down there to lift before hopping on the subway. I’m getting a little sick of running the same route over and over again–I really need to start mixing things up.

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I had a serious craving for a spinach feta wrap, so I stopped at Starbucks on my way home for a wrap and iced coffee. And yes, with one fell swoop of a Sharpie, I became a dude. (That cup says Theadore. Serious fail.)

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Speaking of dudes, this little one was still sleeping when I got home. He’s not training for a marathon.

But I am! I know it’s super-early in the training season, but this was a workout that made me feel really strong and excited for the marathon. If I keep strong and injury-free like this, I think 4:30 is possible.

Weight Lifting and Routines

It’s been hard to get into a regular routine since getting laid off–every day has been a little different. Sometimes I have an interview or a meeting or sometimes I have time-sensitive errands that need to be run.

The one consistent thing has been that I need to work out in the morning or by lunchtime. This has mostly worked out because I’ve had plans almost every night, but it’s worked out for the best, because it makes me feel like I accomplished something for the day.

This morning, I had plans to wake up early and take a class at the gym before an interview. I laid in bed for too long and missed the class, so I finally decided to brave the weight room on my own.

I had a Luna bar and banana for breakfast before hitting the gym in my apartment building to try a strength workout from The New Rules of Lifting for Women.

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I took a look at the workout in the book and then wrote it down on a piece of paper to bring with me.

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P.S. My writing is usually a little neater than this! I was in a rush. I looked at this workout and thought it looked pretty easy but I’d give it a try.

I did the squats, push ups and seated row as prescribed, but the step up and prone jacknife were where things got different. I thought I knew what the book was asking for with the step up, so I just did the 2 sets of 15 step-ups on a bench. When I got back, I looked at the book and saw that it recommended using weights, which I did not. No wonder it felt so easy. As for the prone jacknife, the building gym didn’t have a workout ball, so I had to improvise. I ended up doing a 60-second regular plank and then a 60-second plank on my forearms. I also added in 50 jumping jacks between each set for some cardio intervals.

All in all, I didn’t find this workout very challenging at all, but since it’s the first workout of the program, maybe it’s not supposed to be. The one thing I realized is that I do need to be more consistent with my strength training. I need to either stick with this NROLW program or find a gym strength class I really like and stick with it so I can challenge my body.