mixing it up

monday elliptical 30 minutes + arms + abs/core
tuesday off
wednesday elliptical 30 minutes + legs + abs/core
thursday hot flow yoga
friday off
saturday 8 miles ~ fw loop
sunday body combat

after last week’s long run, my knee was definitely feeling worse for the wear so i decided to pull myself back off the run for a few days and give it a rest. strangely, i ended up enjoying the week of mismatched workouts. well, i can’t say i actually “enjoyed” the elliptical and i much rather would have prefaced the weights with a few miles, but it felt good to add in some strength training. i also did two completely new workouts this week. a hot flow yoga class ~ not bikram hot but still warm ~ that surprisingly kicked my ass. and body combat ~ a martial arts inspired cardio class. kind of a kickboxing without the bag sort of thing. i have to admit i’m not a big “fitness class” fan. i feel like a lot of classes are the wimpy woman’s workout. but body combat was surprisingly fun and challenging. i much prefer actually punching my bag and making physical contact ~ definitely the best way to get out aggression or anger ~ but after a bit i got into things and was able to somewhat imagine i was throwing a jab or two at jc my ex-husband a punching bag.

my long run this week was much shorter. with the chickamauga half (grrrr) in two weeks i thought it best to start tapering off a bit. and i also had to bring sab along this week which was going to pose challenging enough. the new group was doing trails but starting from a different point which easily gave me the option of doing the paved loop while sab rode her bike. b3 joined us and rocket ~ another group runner ~  followed not far behind. though she got pretty tired and definitely did her share of whining, sab did most of the eight miles as our lead bike pacer. it was fun having her along but i’m guessing it’ll be awhile before i can convince her to do it again! the run itself wasn’t bad. my right calf cramped again ~ on one step so bad that i thought my leg was going to buckle under me ~ but i ran through it and it seemed to work itself out. and dumb as this may sound i was almost happy to hurt somewhere other than my hip/si joint. overall i was a little disappointed. though i have no lofty expectations of PRing the half ~ not by a long shot ~ i still hope to run a decent time and if saturday’s run was any indication of what i aim to pace i’m going to have to put all pride aside and find away to just be happy that i’m able to run this race at all. i know that’s how i should look at things but it’s hard for me to fully find that mindset.

after chickamauga i’ve decided i’m going to try and set a decent but light regular running schedule. two weekday runs ~ three maybe four mile range ~ and a long run no more than 10 miles. but i think what’s going to be just as important ~ if not more so ~ is committing to serious core work and cross training. i still have yet to have a day pain free and i have some bad spells of serious discomfort. but i am noticing more and more areas of improvement. little things like rolling over in bed. for months i’ve had to kind of maneuver my body. slowly. wrong twists would tend to send shooting pain across my back. but the past week or so i simply roll. flip. turn. everything a true insomniac does throughout the night. and though i feel it, i don’t have to adjust around it. but i’m ready to be done with this and since all i hear and read says core strength, core strength, core strength then that is what my focus will be. i also made a decision on something else i’ve been considering but i’ll save that one for later this week once i’ve actually “done it”. are you curious 😉