Week 1

Here is an update on how the first week of my new workout plan went… Definitely did not start the way I thought it would!

January 1st- Full body circuit

The new year definitely didn’t start off like I thought it would. My boyfriend and I had to head back to Bellingham early due to his apartment flooding. There was four and a half inches of water throughout his entire apartment. So, as you can imagine everything on the floor was soaking wet and needed to be moved out of the apartment. With this being said, I wasn’t able to hit the gym to get my workout in. Instead, we spent the whole day moving things from his apartment to mine (thankfully we are less than a block apart!).

Here is what the apartment looked like the day we got the call it had flooded. It is hard to see, but there were puddles of water all over the floor, it felt really humid in there, and the carpets were soaked with water. When walking on them you could see all the water rise up around the weight of your feet.

We were able to move almost everything out of his room and his two other roommates. We flipped mattresses up on top of the box springs to try and dry them out, boxed up all the valuable things to take to my place, and got almost everything off the floor and onto counters and high places that wouldn’t get wet.

Although I didn’t get the workout in I had planned on the calendar, I did get my fair share of heavy lifting. My boyfriend and I ended up carrying his full sized mattress down the hill to my place. This was quite a challenge; I worked up a sweat and definitely engaged my arm and leg muscles to get the job done. I’ll call that a good enough workout for the day! Hopefully the rest of this week I will be able to find some time to hit the gym and stick to my new workout plan.

January 2nd- Run 3.5 miles

Sadly this run didn’t pan out either. My boyfriend and I spent the day on the phone and in the office of the landlord who owns the property that flooded. Fortunately, my boyfriend was able to get out of his current lease and into another lease for an apartment that is still close by. This new lease will start on Friday, but in the meantime we will by busy packing up the rest of his stuff to move into this new place.

After we finally got all the paperwork in line and off the phones it was dark out. My plan was to head to the gym on campus, but found out it closed at 5pm due to winter break still being in effect. What a bummer! I’m already two days into the new year and haven’t been able to try out my new workout plan. At this point I’m longing for a free day to hit the gym and get a workout in, even if it is just for 15 or 20 minutes! Hopefully early Friday I will be able to run outside for a bit.

January 3rd- Full body circuit

Today was a little more relaxed than the rest of the week has gone. All the paperwork has been taken care of and the stress of helping my boyfriend find a place to move into has subsided. Tomorrow and this weekend we will be moving him and his two other roommates into their new place.

As far as the gym went, I didn’t make it in time as the gym closed at 5pm again. Parking is only free on campus after 4:30pm and I didn’t feel like 30 minutes would have been enough time to get the workout in that I wanted. So, instead I revamped my workout to be able to do it at home. This included pushups instead of dumbbells, wall sits instead of leg machines, planks, and a 5 minute core workout. Although I didn’t work up too much of a sweat, this mini workout felt great and was much needed!

I’m so glad I was able to compromise and come up with a different workout to do at home! My boyfriend and I are planning on running Lake Padden tomorrow. It’s about 2.5 miles. I can’t wait to be out in the fresh air and get some good cardio in before moving him into his new apartment later that afternoon.

This week has defiantly been one for the books, I never thought I would have to deal with an apartment flooding or the stress of needing to find a place by next Monday (as classes begin on Tuesday). I am kicking myself for not applying myself harder to my workout plan. It just goes to show you how crazy life can get and the choice I made to put my workout on the back burner was one I will learn from. The goal of the calendar and keeping a log on this blog were to keep me motivated and honest about sticking to my new routine. With the newness of classes beginning next week I will hold myself accountable for going to the gym when I am done with classes. There will be no excuses. This is something I want to do and am excited to see where this journey will take me!

January 4th- Run 3.5 miles

We did it! My boyfriend and I ran Lake Padden first thing this morning when we got up. It felt so good to feel the cold wind blow through my hair as we ran the lake. It has been a couple months since running this lake due to the colder weather and being at home in Seattle over winter break. But it sure felt good to get out there again. It makes me long for the spring and summer weather and being able to run outside every day.

Hopefully after this week I will continue to fall into a habit of going to the gym and running each day of the week and then having Sunday’s off as rest days.

January 5th- Full body circuit

Today was full of packing up boxes, cleaning the old apartment, to the best of our ability with all the industrial fans blowing drywall dust everywhere, and getting things in order for the moving truck tomorrow.

It was a long day, but we successfully finished packing up all of the stuff that didn’t get damaged from the flood. Tomorrow will be full of lifting heavy boxes and moving things from one apartment to the next. So, instead of doing my full body circuit tonight I’m going to count all the moving and lifting as my workout tomorrow! I think this will be a fair trade as we will be moving two mattresses, two sofas, and a bunch of other furniture.

