gwennefarrell

This morning was a brutal ‘power hour’ class which is a number of strength training exercises. The instructor did a whole gamut of exercises and at the end I told her she had just about talked me out of doing an 8 km run today because my legs were so tired. She said absolutely not, you are getting out there and doing that run. Of course I would have done it anyways because as I said, no excuses.

Yesterday morning the weather sucked. It was raining and you know how I hate running in the rain. That meant I was going to have to use the dreaded treadmill and I was not happy. I did a 1 hour walk before meeting my friends for coffee and afterwards hit it again for a 2 hour walk (this was the point where I learned that the treadmill turns itself off after 100 minutes). When I was at about the 90 minute mark which is when I felt I was just slogging along I saw my reflection in the garage window and thought why the hell am I doing this? For weeks now I have been walking 4+ hours a day and quite frankly I started to question why a person pushing 60 would torture themselves like this.

But then it hit me, I am doing this for me. I am doing this because keeping the weight down and fitness level up means I can stave off high blood pressure and diabetes both of which are in remission. I am doing this so that I can continue to watch my grandson grow up and I look forward to his future. I am doing this so that I can be independent and mobile for as long as absolutely possible. And, in the name of vanity, I am doing this because I look so much better when I am fit and slim.

Ok, so maybe there are some good reasons for putting myself through this. I guess those reasons must be enough because it is currently noon and I am getting ready to go and do my 4th hour of walking.

Every once in a while I check my heart health on my Fitbit. For the longest time it has ranged between good and very good (for a woman my age which I wish it didn’t have to say). Today I had a look at it and was stunned that it is now showing in the excellent range (though still, for a woman my age). I know I have been working hard for the past 2 months but that is a significant indication that it is working.

Sunday I seriously didn’t want to go for a long walk. Over the previous 3 days I had done 2 8 km runs and a 10 km run and to say my legs were tired is a significant understatement. However, I got up before dawn and hit the road by 5:15am to get in a 2 hour walk. I then told myself as I plodded along that since it was Sunday if I got that walk in then I would quit for the day. Sounded good until I realized the last day when I hadn’t done at least 30k steps was June 26th. Of course by the end of the day I was at 31.5k steps.

This past year I seem to have become pretty good at finding excuses to let myself go. There was the twisted ankle, volunteer work, my business picking up, wanting to enjoy retirement with my husband, it’s too hot in Mexico to really workout, and the list goes on. I don’t know how I allowed myself to get back into that kind of head space but obviously I did. Not now and hopefully not ever again.

My family jokes that I am obsessed (ok, I might be a bit) but really it was joining the 6 week challenging and having someone else help me be accountable. It is really different when you have someone else following what you eat and what you weigh. It made me just want to prove that I can do this. And so, I am just not letting those excuses get into my head again, instead now I just shut them out and push through.

But you know what? I feel great again and all of this hard work is really starting to show. Yes, I spend a lot of time working out right now but I am looking down the road to when I can go back to just working on maintenance. Each week I keep telling myself, you got this and I know that I do.

Well turned out to be a bit of a surprise today. They had predicted a very warm day today but when I went out for my 2 hour walk at 9 am I was pleasantly surprised that it was relatively mild. This was a great relief since the past few days have been smoking hot and made my workouts quite challenging. Still, I got through them.

Over the past several weeks I have gone back to running. I started out doing intervals but if you recall I quickly got bored with the training so just started doing full runs. After getting myself going on 5 km’s it quickly morphed into 8 km’s. It wasn’t hard to get back to it as I have been doing so many fitness classes that my endurance was already pretty good.

So we are once again at the trailer and I promised myself heavy workouts each day. The past 2 days I did 8.5 km runs each morning. I then followed up with a 2 hour walk and then a shorter walk in the afternoon. In all I have averaged 4.5 hours of exercise a day which is the self-commitment I made. This is definitely not the time for me to slack off.

But then came today. I had been mentally working myself up to this for the past week and I was determined not to let myself down. And so I started my run this morning at my usual somewhat slow but steady pace. I’m fortunate that the route I take up where we have our trailer is fairly flat. There are some nasty blind corners so regardless of the temperature I wear my reflective jacket until the sun is fully up. I don’t know why on these runs the first half is always the most difficult and today was no different. However, once I passed the 2/3 mark I knew I was going to get it done.

