Journey to the Race: Day 20

I've been thinking it's Sunday all day today so yay for an extra day of weekend! I've been somewhat lazy and somewhat productive today. I lounged around most of the day then went shopping for some athletic wear and applied for some jobs. Applying to jobs is one of the most frustrating things I've ever had to do because 99% of the time I get told they're not hiring or find out they're not hiring after filling out the very long application form. One place actually was hiring and went well so hopefully that one will work out. Since then I've just been working on a news scrapbook for one of my classes, and I managed to finish it so I won't have to worry about it later in the week when it's due. I have one more assignment I want to get the finishing touches done on and then I'll just have the rest of an essay and a test for this week. So many essays and tests and assignments. Why must everything be due at the end of the semester. Ah well, I'm getting better at focusing and getting the work done so hopefully I can keep that up. Today's been a horrible day for eating healthy so I'm actually looking forward to the workout tomorrow, and may add one of my own in the afternoon/evening. And now I'm off to eat maple toffee and peanut butter brownies with M&Ms (I told you, bad healthy food day). Night all! :)

Journey to the Race: Day 19

Almost forgot to write a post for today, whoops! Most of my day was spent on school work but I did squeeze in another half hour workout. I did the same as yesterday but added 20 crunches and 20 side crunches (bicycle crunches?) during the 3 minute set. Good workout, I'll probably take tomorrow off to rest my knees and ankles before training on sunday. And now I'm off to bed because I'm exhausted. G'night!

Journey to the Race: Day 18

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
-- Norman Vincent Peale

Today was a long day at school but I managed to squeeze in a workout before bed. And damn what a workout! I found a workout on pinterest and thought I'd give it a try and decided that no matter how it went, I would stick to it and push through it. And that's exactly what I did. It was an intense workout but it felt amazing to get through it so I'm very happy about it. I did alter it a little bit but I actually made it harder than the suggested workout. Here's the original post on Pinterest and below is my altered version. Definitely one of the best and most intense workouts I've done yet. And now I'm off to wind down then head to bed. G'night!

5 Minutes:
1 min: high knees
1 min: jumping jacks
1 min: burpees
1 min: jumping jacks
1 min: run in place

4 Minutes:
1 min: lunges
1 min: mountain climbers
1 min: lunges
1 min: mountain climbers

3 Minutes:
10 pushups
10 tricep dips
20 jackknives
10 side plank with pushup

2 Minutes:
30 sec: squats
30 sec: jump squats
30 sec: squats
30 sec: jump squats

1 Minute:
Plank

Journey to the Race: Day 17

"If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart" - Buhddha

Yet another long day of school work. End of semester craziness is upon us so between that and the lack of sleep over the weekend, I'm either working or sleeping all the time. I have a big essay due soon so I spent any free time today researching articles for it and getting my notes organized. Thankfully now all I have to do is actually write it out. That said, I didn't manage to workout today so I'll definitely have to workout tomorrow no matter how much I won't want to. And now I'm off to bed. Night :)

Journey to the Race: Day 16

You just can't beat the person who never gives up.
-- Babe Ruth

Ughhh I'm so tired >< I've been waking up anywhere from 430-8am the last 3 days with weird/bad/frustrating dreams and an inability to get back to sleep. I also had classes, a test, and a lab report to do today so exercise didn't happen. I finally finished my lab report and now I'm going to relax and unwind for a bit, then head to bed and hopefully sleep straight through the night. G'night all :) P.S. Random song of the day you should listen to: Moral of the Story - George Watsky

Journey to the Race: Day 15

Yay for days off! Had more bad dreams this morning so that sucked but at least they woke me up later than yesterday. I'm not too sore from the run yesterday so I decided to do a short workout. I thought about going for a short run but the moment I thought that, it started to snow like crazy and was very windy so I decided to just workout at home instead. I'm not 100% sure what I did because I just kind of went with whatever I felt like doing in the moment. I do know that I did several sets of 10-20 squat jumps, squats, lunges, pushups, crunches, mountain climbers, side plank with pushups, jumping jacks, and burpees. It was a good workout; I was definitely tired and sore by the end. I still need to work on my breathing; I get out of breath so easily and my body seems to instinctively go to shallow breathing which doesn't work well at well. If anyone has suggestions on breathing techniques I'm all ears. I think that's all for today, I'm off to get some work done and try to relax a bit :)

Journey to the Race: Day 14

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together"
-African proverb

Happy Easter!
Unfortunately I didn't have a good night. I was awake early and couldn't get back to sleep for any real length of time because of weird and frustrating dreams. Finally ended up reading in bed before getting up for breakfast. Four of us doing the race decided to go for a run today since the group training was cancelled for the holiday. We ran/jogged/speed walked for 5km (took about an hour) with stops for quick workouts every kilometre or so. For the workouts we did either 1) 20 jumping jacks, 20 jump squats, 20 squats, then hold a squat for 20 seconds or 2) 20 high knees, 20 seconds of quick feet drill, and 10 lunges each leg then hold it for 20 seconds each. Started very rough and my lungs gave me a lot of trouble today but I made it. Once we got home, I did an ab workout with some pilates, pushups, side plank, and lots of crunches. Feeling good but very tired. Hope you're all having a good easter weekend :)

Good running songs of the day:

Try It Again - The Hives
Touch The Sky - Julie Fowlis
Up Up Up - Rose Falcon
Something In Your Mouth - Nickelback

Journey to the Race: Day 13

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.
-- Winston Churchill

Happy Easter weekend! No workout today, I took the day off to just relax and read before meeting up with my family for easter. Got to videochat with family in Ontario that wasn't able to make it, and it was so great to get to see and talk to everybody. Lauren and I are talking about doing a run workout tomorrow with some others from the group so we'll see what happens :)