January 5th- Rest

Today was so long! My boyfriend and I got up at 8 this morning to start moving some of the stuff we stashed at my apartment to his new one. By 10 his parents were up here and were able to rent a moving truck for all the mattresses and furniture. Moving those sofas were a pain! Definitely got my workout in for the day with all the heavy lifting. We were able to finish moving everything by 4pm and have spent the past six hours or so unpacking and reorganizing.

As I lay here in bed writing this, I can feel how tired my legs are from being on them all day. I had my watch tracking how many steps I took today along with my heart rate. We took over 14,000 steps and there were some high spikes in the heart rate. I will call that a successful day of exercise. I’m hoping I’m not too sore for my full body circuit tomorrow!

I can’t wait to finally get on a solid routine this upcoming week. With classes starting Tuesday I’m sure I will be able to stick to my January calendar and can’t wait to report back on it and start to see some progress after all the snacking from the holidays.

Hope you all have a great upcoming week!

January

Ringing in the New Year with a new workout plan!

Welcome 2019! The time for celebration of ringing in the New Year and New Year’s resolutions. As stated in my previous blog post, “New Winter Gym Routine”, my goal was to make monthly calendars focusing on both running longer distances as well as incorporating rest days by focusing on weight lifting and strengthening my muscles.

It took some time to put together, but I did some research and found some good exercises to incorporate into a full body circuit. I also took the time to realistically figure out how far I want to run every other day and how many miles I will gain in a month. For now I decided on increasing my distance by one mile per month. Listed below on the calendar I made you will find my plan for January and how I will accomplish the goals set before me.

My goal is to record what I do at the gym each day. This will not only hold me accountable for sticking to my plan, but it will also give me something to write about on my blog. I hope to follow this plan for the entire 2019 year. I’m sure it will be hard to do as life begins to pick up again with Winter classes and the craziness of life, but I know the perseverance will pay off in the end. I hope you will join me on the workout adventure for the 2019 year. Happy New Years!

Monthly Stats

Here’s my break down of rest days, run days, and gym days throughout the weeks of January. Looks like January was off to a slow start with 4 rest days, but the rest of the month was kept on a good workout schedule.

New Winter Gym Routine

As it starts getting colder out, I’ve had to move my running routes from outside around town to the treadmill indoors.

Now as we move more and more into winter I dread going to the gym. I love running, but I’m not a big fan of running on the treadmill. I always feel like I’m not going anywhere, I miss the fresh air in my lungs, and worst of all my motivation to run long distances goes right out the window. Anything long than 2.5 miles seems to take way too long!

So, what have I done to fix this negative mindset about running indoors? I started using the different legs and arms machines that the gym offers. They were a little intimidating at first, especially not really knowing how and what they worked, but after awhile I got the hang of them. And man was I sore the next day! After doing this full body circuit-type of workout a few times I realized I want to switch up my gym routine and focus on getting a fully body workout as well as increasing my millage on the treadmill. So, with that being said, I am going to also switch my new years resolution (and start on it early). I still want to increase my running millage, but I am going to incorporate “rest days” where I focus on upper body and core exercises. I have been working on a monthly work out calendar as a way to track my progress. This is still in the makings, but I can’t wait to share it with those who are interested. I hope to finish it within the next two weeks and keep you updated on what I’m doing at the gym and record on here how I’m feeling about the workouts I’ve laid out for myself as a way to track exactly what I am doing.

In doing this, I feel it will keep me motivated to not only go to the gym, but also report on it and keep those of you who are interested in following my gym journey up to date. I can’t wait to finish my plans and eventually see the goals I made for myself become a reality. To end this post, I want to leave you with a quote that helps keep me motivated and helps me attain the goals I have made for myself. The words are simple, but I think the message behind them is very powerful. It reminds me why it is important to keep going and push through the pain and the negative mindsets. I hope you will find wisdom in this as well…

“We are what we repeatedly do” – Aristotle

My College Running Life

One of my favorite running spots in Bellingham: Lake Padden (a little of over 2.5 miles around the lake)

College is stressful. I’m sure most people can relate to this and some would even offer advice to make it seem less stressful. Well, here’s my advice: RUN! (or find some other type of physical activity to relieve stress). This is easier said than done, but my goal for this blog post is to share some insight into how I found myself as a runner in college.

Freshman year of college is crazy. You’re living on your own, there is no set curfew, you’re meeting tons of people, and its seems like you always either have way too much time on your hands, or no time at all. With all this new stuff going on in my life, I fell away from running. I honestly probably only ran a handful of times my freshman year of college and looking back, I regret it. I gained weight, my acne got pretty bad, and I felt stressed out all the time. There was so much “new” happening that I forgot about the “old” healthy habits I had left behind from high school.

