My Journey With Health And Fitness – I’m Fitter Than I Thought

I just got off the phone with an amazing support person helping me with my accounting software. I couple weeks ago they had set up my files so that instead of saving them to usb drives all the time (which causes them to be unstable and I often can’t get them to open or backup) they are saved to a cloud allowing me to have access on any device that has the accounting program. It worked well until I had to restore a file from backup and then it all went south or so I thought. A very helpful tech resolved the issue in about 1 minute. The good news is I now know what to do if the situation arises again.

Yesterday it was a strength class first thing in the morning. We did 2 different sets each with various exercises for which you had to do a certain number of reps for 4 rounds. The first set started with deadlifts and I selected a barbell with what I thought would be adequate weights, 85lbs. It was tough but I go through the required 6 reps on each round. I finished off all of the exercises but kept staring at a barbell only one participant had used for their deadlifts. I don’t know why but it flashed in my head that I needed to try and lift that barbell. I went over and told the instructor what I was going to do and that other participant shouted out to me Gwenne, keep your core tight. I got into the proper deadlift position and pushed through the soles of my feet and deadlifted 125lbs! I couldn’t believe it, I just lifted 40lbs lighter and had thought it was challenging but apparently not enough. Next 6 reps of deadlifts are going to be at least 95lbs.

I hadn’t done a run on Tuesday so decided I had enough time yesterday to get in a 5k. When I got to the end of the 1st kilometer my Apple Watch gave me my split pace and I thought hmm, that is a bit faster than normal but I doubt I can keep that up the rest of the way but I’ll give it a try. At the end of the 5k (which was done at the faster pace) I realized in the past few weeks I have shed about 1 /1/2 minutes per kilometer. Then today it was my usual Thursday 8k and I decided I was going to try and maintain yesterday’s pace which I did until I had done 5k. I was pretty proud of myself and for some reason decided to push even harder. I ran those last 3k’s at an even faster pace. The end result was my average pace over those 8k’s today was 20 seconds faster than yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, this has only moved me from being a really slow runner to being a slow runner but it is definitely progress.

My instructors at the gym are always telling us how we are stronger than we think and apparently they are correct. But for me I proved over the past couple days that I am actually fitter than I thought. I’m going to use that positive momentum to push myself even more. Maybe one of these days I’ll even master box jumps.