Yes, today was my first 10 km run in at least 9 months. I had promised myself that today was the day I started testing my endurance again and obviously it is back. Ok, I admit my legs are rebelling so no running tomorrow but regardless, I DID IT!

What I am most proud of is the fact that I have been on this new journey for about 9 weeks now and I am still pushing myself even when at the trailer. I’ve got 5 more weeks to go before heading back to Mexico and I am pretty sure my friends there will be surprised by how effective my determination has been.

My husband and I arrived at the trailer yesterday for a 4 night get away. It is the perfect time to be here as the weather is fantastic and because it is a long weekend there are lots of families with kids around. One young man has fallen hard for our corgi and has offered to walk her while we are here. It is actually quite sweet and trust me our drama Queen dog loves the attention.

it is always hard at the lake to stay focused on both exercise and calories. We’ve had a few trips up here this season and I have done pretty well. But, we are 5 1/2 weeks away from Mexico and I have really been challenging myself. Moreover, it is hot out so that normally gives me an out from working hard but I am determined that if I can push myself here I can do it in Mexico.

Now I admit it is only day 1 here but I decided to test myself. I got up at 5:00am and hit the road by 6:00am. I decided since the area I normally walk is pretty flat that an 8 km run would be a good plan. I finished off that segment of the workout plan with a 30 minute walk. Once back at the trailer I rehydrated and rested for an hour before heading out for an hour walk. More rehydration and rest before another 1 hour walk. By 12:15pm I had done 33k steps and put in 22 km.

But that isn’t all. I also tried out my new paddle board on the lake. This of course is way out of my comfort zone but I am determined to master this. I managed to get up on the board and paddle around for a while without ending up in the water which I deem to be a success. I am still a little nervous when I first get up on the board and have to force myself to relax but I am getting there. A few more trial runs and I am confident this will become easy.

Testing myself this weekend will only prove that my determination will ultimately make me successful. If I can keep doing these workouts in this heat I will have no excuses not to run most days that I am in Mexico and that is really my goal.

I am convinced the instructor today was trying to kill me. She demanded that I (and everyone else) grab a set of heavy weights. When I asked her to define ‘heavy’ she said nothing less than 25 lbs. I knew at that point this was going to be challenging and it was. We went through a couple sets of exercises using those weights and I can assure you that by time we were done my arms felt like they were dead. Can’t wait to see how I feel tomorrow.

I know I am seeing many changes in my body right now. Of course the first place the weight left was my face. Then, my arms got noticeably thinner (though also way more buff). I have had several people comment on the fact that my butt is much smaller and I am cognizant of the fact that my legs are back to being muscular. Moreover, I’ve started wearing clothes that at the beginning of this current journey did not fit very well. All of this I should regard as progress.

The frustration is the belly fat that seems to be clinging to me right now. It just does not seem to be going away the way I would like. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have lost weight and that I have some more to go (next weigh in is in 2 weeks) but it was just that I had hoped the weight would come from the worst places first.

So, time to manage this frustration before it becomes a deterrent. I am very aware that my fitness level has drastically improved in the past 2 months. I also know that if I keep all of this up I will easily be back to my best weight by the end of the year. But most importantly, I know that there is no way to lose weight from a particular part of your body, you just don’t get to demand that. Besides, I am once again starting to feel some pretty impressive ab muscles under that stubborn layer of fat and I know eventually they will shine through again.

Time to stop being frustrated and instead reflect on how far I have come. Oh, and doing a farmer’s walk carrying 50 lbs of weights is still not my idea of the best way to start the day.

So yesterday’s bootcamp class was brutal. It was so tough I opted not to do a run yesterday. This morning bootcamp class was later in the morning so I went for an 8 km run first thing. It was a great day for a run as it was slightly overcast but mild enough to be comfortable. I then went to class and it was a 10 station circuit which I thought ok, heavy on weights but that was ok. Then the instructor told me that at the end of each of the 3 circuits we were going to do a 400 meter quick run outside. What!!!! I picked a bad day to do a run before class. By time class was over and I got all my walking done this morning I decided it was time to rest for the rest of the day. 2 tough classes combined with the fact I did 42.5k steps and 28.5 km yesterday and my butt is killing me not to mention my legs feel like they weigh a ton. Yep, I am seriously done for the day.

