Tuesday, September 27, 2011

On to the next one

I am excited to have a few new fitness endeavors on the horizon.

For the past month and a half, K and I have been training for a half marathon! It will be my second 13.1 and her first. Training has been going very well (knock wood), and we've been fortunate to have some absolutely GORGEOUS fall weather. K found Fuel Belts on super sale at TJMaxx, so those have been extra helpful, especially when my bottles are filled with my new BFF, Nuun. Yum. I think the drink has helped make the difference in mediocre "just get it over with" runs and highly enjoyable "I could do this forever" runs. We have two more long runs before the race, and without getting TOO cocky, I have high hopes for an enjoyable race. And yes, I will be bringing my own Nuun.

Today I begin a 6-week Boot Camp, uh, experience. I've been needing to mix up my fitness routine for a while now, and this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. While my running is going gang-busters, I haven't been seeing the changes in my body that I want to see. I tried a few things at home (my usual DVD routines, counting calories) and still haven't seen any progress. While I'm not expecting miracles from camp, I do hope it provides enough of a change to shake my body up a bit and get things moving again. At the very least, it'll be a nice change of pace mentally! 

Part of boot camp was a weigh-in/body composition/measurement session. It wasn't as dreadful as I thought it would be and I appreciated seeing the hard numbers. I hope to see some change in those when we reassess in a few weeks. I'm not really focusing on weight, however, as I know that's not a true indication of fitness, hard work or health. We've been asked to set three goals for this camp cycle, and mine are thus:
  1. Complete 10 full, non-modified push-ups
  2. Eat 2 servings of fruits and 4 servings of vegetables daily
  3. Decrease body fat by 3%. (I have no idea if this is a reasonable goal, so I'll ask the trainer tonight. No use setting a goal that's impossible to attain.)
I think all three are doable and yet challenging. However, I know that if I want to reach my goals, I need to put in more work than just attending an hour boot camp once a week. I'm trying to be more mindful about my workouts and put some actual thought into my goals and the steps I need to take to reach them. It's also been brought to my attention that I might be working too hard and I'm not staying in the fat-burning heart-rate zone. That is a puzzle for another day, however, since that would require having some sort of gadget to actually track my HR. But it is something to consider as I move forward towards a fitter me.

Now wish me luck--boot camp hell awaits!

1 comment:

  1. Hi! Clicked over from your twitter profile :) I agree that running doesn't always bring the body change we sometimes want to see. I bet you'll love Boot Camp! I recently got a Garmin 305 for my birthday, which is awesome for running & it includes a heart rate monitor too--$128 on Amazon.com Christmas maybe? Good luck on your half!

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