Friday 17 June 2011

Commitments

Today I sort of committed myself to running a half-marathon.

Before I get ahead of myself--It's not happening until February 2012. But running and I have always had an ambivalent relationship and the farthest I've ever been able to run is about 3.5 miles.
I do want to get in shape, though--it would be cool to be able to run that far. So, to keep myself on task I first thought I'd keep a fitness journal. But then I thought: why do that when I can expose myself and my musings to the whole wide world? Everyone else is doing it. Clearly that is the better choice.

So here we are. This is mostly for me to stay motivated (and it's nice to have an outlet for some writing, as well), but support, encouragement, and advice will always be welcome.

Anyway, to get things rolling, here's the workout I did today. I have been partaking in the sweet nectars of Crossfit (thanks to my boyfriend, who shall henceforth be known as P-dazzle), and today we did a scaled down version of Crossfit Football's metcon "Crushing Helen." We skipped the strength workout due to time restrictions and went down to the park after goofing around with medicine ball/sandbag squats.
At the park, we brought our trusty kettlebells along and mapped out an approximate 100 yd. running course. The workout is meant to go:

8 rounds (for time) of:
-100 yard sprint
-8 kettlebell swings (2 pood)
[I'm still not sure what "pood" means but P-dazzle is dictating right now...he says 1 pood is 16 kg or roughly 35 lbs. He thinks.]
-5 plyo pushups

We started out strong but by round two I wasn't as optimistic it could be done (+5 points if you get that reference).
We ended up doing 5 rounds instead of 8, and I did girly pushups and completed it in 6:14. (Minutes, not hours, guys.) I also used a one-pood kettlebell. P-dazzle tells me that 2 pood is really heavy, so I shouldn't feel bad, but I don't care because I'm too busy laughing about the word "pood".

It was a fun workout, and I realized how much nicer running is when you're barefoot and on soft cushy grass (something to keep in mind?). But, as I've done little running without shoes, my feet are now rather sore. Life's a trade-off.

Afterwards, we were talking with P-dazzle's mom who wants to get back into running marathons. Naturally, I volunteered to train with her and naturally, this is the result. So... LET THE GREAT EXPERIMENT BEGIN! (You guys should just accept right now that this blog will be littered with Arrested Development quotes.)

TTFN, I guess.

2 comments:

  1. Stumbled across a long-distance running routine:

    http://i.imgur.com/dJtHL.gif

    Simple. Patient. No medicine balls. Hoddog!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, that's actually how I began running. I'm a bit beyond that now, luckily.

    ReplyDelete