I have slowly been pushing myself over the past couple weeks doing things outside of my comfort zone though I acknowledge it has been slow building confidence. Yesterday during bootcamp (yes, the brutal one) we were in round 3 of 4 the circuits and I was doing shoulder presses. The instructor came up to me and told me I was on the verge on going to a higher weight (I was pressing 7.5 lbs which gets tough by the end). The next round when I got to that station she was waiting for me and told me to grab the 10 lb weights. Well I did it and was surprised that while it was challenging I managed to do those shoulder presses and it didn’t kill me. Ok, maybe I need to push things a little further next week. I should note in that class I started doing more high impact for the cardio stations which I have always avoided.

Jump to today’s class (equally as brutal). Usually when we have to do any sort of planking exercise I opt to use the bench rather than my full weight on my arms doing it on the ground. I have no idea why I picked today to say screw it, you have the strength, just get down on the mat and do it so I did. Much to my surprise while it was more challenging I got through it. Then I got to the should press station. This instructor wasn’t messing around, the only option she had laid out was 15 lb weights. Hang on here, I just survived one round with 10 lb weights yesterday, there is no way I can do this. And yet, I picked up those weights and for 3 circuits using that station I did those bloody shoulder presses. Don’t get me wrong, they were hard but by time I was done I felt such a sense of accomplishment.

One thing I want to note, while I am happy that I am starting to take on these challenges I also realize my limitations. For example, one station today was doing step ups on the bench. Well, my bad knee can’t tolerate that kind of stress (trust me I tried it before) so I felt no shame in asking for a modified exercise and trust me the instructor gave me one that was still difficult.

The bottom line to all of this is after 8 weeks of working really hard I am stronger than I think. Hey, if I could dead lift 100 lbs this week I’ve definitely got some serious strength happening. I think now it is just a matter of having confidence that I can successfully step out of that comfort zone.

Ok, apparently I am really climbing back to where I used to be. Today I decided to try an 8 km run. Now this was challenging not because it was a hard run but rather between work being done on the promenade and trains stopped on the tracks there were several detours. Regardless, I got through that run and felt pretty good. I realize I need to go back to working on my speed but endurance wise I was pretty good. Next weekend I think I will try a 10 km.

During my fitness classes we often do circuits or super sets. Circuits are done 2 different ways. The first is you set the timer for say 12 minutes and you are given 4-5 exercises each with so many reps with a short break in between. The 2nd is each exercise you do for say 30 secs with a 10 sec break before moving on to the next one. Then you do a super set which is 2-3 exercises that you do for 30 seconds before moving on to the next one without a break. Whichever method, they are all tough.

What I have noticed is many of the other participants do things very differently that I do. Several of them rush through absolutely everything trying to get as many sets done as absolutely possible. I watch them and realize their mentality is not the same as mine, to them it is getting the numbers in. In my head, that is not what I want.

Now I admit I am a bit of a perfectionist so doing everything exactly right is important to me. It is always devastating for me when an instructor comes over to correct what I am doing. Having said that, I never make the same mistake twice. But what is important for me is not how many reps or cycles I can do but rather getting my form right. To me, simply throwing the weights around is easy but doesn’t make you work as hard. I prefer to be controlled in my moves focusing on my stance and my core and making sure the muscles are worked as hard as possible. Even doing crunches or bridges, I hold the muscles for several seconds making sure they get the workout they need.

So I am going to continue to just be slow and steady as I feel more strength coming each week. Must be working because today I not only did full planks but also managed to do pushups in between each one.

So this morning it was a strength training class. There weren’t a lot of attendees which is surprising since the 5:30am class is quite popular. However, since there were fewer people the instructor decided to bring out the bar bells. I watched them getting set up and thought, WTH? Sure enough, she encouraged us to do the deadlift exercise using the bar bells. I was going to decline until she said we should challenge ourselves, damn those words! So when it was time to do deadlifts during the circuit I went to a bar bell and dead lifted 100 lbs. The instructor said to me, doesn’t that feel great to which I replied NO. Still I managed to do those deadlifts and was pretty proud of myself.

When I started with this fitness centre for my 6 week challenge they talked to me about how important it was not to get discouraged if the scale was slow to move. They went through the same things I have posted about in the past, if you keep at this the fat in your body starts changing to muscle which in itself makes you more healthy. Moreover, the same mass of muscle weighs more than an equal mass of fat which means the scale might not move but you are still losing fat (I was happy they did not say the phrase that I hate, muscle weighs more than fat which of course it doesn’t because a pound of fat weighs exactly the same as a pound of muscle).

