I want her abs. Okay not her abs, but to have my abs look even close to that would be awesome.
Late Tuesday night, I did the IronStrength workout, and realized that I have a LOT of work ahead of me to attain the level of fitness that I want. When the man directing the workout said for most of the exercises, "I want BEGINNERS to do FOUR sets of 15 reps," I knew I was in trouble. I can barely do ONE set of all those exercises right now, much less four!
One of the exercises that challenged me, among the many that did, was the side plank (as in the picture above). I have a weak core, and it shows.
The deep squats and deep lunges (some with added plyometrics) weren't too hard for me (though again, I could only do one set before my legs were on fire), as well as the plank exercises and the upper body work while balancing on one leg, but when it was time to do full situps, I was in for a surprise. I didn't think it would be hard at all, I had done them all the time as a kid, and besides, the woman doing the demonstration make it look so easy. But when I got halfway up, I got stuck and couldn't go any further. "What in the world?" I thought. "This is crazy. Is my core really that weak?" I thought about putting my toes under the couch to "cheat," but decided not to and instead put my arms straight out to use as leverage and tightened my stomach muscles to make myself sit all the way up. It wasn't easy, and I'm feeling it today, even though it's almost a full two days later.
The full pushups challenged me as well. No surprise there, as I have struggled with them in other workouts. If I do more than one full pushup, I feel like I'm going to die. How sad is that? I had to improvise and do half pushups, and even then, I have difficulty going all the way down (because then I can't go back up, lol).
I SO NEED to do this workout. I refuse to let the fact that it is hard (for me) discourage me from doing it. I must push through until I get stronger.
Yesterday morning, I wasn't sure if I should run, being that I had done the IronStrength workout so late the night before, but with a 5K race coming up in five weeks, I figured I'd better stay on schedule as much as possible. So I ran. It was a good run, and I did better than I thought I would, though I did have to stop shy of my goal of 16 minutes. When I got to 14 minutes, my legs were telling me I had better stop, so I listened.
Today I have been so sore, all over, which is a good thing. It means I worked hard enough Tuesday night and didn't wimp out. I plan to go for a long walk today, then tomorrow morning I want to try and run a full mile without stopping, walk for three minutes, then run another half mile.
I was thinking about it today and realized that if I want to be able to run a full 5K by April 28 (without stopping to walk constantly), then this week I need to conquer one mile without stopping, then I will have four weeks left, so the following week I want to do 1.5 miles without stopping at least one day that week, then 2 miles the week after that, then 2.5 miles, and finally 3.1 miles (5K) the week of the race, which will give me a chance to run the 3.1 miles at least one time before race day, maybe even two times.
I don't know if my body is quite ready yet to meet that goal, but I'm going to try with everything in me. Wish me luck!
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