Keep Pushin'

Day 2 of level 3 of the 30 day shred, followed by an easy 30 minute run on the mill at 1% incline. I'll do another interval-style run tomorrow morning, but the tough parts will be incline-induced rather than bumping up the speed like I did yesterday.

I had wardrobe issues this morning as I tried to get ready for work, in a good way. All of my dress slacks are looking baggy and a bit frumpy and baggy-a$$ed. The scale isn't moving, but my body is changing. Overall, I think I'm much more fit than when I ran my last marathon a few years ago, not running-wise, but full body fitness. I weighed less a few years ago on race day, but I don't think I was any smaller than I am now. Amazing what a bit of muscle will do.

Woohoo, Kathy!

I can relate. I had a pair of crepe wool dress pants in my closet that I often wore to nicer occassions or a church function, and when I put them on around the holidays, they were also very baggy-assed. I realized that I had not worn them much in Atlanta, and they were so "big" I had to donate them.

Keep up the great work!! Being fit is great!

Woo-hoo! Let's hear it for baggy-a$$ed pants!

Um, can I say that?

I also try to increase the incline rather than go faster to make a workout harder. The problem with going faster is it can stress the ligaments/tendons a lot more, plus you workout for less time so the benefit of the workout is reduced.

Sounds like all your efforts are paying off. Ah, baggy a$$ed pants!
I'm going to need to go back into your blog some and find out more about the 30 day shred! Sounds grueling but successful!

Goodness...I haven't posted in my blog in months.  I've been running, just not writing about it.

I'm still focused on total body fitness rather than training for a goal race.  I worked my way through Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred and Ripped in 30 DVDs several times.  Achieved my goal of not having to wear a layer of spandex under my mother-of-the-bride dress for my daughter's wedding in May.  So that's good.  But then I got board with my routine of doing a Shred or Ripped workout followed by 3 miles on the mill. It was the same thing 5 days a week.

So I looked around for other workout options.  I know about Insanity and P90X, and was tempted to get one of those, then I stumbled on Mark Lauren's 'You Are Your Own Gym'.  This guy is/was a military special operations trainer and he wrote a book full of workouts using only one's body weight.  He also offers a DVD, so that's what I bought.  Love it!  It's absolutely no frills...but certainly challenging. 

I felt comfortable enough with the novice after a week that I moved onto the intermediate and have been doing that for the past few weeks.   I do that 3 days a week.  On my non YAYOG days, I run.  Mostly on the 'mill, but sometimes outside.  Often times, I do a slow warm up, then do a Tobada-style workout that kicks my butt.  Then I do another mile or two on the mill at a comfortably hard pace.  Interestingly, my comfortably hard pace continues to get a bit faster.  So, something about the mix of YAYOG and the Tobada is helping my running pace.

I still don't have the speed that I had a couple of years ago (do remember that my 'speed' is most folks' 'slow'), but my pace is quicker than it was last year for a 3-5 mile run.  And at my age, to be faster than the previous year is always a good thing. 

Keep Pushin', y'all.