Saving Time & Getting Fit

After spending 3 hours in the Urgent Care on Saturday due to a sudden onset of ear infection hell (Jacob's not mine), I made the most of what was left of the day running across the county like a mad woman. After Urgent Care, a dashed to the pharmacy for anti-biotics. Then I met a lady from Craigslist and purchased a double jogging stroller. I've been wanting one ever since Ryan was born and after scouring Craiglist for weeks I decided to pull the trigger and do it. BEST PURCHASE OF THE DECADE. Man I love this thing. LOVE. It's amazing how easily I can push 60 pounds of children with this thing!

We barely even noticed the rain

Saturday was my husband's birthday and it appeared that I had given him the gift of my awful cold and two sick children for his birthday. I decided to top those gifts with something he actually wanted, a Soda Stream. So I stopped at Staples and picked one. I made a couple other stops before pulling into the driveway and hastily wrapping my husband's gift outside the front door with Christmas paper and white labels (oops, forgot to buy tape!). It was a sad looking gift but I could tell he liked it when he pulled his sickly self out of bed and immediately gave it a try.

On Sunday, I tried out my new amazing jogger. I loved being able to see my kids while I jogged. And I loved that I could run and spend quality time with them. Ryan loved chilling in his seat (5 point harness!) and looking at the scenery. Jacob and I had some funny conversations ("Mommy, do daddy dragons lay egss?" "Mommy, are flamingos dangerous?"). We did one of my favorite runs. It felt amazing to get back out and run. Next Saturday the kids and I are running in a St. Patrick's Day fun run and I can't wait to give the gogger the ultimate test. If it works out, I plan on signing up for many more 5Ks this spring and summer!

Moving forward with the theme of being healthy and fit, I finally did another thing that I had been wanting to do for so long. During my pregnany with Ryan, my abdomen muscles stretched to the max and eventually separated. It was horrible. I could feel them tearing constantly from weeks 20-40. Sure enough, after Ryan was born I discovered that I could fit two full fingers between my abs right near my belly button. My c-section and pregnany left my core demolished. I haven't been able to do sit ups or crunches since then (crunches can make the separation worse). I felt stuck. It was a Catch-22. I couldn't work out my abs because of my separation, and I continued to have a separation because I couldn't do core work.

Last week I tried physical therapy but I did not click with the therapist. He wans't interested in working out my core and getting my muscles back on track. I tried his method for a couple days but finally decided that it wasn't for me. Today I met with a personal trainer and former physical therapist with experience in abdominal separation. She was amazing! We hit it off right away. We had each other joking and laughing by the end of the session. Twelve hours later and I'm as sore as hell! I'm so excited to get some core strength back! It isn't cheap but I'm so happy to spend the money on this. I'm worth it right?!

The Freakishly Happy Baby

 

After putting in a full day of work today, I decided to take advantage of the extra hour of daylight (I LOVE daylight savings!) and took the kids to my favorite park and where I used to run cross country in highschool. We did a rough (very rough!) 3 miles. And despite the fact that it was rainy and cold, I gave in to Jacob's whinning and let my kids enjoy the playground and sandbox.

 

Ryan loved touching the sand

 

Frog Rock

 



 

More sand touching

 

It was awesome to enjoy this time with my kids outdoors. Spring has not sprung by any means but forcing myself outside with the kids brings back wonderful memories of playing outside with my siblings as a kid. I'm finally feeling as if I'm living up to the parenting yardstick my parents set by their example. I feel more present and active with my kids. Lately, they have both been very challenging but I've still been finding myself happy and content at the end of long, frustrating, hard days. I'm pretty sure that is exactly how it's supposed to be :)

You Spin Me Right Round

Just wait, I have so many more unfunny and unclever "spin" titles to attack the blogosphere with.

So, have I mentioned I love spin class? I absolutely love it. Who knew you could get the equivalent of a runner's high from cycling? That is, after you get over how hard it is, how freakishly much you sweat, having to stare at someone's (usually an old man) ass for an hour, and having to wear shorts with padding in the crotch.

