Tag: sweat

challenges

0 to 100

2chicksandapen

It all started with a Facebook post.

Just a handful of nut jobs jumped in. Then 200 plus. Now it’s at almost 500 people.

500 people willing to do burpees for 100 days! Starting with 1 on day one and adding another each day. That’s over 5,000 burpees in total. If only 400 people complete the task then it’s over 2,000,000 burpees in 100 days.

That’s pretty nuts if you ask me but I’m doing it anyway and so are a couple of my gal pals. We shall see how we fare. For now I will just journal my happenings as they unfold. Maybe I will finish maybe I won’t.

Day one = done

Day two – easy peasy

Day three – omg there are 32 burpees in my workout so I decided to knock out three before. That didn’t seem to bad so I did four more. That put me one day ahead. Then at night I did five more for one more day in case I slacked on the weekend.

Little by little I’ll chip away. I’ll go ahead now while numbers are low and build as the days progress. Good news is I didn’t die yet.

Update. I’ve been taking a bite out of my burpees when I have a few extra minutes. I’m surprising myself because I really don’t like burpees. Mine are sloppy and they are just not fun. I think that’s why I decided to do this extra work.

8-10-10-12-7-7-6. That adds up quickly. Now I can knock off a big day in the future without my mind struggling with the daunting task of x burpees in a day. Partitioning my work the way it works for me. Bite-size chunks. Strategy wins in my mind. Today I knocked off day 30, day 6, day 14 and day 10. I obviously kept tallies of my smaller numbers that allowed for rest and decided how to record on the calendar.

I could have chosen day 60 because that all adds up to 60 but I opted for variety to make me feel like I accomplished more. Such a mind hack for me! I’ll update again soon as do how I am doing.

fitness and nutrition, friendship

Saturday Sweat Sesh

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After a long week I was looking forward to Saturday. I needed a break from go, go, go.

I needed a day of no have to’s. I got it! I met my pals for an early morning workout which always starts the day off with a giggle and hard work of course.

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve made it to the gym on a Saturday so I was extra happy to see my pals this day. After a death workout we snapped this photo to showcase our sweat session. Grueling but over!

Off to breakfast with my close knit peeps. Lots of coffee and a more giggles. Just what I needed. Just some time with my friends. 

The rest of the day is mine but starting off on the right foot led me to be creative. Work on my hustle game and foster growth.

Sometimes a reset button is needed. A fresh outlook. A new environment. Some giggles. Some girlfriends. 

Cheers to the little things in life that mean so much. The sense of normalcy we can see on the horizon despite the pandemic woes or election crap on the news.

Just stripping down to the basics. 

fitness and nutrition, health

6 Days

2chicksandapen

I finally made it back to the gym for 6 consecutive days. This used to be the norm for me pre-corona.

It took almost 100 days total to get back to routine. That is a long time. Now it’s time to continue the consistency path and add my extra conditioning on top of the gym to get back to pre-corona shape.

For those of you who know what this picture is, you know closing the rings is key. My rings are not set at factory setting either. They are set for me to achieve high each day to challenge myself.

I don’t close them everyday but I do put in effort to review and see what I missed or didn’t miss. It’s a great accountability tool to self-manage or manage with friends through challenges.

I love my Apple Watch and it’s a valuable part of my fitness and healthy living plan. As I approach 50 years of age I find it’s ever so important to move my body. An active lifestyle has many health benefits. Many of which I will save for another post.

For now celebrate my 6 days of hard work with me so I can be motivated to do six more sets of six days for consistency.

Today’s workout is posted above. It’s a Monday. The workout has burpees in it. I have such a love / hate relationship with burpees. The point is I don’t like every movement in this workout but in order to stay fit I need to do the movements that make me most uncomfortable.

Growth always happens when you test your limits! Happy Monday.

adventure

Spring’s Simple Pleasures

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Is it just me, or is this the longest spring season in recorded history?

And no, this isn’t really a post about how difficult it has been to be cooped up indoors a lot, separated from friends, missing out on events, and so on.  (If you’re looking for that, try these posts.)