They also did something interesting, on my first day they took pictures of me from several different angles. They explained that in case I was disappointed with my weight result that if I followed the program I would be able to see the change in my body. Well, after the 6 weeks they took new pictures from the same angles and showed them to me comparing side by side what I looked like when I started. Now I already didn’t need confirmation because the scale had moved but there was no questioning the change in my hips, arms and face all of which clearly showed where the weight loss had come from.

As I continue with this program I vow to look at this holistically. I look for the changes such as seeing my collar bones again or starting to feel my hip bones. Those changes are getting more noticeable and just give me more motivation to keep going.

I’m holding off my next weigh in for a couple of weeks but the more I work at this the happier I am with the changes that I am noticing.

Well it happened again, a driver not paying attention nearly took me out in a crosswalk. I was entering a crosswalk and the vehicle to the left of me was stopped and nodded at me. There was a car pulling up to the stop line on the right as I was already in the crosswalk. I watch the driver look left and right but didn’t look straight ahead as they hit the gas (obviously rushing). I was 1/2 way into the crosswalk and was about to jump back when the driver slammed on their brakes apparently having seen me. Then the driver proceeded to hurl profanities at me I assume because I was somehow responsible for this situation. I remind everyone once again, pay attention at all intersections and crosswalks to ensure they are free of pedestrians.

I got up this morning at my normal obscenely early time and hit the road by 5:15am to get in 2 hours of walking before my bootcamp class later this morning. I’ve been working on my 2 min run, 1 min walk interval training this week but I have to say it has not been very challenging. As I have once again gone back to my mantra of no excuses and have worked extremely hard on my fitness for nearly 7 weeks I realized I needed a new challenge to keep pushing myself. I wasn’t very far into my walk when I decided what to do.

After walking far enough to know I was warmed up I decided to start to run. Initially my thought was I would just run continuously for 30 minutes which would be equivalent to the time I had been doing in my interval training. I hit the 30 minute mark and realized I still felt pretty good so kept going. Since part of my normal running route is still closed I had to loop back on the promenade a few times and estimate how far I had run with the goal of doing 6 km. By time I stopped I had run 7 km and to say I felt proud of myself is a huge understatement.

I want to be clear, I still do not get that allusive runner’s high, for me it has always just been that sense of accomplishment. However, I realized that my fitness level is increasing every day helped not just by serious workouts doing either bootcamp classes or intense power classes but also by the fact that I have for weeks been walking about 4 hours everyday (oh, haven’t been able to break that habit so still doing over 20km walking each day). I am getting back to the fitness level I strive for and I am confident it won’t be long before I am again frequently running 10 km.

So here’s to challenging my fitness and having such an awesome result.

I realized recently that it was time to change out my runners. When my shoes start to show they are losing tread I know it is time to replace them. For me because I alternate between 2 pair of shoes that happens about every 6 months. I went to a New Balance store (my husband went to the outlet centre in the US before he retired) and picked the model I wanted. Then it was time to pick the colour and I surprised myself at choosing a kind of dusty pink for one of the pairs. Seriously, I don’t normally do pink but I kind of liked those ones.

Now that I have reduced the amount of walking I am doing (I’ll post later about how that is so not true) I still wanted to kick my training up a notch. I don’t know, maybe it is because for the last 6 weeks I have been asked to keep increasing my goals but I know I just want to keep pushing myself. And so I have decided it is time to go back to running. No, I have never really enjoyed it but a year ago it was certainly keeping me fit.

Because I haven’t done much of a run in quite a while I thought I should start slow. I do at least 1 two hour walks each day so decided doing 30 minutes of interval training would be a good start. I also decided to start slow though am willing to build up rather quickly. Yesterday and today I did intervals of 2 minutes running with 1 minute walking. I’m pleased to say that it went quite well so I’m going to do that for 1 more day and then bump it up to 3 and 1’s. Pretty sure it won’t be long before I am easily back to doing 6 km’s. I just need them to repair our promenade because running to the pier and back works out to exactly 6 km.

Right now I just feel the need to stretch myself to do more than just keep to my comfort zone. I am so reinvigorated after doing the 6 week challenge that I want to keep going. I know I can get back to my goal weight and fitness level and I am determined to do so.