The good, the bad and no excuses

Ok, I took a slight hiatus from the fitness blogosphere since school started. I challenged myself to 100 days of 30 minutes of activity a day, and as real life carried on, I didn't always make the time. Some might be quick to say I failed the challenges and I'm okay with that.
For me, the 100 day challenge was about creating new habits. Taking my bike to work instead of driving my car. Taking time out for me and my health. Improving my running endurance. I can't be 100% all the time. I have my slip ups. I get lazy. But I refuse to beat myself up about being human. I make bad choices and mistakes in all areas of my life... And I learn from that. It's how I grow and know I'm getting better.
So I didn't complete every day - I did make an effort MOST days - far more than I had been.

I also realized that it wasn't fitting in the exercise that I really struggled with; I kind of got put off blogging when it came down to crunch time. I could get out for my run when I got home from work, but I just couldn't be assed writing about it afterwards. I felt like I was writing kind of the same thing over and over and boring myself. I put pressure on me to make itteresting, and add photos and eventually I just didn't have the time or energy to put into that. So it took the back burner.

My accomplishments
-I ran the Whangarei Beach2Basin 9.4km run on 4 March in 1h 13m, while I was sick (lungs were on fire!) and still took 7 minutes off my previous time in September
-I've been improving my short run stamina and time, running more and walking less.
-I discovered I'm way better at maintaining a steady pace if I run on the beach
-I ran 3.3km on the beach without stopping
-I ran 5km on the beach without stopping!
-I got up on Good Friday morning and went went for a 9.5km run by myself and made it
-I finally broke out of my 84kg plateau, and am down to fluxating between 80 and 81 ( next goal= get into the 70s!!!)
-I gave up eating chips and hot chips (fries) for 40 day - however long Lent actually is

What's next?
P90X!!!
I have done the first t days already. I'm not going to kid myself and say I'll blog about everyday because there's no need to set myself up to fail again, right. My priority is the physical activity!
So far it's not as scary as I'd hyped up in my mind. I started doing the LEAN version, which is more cardio based DVDs rather than muscle building, but there's a good chance I may switch to the classic programme. I just wanted to ease myself into this, especially since I was so intimidated. I'm not following the nutrition guide to a t, which is naughty I know. But I'm making clean, healthier choices. I know nutrition is the key part of the equation. I'm working on it. I am a work in progress.

Day 25 - The Quarter Century Mark!

Yes, you read right, 1/4 of the way to 100 days, already!


Day 25: Me and mornings are not getting along. All of my plans of practicing waking up earlier are foiled by my snooze button. That, however, does not hinder my workout efforts. It just delays all the other things I plan to do in the day. Instead of a 7am run, I left at 8am, and decided to just run a good 3km's, to the school and back, and then do a circuit of ab stuff,  in the garage.  I love the ap that I recently upgraded to, called SecondsPro. I had SecondsFree, which created different interval timers, but the free version didnt allow you to save timers/workouts you'd just created, and I just couldn't see myself reprogramming it everytime! So I splurged the $4.19, and now can enjoy and save a range of Tabata, Circuit and various other kinds of timers etc. And what I love about this ap, is that you can name each exercise so that it tells you what to do, and then using the TexttoSpeech feature, it tells you in a computer generated voice, what you had planned to do... and then also counts down your last 3 seconds of work/rest. It's fabulous, try it out!

A lovely day in the neighbourhood!           

SecondsPro.. I recommend it!

 







































Do you have any iPhone aps that you swear by or like to use during your workout? What would recommend? 

Keeping it FUN! Day 13, 14 and 15

My little set up I've got goin on down
in my garage... workout with a view ;)

Day 13: Friday morning, up and at them, not so early but enough to get in a solid workout before having some guests over to bake cookies and catch up. 
I decided to stay home, in my garage rather than go for a run or bike ride as my newly bruised leg was still quite tender.... but I would bust out my Tabata timer app on my iPhone, and do as many leg friendly exercises. Tabata is a form of High Intensity Interval Training, where you go hard and give it your all at whatever you're doing for 20 seconds (that's it! not long!) and then take a 10 second break, and you repeat this 8 times, for a total for 4 minutes of hardout work! I love it, and the timer is so helpful. 
I started out by jogging, then did some boxing, then the c-sit hold from insanity, bum lifts using the swiss ball, 4kg oblique drops and 4kg oblique twists, and finished off with some more boxing. Sooooo good! Felt awesome afterwards, and for the rest of the day!

So fun just paddling and trying to catch the wave

Day 14: The girls and I had gone to free concert on a remote island about an hour and a half away for the night.... heaps of cardio was had dancing the night away I can tell you that!  Saturday was a mint as gorgeous summer day (finally) and my mate Genna and I had been trying to get out surfing together for ages... so today we finally made it happen! It was beautiful. Now, I am no surfer by any means, but that probably just means that I work heaps harder! Paddling big waves is a mission! I counted that as my workout as we were out on the water for an hour - hour and a half!  I was exhausted afterwards. Abs worked, arms worked, knees sore. Okay I can't actually stand up but it will happen, with practice.
I believe!


Day 15: Sunday morning.... cleaning day!! With the thought of going back to work, even just for a little bit each day, I really wanted my house to be clean so that'd be one less thing to worry about :)  Washing done folded and put away, dishes all caught up, fridge cleaned out and wiped out,  all rooms vacuumed - including flippin spiders! and then I even cleaned out the garage. Whew. Mel and I went for a leisurely (but intentional) stroll down to the shop and back to get some bread and milk, so that was my 3km's of walking for the day. Thomthom starts his first day of work tomorrow at his new job, so I'll be up early hopefully to do something exciting for exercise before heading off to putter around my new classroom for a bit. 


Despite that I did eat a whole bunch of crap while out with the girls Friday night, I am quite proud that I have stuck with this for 15 days already. Must say my 'sticker chart' is pretty solid... cannot disappoint.