I don’t remember spring ever lasting this long because it is usually lacrosse season, celebration season, end of work season, and so on.  We are often driving and juggling and cheering and volunteering and working nonstop.  And I love and miss a lot of that.  But this season has allowed me to notice and enjoy spring in new ways. I have always loved fall above all else, but I’m now seeing that spring has its charms.

Couple that with my commitment to be more intentional about spending money and I am finding myself relishing small, simple pleasures.

I’ve mentioned the morning reading that has replaced my sometimes frantic commute.  Quiet, candle, coffee and a book starts my day most of the time.  You’d think a librarian would read a lot, but I honestly don’t make the time for it that I should.  Right now I am going into my physical building to work for a few weeks, so reading time is short but I try not to miss it.

Bike rides.  What would I do without my bike?  I’m sort of obsessed with it.  I keep it on my car pretty much all the time and biking on the back seat inside just in case the opportunity to ride presents itself.  Cruising new paths in the sunshine with my riding partner is happiness and adventure when going very far from home isn’t happening.  It feels like a mini-vacation and is one of the few times I feel truly care-free.

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I am a farmer’s market fanatic.  The pandemic has caused many local farmers to revamp their business models.  I’ve been able to order flowers and farm boxes and pick them up safely.  I actually love that I can order what I like and have it held for me.  It’s frustrating to drive all the way to the market only to find they already sold out of my favorite sungold tomatoes or, later, September Wonder apples.

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Which reminds me, it is almost tomato season here where we live.  I look forward to these summer veggies all year.  Right now we are in the heart of strawberry season. I found an hour the other day to drive out to a strawberry farm and pick a couple of buckets.  If you have never had strawberries straight from the vine (or tomatoes for that matter) you are missing out.  It’s a totally different taste than supermarket berries.  And the experience of picking them myself in the hot sun was sweet and reflective. Fresh strawberries are one of the sweeter things in life. It’s been great to share them with people who appreciate them.

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What simple pleasures have you rediscovered in these hard times? Walks?  Game nights? Family dinners?  Tell us in the comments.

 

family, fitness and nutrition, friendship

Spiked

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I got spiked. I spiked others. Of course this was done playing the game of Spikeball and has absolutely nothing to do with spiking drinks. After playing this game I realized how much I missed sports, athletics, competition, people and so on. Thank you corona for this time to appreciate my surroundings and the valuable people in my life.

What is Spikeball? Four players (2 per team) strategically or frantically bouncing a ball off a springy circular net about 2 inches off the ground. If you haven’t played this game it’s a fun activity for a small group to play in the yard, at a picnic or even at a work outting.

You can get a little workout if you move around as a bonus. My Apple Watch indicated I had a brief workout. You can work as a team with your partner or you can play solo within a partnership and see how you fare. That’s part of what you have to figure out as a duo.

I played this game in the past with friends and it was a ton of fun. I had said I was going to buy the game but never did. Life keeps me on the go go go so I just never got it. Then guess what? Corona hit.

When in corona time it seemed I had almost too much time. What did I do to escape the boredom? One of the first things I did while on lockdown was hit up amazon. What do I need? What do I want? What have I had on a pending list to snag? I ordered Spikeball of course. It took a while to arrive since it wasn’t essential but I got it and wasted no time putting it into action.

Not hard to set up and boom just needed to find me some family members to get to four players. It was a lot of fun.

Just hearing the giggles was good. Then the competition came and I was thrilled because I had been missing that in so many areas of life. Then the crazy came out. It was either the awkward faces or body movements or even the oops I completely missed the ball!

Spikeball will be my game of choice for a while and I hope to get many different players to try with me. I guess I will have to wait a little longer to get with my friends for a game but I can be patient.

If you are looking for a fun game that includes fresh air, give Spikeball a try. I rate it a 9 out of 10. I’m not hard to please and they don’t pay me to rate their product. I just thought it was a good filler to break up the crazy of the day. My counterparts had fun too.

What’s something new you picked up during corona isolation?