Kickin' it into gear

Since my last post, I've felt MOTIVATED!  Yes, that's with all caps for a reason, my friends!  I knew I needed to feel better about me and to feel that way, I needed to become BFFs with my morning workouts again.  Here's the deal - it isn't an easy routine to get into because it means a 4:30am wake up.  Yes, you read that correctly.  4:30am.  It's okay, though...cuz I wake up to Brad Paisley's She's Everything.  He can croon in my ear any morning...well obviously not THIS morning at 4:30am because I quickly reset the alarm to 6:10am since 5 hours of sleep was just not gonna cut it (I hung out with my buddies Meliska, Greggy-D, and Heather last night and then when I got home I had a hard time falling asleep).  Anywho...the reason I must get up so early is because I have to take a thyroid pill and that means waiting 30 minutes before I can eat and I have to eat something before I workout, so...you get the idea.

Okay...so on Monday, I ate a whole wheat bagel thin with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray and made my way to 24 Hour Fitness.  I did 30 minutes on the elliptical on the Glute program at a 10-intensity with a 5 minute cool-down.  Truth be told, I don't really "cool-down" on the cool-down, I actually use that 5 minutes to go in the reverse direction.  I ended up doing 3.25 miles and it felt fantastic!  Next, I headed to the recumbent bike and did the random program for 15 minutes on level 10.  I walked out of the gym empowered and thinking, "I'm back!"

On Tuesday, I had the same pre-workout breakfast.  I decided to change things up a bit and face my fear of the treadmill head on.  Prior to this day, I had only done one mile on the treadmill on two different occasions.  I hated both of them.  I decided to get over it because I needed to get some running in and it's too dark in the mornings for me to go by myself out on the pavement.  We all know I do interval running - 4 minutes of running following by 1 minute of walking.  This is easy to do on the streets and annoying to do on a treadmill.  With this in mind, I gave myself a goal of running the first mile out-right without intervalling.  Once I hit the one mile mark, I realized I still had plenty of juice in me, so I decided to hit the half way mark (1.55 miles) without walking and I did it!  Yay!  So at the 1.55 mile mark, I slowed it down and walked a minute while I drank some of my water.  From there on out, I decided to focus more on the distance than the time for the intervalling, so I set my distance at half mile increments and went from there to finish my 5K.  I finished it up, walked a half mile afterwards as a cool-down and called it a day.

Before and after both workouts, I stretched.  I also incorporated a gallon of water hydration into my routine both days - this is something new to me and something I've mentioned several times that I've struggled with tremendously.  I will say that I have had no aches and pains as I typically do post-workouts and I attribute that to my increased stretching and to finally properly hydrating.  Today is a rest day, but I will be hitting the gym hard again tomorrow. 

Be sure to check-out Lauren's weekly Workout Wednesday blog that is sure to inspire!

What is the one thing you could to today to change how you feel tomorrow?