Fight the Funk Friday

I missed last week's Friday post because I was busy prepping for my daughter's 24th birthday tea party on Saturday. Since Friday was a rest day in our 5k training, I took advantage of the non-workout time to bake some scones--which didn't exactly support my weight loss goals but I planned and tracked and was able to enjoy those scones (and leftovers) all week. I wasn't shooting for an actual loss this week, just maintaining. I prefer my weight loss efforts to reflect real life--nothing drastic and unsustainable, but how to manage all this while still enjoying special events and such. So far, so good!

Back to healthy living--which I am, now that the scones are gone!

I've been doing great on the 5k training--feels good. We've just started week 3 and have moved from a 4 1/2 minute walk alternating with a 30 second run to 4 min/1 min intervals. So far, I've been handling trainings well, but we're fast approaching where it's going to start being a challenge for me. It's critical for me to keep up on my homework!

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I bought myself some bling to keep me motivated.  These just got moved to the sneakers I wear for my strength-training session with my tattooed-competitive-power-lifter trainer (they seemed more appropriate to that setting) and I now have two more on my running sneakers that say "Dig Deep." 

My trainer had me doing something called "Turkish Get-Ups" this week, although she's breaking it down into components and having me do them as separate pieces.

This first time doing it, she just had me go from flat on my back to raising myself up on first my elbow, then my my hand; then later, as part of a different circuit, she had me do the backwards lunge but just return to a stand. Because of my vertigo, it's generally better to keep my head on a single plane. The flat-on-my-back to raising up to my arm is the hardest switch spinny-wise, but it went remarkably well--just a little unsteadiness the first time but I figured out my focal point (which can't be looking straight up, as he does in the video, unfortunately, as that automatically kicks in a head-spin) and did great after that. The point is to do this as slowly as possible because you're working to stabilize pretty much every muscle in your entire body the whole time. By the way, I was just balancing a bean-bag on my fist. No weights for me on this one yet! When I woke up this morning, I was feeling muscles in my back I'd never noticed before. This is some serious core work. I'm not looking forward to Saturday night when that stiffness really kicks in (it's always worst at the 48-hour point). I'm stretching, stretching, stretching...

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We had some great weather this past week (freakish, really), and I'd have normally taken the Doofus out on the canal path to do my training with me and help him work off a little winter weight, but the poor guy did something in the back yard on Sunday and sprained his wrist (or elbow--hard to tell which part hurts him because he's a stoic guy). All our snow is melted so he didn't slip or anything--all I can think is he got too excited about chasing his tennis ball and took a too-quick turn. There were no yelps or anything; just a bad limp that mysteriously appeared. I took him to the vet Tuesday and she gave us some anti-inflammatories and told him to keep him off it as much as possible. Right--Doofus with serious spring fever and a hankerin' for tennis balls...quiet...yeah, that's happening. He's been on the anti-inflammatories for a couple of days now and the limp is far less pronounced, so I think he's well on the road to recovery. Just in time for it to decide to be winter again.

That's it for this week (and last week).