As a semi-related side note that you don't want to know about: Sometimes when I'm cycling, I'll glimpse down without thinking and wonder, "why is my crotch puffy? Is there a man sitting on my lap?" Then I remember, "nope, I'm just wearing padded shorts." Oh yeah... I'm cool.

The best thing about cycling is that while it's hard, anyone can do it (unless maybe you have no legs). Beginners can adjust the gears on their bike to any level of resistance. No one can tell what gear their neighbor is in. So, on a rough day, while the rest of the class is doing an uphill climb on gear 20, I can be sailing along on gear 13 so long as I make sufficient grimacing faces to assure the instructor that I am working as hard as everyone else. And when I feel like I'm dying and the instructor yells "ADD A GEAR!" I can easily waive my hand over the gear level to make it LOOK like I'm adding a gear.

I'm so clever. I know all the tricks.

Because you can never judge, simply by sight, how well anyone else is doing, there is only one way to indicate your elite status as a spinner. Elite status is achieved when you work so hard that sweat continuously drips off your face and forms a nice puddle on the floor. Yes, your performance is judged by your sweat. I love being in an environment where it is totally acceptable to sweat. It makes my life so much better.

Oh and did I mention that in one hour of spinning, I can burn 600 calories?! It's totally amazing! That's like 1.75 donuts, 4 small scoops of vanilla ice cream, 7 oreo cookies, 600 carrots, or one Butterfinger Blizzard.

Love At First Spin

My sister-in-law convinced me to take gym classes with her this summer. Although I had access to free gym classes for the last four YEARS, I had never taken a single class. We did Zumba, which was fun but challenging for my uncoordinated self. At one point, I looked so absolutely ridicilous trying to do the moves that I had nothing left to lose and simply made up my own. Also, I never felt like I had gotten enough of a workout from Zumba. I'm curious how many calories you actually burn in a class. Weight lifting was also fun, until I threw out my back from the weights! Then, one day, we took the class with the funny name: spin.

At first, I had low expectations for the class. I've never been that fond of bicycling. The long-time long distance runner in me always prefered to set my beloved Nike Pegasus shoes to pavement over hopping onto a bicycle. I was an elitist runner who thought cycling was inferior and not challenging enough. I soon discovered that a 20 mile spin class was so much different than a childhood bike ride around the park.

I quickly became obsessed with spin class. It was perfect: travel 20 miles without going anywhere, no pounding which was good news for my runner's knee, fun music, a group setting which still allowed to tailor your ride to your own needs/skill level. And I was amazed by the amount of sweat that dripped off my face by the end of the hour long class. At first I was disgusted by the pool of sweat I left on the floor. But it quickly became my badge of fitness. The best part, however, is hopping off the bike at the end of class and landing on legs made of jello. Then, I always end my workout by "sprinting" a mile as fast as I can. I shocked myself last week when I was able to crank out a 6:30 minute mile. That's not fast, for a runner, but it was proof to me that my 2.5 mile walking commute and my spin class are really keeping me fit. I used to feel about walking the same way that I felt about biking....

After a couple of spin classes, I quickly learned that there is a downside to cycling: sore butt bone. Each spin class left me with a sore butt that lasted for an entire week and made it painful to sit. At my next class, I took cues from the people around me and bought a padded seat cover. I must have an especially sensitive butt bone because this did NOTHING. Five days later, I still found myself sitting very gingerly and avoiding cross-legged sitting.

That is when I discovered that the funny tights the cyclists were wearing actually have a purpose other than to make you look ridiculous. Those tights are padded! No wonder they look so funky! Today, I bit the bullet and bought my first pair of padded cycling shorts. I have no idea if they worked because my butt is still sore from my spin class three days ago. But let's just hope I'm not wearing these suckers for no reason:

Do these padded shorts make my butt look strong? They were kind of pricey, so now I HAVE to go to at least 40 more classes...

Hey look! I sweated in the shape of a heart!

Also, why is it not standard practice to sing along with the spinning sound track. How can anyone exercise to "Living on a Prayer" and NOT sing along? Come on!