I won't bore you with a continuing breakdown of every single day, but I will readily admit that I was seriously more than happy to go along with Rest-Monday. Suffering some serious Monday-itis and post-weekend depression, it took every ounce of willpower I had to not spiral into my usual Couch + Chocolate + Disney routine.
I settled for Couch + Star Wars + Fiance for the night and went to bed early before my brain could conjure up any wicked ideas about sneaking some snacks in.
Tuesdays Run was taken up a level with 90 second increments of jogging. The longest 90 second increments of my life, I swear to god.
The weather was a stunning 34 degrees Celsius which made me want to fit my bra and socks with esky chill blocks. May need to bring the runs to the treadmill on days over 30 degrees.
Chris's home-made chicken rissoles with steamed veg tasted fit for a queen and I settled down for the night watching him play his new Star Wars game.
Week 2 was starting off pretty bloody good.
I decided that last weeks Cross-Training in front of a movie worked out pretty well, so I chucked on Bring It On in hopes that I might 'Bring It' to my work-out. The first 30 minutes on my Wednesday Elliptical session was gone in the blink of an eye and then I found myself watching the clock every 5 minutes after that, because I felt so weary. I finished the entire 60 minutes though, without stopping, and gave myself a pat on the back for my champion perseverance.
Thursday was a rest day yet again, which ended up being another Japanese dinner followed by the new Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 2 movie (amazing!). I only had about 17 handfuls of popcorn instead of the usual Jumbo box to myself, so I called that a win for the night.
Friday required me to run again for 30 minutes, and so I thought I'd put my brave pants on, jump in the car at 5.30am to meet Rhi in town to run around the city basin.
The run was actually amazing, with the sun only just rising, the birds singing and the city filled with barely awake exercise nuts.
I felt like part of some in-crowd. Doing my thing. Being motivated.
There is something empowering for me about getting up early to hit the pavement.
I make eye contact with other people running past me and imagine that they are dipping their head to me in a silent acknowledgement to our mutual accomplishment.
I spent the rest of day feeling pretty impressed with myself, and was able to go home and have the entire evening to do what I want. A.k.a go to bed at 8.30pm and read my book until I fell asleep. Friday night madness, come at me.
Saturday morning bought back the insanity of being up at 5am to meet Rhi for our weekend Cross Training: a Walk/Hike. We decided we were going to walk from Norton Summit to Morialta Conservation Park car park today which is technically Section 4 of the Yurrebilla hiking trail (plus some), is approximately 9.5kms and should take about 2.5hours.
If you are local and have never been to Morialta, I suggest a visit - there are walks for all levels of fitness, and you are guaranteed a minimum of at least a Koala or Kookaburra on your travels. Plus, there's like 3 waterfalls and the most spectacular views only comparable to Mt Lofty.
11kms later and we had finally found our destination. We won't talk about how many detours I enforced because I was totally sure of where we were going, but we made it and felt pretty good about it.
Short term goal: I would like to be able to complete a hike on a Saturday morning without having to have a 2 hour nap to recover from it.
Sunday's are usually lazy days for me. It is usually a day that I can easily spend the entire day accomplishing exactly nothing and feeling great about it. So getting up at 8.30am on Sunday morning, the last thing I felt like doing was chucking my trainers on and hitting the pavement.
After breakfast and an hour of procrastinating while playing the Sims, I found myself robotically pulling on some socks and trainers and rushed out the door before my brain could find any further excuses not to. Don't worry, I managed to put some clothes on as well.
Future motivators to run earlier in the morning: First, the amount of children playing on the pavement at 9.30am that giggle and gawk at your lava lamp lady lumps as they roll past, and secondly the amount of flies that decided to hitch a ride either in my nostrils or in my oesophagus.
If anything could induce a running rage, it would definitely be either giggling children or suicidal flies. However, I managed to complete the run regardless of the emotional interferences and promised myself I would suck it up and run before the flies and other small annoyances would be awake in future.
Week 2 is down and I can hardly believe it. I have accomplished more exercise in the last 14 days than the last 12 months.
Even though I am constantly weary for the earlier mornings, and added exercise (and keep telling myself that the tiredness is only a passing phase as my body adjusts), I can say that I definitely feel better, physically and emotionally. I feel lighter, and happier - mostly because I am achieving what I planned to achieve so far.
However, regardless of the happy-feels, I also cannot help but obsessively watch the scales as I have convinced myself that with all this added exercise, and healthier eating choices, that I must be losing weight like crazy, which I am not. At least, not yet.
Long term goal: Stop looking at the scales and remember what I have already decided that I am trying to achieve here. I am not doing this to lose weight, I am doing this to find a fitter, healthier me. And since I am already feeling better, and can already feel the difference in my training, I say "Go me!" because I have already started winning.
Want to keep reading? Check out the next post HERE.
If you are enjoying my blog, be sure to subscribe below so you are notified when I upload new content!