Reflection

Last week was all sorts of crazy for me due to working a double shift on Tuesday night.  As a result, I literally had no time to workout on Wednesday before coming back to work.  Then, when my alarm went off on Thursday morning I was just plain too tired to think about trying to do a weight lifting session.  I told myself I would just double up my legs/calves/abs workout with my back/traps/biceps/forearms workout that I do on Saturdays right now.  So, I went to the gym last night with the expectation of being there for about 2 hours lifting weights.  I started with the legs/calves/abs workout I had postponed.  By the time I was about ¾ of the way thru it, I realized I wasn’t going to have enough energy to do my usual Saturday session.  So, after I finished up with the abs exercises, I called it a night and headed home.  I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get all my workouts for the week done within the week and that I’m now going to be a session behind, but it is what it is.  My calories burned for the week was over my minimum 3000 after the postponed workout was complete, so that’s good.  Not too bad considering I didn’t workout for 2 whole days last week.

Something I noticed while I was walking some dumbbells back to rack them up was how my legs muscles are coming along.  I had noticed at the beginning of my workout that my calf and shin muscles (my favorites) are looking nicely developed.  This is a really good thing so far as my running goes because those muscles will help keep me stabilized while I run and therefore reduce chances of injury.  Anyway, what I noticed while walking the dumbbells back was that there is a shadow along the outside of my thigh, along the outer edge of my quads, that shows up as I flex my legs to walk.  So awesome!  I love how my body responds to the training I put it through. 

My plans for this week are a 5-ish mile run around Ladybird Lake today, Saturday’s weight lifting session will be done on Monday.  Then, running 5 miles on Tuesday.  Chest/shoulders/triceps on Wednesday.  Zumba on Thursday.  Another 5 mile run on Friday.  And then Saturday I will finish up the week with legs/calves/abs.

Oh!  One little victory I did note as I was doing my workout last night is that when I got to the abs exercises (hanging leg raises, weighted crunches, Russian twists, bicycle crunches), I was able to do more reps, specifically on the hanging leg raises.  Usually I can only bang out 15 (I keep my legs straight as I raise them all the way up to hip level), but last night I did 20!!!  Oh yea!  I did 2 sets and the second set my form started to suffer after 16, so that’s all I did.  I’d rather do less with good form than more, less-effective reps with bad form.

Also, this Saturday is the day I go with my friend Steve to 24-hour Fitness to get signed up for my new gym membership!  Woohoo!!!  I’m so friggin’ excited about that.