Going into my Sophomore year, I had a plan: don’t let classes bog you down, and make sure to take time out of your day to hit the gym. This is the motto I stuck to for most of my second year of college. I found this awesome ab workout app that I used every night for ten minutes. The results were incredible! I was starting to feel confident about my body again and working out was something I looked forward too, much like I did back in high school. I was running 2-3 times a week, this becoming my main stress reliever. Whenever I was having a bad day I would try and run, becoming a habit: bad day = time for a run. This was an okay running mindset, but going into my Junior year I wanted to get away from running only when I wasn’t having a good day to running because I know how much better it would make an already great day.

So, as I sit here and write this post I reflect on the first quarter of my third year in college. I just took my last final (literally an hour ago) of fall quarter and I can’t believe how happy and healthy I feel. I consistently ran 3-6 times a week, EVERY WEEK!! That’s twelve weeks of straight running. Not only do I look and feel good, but I also was way less stressed out this quarter than I have been in the previous two years of college. I also found a lot of cool running spots around Bellingham which is a huge plus for next Spring and Fall when it starts getting warm out again.

It is crazy to sit here and think about how my dedication to running has changed in the past three years, and how it will continue to change in the future. As the new year rolls around I have started to think of a running new years resolution: run longer distances. Right now I stick to 3.1 miles for my runs, but I really want to push myself to do a half marathon (or at least start running that distance at least once a week), so 13.1 miles. I will obviously have to train for this and push myself, but in the end I think it is an attainable goal. I plan to make a running calendar over Christmas break, outlining the next couple of months which I’m sure will make its way onto this blog. In the meantime, I will stick to the 3.1 mile runs while I construct my new goals for the 2019 year.

Why Run? ~ Why I Started Running

There are so many ways to answer a such a simple question. As with everything else, everyone has their own way to answer this question, but for me its been a long journey. One filled with many mental mind blocks, personal records (PR’s), and sore muscles.

For me, it started as a task in a high school gym class and having to run the mile once a month. Most of my peers dreaded that day, but I looked forward to it. Not the competing part, but noticing how my mind would wonder and the mile would be over before I was ready to head back to reality. At this time in my high school sports career I was strictly a volleyball guru. I had played since 5th grade on school teams, rec leagues, and select club volleyball teams. I lived for volleyball.

The life I knew before my running career

As junior year of high school rolled around, I went to volleyball tryouts as I had done my previous two years. This time was different. I no longer found joy and excitement playing, I was good and an asset to the team but I was tired of always being yelled at by a coach or other teammates. It was becoming too competitive for its own good. So, once tryouts were over I decided to deny my spot on the team and totally switch sports. Thus ending up on the Women’s Cross Country team. Little did I know what I signed myself up for. Cross Country was HARD! I went from running zero miles a day to the end of the season running five to seven miles a day. I loved running in the 5k races and pushing myself to PR. At first, it was hard to push past the mental game of keeping a good pace throughout the race or to stick with the girl in front of me. But eventually it became motivation to PR and look forward to the sore muscles the next day.

As my love for running increased, I continued to run XC in the Fall, train in the off season, and run track in the Spring for the remainder of my high school career. I looked forward (almost)everyday after school to go for a run. It helped me relieve stress, it kept me in shape, and it was my escape from doing homework.

Running is my escape. It’s my way to cope with the things that life throws at me and it was something I forgot about when I went off to college.

Your Level of Professionalism

Throughout my last two years in college I have had many professors, but only a few have made big impressions on my life as a college student. It seems like the best professors are the ones who actually take time to acknowledge their students and share with them their past experiences and the life lessons they have learned.

One of the most impressionable lectures I attended was the last Business Law class of the quarter. We had just finished covering the last chapter on Ethics and everyone was stressing about finals the following week. My professor took a long pause and after reassuring us we were going to make it through finals week, he said: “do you want to hear something that will be more beneficial than any test you ever take?”the auditorium went silent and he continued “here are some important lessons I have learned throughout my time as a manager and a judge, do what you want with them but I promise you if you put these words into action you will go far in any job you ever do.” So what did I do? I sat there and wrote down every single word he said, many of which I had been told by my own parents, but forgot because parents don’t know anything… right?

Finally we get to the advice part,and as I was told before: “do what you want with them”

Where do you want to be and what reputation do you want to fulfill?
Be at your full potential all the time
Decrease the level of conflict- start off as friendly as you can be
Learn everything you can about the lowest level of your job-you’re never too good
Be careful who you confide in
Authority has to match responsibility- know your authority before responsibility (what you can and can’t do)
Mistake is judgement- given what you get, you made a mistake but tried your best… move on

All of these bullet points may seem obvious, but I thought they were a good reminder and could benefit you as well!