Week So Far

• Had a good run yesterday. The weather is starting to change so even though it was still 30 degrees with the humidity, it didn’t feel as hot as it has been the last couple of weeks. Or maybe I’m just used to it now.
• Just finished P90X Legs & Back and Ab Ripper. I’ve been doing Ab Ripper on and off (mostly off) for about a month now and its slowly getting less hard. Not easier, just less hard.
• Pictures from Saturday’s race are up. There’s a bunch of pictures of me grinning like a maniac.

Toronto Women’s 10K

Today marks 1 year since my first 5K and yesterday, I ran my second 10K.

The race kit consisted of the usual flyers, a luna bar and the brightest yellow t-shirt.
I got to the park just after 7. Race time was 8. Had a good amount of time to drink some water, visit the porta potties repeatedly and get ready.
The 10K was divided up better than May’s 5K. I positioned myself in the 60 minutes + group but once we started, it was clear that some there were some people who should have been in faster starting positions. Bit annoying. Also, I saw a couple of 5K people turning around and heading back so they started at the wrong time (5K’s started 15 minutes earlier). The announcements were pretty clear – if you have a yellow bib, get out of the starting line. That really sucks though for them. I’d be very annoyed at myself if I had started at the wrong time and already run half the race.
The 10K course starts off following the usual TO Women’s 5K course which after 3 times running it, I’m pretty familiar with. Than we turn off and run through part of the park that I hadn’t seen before. It was very pretty – over little bridges and along streams. Over to the expressway. Up a hill, down a hill (stupid hills).
I felt good throughout the entire race. I was doing 2:30/1:30 run/walk intervals and kept pretty much dead on my 8 min/km pace throughout the race. That was one of my main problems with the Sporting Life 10K – I went out too fast than struggled later. There were 3 water stops along the way plus I had my fuel belt and some sport beans. I was at the back, but wasn’t concerned about it. I was running the race that I wanted to run and feeling good.
My husband came out to the park to see me finish and he was about 50 metres ahead of the finish line. I was very happy to see him!

I had enough energy left at the end to pick up the pace and finished strong.
Official Time: 1 hr 20m 22s
Chip Time: 1hr 19m 50s
So I beat my Sporting Life 10K time by 48 seconds which I am very happy amount. 1hr 20 minutes was my goal, and I’m 10 seconds under it. I felt good covering the longer distance which makes me feel better about October’s half marathon. And I got a medal and a shirt! Yay for swag!!


Things I liked about this race:

• Course was pretty
• Shirt & medal
• 3 water stations
• The volunteers were great – really supportive and encouraging.
• Post race food – bananas, breakfast pita, chocolate bar, water and bag of chips
• General energy of the racers. I like women’s races.

Things I didn’t like:

• People not positioning themselves properly at start
• There’s a parking lot that we run through at the beginning and end of the race. I hate that parking lot for some reason. Rest of the course is fine.
• Course is open to the public which worked out fine but is a bit annoying.

Week Plan Aug 22 - 27

Monday:
Run 44 minutes

Tuesday:
P90X Legs & Back, Ab Ripper

Wednesday:
Run 44 minutes

Thursday:
P90X Shoulders & Arms. Ab Ripper

Friday:
Rest day. Pick up race kit.

Saturday:
Toronto Women's 10K

Goals for week:
Track food Monday to Friday
Pack lunch the night before (Monday morning = fail)

Thanks for the recent comments! I'm trying to change my set up so I can actually reply to them.

Relaxing Sunday

I’m back to work tomorrow after 12 days off. Blah.
Today consisted of laundry, cleaning, bit of organizing, some cooking.
Getting tortured by this guy

Back to P90X. Today’s workout: chest & back.
I’m doing most of the push ups from my knees and using a resistance band looped over the husband’s pull up bar rather than attempting pull ups. Pull ups and RA wrists do not mix, at least not right now. Maybe soon.

I did three weeks of P90X in July than took some time off from it. I’m doing three P90X workouts (skipping the cardio) in combination of half marathon training.
Think I’ll be sore tomorrow.

11K’s

Spent 5 hot sweaty days in Vegas. We came home on a red eye flight, getting in early on Tuesday morning. Completely put me out of commission for the entire day.



5 days of eating not so nutritious food and no exercise other than walking up and down the strip. Last year’s Vegas trip, I came home with an extra 6 pounds.

This year – stayed the same! Yay!
However it’s back at it now. Half marathon is coming up quick.
Thursday’s 5K run was painful. It was my first run in a week and I was moving rather slow. Than the 5K turned into “hunt for the missing fuel belt bottle”. While looking for missing bottle #1, bottle #2 fell off. I found bottle #2 and gave up on #1. I’ve been thinking about getting a new belt anyways, so this was a sign. My old belt was too big and I wanted one with 4 bottles instead of just two. Came home to find a 20% coupon for the running store in my e-mail. Score!
I set off with my new size smaller, 4 bottle fuel belt this morning. 11 kilometres later, I was home. Tired, hot, moving really really slow but pumped. This was my longest run yet. This time last year when I was prepping for my first 5K, I would never have thought 11K would be possible. Yes I’m still slow. Yes I still walk 50% of the time. I’m constantly reminding myself that I’m a slightly overweight 31 year old with rheumatoid arthritis that doesn’t have an athletic bone in my body and avoided the 100 metre dash at track and field days. The fact that I’m even doing this is enough.

Bikram Yoga

I bought a 25 class pass to a Bikram Yoga studio a couple of months ago from a groupon-like website. I’ve always avoided hot yoga, didn’t seem very pleasant. I don’t want to drown in my own sweat. It was kind of a whim that I bought the pass.
Than I put off using it for 6 months because I was convinced that I was going to hate Bikram yoga. Or pass out. Or vomit. Or both.
So what is Bikram yoga?
From Wikipedia:
Bikram Yoga is a system of yoga that Bikram Choudhury synthesized from traditional yoga techniques and popularized beginning in the early 1970s.^[1][2] Bikram's classes run exactly 90 minutes and consist of a set series of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises. Bikram Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105°F (≈ 40.6°C) with a humidity of 40%, and is the most popular form of hot yoga.
So it’s hot, extremely structured yoga for an hour and a half.
I took my first class today. Brought my yoga mat, my towel to place over the mat (to catch the sweat), bottle of water. Wore as little clothes as possible. Stepped into the room and immediately rerated this decision.
But I stuck it out and I liked it.
 
 

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Pros:

• The heat made me super bendy.
• Most of the poses aren’t very difficult and because you’re holding the pose for quite some time, it’s easy to follow.

Cons:

• Wasn’t the most relaxing yoga class I’ve been to. The instructor talks throughout the class the entire time and at a rapid pace. It was like being at an auction.
• There’s no variation so I can see getting bored of Bikram quickly.
• I like sun salutations and vinyasas. Felt odd to do a yoga class without downward facing dog.
• I was drenched in sweat.

I’ll go back again, maybe next week. I really want to do more yoga. It’s a nice break from running and weight lifting.

CLX Lean Circuit

I just finished Lean Circuit 3.

Oh my god.

My chest muscles are shaking.

I'm having mixed feelings about Lean Circuit.
I like that it's very challenging and a good change from Push Circuit. But its very hard on my wrists, especially Lean Circuit 2 and Lean Circuit 3. I think I'm going to have to come up with some modifications. Exercises like one arm row while in plank and push ups to side plank are not what my poor slightly arthritis damaged wrists need.